More Than Human

Outside I waited, then turned and went back in again.

Stern looked up at me. ‘Sit over there, So

‘Gee,’ I said. ‘Sorry, sir. I got in the wrong office.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said.

I went out and closed the door. All the way down to the police station I gri

What the hell is morality, anyway?

Part Three: Morality

‘What’s he to you, Miss Gerald?’ demanded the sheriff.

‘Gerard,’ she corrected. She had grey-green eyes and a strange mouth. ‘He’s my cousin.’

‘All Adam’s chillun are cousins, one way or the other. You’ll have to tell me a little more than that.’

‘He was in the Air Force seven years ago,’ she said. ‘There was some – trouble. He was discharged. Medical.’

The sheriff thumbed through the file on the desk before him. ‘Remember the doctor’s name?’

‘Thompson first, then Bromfield. Dr Bromfield signed the discharge.’

‘Guess you do know something about him at that. What was he before he did his hitch in the Air Force?’

‘An engineer. I mean, he would have been if he’d finished school.’

‘Why didn’t he?’

She shrugged. ‘He just disappeared.’

‘So how do you know he’s here?’

‘I’d recognize him anywhere,’ she said. ‘I saw… I saw it happen.’

‘Did you now.’ The sheriff grunted, lifted the file, let it drop. ‘Look, Miss Gerald, it’s not my business to go advising people. But you seem like a nice respectable girl. Why don’t you just forget him?’

‘I’d like to see him, if I may,’ she said quietly.

‘He’s crazy. Did you know that?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Slammin’ his fist through a plate glass window. For nothing.’

She waited. He tried again. ‘He’s dirty. He don’t know his own name, hardly.’

‘May I see him?’

The sheriff uttered a wordless growl and stood up. ‘Them Air Force psychos had any sense, they’d’ve put him where he would never even get near a jail. This way.’

The walls were steel plates like a ship’s bulkhead, studded with rivets, painted a faded cream above and mustard colour below. Their footsteps echoed. The sheriff unlocked a heavy door with one small high grating and slid it aside. They stepped through and he closed and locked it. He motioned her ahead of him and they came into a barnlike area, concrete on walls and ceiling. Built around it was a sort of balcony; under and over this were the cells, steel-walled, fronted by close-set bars. There were perhaps twenty cells. Only a half dozen were occupied. It was a cold, unhappy place.

‘Well, what did you expect?’ demanded the sheriff, reading her expression. ‘The Waldorf Plaza or something?’

‘Where is he?’ she asked.

They walked to a cell on the lower tier. ‘Snap out of it, Barrows. Lady to see you.’

‘Hip! Oh, Hip!’

The prisoner did not move. He lay half on, half off a padded steel bunk, one foot on the mattress, one on the floor. His left arm was in a dirty sling.

‘See? Nary a word out of him. Satisfied, Miss?’

‘Let me in,’ she breathed. ‘Let me talk to him.’

He shrugged and reluctantly unlocked the door. She stepped in, turned. ‘May I speak to him alone?’

‘Liable to get hurt,’ he warned.

She gazed at him. Her mouth was extraordinarily expressive. ‘Well,’ he said at length, ‘I’ll stay in the area here. You yell if you need help. S’help me I’ll put a slug through your neck, Barrows, if you try anything.’ He locked the barred door behind the girl.

She waited until he stepped away and then went to the prisoner. ‘Hip,’ she murmured. ‘Hip Barrows.’

His dull eyes slid in their sockets until they approximated her direction. The eyes closed and opened in a slow, numb blink.

She knelt beside him. ‘Mr Barrows,’ she whispered, ‘you don’t know me. I told them I was your cousin. I want to help you.’

He was silent.

She said, ‘I’m going to get you out of here. Don’t you want to get out?’

For a long moment he watched her face. Then his eyes went to the locked door and back to her face again.

She touched his forehead, his cheek. She pointed at the dirty sling. ‘Does it hurt much?’

His eyes lingered, withdrew from her face, found the bandage. With effort, they came up again. She asked, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Don’t you want me to help?’

He was silent for so long that she rose. ‘I’d better go. Don’t forget me. I’ll help you.’ She turned to the door.

He said,’Why?’

She returned to him. ‘Because you’re dirty and beaten and don’t care – and because none of that can hide what you are.’

‘You’re crazy,’ he muttered tiredly.

She smiled. ‘That’s what they say about you. So we have something in common.’

He swore, foully.

Unperturbed, she said, ‘You can’t hide behind that either. Now listen to me. Two men will come to see you this afternoon. One is a doctor. The other is a lawyer. We’ll have you out of here this evening.’

He raised his head and for the first time something came into his lethargic face. Whatever it was was not pretty. His voice came from deep in his chest. He growled, ‘What type doctor?’

‘For your arm,’ she said evenly. ‘Not a psychiatrist. You’ll never have to go through that again.’

He let his head drop back. His features slowly lost their expression. She waited and when he had nothing else to offer, she turned and called the sheriff.

It was not too difficult. The sentence was sixty days for malicious mischief. There had been no alternative fine offered. The lawyer rapidly proved that there should have been, and the fine was paid. In his clean new bandages and his filthy clothes, Barrows was led out past the glowering sheriff, ignoring him and his threat as to what the dirty bum could expect if he ever showed up in town again.

The girl was waiting outside. He stood stupidly at the top of the jailhouse steps while she spoke to the lawyer. Then the lawyer was gone and she touched his elbow. ‘ Come on, Hip.’

He followed like a wound-up toy, walking whither his feet had been pointed. They turned two corners and walked five blocks and then up the stone steps of a clean, dried spinster of a house with a bay window and coloured glass set into the main door. The girl opened the main door with one key and a door in the hallway with another. He found himself in the room with the bay window. It was high ceilinged, airy, clean.

For the first time he moved of his own volition. He turned around, slowly, looking at one wall after another. He put out his hand and lifted the corner of a dresser scarf, and let it fall. ‘Your room?’

‘Yours,’ she said. She came to him and put two keys on the dresser. ‘Your keys.’ She opened the top drawer. ‘Your socks and handkerchiefs.’ With her knuckles she rapped on each drawer in turn. ‘Shirts. Underclothes.’ She pointed to a door. ‘Two suits in there; I think they’ll fit. A robe. Slippers, shoes.’ She pointed to another door. ‘Bathroom. Lots of towels, lots of soap. A razor.’

‘Razor?’

‘Anyone who can have keys can have a razor,’ she said gently. ‘Get presentable, will you? I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Do you know how long it is since you’ve eaten anything?’

He shook his head.

‘Four days. ‘Bye now.’

She slipped through the door and was gone, even as he fumbled for something to say to her. He looked at the door for a long time. Then he swore and fell limply back on the bed.

He scratched his nose and his hand slid down to his jaw. It was ragged, itchy. He half rose, muttered, ‘Damn if I will,’ and lay back. And then, somehow, he was in the bathroom, peering at himself in the mirror. He wet his hands, splashed water on his face, wiped the dirt off on to a towel and peered again. He grunted and reached for the soap.