They sat in the park for a while. Then they got up and went off to their respective motel rooms — Tad to his big, old-fashioned house with white columns.
In his study. Tad took down one of his journals from a bookshelf. In his neat, precise hand, he carefully described the events of the evening, recording in detail all that Jack, Duncan, and Lowell had said. Following that entry, he added his prognostication for their future. “I would estimate that Jack will be dead within ten years, probably suicide if he doesn’t have a stroke first. Lowell will become a hopeless alcoholic and spend his last years in a sanitarium. Duncan will keep on with his practice, but will have to turn to drugs to keep himself going.”
He sat back for a moment. Then as an afterthought, he added, “I will continue to live out my life here in this old house, on the inheritance my father left me, eventually becoming something of a recluse. Duncan was right; I can’t leave. It is a psychological prison. But I am reasonably content, keeping busy with my hobby, the study of human nature, that will fill volumes when I am through.”
He put the journal away. Then he turned to another bookcase. It was lined with similar neatly bound and dated journals. He went down the line until he found one dated 1953. He opened it and flipped the pages, stopping when he came to the date of their graduation, then he started to read:
“Tonight being graduation,” he had written, “I decided we must do something spectacular. A crowning achievement to top any previous prank. Early in the afternoon, I stopped by Pete Bonner’s trailer. I had in mind giving him a few dollars to buy us some whiskey for the evening. Being underage, we couldn’t go to the liquor store ourselves, but Pete is always ready to do anything for a small bribe. I was surprised, indeed, when I walked into Pete’s trailer and found him sprawled out on the floor. He was quite dead, apparently from a heart attack. If I hadn’t found him, he’d probably have stayed there for days until someone accidentally stumbled upon him as I had done. I immediately got a brilliant idea for a colossal joke and a chance to test a theory of mine. They say time is relative. If someone believes he has committed an act, it’s the same to him as if he has committed the act. The consequences, as far as they affect him, should be the same.
“This time the joke would be on Jack, Duncan, and Lowell. They’re so gullible, they’ll do anything I tell them. I hurried home and swiped the wire recorder out of Dad’s study. I recorded some agonized screams and put it under Pete’s trailer, all hooked up so it would take only a second to turn it on. I then went over to talk to Jack, Duncan, and Lowell. I convinced them it would be a great idea to burn up Pete’s trailer and roast Pete alive. Of course, they had no way of knowing Pete was already dead. Tonight, after graduation, we slipped down to Pete’s trailer with gasoline and matches. I went around the other side, pretending to slosh my gasoline around, and reached under the trailer and switched on the wire recorder. As soon as the flames shot up, we began hearing some very convincing screams. It will be most interesting, in future years, to see what effect tonight’s act will have on the lives of Jack Harriman, Duncan Gitterhouse, and Lowell Oliver.”
Tad Jarmon closed the journal and leaned back with a cold, thoughtful smile.
The Way It Is Now
by Elaine Slater
When they were first married right after graduation from college, he had never been able to spend enough time with her. They bought a small cabin in the North Woods with no communication to the outside world, and spent every weekend there, walking hand in hand, sitting by a roaring fire, lost in each other — that is, when they weren’t chopping wood or hauling water from the brook, huffing and laughing at the unaccustomed exertion.
But lately things had changed. Business commitments kept him occupied on Saturdays. He could no longer find the time to escape to the cabin. When she spoke to him, he was never quite there. His reading moved gradually from the Partisan Review to the Wall Street Journal, and endless market reports. He still sat through the arty movies — Fellini, Truffaut — but when she tried to probe their murky depths, he never contributed a word.
“Where are you?” she would ask in exasperation. “Am I talking to a stone?”
“I heard you,” he would reply, jumping slightly as though she had caught him at the cookie jar. “Your last words were precisely ‘and the dog, of course, symbolizes the eternal evil in man.’ ”
She would sigh. He was listening evidently, but still... he wasn’t all there. His mind was on other things, and not all the newly acquired luxuries that his business success brought could compensate for the loss of her young, playful, loving husband. His sense of humor seemed now to be reserved for his business associates, who told her how he broke them up at the Board meetings. He worked several nights a week and came home bone-weary. How could a man that tired exercise a sense of humor, or talk, or, for that matter, make love?
Now they had a house in the suburbs and a housekeeper. She read the magazine advertisements and decided there was a ready remedy at hand. She bathed at twilight, perfumed herself, donned an expensive dressing gown, lit candles, and made a mixer of martinis. When he arrived home, his favorite Mozart concerto was playing. He looked mildly surprised at her outfit, commented that she smelled good, said he preferred a bourbon on the rocks to a martini which gave him indigestion, suggested more lighting over dinner because he couldn’t see what he was eating, picked up the latest Barrons Report, and fell asleep on the sofa. His own snoring woke him up and he stumbled up to the bedroom.
If she had suspected another woman, she would have had a better idea of how to fight back. But how does one fight the overwhelming commitment to Business? She read Betty Freidan and decided to get a job, but even that didn’t fill the gaping void in her life. She thought about taking a lover, and had lunch with one of the young men with whom she worked. He showed an extraordinary interest in her husband’s stock portfolio, and shuddering at the thought of a preoccupied lover, she decided she hated all men.
She began to brood. Her friends had children on whom they could vent their frustrations. She had no one. She mulled over the idea of suicide, but her other self kept calling out rebelliously.
“Why should I die? I’m perfectly capable of laughter, of life, of love! It’s he who is dead already and doesn’t know it. It’s not fair for you to kill me.”
The Evergreen Review slipped out of her lap, and she stared for a long time at her hands.
When he came home that night, she made no attempt to share with him the boring day’s activities. He didn’t seem to notice the deathly silence, although the housekeeper became so nervous that she broke a rare Minton plate. When the telephone rang just as they were having their coffee, he jumped up to answer it.
His suddenly animated voice was saying, “Harry! How did it go in Toronto? I’ve thought of nothing else all evening.” — as she walked thoughtfully upstairs.
When he came into their bedroom, he was jubilant. He caught her around the waist and shouted, “The Toronto deal is going through! Can you beat that? After two years of negotiating it’s finally going through. Bigness is the only thing that talks these days, and we’re going to be BIG! If only Harry was here right now, would I love to hear all the details. I’d—”