It had always made me feel better to come here, back from the time I was kneehigh to a grasshopper. It was like coming out of the darkness into sunlight, out of a storm into calm. Like being lost and found again.
I got up and walked along the bookcases, and endless files of psychiatric literature, the bulky volumes of morbid psychology… Krafft-Ebing, Jung, Freud, Bleuler, Adolf Meyer, Kretschmer, Kraepelin… All the answers were here, out in the open where you could look at them. And no one was terrified or horrified. I came out of the place I was hiding in-that I always had to hide in-and began to breathe.
I took down a bound volume of one of the German periodicals and read a while. I put it back and took down one in French. I skimmed through an article in Spanish and another in Italian. I couldn't speak any of those languages worth a doggone, but I could understand 'em all. I'd just picked 'em up with Dad's help, just like I'd picked up some higher mathematics and physical chemistry and half a dozen other subjects.
Dad had wanted me to be a doctor, but he was afraid to have me go away to school so he'd done what he could for me at home. It used to irritate him, knowing what I had in my head, to hear me talking and acting like any other rube around town. But, in time, when he realized how bad I had the sickness, he even encouraged me to do it. That's what I was going to be; I was going to have to live and get along with rubes. I wasn't ever going to have anything but some safe, small job, and I'd have to act accordingly. If Dad could have swung anything else that paid a living, I wouldn't even have been as much as a deputy sheriff.
I fiddled around Dad's desk, working out a couple of problems in calculus just for the hell of it. Turning away from the desk, I looked at myself in the mirrored door of the laboratory.
I was still wearing my Stetson, shoved a little to the back of my head. I had on a kind of pinkish shirt and a black bow tie, and the pants of my blue serge suit were hitched up so as to catch on the tops of my Justin boots. Lean and wiry; a mouth that looked all set to drawl. A typical Western-country peace officer, that was me. Maybe friendlier looking than the average. Maybe a little cleaner cut. But on the whole typical.
That's what I was, and I couldn't change. Even if it was safe, I doubted if I could change. I'd pretended so long that I no longer had to.
"Lou…"
I jumped and whirled.
"Amy!" I gasped. "What in the-You shouldn't be here! Where-"
"Upstairs, waiting for you. Now, don't get excited, Lou. I slipped out after the folks went to sleep and you know them."
"But someone might-"
"No one did. I slipped down the alley. Aren't you glad?"
I wasn't, although I suppose I should have been. She didn't have the shape that Joyce did, but it was a big improvement over anything else around Central City. Except when she stuck her chin out and narrowed her eyes, like she was daring you to cross her, she was a mighty pretty girl.
"Well, sure," I said. "Sure, I'm glad. Let's go back up, huh?"
I followed her up the stairs and into my bedroom. She kicked off her shoes, tossed her coat on a chair with her other clothes, and flopped down backwards on the bed.
"My!" she said, after a moment; and her chin began to edge outward. "Such enthusiasm!"
"Oh," I said, giving my head a shake. "I'm sorry, Amy. I had something on my mind."
"S-something on your mind!" Her voice quavered. "I strip myself for him, I shed my decency and my clothes for him and h-he stands there with 'something' on his rn-mind!"
"Aw, now, honey. It's just that I wasn't expecting you, and-"
"No! And why should you? The way you avoid me and make excuses for not seeing me. If I had any pride left I'd-I'd-"
She buried her head in the pillow and began to sob, giving me an A-1 view of what was probably the second prettiest rear end in West Texas. I was pretty sure she was faking; I'd picked up a lot of pointers on women from Joyce. But I didn't dare give her the smacking she deserved. Instead I threw off my own clothes and crawled into bed with her, pulling her around facing me.
"Now, cut it out, honey," I said. "You know I've just been busy as a chigger at a picnic."
"I don't know it! I don't know anything of the kind! You don't want to be with me, that's what!"
"Why, that's plumb crazy, honey. Why wouldn't I want to?"
"B-because. Oh, Lou, darling, I've been so miserable…"
"Well, now that's a right foolish way to act, Amy," I said.
She went on whimpering about how miserable she'd been, and I went on holding her, listening-you got to do plenty of listening around Amy-and wondering how it had all started.
To tell the truth, I guess it hadn't started anywhere. We'd just drifted together like straws in a puddle. Our families had grown up together, and we'd grown up together, right here in this same block. We'd walked back and forth to school together, and when we went to parties we were paired off together. We hadn't needed to do anything. It was all done for us.
I suppose half the town, including her own folks, knew we were knocking off a little. But no one said anything or thought anything about it. After all we were going to get married… even if we were kind of taking our time.
"Lou!" she nudged me. "You aren't listening to me!"
"Why, sure, I am, honey."
"Well, answer me then."
"Not now," I said. "I've got something else on my mind, now."
"But… Oh, darling…"
I figured she'd been gabbing and nagging about nothing, as usual, and she'd forget about whatever I was supposed to answer. But it didn't work out that way. As soon as it was over and I'd reached her cigarettes for her, taking one for myself, she gave me another one of her looks and another, "Well, Lou?"
"I hardly know what to say," I said, which was exactly the case.
"You want to marry me, don't you?"
"Mar-but, sure," I said.
"I think we've waited long enough, Lou. I can go on teaching school. We'll get by a lot better than most couples."
"But… but that's all we'd do, Amy. We'd never get anywhere!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't want to go on being a deputy sheriff all of my life. I want to-well-be somebody."
"Like what, for example?"
"Oh, I don't know. There's no use in talking about it."
"A doctor, perhaps? I think that would be awfully nice. Is that what you had in mind, Lou?"
"I know it's crazy, Amy. But-"
She laughed. She rolled her head on the pillow, laughing. "Oh, Lou! I never heard of such a thing! You're twenty-nine years old, and y-you don't even speak good English, and-and-oh, ha, ha, ha…"
She laughed until she was gasping, and my cigarette burned down between my fingers and I never knew it until I smelled the scorching flesh.
"I'm s-sorry, darling. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but-Were you teasing me? Were you joking with your little Amy?"
"You know me," I said. "Lou the laughing boy."
She began to quiet down at the tone of my voice. She turned away from me and lay on her back, picking at the quilt with her fingers. I got up and found a cigar, and sat down on the bed again.
"You don't want to marry me, do you, Lou?"
"I don't think we should marry now, no."
"You don't want to marry me at all."
"I didn't say that."
She was silent for several minutes, but her face talked for her. I saw her eyes narrow and a mean little smile twist her lips, and I knew what she was thinking. I knew almost to a word what she was going to say.