He looked around for the woman; she was reeling down the street, one
arm propping her against the wall. A couple came scurrying past, stared
at her and gave her a wide berth. He hastened after her. "Can I help
you?" he asked.
She said sluggishly, "Went to see if my sister was--no. Jus' go away.
Thanks, and everything. But leave me alone. Please."
He backed off and watched her slowly make her way down the street. She
turned a corner and he crossed the street to see. She painfully climbed
the steps of a frame house with a porch, went inside and the great
adventure was over.
Except for the damnable aching of his cheekbone.
In Hollywood, he thought sourly, it would have been just the beginning.
The boy and the girl meet cute and you take it from there. In real life
you save them from rape and they don't want to have anything to do with
you. She was probably embarrassed, horribly so, and wanted no part of
anybody who had seen her with her dress torn, about to be violated.
As he walked he constructed a face-saving fantasy about another maiden
who might be less preoccupied and more grateful, but it was uphill
work. His cheek was very bad, and it occurred to him that it might be
more than a bruise; people did get fractures there. Also he seemed to
have broken a knuckle.
The hero business didn't pay very well.
He turned around and headed back for the school. Maybe he could find a
doctor there to take a look at his face; he was by then almost sure he
could feel bones grating when he worked his jaw.
* * * * *
It was a panel truck, like any other panel truck you might see except
for the name on the side and the thirty-meter whip antenna sticking up
from the roof. It parked out in front of the schoolhouse and Mickey
Groff stepped outside to see what was going on. _Federal Broadcasting
System Mobile Unit Four_, he read. One of the men in the front seat
wore headphones, was talking into a hand microphone.
It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. Hell of a fat audience
they'll have to listen to them now, thought Groff. It didn't occur to
him that all over the country listeners were staying up past their
bedtimes for just such eyewitness, on-the-spot accounts as this.