A stickball game was being formed halfway up the block, but there was no rush to get it going. There was instead an examination of the broom handles that would serve as bats; this one had a crack near its fatter end, it simply wouldn’t do. And then there was a bouncing of balls against the asphalt; the pink Spalding bounced highest but nonetheless had to be tested, the balls held in separate hands and dropped simultaneously, a white one and a pink one, the choice being made. There was a slow and easy choosing of sides — odds, evens, one, two, three, shoot. The boys stood around in a patient circle while the wheat was separated from the chaff, a skinny kid with eyeglasses being the last chosen, accepting his misfit role with tolerant reluctance. There was a painstakingly slow chalking of the bases on the street, the chalk ran out, another color had to be used, third base was a bright yellow against the black, home plate was a lurid green. There were a great many practice pitches and a great many practice throws, and then another examination of the stickball bats, and a final rejection of a red broom handle. Another worn-out broom was brought, beaten against the fire hydrant to loosen the wire, and then the wire holding the straw bristles to the handle was carefully unwound, the bristles finally shaken loose. The new bat was tested, and seemed to prove itself adequate, and the game was ready to begin. But there was still no rush. This was Saturday; even stickball could be calm and easy.
He supposed he would have to wait for Doris to come out since he did not know where she had gone exactly, and since he could hardly go ringing strange doorbells and asking for her. He looked across the street to a candy store, and decided he would have a cup of coffee there, sitting near the open door so that he could watch the front of the brownstone in case she emerged. He crossed the street — the opening pitches of the stickball game were being tossed not fifty feet from him — and saw first the electric clock in the candy store window. The time was 9:10 A.M. Then he saw the newspaper stand outside the store, and he thought it would be nice to buy a newspaper. He stopped beside the stand and was reaching for the New York Times when his eye was pulled back sharply by the bold shrieking black print on the front page of the nearest tabloid. He knew immediately that this was the shock he had been expecting ever since he had left Gloria’s apartment. Not Doris who had appeared suddenly and splendidly in big-bird, black-legged surprise, but this, this that stared up at him from the newsstand, shouting, screaming, this.
He almost rushed away from the newsstand. He thought, hastily, That isn’t me. And then he reached out for the newspaper, his hand trembling, and he carried it with him into the candy store and placed it on the counter before him, not looking at the headline again, and he said to the man behind the counter, “A cup of coffee, please, light with one sugar,” and did not even realize he had automatically remembered how he took his coffee. He almost forgot all about Doris in the next few moments. He had taken the stool at the end of the counter so that he could see through the open door to the street outside and the brownstone across the way. But he did not even glance through the door now. He simply kept staring at the black headline on the front page, finally reading it, and then reading it over and over again, seeing the small type that told him the story was on p. 3, but not wanting to open the paper because he was afraid there might be a picture there, and he would recognize the picture as himself, and then he would know for certain, then the headline would be clear, the ominous black type would assume even more frightening dimension, growing until it obliterated the city and the world and the universe.
The man behind the counter put the cup of coffee down on the counter before him and said, “You taking that paper, mister?”
“Yes,” Buddwing said.
“Then I’ll add it to the check.”
“Yes, do that,” Buddwing said, and the counterman turned away as though he had won a major triumph.
The headline on the front page, shrieking, told Buddwing that a mental patient had escaped last night from a Long Island hospital. The headline did not spell out the words “Long Island,” it simply abbreviated them, using the letters “L.I.,” and Buddwing thought it was somehow odd, although he knew it was perfectly acceptable, that the newspaper should be shrieking about the escape of a madman, and yet should use a commonplace abbreviation like L.I. He thought suddenly of the woman who had gone to Oyster Bay and then given the cabbie a twenty-five-cent tip. He wondered what the woman had looked like beneath the open naked cavern of her black cocktail dress, and then he turned to page three.
There was no picture on page three. He wondered why there was no picture. Didn’t madmen have their pictures taken? Didn’t mental hospitals, like jails, mug and print anyone who came through their doors? The story told him that a man named Edward Voegler had escaped from Central Islip State Hospital on Long Island last night, shortly after the evening meal. Voegler — and he remembered with panic the initials in the ring on his right hand, G.V. — had apparently gone out of the dining room and then had walked into the director’s empty office and stolen a shirt, a tie, and a suit of clothes from the director’s closet. The story did not say what color the suit was, but in his certainty that he was this man Voegler, Buddwing knew the suit was blue. Voegler, the story said, was thirty-eight years old, about six feet tall, and extremely dangerous, a paranoid schizophrenic with a severe persecution complex and delusions of grandeur. The story then went into a quasi-medical explanation of schizophrenia and paranoia and explained what a man with a persecution complex and delusions of grandeur might be expected to do, ending with the number that should be called if anyone happened to run across Voegler.
Buddwing read the story three times.
The legend inside his ring had read “From G.V.” and he again wondered who G.V. was, but this time his wonder was edged with terror. He surmised that G.V. was the wife or mother of this man Voegler, who he knew without doubt he himself was. Edward Voegler. He repeated the name in his mind. It did not have a familiar feel, and yet who else could he be? Had not the newspaper story mentioned Voegler’s seemingly normal behavior interspersed with exceedingly unusual speeches and deeds? Had not his own behavior been odd and somewhat... well, crazy, yes... stopping a stranger on the street and asking him what an A and R man was, spending an hour or more with a young boy by the river, chasing a strange girl (She is not a strange girl, goddamn you! She is Doris! I know her!) in a taxicab and waiting now for her to emerge from the building across the street?
He looked quickly through the open door and across the street. The face of the brownstone was still sealed tight. He turned back to the newspaper and read the story a fourth time. Of course, he thought. What else was my attitude toward Di Palermo than a paranoiac symptom? Severe persecution complex, of course — why the hell else would twenty-two dollars be so important to me? Twenty-two lousy measly dollars — I who spend thousands a year! There, he thought. Delusions of grandeur! And what about the way I treated Mr. Schwartz, who offered to pay for my breakfast? What kind of behavior was that? Who the hell would behave that way except an escaped lunatic named Edward Voegler, who is me, who goddamnit is me, me, me!