I hesitated. “No,” I said finally. “A man. About thirty-three, thirty-four. A big fellow, strongly built.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” the old man said. “That’s terrible.”
“That his wallet, Harry? Yeah, give it to me. Let’s see who he was.”
“That’s terrible,” the old man said softly. He realized suddenly that he was still holding his sandwich, and he dropped it as though it were something foul.
“Boswell,” I said. “His name was James Boswell.”
“Oh, what a terrible thing,” the man said. “A young man. That’s a very awful thing.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He said my name to himself over and over again, as though he were trying to imagine from the sound of it what its owner could have been like.
“Well—” I said.
“It was kind of you to try to do something for him,” the old man said.
“That’s my job.”
“Is he from here?” he asked.
“What?”
“Is he from this city?”
“No,” I said harshly. “He’s from out of town. From somewhere else. He’s a foreigner.”
“It’s a terrible thing,” the old man said. “Maybe he was on holiday. On business.”
“A tourist,” I said.
“Poor man,” he said. “I wish I had had my sight. Maybe he gave a signal… I might have helped.”
“No,” I said. “Nobody could have done anything.”
Oh, what a thing it is to be settled by our past — to be no better, finally, than our toilet training, than domestic arrangements we don’t even understand at the time. The symptoms for the day are a virulent disgust, advanced abhorrence, endemic loathing, mortal detestation, inoperable repugnance.
He died such a healthy fella, and everybody—everybody—was very kind.
VII
At first the doorman did not recognize me. He moved with a faint threatening motion to block my way and slipped his whistle out of his breast pocket.
“What’s the matter with you?” I said. “I live here.” The doorman stared. “Oh, excuse me, sir,” he said at last. “I didn’t know you. Your clothes… Are you feeling all right sir?”
“I’m sick. I’m having a little trouble with my breathing. With my heart. All my glands are oozing.” “I’ll help you up to your apartment,” he said. “No.” The whistle was still in his hand. “Just pipe me aboard,” I said. The doorman held the door for me and I moved through it almost drunkenly. A woman coming out as I entered looked at me curiously.
“We’re taking over,” I said. “The neighborhood’s changing.” I backed into the elevator giggling.
For a moment I couldn’t remember my floor. I pressed the button and felt the elevator lift me by pushing at my shoes and had an impression, brief but terrifying, that it would move me upwards through the roof, the clouds, space, past the stars.
I stumbled out at my floor, but when I felt in my pockets for the key I did not have it. I could not remember now if I had ever had a key to the apartment. When I rang the bell the chimes inside (Gift-of-the-Month Club) sounded a fragment from some hymn. There were no other sounds. I pressed the bell again; I knocked on the door. It hurt my fists to tap even lightly upon it and I stopped a man walking down the hall toward the elevator.
“Excuse me, neighbor, but I am neurasthenic and it is acute agony for me to rap upon this door. I wonder if you would do it for me.”
“Why don’t you ring the bell?”
“I have, sir. No one comes.”
“Then it won’t do you any good to knock on the door, will it?” the man said, and continued down the hall.
I looked helplessly at the door and taking the knob in my hands began to shake it. “Open up,” I yelled. “Make my bed soon, Mother, for I am sick to the heart and fain would lie down.”
I moved on to the next apartment and pressed the buzzer. A woman I did not recognize opened the door almost immediately. I had not shaved for several days and now, a huge reprobate presence in old clothes, I stood leaning clumsily against her doorway. She gasped and tried to shut the door.
“Just a minute.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The lady of the house is not at home.”
I put my arm on the closing door and pushed against it with all my remaining strength. “All right,” I said, shoving a finger into my pocket and pointing it as her as if it were a gun, “this is a stickup.”
The woman stepped back, “What do you want?”
“Is that the kitchen?” I asked in a low voice, jerking my head around to the right.
“Yes,” she answered weakly.
“Then you better gimme — gimme — gimme a glass of milk!” I laughed. “No. I live next door. I forgot my key and no one’s home. I’m sick. Get the doorman. He’s got a passkey. Call him, lady — please.”
She didn’t move.
“I’m James Boswell,” I said. “From next door. I’m in the book. Look, in time to come we’ll laugh about this. See, it was just my finger. I fooled you.” I saw the speaking tube on the wall just inside the door. “May I?” I asked, already pressing the button. I put my lips next to the mouthpiece, receiving it as I would a kiss. “Who’s there? Who’s there? Operator! Operator!”
“You’ve got your finger on the button,” the woman said.
I took it away and a voice, tinny as the sound of a ventriloquist’s dummy, came out of the small speaker. “Yes?”
“It’s Boswell. Get up here. I’m with the good woman next door. I’ve got no key, no one’s home. I’m sick. Hurry! Hurry!”
In a few minutes the doorman had let me into the apartment.
“It’s disgraceful,” I said. “Having to be let into my own place like this. Humiliating.”
“Do you want me to call a doctor, sir?”
“Get Dr. Green,” I said. “On Twelfth Street. Old family physician. Knows me inside out, upside down. Get him. I want Green. Call Green.”
“Yes, sir.” The doorman started to leave.
“Where’s my wife?”
“I haven’t seen Mrs. Boswell, sir.”
“The kid — David.”
“I haven’t seen him either, sir.”
“Fine way to treat a dying man.”
The doorman left. The woman in whose doorway I had stood now stood in mine. “Is there something I can do?” she asked.
“The lady of the house is not at home,” I said. I went into our bedroom and lay down. “Close the goddamn hall door,” I shouted. “There’s a draft.”
The door slammed.
“Snug as a bug in a rug,” I said. “Spry as a fly in an eye.” I rolled over, scraping my shoes across the satin bedspread. “Oh, Jesus,” I said, “what a way to die.” I placed my hand gently on my heart. “Help,” I said very softly. I made a song out of it, singing “Help Help Help Help Help Help Help Help” as if they were notes in the scale.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep and when I opened them Dr. Green was standing over my bed watching me.
“What interesting things do you keep in your bag, Doctor?” I asked, looking at his satchel.
“I’m a scientist,” the doctor said. “I don’t make house calls. You sick?”
“Oh Jesus, what a way to die.”
“What is it with you? You sick? What did you call me for? Where’s your wife? I brought a little stuff with me on dry ice. Even so, you can’t keep it too long. It melts like ice cream.” He leaned down over me. “Say,” he said, “I won’t crap you. I know how particular you are. Guess who I got in the syringe.”
“O Jesus, did I call for you?”
“Where’s your wife? What is this? The guy called and said it was an emergency. I don’t make house calls, but I remembered you and I looked upon it as a professional challenge. Jesus, the way you messed my place up!”