Evan Hunter
Second Ending
This is for my eldest son, Ted,
on his fifth birthday
For I have known them all already, known them all —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
The characters and incidents portrayed in this novel are entirely fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental and was not the author’s intention. The names “Club Stardust,” “Club Beguine,” and “The Dance Palace” were invented by the author, who knows of no existing establishments so named. Likewise, the church called “Our Merciful Father” does not, to the author’s knowledge, have a counterpart in real life.
Part One
1
The room was long and furnished with anonymity, a carbon copy of every other furnished room in New York City. There were two oversize windows at the far end of the room, opening on the brownstone front of the building and West Seventy-fourth Street. A long table which served as a desk rested before the windows. The windows were open now, and a mild spring breeze rustled the sheer curtains as he worked. The room owned a bed, and a sofa, and a chintz-covered butterfly chair, and a mantel and fireplace that had been bricked up many years ago. Opposite the windows, the room angled off sharply to enter into a kitchen and an adjoining toilet. There was nothing distinctive about either the room or its furnishings, except perhaps the two college pennants which hung one beneath the other between the long windows — the orange-and-black one from Princeton (the school he’d wanted to attend) and the lavender-and-white one from City College (the school he did attend).
He had trained himself to concentrate with the radio going, and this was a feat he usually accomplished except when he did not feel like concentrating, and he did not feel like concentrating tonight. He listened to the music, and he watched the fluid movement of the curtains, and he sniffed of the mild breeze, and for the fiftieth time that night he yanked his attention back to the notes.
Hell is a state of mind, the notes said — a statement he thoroughly agreed with at the moment. Milton converts state of mind to a place...
I’m getting groggy, he thought. I can’t tell Satan from Beelzebub without a score card. I don’t give a damn about either of them, and who cares whether or not Milton described the intimate habits of angels? Dr. Mason cares — that’s who, he thought. Dr. Mason cares deeply, and she’s searching for fellow aficionados.
When was the test, anyway?
It was important to know the date and the time of a test, wasn’t it? This could not be called procrastination. This was simply checking the facts. He flipped the spiral notebook closed, studied his own scrawling handwriting across the stiff cardboard-cover front. May 24, 1949 — 9:00 A.M. The 1949 was an affectation, an attempt to record the date of the test for posterity. Hell, everybody knew it was 1949. Or was that the way Dr. Mason had read off the date? Probably. Dr. Mason was a meticulous woman. Dr. Mason would brook no confusion concerning the date of a final exam. Dr. Mason would hear no excuses beginning “I thought it was 1950,” or “You didn’t make the year clear, Doctor.” No, no, Dr. Mason was a careful, careful scholar.
What had she said that time about Satan’s temptation attempt?
Now that had been a good one, and he couldn’t even remember which of the poems it had been in. The business about “Well, Jesus old boy, you’ve got to eat, you know.” And her brilliant reply: “You don’t have to eat!”
Well, not if you were Dr. Mason. Dr. Mason looked as if she didn’t eat much. She and the angels, back to the angels...
Where was I? he thought.
You were procrastinating, he further thought.
Ah, yes, procrastination. Did you know I’d written a pamphlet on the subject?
Come on, now, come on, let’s get back to the notes. Let’s not...
The phone rang.
He rose from the table and consulted the notes briefly, trying to commit a sentence to memory, thinking all he wanted for the course was a “C.” He was overcut, and a “D” would mean a flunk, and a flunk would mean a repeat next semester, and a repeat would throw his carefully planned three-and-a-half-year graduation schedule all out of whack. If Mason came up with a true-or-false or multiple-choice, he was saved. But knowing Mason, he was sure she’d drop some essay questions on their skulls, and good-by Milton, good-by graduation next semester — all right, all right, I’m coming.
He lifted the receiver. “Hello?” he said.
“Bud?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Carol.”
“Oh, hello, Carol. How are you?” He dropped into the butterfly chair and made himself comfortable.
“I’m fine, thanks. Were you busy?”
“No, no, just... no, I wasn’t busy. What is it?” He was sure they would be essay questions. In Areopagitica, discuss Milton’s views on the censorship of ideas, telling why you agree or disagree with those views. 80 per cent.
“Andy’s with me,” she said.
For the remaining 20 per cent, compare Samson Agonistes with Paradise Regained, using... “What did you say?” he asked.
“I said Andy’s with me.”
“Andy?” he said. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s here with me. Now.”
“Oh.” He was surprised, and he was unable for a moment to grasp the importance of what she’d just said. His head was full of notes for the impending examination, notes he had read and reread and still not understood. He had a long way to go before the notes would become a working part of his mind and...
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
“No. No, everything’s fine. Bud, he’s been off the stuff for a week now. And he’s got a job audition coming up. He... he looks fine.”
He wet his lips. “Is that right? Well, gee, that’s swell. Swell.”
“That’s why I’m calling you,” Carol said.
“I still don’t understand,” he told her.
“Well, he needs help, Bud.”
“Again?” he said sourly.
“No, he’s really sincere this time, Bud. He’s come a long way, believe me, and he doesn’t want to fall back now. He’s been with his folks for the past week, but he says they’re driving him crazy, and you know what happened last time.”
“Yes,” Bud said. He had begun tapping his foot impatiently, anticipating what was coming, and already figuring on a way of wiggling out of it.
“He doesn’t want to take a place near any of his old friends, either, for fear... well, they’ll find him wherever he is, Bud. You know that. It’s happened before. And if they... well, the point is, I was wondering... I know it’s a terrible imposition... but you do live alone, Bud — I mean you haven’t a roommate or anything — and he does need help, Bud, he really does, and this time he’s sincere about it all.”
“Is he under a doctor’s care?” Bud asked.
“No. You know how he feels about that. He—”
“A doctor is the only person who can help him,” Bud said, stalling for time. “When’s he going to realize that?”