at first, having forgotten how different and how odd my writing was left-handed. It looked like the work of a child, or a disturbed adult.
I had changes to make on the lists. Holding the paper steady with the cast on my right arm, I crossed Kay Prendergast’s name off on the suspect list and wrote it in on the bottom of the injured list. Then I paused, feeling great reluctance still, but finally went back to the suspect list and wrote at the bottom:
DEWEY
10
S OMEONE WAS SITTING ON MY ARM . I was lying stretched out on a park bench, very late at night, and someone was sitting on my arm. It didn’t really hurt, but I couldn’t move the arm and it was annoying. And then a policeman came along and began to shake my shoulder, wanting me to get up and move along. He thought I was a bum, and I felt very embarrassed and ashamed, thinking how once I had been on the force and now this young rookie was looking down on me for sleeping on a park bench.
I opened my eyes, and Bob Gale whispered, “It’s four o’clock.”
“I was on the force once myself,” I said apologetically, “but there’s someone sitting on my arm.”
“Mr. Tobin,” he whispered, and shook my shoulder again, staring into my eyes. “Wake up, it’s four o’clock.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes. I’m sorry, I was dreaming.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “I’ll be right along,” I said.
“All right,” he whispered. “Be seeing you.” And he tiptoed out of the room, closing the door carefully behind himself.
I felt so old. I pushed the covers off with my good hand and put my legs over the side and got heavily to my feet, and every movement was accompanied by the creaking and aching of my joints. Bob had turned on an overhead light and I stood squinting beneath it, wanting not to be called upon.
But there was no choice. It turns out there never is a choice, only the occasional illusion to keep us interested. Life is ten per cent carrot and ninety per cent stick.
I dressed, in my clumsy awkward way, and went down the hall to the bathroom to wash my face one-handed, an unsatisfactory experience. The frustration woke me more than the water did, and by the time I shuffled back to the room to fill my pockets and switch loafers for slippers I was awake again and capable of a limited interest in what was going on around me.
Kay Prendergast had been taken away to the hospital with a skull fracture. I had napped for a while in the afternoon, and had Jerry Kanter and William Merrivale and Bob Gale for dinner companions. The room was full, almost all the residents tending to take dinner at the same time, but it seemed to me unusually quiet for so many people. This final accident, the sixth in less than a month, had apparently been the critical one, pushing a kind of awareness suddenly into everybody’s mind at once. I had noticed many of the residents glancing at my injured arm, thoughtfully. None of them had any definite suspicions yet, but a feeling of trouble was in the air. They were like a herd of deer suddenly smelling something in a stray breeze.
Jerry Kanter, in fact, had been one of the few people in the room oblivious to the general aura, and I found myself wondering if this blithe insensitivity of his was a form of padding given him in the process of his cure or if it was a natural element of his personality, perhaps the element that had made it possible for him to take that rifle downtown that day. The murder of people you know requires emotion, but the murder of perfect strangers requires a dull insensibility.
At any rate, Jerry had chattered happily throughout dinner, while the rest of us at the table, feeling the general tension, sat mostly silent. William Merrivale, the father-beater, had sat sullen and rebellious most of the time, head down, throwing occasional mulish glances at Jerry as though he’d like to shut him up by direct means. Bob Gale had been kept silent not only by the atmosphere in the dining room but
I had changes to make on the lists. Holding the paper steady with the cast on my right arm, I crossed Kay Prendergast’s name off on the suspect list and wrote it in on the bottom of the injured list. Then I paused, feeling great reluctance still, but finally went back to the suspect list and wrote at the bottom:
DEWEY
10
S OMEONE WAS SITTING ON MY ARM . I was lying stretched out on a park bench, very late at night, and someone was sitting on my arm. It didn’t really hurt, but I couldn’t move the arm and it was annoying. And then a policeman came along and began to shake my shoulder, wanting me to get up and move along. He thought I was a bum, and I felt very embarrassed and ashamed, thinking how once I had been on the force and now this young rookie was looking down on me for sleeping on a park bench.
I opened my eyes, and Bob Gale whispered, “It’s four o’clock.”
“I was on the force once myself,” I said apologetically, “but there’s someone sitting on my arm.”
“Mr. Tobin,” he whispered, and shook my shoulder again, staring into my eyes. “Wake up, it’s four o’clock.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yes. I’m sorry, I was dreaming.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “I’ll be right along,” I said.
“All right,” he whispered. “Be seeing you.” And he tiptoed out of the room, closing the door carefully behind himself.
I felt so old. I pushed the covers off with my good hand and put my legs over the side and got heavily to my feet, and every movement was accompanied by the creaking and aching of my joints. Bob had turned on an overhead light and I stood squinting beneath it, wanting not to be called upon.
But there was no choice. It turns out there never is a choice, only the occasional illusion to keep us interested. Life is ten per cent carrot and ninety per cent stick.
I dressed, in my clumsy awkward way, and went down the hall to the bathroom to wash my face one-handed, an unsatisfactory experience. The frustration woke me more than the water did, and by the time I shuffled back to the room to fill my pockets and switch loafers for slippers I was awake again and capable of a limited interest in what was going on around me.
Kay Prendergast had been taken away to the hospital with a skull fracture. I had napped for a while in the afternoon, and had Jerry Kanter and William Merrivale and Bob Gale for dinner companions. The room was full, almost all the residents tending to take dinner at the same time, but it seemed to me unusually quiet for so many people. This final accident, the sixth in less than a month, had apparently been the critical one, pushing a kind of awareness suddenly into everybody’s mind at once. I had noticed many of the residents glancing at my injured arm, thoughtfully. None of them had any definite suspicions yet, but a feeling of trouble was in the air. They were like a herd of deer suddenly smelling something in a stray breeze.
Jerry Kanter, in fact, had been one of the few people in the room oblivious to the general aura, and I found myself wondering if this blithe insensitivity of his was a form of padding given him in the process of his cure or if it was a natural element of his personality, perhaps the element that had made it possible for him to take that rifle downtown that day. The murder of people you know requires emotion, but the murder of perfect strangers requires a dull insensibility.
At any rate, Jerry had chattered happily throughout dinner, while the rest of us at the table, feeling the general tension, sat mostly silent. William Merrivale, the father-beater, had sat sullen and rebellious most of the time, head down, throwing occasional mulish glances at Jerry as though he’d like to shut him up by direct means. Bob Gale had been kept silent not only by the atmosphere in the dining room but
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