“That’s a rather obvious statement.”
“Life,” he put his cigar back in his lips, “is a lonely thing. Even with married people. Sometimes when you’re in a person’s arms you feel a million miles away from them.”
“I like that,” said his wife.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he explained, not with haste; because he felt no guilt, he took his time. “I mean we all believe what we believe and live our own little lives while other people live entirely different ones. I mean, we sit here in this room while a thousand people are dying. Some of cancer, some of pneumonia, some of tuberculosis. I imagine someone in the United States is dying right now in a wrecked car.”
“This isn’t very stimulating conversation,” said his wife.
“I mean to say, we all live and don’t think about how other people think or live their lives or die. We wait until death comes to us. What I mean is here we sit, on our self-assured butt-bones, while, thirty miles away, in a big old house, completely surrounded by night and God-knows-what, one of the finest guys who ever lived is–“
“Herb!”
He puffed and chewed on his cigar and stared blindly at his cards. “Sorry.” He blinked rapidly and bit his cigar. “Is it my turn?”
“It’s your turn.”
The playing went around the table, with a flittering of cards, murmurs, conversation. Herb Thompson sank lower into his chair and began to look ill.
The phone rang. Thompson jumped and ran to it and jerked it off the hook.
“Herb! I’ve been calling and calling. What’s it like at your house, Herb?”
“What do you mean, what’s it like?”
“Has the company come?”
“Hell, yes, it has–“
“Are you talking and laughing and playing cards?”
“Christ, yes, but what has that got to do with–“
“Are you smoking your ten-cent cigar?”
“God damn it, yes, but. . .”
“Swell,” said the voice on the phone. “That sure is swell. I wish I could be there. I wish I didn’t know the things I know. I wish lots of things.”
“Are you all right?”
“So far, so good. I’m locked in the kitchen now. Part of the front wall of the house blew in. But I planned my retreat: When the kitchen door gives, I’m heading for the cellar. If I’m lucky I may hold out there until morning. It’ll have to tear the whole damned house down to get to me, and the cellar floor is pretty solid. I have a shovel and I may dig–deeper. . . .”
It sounded like a lot of other voices on the phone.
“What’s that?” Herb Thompson demanded, cold, shivering.
“That?” asked the voice on the phone. “Those are the voices of twelve thousand killed in a typhoon, seven thousand killed by a hurricane, three thousand buried by a cyclone. Am I boring you? That’s what the wind is. It’s a lot of people dead. The wind killed them, took their minds to give itself intelligence. It took all their voices and made them into one voice. All those millions of people killed in the past ten thousand years, tortured and run from continent to continent on the backs and in the bellies of monsoons and whirlwinds. Oh, Christ, what a poem you could write about it!”
The phone echoed and rang with voices and shouts and whinings.
“Come on back, Herb,” called his wife from the card table.
“That’s how the wind gets more intelligent each year, it adds to itself, body by body, life by life, death by death.”
“We’re waiting for you, Herb,” called his wife.
“Damn it!” He turned, almost snarling. “Wait just a moment, won’t you!” Back to the phone. “Allin, if you want me to come out there now, I will! I should have come earlier. . .”
“Wouldn’t think of it. This is a grudge fight, wouldn’t do to have you in it now. I’d better hang up. The kitchen door looks bad; I’ll have to get in the cellar.”
“Call me back, later?”
“Maybe, if I’m lucky. I don’t think I’ll make it. I slipped away and escaped so many times, but I think it has me now. I hope I haven’t bothered you too much, Herb.”
“You haven’t bothered anyone, damn it. Call me back.”
“I’ll try. . . .”
Herb Thompson went back to the card game. His wife glared at him. “How’s Allin, your friend?” she asked, “Is he sober?”
“He’s never taken a drink in his life,” said Thompson, sullenly, sitting down. “I should have gone out there hours ago.”
“But he’s called every night for six weeks and you’ve been out there at least ten nights to stay with him and nothing was wrong.”
“He needs help. He might hurt himself.”
“You were just out there, two nights ago, you can’t always be running after him.”
“First thing in the morning I’ll move him into a sanatorium. Didn’t want to. He seems so reasonable otherwise.”
At ten-thirty coffee was served. Herb Thompson drank his slowly, looking at the phone. I wonder if he’s in the cellar now, he thought.
Herb Thompson walked to the phone, called long-distance, gave the number.
“I’m sorry,” said the operator. “The lines are down in that district. When the lines are repaired, we will put your call through.”
“Then the telephone lines are down!” cried Thompson. He let the phone drop. Turning, he slammed open the closet door, pulled out his coat. “Oh Lord,” he said. “Oh, Lord, Lord,” he said, to his amazed guests and his wife with the coffee urn in her hand. “Herb!” she cried. “I’ve got to get out there!” he said, slipping into his coat.
There was a soft, faint stirring at the door.
Everybody in the room tensed and straightened up.
“Who could that be?” asked his wife.
The soft stirring was repeated, very quietly.
Thompson hurried down the hall where he stopped, alert.
Outside, faintly, he heard laughter.
“I’ll be damned,” said Thompson. He put his hand on the doorknob, pleasantly shocked and relieved. “I’d know that laugh anywhere. It’s Allin. He came on over in his car, after all. Couldn’t wait until morning to tell me his confounded stories.” Thompson smiled weakly. “Probably brought some friends with him. Sounds like a lot of other. . .”
He opened the front door.
The porch was empty.
Thompson showed no surprise; his face grew amused and sly. He laughed. “Allin? None of your tricks now! Come on.” He switched on the porch-light and peered out and around. “Where are you, Allin? Come on, now.”
A breeze blew into his face.
Thompson waited a moment, suddenly chilled to his marrow. He stepped out on the porch and looked uneasily, and very carefully, about.
A sudden wind caught and whipped his coat flaps, disheveled his hair. He thought he heard laughter again. The wind rounded the house and was a pressure everywhere at once, and then, storming for a full minute, passed on.
The wind died down, sad, mourning in the high trees, passing away; going back out to the sea, to the Celebes, to the Ivory Coast, to Sumatra and Cape Horn, to Cornwall and the Philippines. Fading, fading, fading.
Thompson stood there, cold. He went in and closed the door and leaned against it, and didn’t move, eyes closed.
“What’s wrong . . .?” asked his wife.
The Man Upstairs
He remembered how carefully and expertly Grandmother would fondle the cold cut guts of the chicken and withdraw the marvels therein; the wet shining loops of meat- smelling intestine, the muscled lump of heart, the gizzard with the collection of seeds in it. How neatly and nicely Grandma would slit the chicken and push her fat little hand in to deprive it of its medals. These would be segregated, some in pans of water, others in paper to be thrown to the dog later, perhaps. And then the ritual of taxidermy, stuffing the bird with watered, seasoned bread, and performing surgery with a swift, bright needle, stitch after pulled-tight stitch.
This was one of the prime thrills of Douglas’s eleven-year-old life span.
Altogether, he counted twenty knives in the various squeaking drawers of the magic kitchen table from which Grandma, a kindly, gentle-faced, white-haired old witch, drew paraphernalia for her miracles.
Douglas was to be quiet. He could stand across the table from Grandmama, his freckled nose tucked over the edge, watching, hut any loose boy-talk might interfere with the spell. It was a wonder when Grandma brandished silver shakers over the bird, supposedly sprinkling showers of mummy-dust and pulverized Indian bones, muttering mystical verses under her toothless breath.
“Grammy,” said Douglas at last, breaking the silence. “Am I like that inside?” He pointed at the chicken.
“Yes,” said Grandma. “A little more orderly and presentable, but just about the same. . . .”
“And more of it!” added Douglas, proud of his guts.
“Yes,” said Grandma. “More of it.”
“Grandpa has lots more’n me. His sticks out in front so he can rest his elbows on it.”
Grandma laughed and shook her head.
Douglas said, “And Lucie Williams, down the street, she . . .”
“Hush, child!” cried Grandma.
“But she’s got. . .”
“Never you mind what she’s got! That’s different.”
“But why is she different?”
“A darning-needle dragon-fly is coming by some day and sew up your mouth,” said Grandma firmly.
Douglas waited, then asked, “How do you know I’ve got insides like that, Grandma?”
“Oh, go ‘way, now!”
The front doorbell rang.
Through the front-door glass as he ran down the hall, Douglas saw a straw hat. The bell jangled again and again. Douglas opened the door.
“Good morning, child, is the landlady at home?”
Cold gray eyes in a long, smooth, walnut-colored face gazed upon Douglas. The man was tall, thin, and carried a suitcase, a briefcase, an umbrella under one bent arm, gloves rich and thick and gray on his thin
