As we sat there the great Earl Grant appeared once more. The piano was playing and everyone had shut up, and we did so, too.
_I’ve got grasshoppers in my_
_pillow, baby_.
_I’ve got crickets all in_
_my meal_.
Was he singing to me? Had he seen me sitting there, seen the look on my face, known how I felt? It was an old song and sad. Maybe he saw me; maybe not. I couldn’t tell, but it seemed so.
Pris is wild, I thought. Not a part of us. Outside somewhere. Pris is pristine and in an awful way: all that goes on among and between people, all that we have here, fails to touch her. When one looks at her one sees back into the farthest past; one sees us as we started out, a million, two million years ago .
The song which Earl Grant was singing; that was one of the ways of taming, of making us over, modifying us again and again in countless slow ways. The Creator was still at work, still molding what in most of us remained soft. Not so with Pris; there was no more molding and shaping with her, not even by Him.
I have seen into the _other_, I said to myself, when I saw Pris. And where am I left, now? Waiting only for death, as the Booth simulacrum when she took off her shoe. The Booth simulacrum had finally gotten it in exchange for its deed of over a century ago. Before his death, Lincoln had dreamed of assassination, seen in his sleep a black-draped coffin and weeping processions. Had this simulacrum received any intimation, last night? Had it dreamed in its sleep in some mechanical, mystical way?
We would all get it. Chug-chug. The black crepe draped on the train passing in the midst of the grain fields. People out to witness, removing their caps. Chug-chug-chug.
The black train with the coffin guarded by soldiers in blue who carried guns and who never moved in all that time, from start to end of the long, long trip.
“Mr. Rosen.” Someone beside me speaking. A woman.
Startled, I glanced up. Mrs. Nild was addressing me.
“Would you help us? Mr. Barrows has gone to get the car; we want to put the Booth simulacrum into the car.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Sure.”
As I got to my feet I looked to the Lincoln to see if it was going to pitch in. But strange to say the Lincoln sat with its head bowed in deepest melancholy, paying no attention to us or to what we were doing. Was it listening to Earl Grant? Was it overcome by his blues song? I did not think so. It was hunched over, actually bent out of shape, as if its bones were fusing into one single bone. And it was absolutely silent; it did not even seem to be breathing.
A kind of prayer, I thought as I watched it. And yet no prayer at all. The stoppage of prayer, perhaps; its interruption. Blunk and I turned to the Booth; we began lifting it to its feet. It was very heavy.
“The car’s a Mercedes-Benz,” Blunk gasped as we started up the aisle. “White with red leather interior.”
“I’ll hold the door open,” Mrs. Nild said, following after us.
We got the Booth up the narrow aisle to the entrance of the club. The doorman regarded us with curiosity but neither he nor anyone else made a move to interfere or help or inquire as to what was taking place. The doorman, however, did hold the door aside for us and we were grateful because that left Mrs. Nild free to go out into the street to hail Sam Barrows’ car.
“Here it comes,” Blunk said, jerking his head.
Mrs. Nild opened the car door wide for us, and between Blunk and myself we managed to get the simulacrum into the back seat.
“You better come along with us,” Mrs. Nild said to me as I started away from the car.
“Good idea,” Blunk said. “We’ll have a drink, okay, Rosen? We’ll take the Booth to the shop and then go over to Collie’s apartment; the liquor’s there.”
“No,” I said.
“Come on,” Barrows said from behind the wheel. “You fellows get in so we can go; that includes you, Rosen, and naturally your simulacrum. Go back and get it.”
“No, no thanks,” I said. “You guys go on.”
Blunk and Mrs. Nild closed the car door after them and the car drove off and disappeared into the heavy evening traffic.
Hands in my pockets I returned to the club, making my way down the aisle to the table where the Lincoln still sat, its head down, its arms wrapped about itself, in utter stillness.
What could I say to it? How could I cheer it up?
“You shouldn’t let an incident like that get you down,” I said to it. “You should try to rise above it.”
The Lincoln did not respond.
“Many a mickle makes a muckle,” I said.
The simulacrum raised its head. It stared at me hopelessly. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
We both sat in silence, then.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m going to take you back to Boise and take you to see Doctor Horstowski. It won’t do you any harm and he may be able to do something about these depressions. Is it okay with you?”
Now the Lincoln seemed calmer; it had brought out a large red handkerchief and was blowing its nose. “Thank you for your concern,” it said from behind the handkerchief.
“A drink,” I said. “Or a cup of coffee or something to eat.”
The simulacrum shook its head no.
“When did you first notice the onset of these depressions?” I asked. “I mean, in your youth. Would you like to talk about them? Tell me what comes to your mind, what free associations you have. Please. I have a feeling it’ll make you feel better.”
The Lincoln cleared its throat and said, “Will Mr. Barrows and his party be returning?”
“I doubt it. They invited us to come along; they’re going over to Mrs. Nild’s apartment.”
The Lincoln gave me a long, slow, queer look. “Why are they going there and not to Mr. Barrows’ house?”
“The liquor’s there. That’s what Dave Blunk said, anyhow.”
The Lincoln cleared its throat again, drank a little water from the glass before it on the table. The strange look remained on its face, as if there was something it did not understand, as if it was puzzled but at the same time enlightened.
“What is it?” I said.
There was a pause and then the Lincoln said suddenly, “Louis, _go over to Mrs. Nild’s apartment_. Waste no time.”
“Why?”
“She must be there.”
I felt my scalp tingle.
“I think,” the simulacrum said, “she has been living there with Mrs. Nild. I will go back to the motel, now. Don’t worry about me–if necessary I am capable of returning to Boise on my own, tomorrow. Go at once, Louis, before their party arrives there.”
I scrambled to my feet. “I don’t–”
“You can obtain the address from the telephone book.”
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s so. Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. I have a feeling you’ve got a good idea, there. So I’ll see you, then. So long. And if–”
“Go,” it said.
I went.
At an all-night drugstore I consulted the phone book. I found Colleen Nild’s address and then went outside onto the sidewalk and flagged down a cab. At last I was on my way.
Her building was a great dark brick apartment house. Only a few windows were lit up, here and there. I found her number and pressed the button next to it. After a long time the small speaker made a static noise and a muffled female voice asked who I was.
“Louis Rosen.” Was it Pris? “Can I come up?” I asked.
The heavy glass and black wrought-iron door buzzed; I leaped to catch it and pushed it open. In a moment I had crossed the deserted lobby and was climbing the stairs to the third floor. It was a long climb and when I reached her door I was panting and tired.
The door was open. I knocked, hesitated, and then went on inside the apartment.
In the living room on a couch sat Mrs. Nild with a drink in her hand, and across from her sat Sam Barrows. Both of them glanced up at me.
“Hi, Rosen.” Barrows inclined his head toward a coffee table on which stood a bottle of vodka, lemons, mixer, lime juice and ice cubes and glasses. “Go ahead, help yourself.”
Not knowing what else to do I went over and busied myself.
While I was doing that Barrows said, “I have news for you. Someone very dear to you is in there.” He pointed with his glass. “Go look in the bedroom.” Both he and Mrs. Nild smiled.