“Oh,” she said vaguely. “I don’t know. They want to discuss whether he can be brought home.”
“You want me to go down with you?” I said.
Fay said, “I don’t feel like driving. I called the Anteils and they’re going to drive me down. In the state I’m in I couldn’t handle the car.” She disappeared into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door after her. I heard water running; she was taking a shower and changing her clothes.
“It sounds like the news isn’t too bad,” I said, when she reappeared. “If they’re talking about bringing him home –”
“Be quiet,” she said, in the tone of voice that she used with the girls. “I want to think.” And then, halting, she eyed me and said, “You didn’t say anything to Charley about Nathan being over here, did you?”
“No,” I said.
“God damn you,” she said, still eying me. “I’ll bet you did. I know you did.”
“It’s my job to report scientific facts,” I said. “What is there about him coming over here that makes it wrong for me to tell Charley about it? After all, this is his house. He has a right to know who comes here.”
Glaring at me, she tapped herself on the chest and said loudly, “This is my house. This is my business.”
Seeing the expression on her face, the worry and animosity, I felt upset. Not knowing what to say I went off by myself and played with the dog. The next I knew, the Anteils’ Studebaker had appeared in the driveway, and I saw Nathan Anteil and his wife inside, with Nathan at the wheel. He honked, and Fay came out, in her suit and coat and high heels, and got into the car.
As the car started to back out, Fay rolled down the window on her side and called to me, “You be sure you’re here when the girls get home. And if I’m not home by five, start fixing dinner. Better get a steak out of the freezer and start it thawing. And there’s some potatoes.” Then the car drove off.
Much to my dissatisfaction I hadn’t had a chance to tell her about the meeting and what we had decided, that I personally had been chosen by the SEBs to pick the date for the end of the world. Feeling cheated, I returned to the house and seated myself in the living room to read last night’s newspaper. And also I felt irritable and guilty at Fay’s accusation; of course I had told Charley, through the pressure of duty, but nevertheless it bothered me to have her so angry with me. Even if she was in the wrong it was not a pleasant situation. I hardly enjoy having somebody angry with me.
During Fay’s absence I spent time in the study, using the typewriter to get down on paper the new and more vivid presentation of facts which I felt Charley should have before him. After all, human choice is impossible without knowledge, and accurate choice is only possible where knowledge is complete and scientifically organized. That’s what separates us from the brutes.
For reference –as a prototype, a model– I got out some of my few remaining Thrilling Wonder Stories magazines and selected stories that had especially impressed me. After studying them I was able to perceive the methods by which the authors had dramatized their points. So I set to work with the magazines open on the desk beside me.
If Charley would be coming home soon it was imperative for me to get my fictionalized account before him almost at once. He would need it as a basis on which to act in reference to the situation.
When Fay returned home that night she said that possibly within a week Charley would be home. Fortunately I had made good progress on my work during the day, and I felt sure I would complete it. As it turned out, I got the account done the following day, and on Friday I took the bus down to San Francisco, carrying the account with me rolled up and fastened with a rubber band.
After spending a short time in the public library going over the new magazines, I took a bus to the U.C. Hospital. I found Charley out on the sundeck, in a wheelchair, wearing a bathrobe.
“Hi,” I said.
He glanced at me. Immediately his eyes made out the rolled-up tube of paper that I carried, and I saw that he understood — at least in a general way — what it was I had for him. He started to speak, then changed his mind.
“It won’t be long now,” I said. “Before you’re back home.”
He nodded slightly.
Pulling a chair up I sat down across from him.
“Don’t read me that thing,” he said.
I said, “These are the dramatized facts.”
“Get out of here,” he said.
That upset and confused me. I sat fooling with the rubber band, feeling like a fool. I had done all this work, and for what? Finally I said, “The difference between us and the animals is that we can use words. Isn’t that right?”
With obvious reluctance he nodded.
“We expand our environment,” I said. “We learn through the written word. We’d never even know about far-distant places such as Siam if we couldn’t read.” I went on, amplifying this idea; he listened but said nothing. After I had finished, he still said nothing. I waited, and then I unrolled the rubber band from the tube, flattened the sheets of paper, and very carefully began to read.
After I had come to the end I sat waiting for his reaction.
“How’d you even put together a thing like that?” he said, in a tone of voice suggesting that he was virtually ready to burst out laughing. His whole face seemed twisted out of shape and his eyes shone as if at the same time he was mad as hell. I saw that his hands were shaking. “It sounds like something out of an old pulp magazine,” he said. “Whene’d you get those phrases like ‘breasts like mounds of whipped cream’ and ‘red-tipped cones of pure ecstasy’?”
I couldn’t have been more embarrassed. Putting away the sheets of paper I mumbled, “I was simply trying to vivify it.”
He stared at me with that same mixture of expressions on his face. Now he had begun to flush, and his breathing became more rapid. For a moment I thought he was going to sneeze. But then he laughed. I felt my own face flush with humiliation. Charley laughed harder and harder.
“Read me that one pant again,” he said finally in a choked voice. “That about ‘I saw her gown open to the waist and fastened by only a single jewel at her navel.’ “ And he again went into paroxysms of laughter.
His reaction horrified me. I had no inkling that he would respond in this manner, and it totally unnerved me; I found myself twitching and muttering, unable to speak.
“Also that part that goes –” He tried to remember; I saw his lips moving. “About ‘as I kissed her hot, sweet lips I pushed her backward toward the couch. Her body yielded –’“
I interrupted, “It’s not fair to harp on individual phrases. It’s the over-all work that’s important. I tried to be absolutely accurate in this account. This is vital information that you ought to have at your disposal so you’ll be able to act. Isn’t that so? You need information to act.”
“Act,” he said. “What do you mean?”
“When you get back home,” I said, seeing nothing complex about it.
“Listen,” Charley said. “This is all in your mind. You’re out of your head. You’re a psycho. Anybody who’d write a thing like that about his sister is a psycho; let’s face it. Don’t you know that? Haven’t you ever faced the fact that you’re a warped, stunted, asshole type?”
An orderly or a nurse –on someone– came along the corridor. Charley raised his voice and yelled at them.
“Get this asshole out of here! He’s driving me nuts!”
I voluntarily got up and left, then. I was glad to get out of there All the way home on the bus I was shaking with anger and disbelief; it was one of the worst days in my life, and I knew I’d never forget it as long as I lived.
As the bus was passing through Samuel P. Taylor Park, the idea came to me to appeal to a disinterested person. To put this whole situation, my efforts and Charley’s response — the whole business, before them and let them impartially judge if I hadn’t done what was absolutely right.
First I thought of writing a letter to either the San Rafael Journal or to the Baywood Press. I even went so far as to begin composing, in my head, such a letter.