He faced the difficulty squarely — he wasn’t going to do anything about finding a place to live, and it was quite possible that he wasn’t going to do anything about anything if it cost him much trouble.
Sometimes, he thought, you get a plane with my kind of jinx. The machinery’s okay and everything’s oiled and there’s not a damn thing the matter with it except that it doesn’t fly right. Nobody wants to touch it and when the thing eventually cracks up, everybody’s glad of it.
The waitress brought his coffee. He sipped it, remembering the doctor at the military discharge center. He was a small man who gave advice out of the side of his mouth. Most of it was pretty shrewd, too, but the boys were too excited at going home to pay much attention and they all thought the doctor was a sourpuss for handing out a lot of gloomy predictions.
He recalled clearly what the doctor had told him: “Well, Ferris, we’ve got you on your feet again, from now on it’s up to you. You’re pretty cocky right now and eager to get home. That’ll last maybe a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks, if you’re lucky. Then you’ll get a reaction. Yours will probably be a little worse than the others because you’ve been away longer and you haven’t a wife or family to go back to and you’ve been pretty well shot up. You’ll be tense and sorry for yourself and tired, but most of all you’ll be disappointed — the town’s different and so are your friends, and maybe the pool room where you used to hang around has been changed into a movie house. So you’ll go around saying that people over here never realized there ever was a war, and if you say it loud enough and in front of the right people, you’ll be quoted in the newspapers.
“You’ll say a lot of other things, too, none of them very original, but after a while this grousing period should wear off. That depends on you and what you do in the meantime. You can’t hold down a steady job for a while, but on the whole, you’re very lucky. You’ve got your arms and legs and your sight, enough money to keep going for a few months, and a college degree. About all I can do for you, Ferris, or for any of the rest, is to tell you what to expect and advise you to count your blessings. Don’t expect the key to the city; there aren’t enough to go around. And don’t expect that that little blonde that you treated one night to a chocolate soda at a drugstore in 1941 has been waiting five years for another chocolate soda. And don’t expect allowances to be made for you. That isn’t the way the world is made. A couple of million years ago no allowances were made for the fact that the dinosaur had too small a brain for his body. The dinosaur is extinct.” He smiled. “And a damn good thing it is, too. Well, okay, Ferris. Good-bye and good luck to you.”
They shook hands and the doctor went with him to the door. Before Steve left he heard the doctor beginning the same speech all over again with a different name: “Well, Meldrom, we’ve got you on your feet again...”
Steve finished his coffee and thought, it was a good speech. He wondered why it disturbed him to picture the doctor giving it over and over again, day after day: “Well, Smith, we’ve got you on your feet again...” “Well, McMahon...” “Well, Gilmore...”
Meldrom, Smith, McMahon, Gilmore, Ferris. Thousands of them, and Ferris no better than the rest, no more important. A very ordinary man with no special case of the jinx; not even worthy of extinction, like the dinosaurs.
He wasn’t special. That idea required some adjustment, but it was comforting, too.
He called for his check. The inertia that came and went suddenly and without apparent cause had disappeared. When he went out into the street again, he walked briskly, like a man with a destination.
He didn’t return to the hotel until after dinner. Though he’d been alone all day and hadn’t done anything important, he had the false contentment that fills the lull between decision and execution: I have decided, so I shall rest up today and act tomorrow.
He went through the lobby and paused at the entrance to the bar, his eyes wandering over the crowd. The tables were all filled and people were lined up two-deep at the bar. Under the dim lights they seemed a fine and merry crowd, but they were all talking at once and no one was listening. Their voices were high, desperate, confused, as if each one of them realized that he had so little time in this world that he couldn’t spend a second of it on anyone but himself.
“Chaos.” A voice spoke softly behind him. “A sort of cozy chaos, isn’t it?”
Steve turned. A thin, middle-aged man was standing a couple of feet behind him gazing at the people over Steve’s shoulder with cynical interest.
“Sorry. I seem to be blocking the entrance,” Steve said.
“That’s all right. Crowded, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t you used to be a court reporter on one of the papers?”
“The Star,” Steve said.
“Been away, haven’t you?”
“For a while.”
“If you’re looking for a place to sit, I’ve got a table back there. Come and have a beer.”
There was no special reason to refuse, though he didn’t recognize the man. “Thanks, I will.”
“You’re name’s Ferris, I remember now,” the man said, narrowing his eyes. “You reported one of my cases. You got a byline on it.”
“I remember,” Steve lied. “I’ve forgotten your name, though.”
“Smith.”
They shook hands without enthusiasm. Then Smith led the way back to the booth. He had a cautious way of moving; he seemed to compress himself into the smallest possible space, his shoulders hunched together, his hands in his pockets. It was the walk of a man who had learned by experience to distrust not only the people around him but the very floor he walked on.
They sat down and Smith said, “What’ll you have?”
“Van Merritt.”
“Two Van Merritt,” he told the waiter. He settled back with a faint sigh. “I’m glad I ran into you. I felt conspicuous sitting here alone, and I prefer not to be, right now.”
“Working?”
“Keeping an eye on an old friend of mine. I don’t want him to notice me for a while.” The beer arrived and Smith drank a full glass before he spoke again. “Do you see the lieutenant over there on the left side of the bar arguing with his wife?”
Steve looked. The lieutenant was a broad, handsome man with clipped grey hair and an authoritative manner. The woman with him was short and plump. She wore a tight black dress and a great deal of jewelry that looked expensive. Her eyes were fixed glassily on the man as he talked.
“What about them?” Steve asked.
“I’m waiting to find out what they do next.”
“Why?”
“Because the uniform isn’t his, and unfortunately, neither is the wife. The lady’s real husband is very cut up about the whole thing.” Smith smiled in anticipation of his own joke. “Literally. He’s in an accident ward out at Western Hospital. When he’s conscious he claims his wife didn’t have a thing to do with knifing him. But it’s pretty clear from what he says in delirium that she did it, all right.”
Steve couldn’t resist another glance at the plump woman. “It seems incredible,” he said.
“Violence usually does, to the outsider. What makes the whole affair more poignant is that she doesn’t know her lieutenant is a phony and the phony lieutenant doesn’t know she used a knife on her husband. At least, he didn’t know an hour ago, but judging from the way his jaw is working now I figure she’s told him and he doesn’t like the idea. Wearing a uniform illegally is a few degrees removed from attempted homicide, so he’s probably informing the lady that this is where he came in.”