It was with some nightmare surprise that Oliver on waking regarded his
tidy cell. Then he remembered and in spite of the fact that yesterday
evening with all that belonged to it kept hurting wherever it was that
most of him lived with the stiff repeating ache of a nerve struck again
and again by the same soft hammer, he couldn't help laughing a little.
The popular college remedy for disprized love had always been an
instantaneous mingling of conflicting alcohols--calling a large
policeman a big blue boob seemed to produce the same desired result of
bringing one to one's senses by first taking one completely out of them
without the revolving stomach and fuzzed mind of the first instance. He
tried to think of yesterday evening airily. Silly children quarreling
about things that didn't matter at all. Of course Nancy should have the
job if she wanted--of course he'd apologize, apologize like Ecclesiastes
even for being alive at all if it was necessary--and then everything
would be _all_ right, just all right and fixed. But the airy attitude
somehow failed to comfort--it was a little too much like trying to
shuffle a soft-shoe clog on a new grave. Nancy _had_ been unreasonable.
Nancy _had_ said or hadn't denied that she wasn't sure she loved him any
more. He _had_ released her from the engagement and told her good-by.
He stared at the facts--they sprang up in front of him like choking
thorns--thorns he had to clear away with his hands before he could even
touch Nancy again. Was he sure--even now? All the airiness dropped from
him like a clown's false face. As he thought of what would happen if
Nancy had really meant it about not loving him, it seemed to him that
somebody had taken away the pit of his stomach and left nothing in its
place but air.
Anyhow the first thing to do was to get out of this place--he examined
the neat bars in the door approvingly and wondered how the devil you
acted when you wanted to be let out. There wasn't any way of opening
a conversation about it with no one to talk to--and the corridor was
merely a length of empty steel--and, damn it, his train left at Ten
Seven and he had to see Nancy and explain everything in the world before
it left--and if he didn't get back to New York in time he might lose his
job. There must be some way of explaining to the people in charge that
he hadn't done anything but kid a policeman--that he must get out.
He went over to the door and tried it tentatively--no inside doorknob,
of course, this wasn't a hotel. He looked through the bars--nothing but
corridor and the cell on the other side. Should he call? For an instant
the fantastic idea of crying “Waiter!” or “Please send up my breakfast!”
tugged at him hard, but fantasy had got him into much too much trouble
as it was, he reflected savagely. It made you feel ridiculously
self-conscious, standing behind bars like this and shouting into
emptiness. Still he had to get out. He cleared his throat.
“Hey,” he remarked in a pleasant conversational tone. “Hey!”
No answer, he grew bolder.
_“Hey!”_ This time the conversational tone was italicized. A rustle of
voices somewhere rewarded him--that must be people talking. Well, if
they talked, they could listen.
“HEY!” and now his voice was emphatic enough for headline capitals.
The rustle of voices ceased. There was a moment of stupefied silence.
Then,
“SHUT UP!” came from the end of the corridor in a roar that made Oliver
feel as if he had been cooing. The roar irritated him--they might be a
little more mannerly. He clutched the bars and discovered to his pleased
surprise that they would rattle. He shook them as hard as he could like
a monkey asking for peanuts.
“Hey there! I want to get out!” and though he tried to make his voice as
impressive as possible it seemed to him to pipe like a canary's in that
long steel emptiness.
“I've got to catch a train!” he added desperately and then had to stuff
his coat sleeve into his mouth to keep from spoiling his dramatics with
most unseasonable mirth.
There were noises from the end of the corridor--the noises of strong men
at bitter war with something stronger than they, strange rumblings and
snortings and muffled whoops. Then the voice came again and this time
its words were slow and deliberately spaced so as to give it time to
master whatever rocked it between whiles.
“Say--you--_humorist_” said the voice and here it rose sharply
into an undignified squawk of laughter, “You--innercent
child--comedian--you--Charlie--Chaplin--of the--hoosegow--you
_shut_ up--or I'll come down there and--bend--something--over--your
merry little face--_understand?_” “Yes sir,” said Oliver subduedly.
“Ah right. Now go bye-bye--mama'll call you when she's ready to take you
walking” then explosively “I got to catch a train! Oh Holy Mike!”
Oliver left the window and went back toward his bunk, considerably
chastened. As he did so a bundle of second-hand clothes on the floor
rolled over and disclosed a red and unshaven face.
“Wup!” said Oliver--he had almost stepped on it.
“Wha'?” said the bundle, opening sick eyes.
“Oh nothing. I only said good morning.”
“Wha'?”
“Good morning.”
“Wha'?”
“Good morning.”
After incredible difficulties, the bundle attained a sitting position.
“You kid'n me?” it demanded thickly, looking at Oliver with as much
surprise as if he had just grown up out of the floor like a plant.
“Oh no. No.”
“You're _nah_ kid'n me?”
“No.”
“Ah ri'. 'S countersign. Pass. Fren'.”
It attempted a military gesture but succeeded merely in hitting its
mouth with its hand. It then looked at the hand as if the latter had
done it on purpose and became sunk in profound cogitation.
“Not feeling very well today?” Oliver ventured.
It looked at him.
“_Well?_” it said briefly. Then, after a silence devoted to trying to
find where its hands were.
“Hoosh.”
“What?” said Oliver.
“_Hoosh_. Goo' hoosh. Gran' hoosh. Oh, _hoosh!_” and as if the mention
of the word had stricken it back into clothes again it slid slowly down
on its back, closed its eyes and began to snore.
Oliver, perched on his bunk for what comfort there was, sat and
considered. He looked at the bundle--the bars--the bars--the bundle. The
bundle wheezed apoplectically--no sound of footsteps came from beyond
the bars. Oliver wondered if Nancy loved him. He wondered if he would
ever catch that Ten Seven. But most of all he wondered why on earth he
had happened to get in here and how on earth he was ever going to get
out.