More Than Human

‘It’s all right,’ said Janie softly.

He grunted questioningly, looked at her as if she were a stranger and seemed slowly to recognize her. He opened his hand and looked carefully at the piece of metal. He tossed it, caught it. ‘That’s mine,’ he said.

She nodded.

He said, ‘I broke that window.’ He looked at it, tossed the piece of metal again, and put it in his pocket and began to walk again. He was quiet for a long time and just as they mounted the steps of their house he said, ‘I broke the window and they put me in that jail. And you got me out and I was sick and you brought me here till I was well again.’

He took out his keys and opened the door, stood back to let her pass in. ‘What did you want to do that for?’

‘Just wanted to,’ she said.

He was restless. He went to the closet and turned out the pockets of his two suit jackets and his sport coat. He crossed the room and pawed aimlessly at the dresser scarf and opened and shut drawers.

‘What is it?’

‘That thing,’ he said vaguely. He wandered into and out of the bathroom. ‘You know, that piece of pipe, like.’

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘I had it,’ he muttered unhappily. He took another turn around the room and then shouldered past Janie where she sat on the bed, and reached to the night table. ‘Here it is!’

He looked at it, flexed it, and sat down in the easychair. ‘Hate to lose that,’ he said relievedly. ‘Had it a long time.’

‘It was in the envelope they were holding for you while you were in jail,’ Janie told him.

‘Yuh. Yuh.’ He twisted it between his hands, then raised it and shook it at her like some bright, thick, admonishing forefinger. ‘This thing – ’

She waited.

He shook his head. ‘Had it a long time,’ he said again. He rose, paced, sat down again. ‘I was looking for a guy who… Ah!’ he growled, ‘I can’t remember.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said gently.

He put his head in his hands. ‘Damn near almost found him too,’ he said in a muffled voice. ‘Been looking for him a long time. I’ve always been looking for him.’

‘Always?’

‘Well, ever since… Janie, I can’t remember again.’

‘All right.’

‘All right, all right, it isn’t all right!’ He straightened and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, Janie. I didn’t mean to yell at you.’

She smiled at him. He said, ‘Where was that cave?’

‘Cave?’ she echoed.

He waved his arms up, around. ‘Sort of a cave. Half cave, half log house. In the woods. Where was it?’

‘Was I there with you?’

‘No,’ he said immediately. ‘That was before, I guess. I don’t remember.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I do worry about it!’ he said excitedly. ‘I can worry about it, can’t I?’ As soon as the words were out, he looked to her for forgiveness and found it. ‘You got to understand,’ he said more quietly, ‘this is something I – I got to – Look,’ he said, returning to exasperation, ‘can something be more important than anything else in the world, and you can’t even remember what it is?’

‘It happens.’

‘It’s happened to me,’ he said glumly. ‘I don’t like it either.’

‘You’re getting yourself all worked up,’ said Janie.

‘Well, sure!’ he exploded. He looked around him, shook his head violently. ‘What is this? What am I doing here? Who are you, anyway, Janie? What are you getting out of this?’

‘I like seeing you get well.’

‘Yeah, get well,’ he growled. ‘I should get well! I ought to be sick. Be sick and get sicker.’

‘Who told you that?’ she rapped.

‘Thompson,’ he barked and then slumped back, looking at her with stupid amazement on his face. In the high, cracking voice of an adolescent he whimpered, ‘Thompson? Who’s Thompson?’

She shrugged and said, matter-of-factly, ‘The one who told you you ought to be sick, I suppose.’

‘Yeah,’ he whispered, and again, in a soft-focused flood of enlightenment, ‘yeah-h-h-h…’ He wagged the piece of mesh tubing at her. ‘I saw him. Thompson.’ The tubing caught his eye then and he held it still, staring at it. He shook his head, closed his eyes. ‘I was looking for…’ His voice trailed off.

‘Thompson?’

‘Nah!’ he grunted. ‘I never wanted to see him! Yes I did,’ he amended. ‘I wanted to beat his brains out.’

‘You did?’

‘Yeah. You see, he – he was – aw, what’s the matter with my head?’ he cried.

‘Sh-h-h,’ she soothed.

‘I can’t remember, I can’t,’ he said brokenly. ‘It’s like… you see something rising up off the ground, you got to grab it, you jump so hard you can feel your knee-bones crack, you stretch up and get your fingers on it, just the tips of your fingers…’ His chest swelled and sank. ‘Hang there, like forever, your fingers on it, knowing you’ll never make it, never get a grip. And then you fall, and you watch it going up and up away from you, getting smaller and smaller, and you’ll never – ‘ He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was panting. He breathed, barely audible, ‘And you’ll never…’

He clenched his fists. One of them still held the tubing and again he went through the discovery, the wonder, the puzzlement. ‘Had this a long time,’ he said, looking at it. ‘Crazy. This must sound crazy to you, Janie.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘You think I’m crazy?’

‘No’

‘I’m sick,’ he whimpered.

Startlingly, she laughed. She came to him and pulled him to his feet. She drew him to the bathroom and reached in and switched on the light. She pushed him inside, against the washbasin, and rapped the mirror with her knuckles. ‘Who’s sick?’

He looked at the firm-fleshed, well-boned face that stared out at him, at its glossy hair and clear eyes. He turned to Janie, genuinely astonished. ‘I haven’t looked this good in years! Not since I was in the… Janie, was I in the Army?’

‘Were you?’

He looked into the mirror again. ‘Sure don’t look sick,’ he said, as if to himself. He touched his cheek. ‘Who keeps telling me I’m sick?’

He heard Janie’s footsteps receding. He switched off the light and joined her. ‘I’d like to break that Thompson’s back,’ he said. ‘Throw him right through a – ‘

‘What is it?’

‘Fu

‘Perhaps you did.’

He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t a wall. It was a plate glass window. I know!’ he shouted. ‘I saw him and I was going to hit him. I saw him standing right there on the street looking at me and I yelled and jumped him and… and…’ He looked down at his scarred hand. He said, amazed, ‘I turned right around and hauled off and hit the window instead. God.’

He sat down weakly. ‘That’s what the jail was for and it was all over. Just lie there in that rotten jail, sick. Don’t eat, don’t move, get sick and sicker and it’s all over.’

‘Well, it isn’t all over, is it?’

He looked at her. ‘No. No, it isn’t. Thanks to you.’ He looked at her eyes, her mouth. ‘What about you, Janie? What are you after, anyway?’

She dropped her eyes.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. That must’ve sounded…’ He put out a hand to her, dropped it without touching her. ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into me today. It’s just that… I don’t figure you, Janie. What did I ever do for you?’

She smiled quickly. ‘Got better.’

‘It’s not enough,’ he said devoutly. ‘Where do you live?’

She pointed. ‘Right across the hall.’

‘Oh,’ he said. He remembered the night he had cried, and pushed the picture away in embarrassment. He turned away, hunting for a change of subject, any change. ‘Let’s go out.’

‘All right.’ Was that relief he detected in her voice?

They rode on a roller coaster and ate cotton candy and danced in an outdoor pavilion. He wondered aloud where he had ever learned to dance, but that was the only mention he made of the things which were troubling him until late in the evening. It was the first time he had consciously enjoyed being with Janie; it was an Occasion, rather than a way of life. He had never known her to laugh so easily, to be so eager to ride this and taste that and go yonder to see what was there. At dusk they stood side by side, leaning on a railing which overlooked the lake, watching the bathers. There were lovers on the beach, here and there. Hip smiled at the sight, turned to speak to Janie about it and was arrested by the strange wistfulness which softened her taut features. A surge of emotion, indefinable and delicate, made him turn away quickly. It was in part a recognition of the rarity of her introspection and an unwillingness to interrupt it for her; and partly a flash of understanding that her complete preoccupation with him was not necessarily all she wanted of life. Life had begun for him, to all intents and purposes, on the day she came to his cell. It had never occurred to him before that her quarter of a century without him was not the clean slate that his was.