The first test, the Milton examination, was on Tuesday morning, May twenty-fourth. He had glossed over the notes for every subject he’d studied that semester. He had done that last week, as a part of his habitual study pattern. The notes lay on his unconscious like a group of light sleepers. He was now applying the insistent ring of an alarm clock to these uneasy slumberers. This was Sunday night — no, really Monday morning already. He would thoroughly digest the Milton notes by the end of the day. He would then purify his mind by forgetting the examination and the preparation for it. He would do that by reading a detective story or by going out to see a picture about the Foreign Legion. On Tuesday morning at nine o’clock he would enter the examination room without any notebooks, without even thinking about the exam. He would wait until the proctor passed out the booklets, and he would then fill his fountain pen from the small bottle of ink he would carry to the test, and he would not even begin thinking about the exam until the question sheet was placed face down on his desk by the proctor. When the proctor gave the signal to begin, he would turn over the sheet, and the notes he’d memorized would leap into his consciousness, ready for use. That was the way his system worked, and it had worked well for him thus far. He had no reason to believe it would not work again. He would pass Milton. He would pass all his subjects. He would graduate next semester, a college man who’d made it in three and a half years instead of the more usual four.
After the Milton exam, he had a test Wednesday afternoon, another on Friday morning, and two more on the following Monday. That meant study on Tuesday after the Milton exam, and rest on Tuesday night in preparation for the Wednesday afternoon test. He was not worried. For now there was only Milton to worry about, only Milton to shake out of slumber.
The circle of light aided his concentration. It provided a glaring, merciless ring within which his mind and his body were entrapped. He studied with relish, proud of his memorizing abilities, pleased with the way the notes fell into place. He stopped occasionally, going back to the beginning, silently reeling off everything he’d already memorized. It was going well. He would have it down pat in a few hours, and then he’d hit the sack and relax, putting it all out of his conscious mind.
The scream intruded stridently on his concentration. It was a scream from another planet in another universe, and it took him several moments to realize that the scream had phonetic body and shape. It was a hollow scream, an empty scream, but the scream was a word, and the word was “Helen!”
And then, like an echoed moan in a subterranean torture chamber, the scream came again, and again.
“Helen! Helen! Helen!”
He shoved back his chair, his hackles rising. He whirled abruptly, as if to face an intruder with a shotgun. Andy was sitting up in bed staring into the blackness beyond the circle of light on the table. No sound came from his mouth now. He sat tensed, his knees forming a tent of the sheet, his arms straight behind him, elbows locked, staring into the darkness.
“What is it?” Bud asked. He did not move from the table. He seemed incapable of movement. He looked at Andy, and he wet his lips, and Andy continued staring into the blackness, saying nothing, shaking his head.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Andy said. The word was a parched whisper.
“Can I... can I get you something?”
“No, it’s all right.”
He went to the sofa and flicked on the end-table light. Andy blinked his eyes and then shook his head again.
“I was dreaming,” he said. He wiped the palm of one hand across his eyes. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“Can I get you a glass of water or something?”
“No, no, nothing.” He wiped his eyes again. “I’ve... I’ve got to get up. I don’t feel so hot.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Where’s... where’s the john?”
“Around there, near the kitchen. Come on, I’ll help you.”
“No, go back to your studying. Jesus, I’m sorry about this, Bud. You’ve no idea how—”
“Forget it. Come on.”
He helped Andy out of bed and then brought him to the bathroom.
“You’d better go,” Andy said.
“I’ll stay.”
“No, please go. I’m... I’m not proud when I do this. Please go.”
“All right.”
He went back into the other room, hearing the silence of the apartment, and then hearing Andy in the bathroom, the sound grating on his nerves. He tried to shut out the sound until finally it was all over, and he heard the sound of the water tap replacing the other sick ugly sound. When Andy came out of the bathroom, he was pale and weak-looking. He smiled wanly and said, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right.” Bud paused. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” Andy said.
“Would you like a cigarette?”
“No, I’d better not. I’m all right now. Go ahead, Bud, do your work. Jesus, I didn’t mean to be a pest.”
“The work can wait. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” He squeezed his eyes shut and opened his mouth, sucking in a deep breath of air. “If you only knew how much I wanted—” He cut himself short.
“What, Andy?”
“A fix,” he said. “Oh, God, how I want a fix!”
“Well...”
“No, don’t worry. I haven’t got any. Besides, I’m going to shake it this time. You don’t have to worry. But, Jesus, how I want it, oh, sweet suffering Jesus, how I want it! I’d cut off my arm for it right now, do you know that? I’d cut off my arm and sell the bleeding stump for it, can you believe that?”
“Is it that bad?” Bud asked.
“It’s bad, all right. Not my body, you understand. I think I’ve shaken that. I mean, my body doesn’t scream for it any more. When your body is screaming for it, you’ll do anything. You can’t imagine half the things I did to get the stuff. Filthy things, Bud, things I’m ashamed of now, but they didn’t seem filthy then, they seemed all right then when every goddamn muscle was yelling for the junk. Oh, Jesus, how’d I ever get started, how the hell did I ever get started?”
“Well, that’s all gone now,” Bud said weakly.
“From my body, yes. It’s still up here, though, right up here.” He tapped his temple with his forefinger. “It’ll always be up here. And that’s where it hurts most. You begin thinking, What the hell am I going through this hell for? Why am I putting up with the yawning and the sneezing and the aches and pains and the throwing up my guts? Isn’t it easier just to take a shot? What’s so bad about it, anyway? It’s a habit, all right, so it’s a habit. Smoking is a habit, too, isn’t it? So this habit costs a little more, but I’m healthy, ain’t I? It hasn’t made my hair fall out, and it hasn’t discolored my teeth — opium discolors your teeth, did you know that? — so why should I knock myself out? That’s what my mind keeps saying. And I keep remembering, too. I keep remembering what it’s like when you’re turned on. Euphoria and excitation, the medics call it, Bud. There’s nothing like it. You’re away from everything, everything, oh, Jesus, there are no problems, can you visualize that? You’re just up there someplace and everybody below is just nothing, nothing at all. You feel so wise, Buddy, oh, so wise, you feel the wisest in the world, and there’s nothing to bother you, nothing to touch you. You’ve got a nice warm cocoon around you, and the cocoon has a metal shell, and there’s nobody who can bust into that cocoon, nobody in the world. It’s all your own, and it’s the wildest because there’s music there, too, Bud, music you never hear anywhere else, high, crazy music, discord sometimes, and harmony that’s a little off, but you don’t know where it’s off, better than a bop chorus, because you can follow the chords in a bop chorus and you know the progression, but there’s no progression here, just this harmony that’s not harmony, and these colors that swim around.