"Suit yourself."
"Do you want anything? Root beer? A Coke?"
"No thank you," she said in a formal tone.
As he plodded up the grassy slope toward the soft-drink stand he thought, I'd have to take Bill Black on, sooner or later. In combat.
No telling what color the man would turn if he found out. Is he the kind that gets down his hunting .22 and without a word sets off and shoots the trespasser of that most sacred of all a man's preserves, that Elysian field where only the lord and master dares to graze?
Talk about bagging the royal deer.
He reached a cement path along which grew green wooden benches. On the benches assorted people, mostly older, sat watching the slope and pool below. One heavy-set elderly lady smiled at him.
Does she know? he asked himself. That what she saw going on down there was not happy springtide youthful frolic at all, but sin? Near-adultery?
"Afternoon," he said to her genially.
She nodded back genially.
Reaching around in his pockets, he found some change. A line of kids waited at the soft-drink stand; the kids were buying hot dogs and popsicles and Eskimo Pies and orange drink. He joined them.
How quiet everything was.
Stunning desolation washed over him. What a waste his life had been. Here he was, forty-six, fiddling around in the living room with a newspaper contest. No gainful, legitimate employment. No kids. No wife. No home of his own. Fooling around with a neighbor's wife.
A worthless life. Vic was right.
I might as well give up, he decided. The contest. Everything. Wander on somewhere else. Do something else. Sweat in the oil fields with a tin helmet. Rake leaves. Tote up figures at a desk in some insurance company office. Peddle real estate.
Anything would be more mature. Responsible. I'm dragging away in a protracted childhood... hobby, like glueing together model Spads.
The child ahead of him received its candy bar and raced off. Ragle laid down his fifty-cent piece on the counter.
"Got any beer?" he said. His voice sounded funny. Thin and remote. The counter man in white apron and cap stared at him, stared and did not move. Nothing happened. No sound, anywhere. Kids, cars, the wind; it all shut off.
The fifty-cent piece fell away, down through the wood, sinking. It vanished.
I'm dying, Ragle thought. Or something.
Fright seized him. He tried to speak, but his lips did not move for him caught up in the silence.
Not again, he thought.
Not again!
It's happening to me again.
The soft-drink stand fell into bits. Molecules. He saw the molecules, colorless, without qualities, that made it up. Then he saw through, into the space beyond it; he saw the hill behind, the trees and sky. He saw the soft-drink stand go out of existence, along with the counter man, the cash register, the big dispenser of orange drink, the taps for Coke and root beer, the ice-chests of bottles, the hot dog broiler, the jars of mustard, the shelves of cones, the row of heavy round metal lids under which were the different ice creams.
In its place was a slip of paper. He reached out his hand and took hold of the slip of paper. On it was printing, block letters.
SOFT-DRINK STAND
Turning away, he unsteadily walked back, past children playing, past the benches and the old people. As he walked he put his hand into his coat pocket and found the metal box he kept there.
He halted, opened the box, looked down at the slips of paper already in it. Then he added the new one.
Six in all. Six times.
His legs wobbled under him and on his face particles of cold seemed to form. Ice slid down into his collar, past his green knit tie.
He made his way down the slope, to Junie.
four
At sunset, Sammy Nielson put in a last tardy hour galloping around the Ruins. Together with Butch Cline and Leo Tarski he had dragged a mass of roofing slats into a heap to form a real swell defensive position. They could probably hold the position indefinitely. Next came the gathering of dirt clods, those with long grass attached, for superior throwing.
Cold evening wind blew about him. He crouched behind the breastwork, shivering.
The trench needed to be deeper. Taking hold of a board that stuck up from the soil, he pried and tugged. A mass of brick, ash, roofing, weeds and dirt broke away and rolled down at his feet. Between two split slabs of concrete an opening could be seen, more of the old basement, or maybe a drainage pipe.
No telling what might be discovered. Lying down, he scooped up handfuls of plaster and chickenwire. Bits covered him as he labored.
In the half-light, straining to see, he found a soggy yellow blob of paper. A phone book. After that, rain-soaked magazines.
Feverishly, he clawed on and on.
In the living room, before dinner, Vic lounged across from his brother-in-law. Ragle had asked him if he could spare a couple of minutes. He wanted to talk to him. Seeing the somber expression on his brother-in-law's face, Vic said,
"You want me to close the door?" In the dining room, Margo had started setting the table; the noise of dishes mixed with the six o'clock news issuing out of the TV set.
"No," Ragle said.
"Is it about the contest?"
Ragle said, "I'm considering dropping out of the contest voluntarily. It's getting too much for me. The strain. Listen." He leaned toward Vic. His eyes were red-rimmed. "Vic," he said, "I'm having a nervous breakdown. Don't say anything to Margo." His voice wavered and sank. "I felt I should discuss it with you."
It was hard to know what to say to him. "Is it the contest?" Vic said finally.
"Probably." Ragle gestured.
"How long?"
"Weeks, now. Two months. I forget." He lapsed into silence, staring past Vic at the floor.
"Have you told the newspaper people?"
"No."
"Won't they kick up a fuss?"
Ragle said, "I don't care what they do. I can't go on. I may take a long trip somewhere. Even leave the country."
"My gosh," Vic said.
"I'm worn out. Maybe after I take a rest, six months of it, I'll feel better. I might tackle some manual labor. On an assembly line. Or outdoors. What I want to clear up with you is the financial business. I've been contributing about two hundred fifty a month to the household; that's what it averages over the last year."
"Yes," Vic said. "That sounds right."
"Can you and Margo make out without it? On the house payments and car payments, that sort of business?"
"Sure," he said. "I guess we can."
"I want to write you out a check for six hundred bucks," Ragle said. "Just in case. If you need it, cash it. If not, don't. Better put it in an account... checks are good only for a month or so, aren't they? Start a savings account, get your four-percent interest."
"You haven't said anything to Margo?"
"Not yet."
At the doorway, Margo said, "Dinner's almost ready. Why are you two men sitting there so solemnly?"
"Business," Vic said.
"Can I sit and listen?" she asked.
"No," both men said together. Without a word she went off.
"To continue," Ragle said, "if you don't mind hearing about it. I thought about going to the VA hospital... I can use my veteran's status and get some kind of medical assistance. But I have doubts as to whether it lies in their province. I also thought of using the GI Bill and going up to the university and taking a few courses."
"In what?"
"Oh, say, philosophy."
That sounded bizarre to him. "Why?" he said.
"Isn't philosophy a refuge and a solace?"
"I didn't know that. Maybe it was once. My impression of philosophy is something having to do with theories of ultimate reality and What is the purpose of life?"