Strangers on a Train

Twelve

It was almost nine o’clock. The long dusk was sliding steeply into night, and the residential blocks of small flimsy-looking wooden houses were mostly dark, except for a glow here and there on a front porch where people sat in swings and on front steps.

“Lemme out here, this is okay,” Bruno said to the driver. Magnolia Street and College Avenue, and this was the onethousand block. He began walking.

A little girl stood on the sidewalk, staring at him.

“Hyah,” Bruno said, like a nervous command for her to get out of the way.

“H’lo,” said the little girl.

Bruno glanced at the people on the lighted porch, a plump man fanning himself, a couple of women in the swing. Either he was tighter than he thought or luck was going to be with him, because he certainly had a hunch about 1235. He couldn’t have dreamt up a neighborhood more likely for Miriam to live in. If he was wrong, he’d just try the rest. He had the list in his pocket. The fan on the porch reminded him it was hot, apart from his own feverlike temperature that had been annoying him since late afternoon. He stopped and lighted a cigarette, pleased that his hands did not shake at all. The half bottle since lunch had fixed his hangover and put him in a slow mellow mood. Crickets chirruped everywhere around him. It was so quiet, he could hear a car shift gears two blocks away. Some young fellows came around a corner, and Bruno’s heart jumped, thinking one might be Guy, but none of them was.

“You ol’ jassack!” one said.

“Hell, I tol’ her I ain’t foolin’ with no man don’t give his brother an even break….”

Bruno looked after them haughtily. It sounded like another language. They didn’t talk like Guy at all.

On some houses, Bruno couldn’t find a number. Suppose he couldn’t find 1235? But when he came to it, 1235 was very legible in tin numerals over the front porch. The sight of the house brought a slow pleasant thrill. Guy must have hopped up those steps very often, he thought, and it was this fact alone that really set it apart from the other houses. It was a small house like all the others on the block, only its yellow-tan clapboards were more in need of paint. It had a driveway at the side, a scraggly lawn, and an old Chevy sedan sitting at the curb. A light showed at a downstairs window and one in a back corner window upstairs that Bruno thought might be Miriam’s room. But why didn’t he know? Maybe Guy really hadn’t told him enough!

Nervously, Bruno crossed the street and went back a little the way he had come. He stopped and turned and stared at the house, biting his lip. There was no one in sight, and no porch lighted except one down at the corner. He could not decide if the faint sound of a radio came from Miriam’s house or the one next to it. The house next to it had two lighted windows downstairs. He might be able to walk up the driveway and take a look at the back of 1235.

Bruno’s eyes slid alertly to the next-door front porch as the light came on. A man and woman came out, the woman sat down in the swing, and the man went down the walk. Bruno backed into the niche of a projecting garage front.

“Pistachio if they haven’t got peach, Don,” Bruno heard the woman call.

“I’ll take vanilla,” Bruno murmured, and drank some out of his flask.

He stared quizzically at the yellow-tan house, put a foot up behind him to lean on, and felt something hard against his thigh: the knife he had bought in the station at Big Springs, a hunting knife with a six-inch blade in a sheath. He did not want to use a knife if he could avoid it. Knives sickened him in a funny way. And a gun made noise. How would he do it? Seeing her would suggest a way. Or would it? He had thought seeing the house would suggest something, and he still felt like this was the house, but it didn’t suggest anything. Could that mean this wasn’t the house? Suppose he got chased off for snooping before he even found out. Guy hadn’t told him enough, he really hadn’t! Quickly he took another drink. He mustn’t start to worry, that would spoil everything! His knee buckled. He wiped his sweaty hands on his thighs and wet his lips with a shaky tongue. He pulled the paper with the Joyce addresses out of his breast pocket and slanted it toward the street light. He still couldn’t see to read. Should he leave and try another address, maybe come back here?

He would wait fifteen minutes, maybe half an hour.

A preference for attacking her out of doors had taken root in his mind on the train, so all his ideas began from a simple physical approach to her. This street was almost dark enough, for instance, very dark there under the trees. He preferred to use his bare hands, or to hit her over the head with something. He did not realize how excited he was until he felt his body start now with his thoughts of jumping to right or left, as it might be, when he attacked her. Now and then it crossed his mind how happy Guy would be when it was done. Miriam had become an object, small and hard.

He heard a man’s voice, and a laugh, he was sure from the lighted upstairs room in 1235, then a girl’s smiling voice: “Stop that?—Please? Plee-ee-ease?” Maybe Miriam’s voice. Babyish and stringy, but somehow strong like a strong string, too.

The light blinked out and Bruno’s eyes stayed at the dark window. Then the porch light flashed on and two men and a girl—Miriam—came out. Bruno held his breath and set his feet on the ground. He could see the red in her hair. The bigger fellow was redheaded, too—maybe her brother. Bruno’s eyes caught a hundred details at once, the chunky compactness of her figure, the flat shoes, the easy way she swung around to look up at one of the men.

“Think we ought to call her, Dick?” she asked in that thin voice. “It’s kinda late.”

A corner of the shade in the front window lifted. “Honey? Don’t be out too long!”

“No, Mom.”

They were going to take the car at the curb.

Bruno faded toward the corner, looking for a taxi. Fat chance in this dead burg! He ran. He hadn’t run in months, and he felt fit as an athlete.

“Taxi!” He didn’t even see a taxi, then he did and dove for it.

He made the driver circle and come into Magnolia Street in the direction the Chevy had been pointed. The Chevy was gone. Darkness had closed in tight. Far away he saw a red taillight blinking under trees.

“Keep going!”

When the taillight stopped for a red and the taxi closed some of the distance, Bruno saw it was the Chevy and sank back with relief.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the driver.

“Keep going!“Then as the Chevy swung into a big avenue, “Turn right.” He sat up on the edge of his seat. Glancing at a curb, he saw “Crockett Boulevard” and smiled. He had heard of Crockett Boulevard in Metcalf, the widest longest street.

“Who’ve the people’s names you want to go to?” the driver asked. “Maybe I know ‘em.”

“Just a minute, just a minute,’ Bruno said, unconsciously assuming another personality, pretending to search through the papers he had dragged from his inside pocket, among them the paper about Miriam. He snickered suddenly, feeling very amused, very safe. Now he was pretending to be the dopey guy from out of town, who had even misplaced the address of where he wanted to go. He bent his head so the driver could not see him laughing, and reached automatically for his flask.

“Need a light?”

“Nope, nope, thank you.” He took a hot swallow. Then the Chevy backed into the avenue, and Bruno told the driver to keep going.

“Where?”

“Get going and shut up!” Bruno shouted, his voice falsetto with anxiety.

The driver shook his head and made a click with his tongue. Bruno fumed, but they had the Chevy in sight. Bruno thought they would never stop driving and that Crockett Boulevard must cross the whole state of Texas. Twice Bruno lost and found the Chevy. They passed roadstands and drive-in movies, then darkness put up a wall on either side. Bruno began to worry. He couldn’t tail them out of town or down a country road. Then a big arch of lights appeared over the road. WELCOME TO LAKE METCALF’S KINGDOM OF FUN, it said, and the Chevy drove under it and into a parking lot. There were all kinds of lights ahead in the woods and the jingle of merrygo-round music. An amusement park! Bruno was delighted.

“Four bucks,” said the driver sourly, and Bruno poked a five through the front window.

He hung back until Miriam and the two fellows and a new girl they had picked up had gone through the turnstile, then he followed them. He stretched his eyes wide for a good look at Miriam under the lights. She was cute in a plump college-girl sort of way, but definitely second-rate, Bruno judged. The red socks with the red sandals infuriated him. How could Guy have married such a thing? Then his feet scraped and he stood still: she wasn’t pregnant! His eyes narrowed in intense perplexity. Why hadn’t he noticed from the first? But maybe it wouldn’t show yet. He bit his underlip hard. Considering how plump she was, her waist looked even flatter than it ought to. Maybe a sister of Miriam s. Or she had had an abortion or something. Or a miscarriage. Miss Carriage! How do you do? Swing it, sister! She had fat little hips under a tight gray skirt. He moved on as they did, following evenly, as if magnetized.

Had Guy lied about her being pregnant? But Guy wouldn’t lie. Bruno’s mind swam in contradictions. He stared at Miriam with his head cocked. Then something made a connection in his mind before he was aware of looking for it: if something had happened to the child, then all the more reason why he should erase her, because Guy wouldn’t be able to get his divorce. She could be walking around now if she had had an abortion, for instance.

She stood in front of a sideshow where a gypsy woman was dropping things into a big fishbowl. The other girl started laughing, leaning all over the redheaded fellow.

“Miriam!”

Bruno leapt off his feet.

“Oooh, yes!” Miriam went across to the frozen custard stand.

They all bought frozen custards. Bruno waited boredly, smiling, looking up at the ferris wheel’s arc of lights and the tiny people swinging in benches up there in the black sky. Far off through the trees, he saw lights twinkling on water. It was quite a park. He wanted to ride the ferris wheel. He felt wonderful. He was taking it easy, not getting excited. The merrygo-round played “Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde…” Grinning, he turned to Miriam’s red hair, and their eyes met, but hers moved on and he was sure she hadn’t noticed him, but he mustn’t do that again. A rush of anxiety made him snicker. Miriam didn’t look at all smart, he decided, which amused him, too. He could see why Guy would loathe her. He loathed her, too, with all his guts! Maybe she was lying to Guy about having a baby. And Guy was so honest himself, he believed her. Bitch!

When they moved on with their frozen custards, he released the swallowtailed bird he had been fingering in the balloon seller’s box, then wheeled around and bought one, a bright yellow one. It made him feel like a kid again, whipping the stick around, listening to the tail’s squee-wee-wee A little boy walking by with his parents stretched his hand toward it, and Bruno had an impulse to give it to him, but he didn’t.

Miriam and her friends entered a big lighted section where the bottom of the ferris wheel was and a lot of concessions and sideshows. The roller coaster made a tat-tat-tat-tat-tat like a machine gun over their heads. There was a clang and a roar as someone sent the red arrow all the way to the top with a sledge hammer. He wouldn’t mind killing Miriam with a sledge hammer, he thought. He examined Miriam and each of the three to see if any seemed aware of him, but he was sure they weren’t. If he didn’t do it tonight, he mustn’t let any of them notice him. Yet somehow he was sure he would do it tonight. Something would happen that he could. This was his night. The cooler night air bathed him, like some liquid that he frolicked in. He waved the bird in wide circles. He liked Texas, Guy’s state! Everybody looked happy and full of energy. He let Miriam’s group blend into a crowd while he took a gulp from his flask. Then he loped after them.

They were looking at the ferris wheel, and he hoped they would decide to ride it. They really did things big in Texas, Bruno thought, looking up admiringly at the wheel. He had never seen a ferris wheel big as this. It had a five-pointed star in blue lights inside it.

“Ralph, how ‘bout it?” Miriam squealed, poking the last of the frozen custard cone into her mouth with her hand against her face.

“Aw, ‘s ain’t no fun. H’bout the merrygo-round?”

And they all went. The merrygo-round was like a lighted city in the dark woods, a forest of nickel-plated poles crammed with zebras, horses, giraffes, bulls, and camels all plunging down or upward, some with necks arched out over the platform, frozen in leaps and gallops as if they waited desperately for riders. Bruno stood still, unable to take his dazzled eyes from it even to watch Miriam, tingling to the music that promised movement at any instant. He felt he was about to experience again some ancient, delicious childhood moment that the steam calliope’s sour hollowness, the stitching hurdy-gurdy accompaniment, and the drum-and-cymbal crash brought almost to the margin of his grasp.

People were choosing mounts. And Miriam and her friends were eating again, Miriam diving into a popcorn bag Dick held for her. The pigs! Bruno was hungry, too. He bought a frankfurter, and when he looked again, they were boarding the merrygo-round. He scrambled for coins and ran. He got the horse he had wanted, a royal blue one with an upreared head and an open mouth, and as luck would have it, Miriam and her friends kept weaving back through the poles toward him, and Miriam and Dick took the giraffe and the horse right in front of him. Luck was with him tonight! Tonight he should be gambling!

Just like the strain—te-te-dum—Of a haunting refrain—te-te-dum—She’ll start upon—BOOM! a marathon—BOOM!

Bruno loved the song and so did his mother. The music made him suck in his belly and sit his horse like a ramrod. He swung his feet gaily in the stirrups. Something swatted him in the back of the head, he turned belligerently, but it was only some fellows roughhousing with one another.

They started off slowly and militantly to “The Washington Post March.” Up, up, up he went and down, down, down went Miriam on her giraffe. The world beyond the merrygo-round vanished in a light-streaked blur. Bruno held the reins in one hand as he had been taught to do in his polo lessons, and ate the frankfurter with the other.

“Yeeee-hooo!” yelled the redheaded fellow.

“Yeeee-hooo!” Bruno yelled back. “I’m a Texan!”

“Katie?” Miriam leaned forward on the giraffe’s neck, and her gray skirt got round and tight. “See that fellow over there in the check shirt?”

Bruno looked. He saw the fellow in the checked shirt. He looked a little like Guy, Bruno thought, and thinking of this, he missed what Miriam said about him. Under the bright lights, he saw that Miriam was covered with freckles. She looked increasingly loathesome, so he began not to want to put his hands on her soft sticky-warm flesh. Well, he still had the knife. A clean instrument.

“A clean instrument!” Bruno shouted jubilantly, for no one could possibly hear him. His was the outside horse, and next to him was a boxed double seat thing made out of swans, which was empty. He spat into it. He flung away the rest of the frankfurter and wiped the mustard off his fingers on the horse’s mane.

“Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde, while the band—played—aaaaww!“Miriam’s date sang out with vehemence.

They all joined in and Bruno with them. The whole merrygo-round was singing. If they only had drinks! Everybody should be having a drink!

“His brain was so loaded, it nearly exploded,” sang Bruno at the cracking top of his lungs,“the poor girl would shake with alaaarm!”

“Hi, Casey!” Miriam cooed to Dick, opening her mouth to catch the popcorn he was trying to throw into it.

“Yak-yak!” Bruno shouted.

Miriam looked ugly and stupid with her mouth open, as if she were being strangled and had turned pink and bloated. He could not bear to look at her, and still grinning, turned his eyes away. The merrygo-round was slowing. He hoped they would stay for another ride, but they got off, linked arms, and began to walk toward the twinkling lights on the water.

Bruno paused under the trees for another little nip from the nearly empty flask.

They were taking a rowboat. The prospect of a cool row was delightful to Bruno. He engaged a boat, too. The lake looked big and black, except for the lightless twinkles, full of drifting boats with couples necking in them. Bruno got close enough to Miriam’s boat to see that the redheaded fellow was doing the rowing, and that Miriam and Dick were squeezing each other and giggling in the back seat. Bruno bent for three deep strokes that carried him past their boat, then let his oars trail.

“Want to go to the island or loaf around?” the redheaded fellow asked.

Petulantly, Bruno slumped sideways on the seat, waiting for them to make up their minds. In the nooks along the shore, as if from little dark rooms, he heard murmurs, soft radios, laughter. He tipped his flask and drained it. What would happen if he shouted “Guy!”? What would Guy think if he could see him now? Maybe Guy and Miriam had been out on dates on this lake, maybe in the same rowboat he sat in now. His hands and the lower part of his legs tingled cozily with the liquor. If he had Miriam here in the boat with him, he would hold her head under the water with pleasure. Here in the dark. Pitch dark and no moon. The water made quick licking sounds against his boat. Bruno writhed in sudden impatience. There was the sucking sound of a kiss from Miriam’s boat, and Bruno gave it back to them with a pleasurable groan thrown in. Smack, smack! They must have heard him, because there was a burst of laughter.

He waited until they had paddled past, then followed leisurely. A black mass drew closer, pricked here and there with the spark of a match. The island. It looked like a neckers’ paradise. Maybe Miriam would be at it again tonight, Bruno thought, giggling.

When Miriam’s boat landed, he rowed a few yards to one side and climbed ashore, and set his boat’s nose up on a little log so it would be easy to recognize from the others. The sense of purpose filled him once more, stronger and more imminent than on the train. In Metcalf hardly two hours, and here he was on an island with her! He pressed the knife against him through his trousers. If he could just get her alone and clap his hand over her mouth—or would she be able to bite? He squirmed with disgust at the thought of her wet mouth on his hand.

Slowly he followed their slow steps, up rough ground where the trees were close.

“We cain’t sit here, the ground’s wet,” whined the girl called Katie.

“Sit on mah coat if y’wanta,” a fellow said.

Christ, Bruno thought, those dumb Southern accents!

“When I’m walkin’ with m’honey down honeymoon lane…,” somebody sang, off in the bushes.

Night murmurs. Bugs. Crickets. And a mosquito at his ear. Bruno boxed his ear and the ear rang maddeningly, drowning out the voices.

“… shove off.”

“Why cain’t we find a place?” Miriam yapped.

“Ain’t no place an’ watch whatcha step in!”

“Watcha step-ins, gals!” laughed the redheaded fellow.

What the hell were they going to do? He was bored! The music of the merrygo-round sounded tired and very distant, only the tings coming through. Then they turned around right in his face, so he had to move off to one side as if he were going somewhere. He got tangled in some thorny underbrush and occupied himself getting free of it while they passed him. Then he followed, downward. He thought he could smell Miriam’s perfume, if it wasn’t the other girl’s, a sweetness like a steamy bathroom that repelled him.

“… and now,” said a radio,“coming in very cautiously… Leon… Leon lands a hard right to the Babe’s face and listen to the crowd.” A roar.

Bruno saw a fellow and a girl wallowing down there in the bushes as if they were fighting, too.

Miriam stood on slightly higher ground, not three yards away from him now, and the others slid down the bank toward the water. Bruno inched closer. The lights on the water silhouetted her head and shoulders. Never had he been so close!

“Hey!” Bruno whispered, and saw her turn. “Say, isn’t your name Miriam?”

She faced him, but he knew she could barely see him. “Yeah. Who’re you?”

He came a step nearer. “Haven’t I met you somewhere before?” he asked cynically, smelling the perfume again. She was a warm ugly black spot. He sprang with such concentrated aim, the wrists of his spread hands touched.

“Say, what d’you—?”

His hands captured her throat on the last word, stifling its abortive uplift of surprise. He shook her. His body seemed to harden like rock, and he heard his teeth crack. She made a grating sound in her throat, but he had her too tight for a scream. With a leg behind her, he wrenched her backward, and they fell to the ground together with no sound but of a brush of leaves. He sunk his fingers deeper, enduring the distasteful pressure of her body under his so her writhing would not get them both up. Her throat felt hotter and fatter. Stop, stop, stop! He willed it! And the head stopped turning. He was sure he had held her long enough, but he did not lessen his grip. Glancing behind him, he saw nothing coming. When he relaxed his fingers, it felt as if he had made deep dents in her throat as in a piece of dough. Then she made a sound like an ordinary cough that terrified him like the rising dead, and he fell on her again, hitched himself onto his knees to do it, pressing her with a force he thought would break his thumbs. All the power in him he poured out through his hands. And if it was not enough? He heard himself whimper. She was still and limp now.

“Miriam?” called the girl’s voice.

Bruno sprang up and stumbled straight away toward the center of the island, then turned left to bring him out near his boat. He found himself scrubbing something off his hands with his pocket handkerchief. Miriams spit. He threw the handkerchief down and swept it up again, because it was monogrammed. He was thinking! He felt great! It was done!

“Mi-ri-am!” with lazy impatience.

But what if he hadn’t finished her, if she were sitting up and talking now? The thought shot him forward and he almost toppled down the bank. A firm breeze met him at the water’s edge. He didn’t see his boat. He started to take any boat, changed his mind, then a couple of yards farther to the left found it, perched on the little log.

“Hey, she’s fainted!”

Bruno shoved off, quickly, but not hurrying.

“Help, somebody!” said the girl’s half gasp, half scream.

“Gawd!—Huh-help!”

The panic in the voice panicked Bruno. He rowed for several choppy strokes, then abruptly stopped and let the boat glide over the dark water. What was he getting scared about, for Christ’s sake? Not a sign of anyone chasing him.

“Hey!”

“F’God’s sake, she’s dead! Call somebody!”

A girl’s scream was a long arc in silence, and somehow the scream made it final. A beautiful scream, Bruno thought with a queer, serene admiration. He approached the dock easily, behind another boat. Slowly, as slowly as he had ever done anything, he paid the boatkeeper.

“On the island!” said another shocking, excited voice from a boat. “Girl’s dead, they said!”

“Dead?”

“Somebody call the cops!”

Feet ran on the wooden dock behind him.

Bruno idled toward the gates of the park. Thank God he was so tight or hung over or something he could move so slowly! But a fluttering, unfightable terror rose in him as he passed through the turnstile. Then it ebbed quickly. No one was even looking at him. To steady himself, he concentrated on wanting a drink. There was a place up the road with red lights that looked like a bar, and he went straight toward it.

“Cutty,” he said to the barman.

“Where you from, son?”

Bruno looked at him. The two men on the right were looking at him, too. “I want a Scotch.”

“Can’t get no hard liquor round here, man.”

“What is this, part of the park?” His voice cracked like the scream.

“Can’t get no hard liquor in the state ofTexas.”

“Gimme some of that!” Bruno pointed to the bottle of rye the men had on the counter.

“Here. Anybody wants a drink that bad.” One of the men poured some rye in a glass and pushed it over.

It was rough as Texas going down, but sweet when it got there. Bruno offered to pay him, but the man refused.

Police sirens sounded, coming closer.

A man came in the door.

“What happened? Accident?” somebody asked him.

“I didn’t see anything,” the man said unconcernedly.

My brother! Bruno thought, looking the man over, but it didn’t seem the thing to do to go over and talk to him.

He felt fine. The man kept insisting he have another drink, and Bruno had three fast. He noticed a streak on his hand as he lifted the glass, got out his handkerchief, and calmly wiped between his thumb and forefinger. It was a smear of Miriam’s orangey lipstick. He could hardly see it in the bar’s light. He thanked the man with the rye, and strolled out into the darkness, walking along the right side of the road, looking for a taxi. He had no desire to look back at the lighted park. He wasn’t even thinking about it, he told himself. A streetcar passed, and he ran for it. He enjoyed its bright interior, and read all the placards. A wriggly little boy sat across the aisle, and Bruno began chatting with him. The thought of calling Guy and seeing him kept crossing his mind, but of course Guy wasn’t here. He wanted some kind of celebration. He might call Guy’s mother again, for the hell of it, but on second thought, it didn’t seem wise. It was the one lousy note in the evening, the fact he couldn’t see Guy, or even talk or write to him for a long while. Guy would be in for some questioning, of course. But he was free! It was done, done, done! In a burst of well-being, he ruffled the little boy’s hair.

The little boy was taken aback for a moment, then in response to Bruno’s friendly grin, he smiled, too.

At the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad terminal, he got an upper berth on a sleeper leaving at 1:30 A.M., which gave him an hour and a half to kill. Everything was perfect and he felt terribly happy. In a drugstore near the station, he bought a pint of Scotch to refill his flask. He thought of going by Guy’s house to see what it looked like, debated it carefully, and decided he could. He was just heading for a man standing by the door, to ask directions—he knew he shouldn’t go there in a taxi—when he realized he wanted a woman. He wanted a woman more than ever before in his life, and that he did pleased him prodigiously. He hadn’t wanted one since he got to Santa Fe, though twice Wilson had gotten him into it. He veered away right in the man’s face, thinking one of the taxi drivers outside would be better to ask. He had the shakes, he wanted a woman so badly! A different kind of shakes from liquor shakes.

“Ah don’ know,” said the blank, freckle-faced driver leaning against his fender.

“What d’you mean, you don’t know?”

“Don’ know, that’s all.”

Bruno left him in disgust.

Another driver down the sidewalk was more obliging. He wrote Bruno an address and a couple of names on the back of a company card, though it was so close by, he didn’t even have to drive him there.