Bradbury, Ray - SSC 11 (35 page)

 
          
 
Nolan ran.

 
          
 
Timulty pointed. "While Hoolihan here,
having already gone through all Foiu" Provinces of the pub this night, is
amply weighted. Even all!"

 
          
 
"Go now, Hoolihan," said Fogarty.
"Let our money be a light burden on you. We'll see you bursting out that
exit five minutes from now, victorious and first!"

 
          
 
"Let's synchronize watches!" said
Clancy.

 
          
 
"Synchronize my back-behind," said
Timulty. '"Which of us has more than dirty wrists to stare at? It's you
alone, Clancy, has the time. Hoolihan, inside!"

 
          
 
Hoolihan shook hands with us all, as if
leaving for a trip around the world. Then, waving, he vanished into the cinema
darkness.

 
          
 
At which moment, Nolan burst back out, holding
high the half-empty flask. "Doone's handicapped!"

 
          
 
"Fine! Clannery, go check the
contestants, be sure they sit opposite each other in the fourth row, as agreed,
caps on, coats half buttoned, scarves properly furled. Report back to me."

 
          
 
Clannery ran into the dark.

 
          
 
"The usher, the ticket taker?" I
said.

 
          
 
"Are inside, watching the fillum,"
said Timulty. "So much standing is hard on the feet. They won't
interfere."

 
          
 
"It's ten-thirteen," announced
Clancy. "In two more minutes—"

 
          
 
"Post time," I said.

 
          
 
"You're a dear lad," admitted
Timulty.

 
          
 
Clannery came hot-footing out.

 
          
 
"All set! In the right seats and
everything!"

 
          
 
" 'Tis almost over! You can tell—toward
the end of any fillum the music has a way of getting out of hand."

 
          
 
"It's loud, all right," agreed
Clannery. "Full orchestra and chorus behind the singing maid now. I must
come tomorrow for the entirety. Lovely."

 
          
 
"Is it?" said Clancy, and the
others.

 
          
 
"What's the tune?"

 
          
 
"Ah, off with the tune!" said
Timulty. "One minute to go and you ask the tune! Lay the bets. Who's for
Doone? Who Hoolihan?" There was a multitudinous jabbering and passing back
and forth of money, mostly shillings.

 
          
 
I held out four shillings.

 
          
 
"Doone," I said.

 
          
 
"Without having seen him?"

 
          
 
"A dark horse," I whispered.

 
          
 
"Well said!" Timulty spun about.
"Clannery, Nolan, inside, as aisle judges! Watch sharp there's no jumping
the FINIS."

 
          
 
In went Clannery and Nolan, happy as boys.

 
          
 
"Make an aisle, now. Mr. Douglas, you
over here with me!"

 
          
 
The men rushed to form an aisle on each side
of the two closed main entrance-exit doors.

 
          
 
"Fogarty, lay your ear to the door!"

 
          
 
This Fogarty did. His eyes widened.

 
          
 
"The damn music is extra loud!"

 
          
 
One of the Kelly boys nudged his brother.
"It will be over soon. Whoever is to die is dying this moment. Whoever is
to live is bending over him."

 
          
 
"Louder still!" announced Fogarty,
head up against the door panel, hands twitching as if he were adjusting a radio.

           
 
"There! That's the grand ta-ta for sure
that comes just as FINIS or THE END jumps on the screen.”

 
          
 
"They're off!" I murmured.

 
          
 
"Stand!" said Timulty.

 
          
 
We all stared at the door.

 
          
 
"There's the anthem!"

 
          
 
" Tenshun!"

 
          
 
We all stood erect. Someone saluted.

 
          
 
But still we stared at the door.

 
          
 
"I hear feet running," said Fogarty.

 
          
 
"Whoever it is had a good start before
the anthem—"

 
          
 
The door burst wide.

 
          
 
Hoolihan plunged to view, smiling such a smile
as only breathless victors know.

 
          
 
"Hoolihan!" cried the winners.

 
          
 
"Doone!" cried the losers.
"Where's Doone?"

 
          
 
For, while Hoolihan was first, a competitor
was lacking.

 
          
 
The crowd was dispersing into the street now.

 
          
 
"The idiot didn't come out the wrong
door?"

 
          
 
We waited. The crowd was soon gone.

 
          
 
Timulty ventured first into the empty lobby.

 
          
 
"Doone?"

 
          
 
No one there.

 
          
 
"Could it be he's in there?'*

 
          
 
Someone flung the men's room door wide.
"Doone?"

 
          
 
No echo, no answer.

 
          
 
"Good grief," cried Timulty,
"it can't be he's broken a leg and lies on the slope somewhere with the
mortal agonies?"

 
          
 
"That's it!"

 
          
 
The island of men, heaving one way, changed
gravities and heaved the other, toward the inner door, through it, and down the
aisle, myself following.

 
          
 
"Doone!"

 
          
 
Clannery and Nolan were there to meet us and
pointed silently down. I jumped into the air twice to see over the mob's head.
It was dim in the vast theater. I saw nothing.

 
          
 
"Doone!"

 
          
 
Then at last we were bunched together near the
fourth row on the aisle. I heard their boggled exclamations as they saw what I
saw:

 
          
 
Doone, still seated in the fourth row on the
aisle, his hands folded, his eyes shut.

           
 
Dead?

 
          
 
None of that

 
          
 
A tear, large, luminous and beautiful, fell on
his cheek. Another tear, larger and more lustrous, emerged from his other eye.
His chin was wet. It was certain he had been crying for some minutes.

 
          
 
The men peered into his face, circling,
leaning.

 
          
 
"Doone, are ya sick?"

 
          
 
"Is it fearful news?"

 
          
 
"Ah, God," cried Doone. He shook
himself to find the strength, somehow, to speak.

 
          
 
"Ah, God," he said at last,
"she has the voice of an angel."

 
          
 
"Angel?"

 
          
 
“That one up there." He nodded.

 
          
 
They turned to stare at the empty silver
screen.

 
          
 
"Is it Deanna Durbin?"

 
          
 
Doone sobbed. "The dear dead voice of my
grandmother come back—"

 
          
 
"Your grandma's behind!" exclaimed
Timulty. "She had no such voice as that!"

 
          
 
"And who's to know, save me?" Doone
blew his nose, dabbed at his eyes.

 
          
 
"You mean to say it was just the Durbin lass
kept you from the sprint?"

 
          
 
"Just!" said Doone. "Just! Why,
it would be sacrilege to bound from a cinema after a recital like that. You
might also then jump full tilt across the altar during a wedding, or waltz
about at a funeral."

 
          
 
"You could've at least warned us it was
no contest" Timulty glared.

 
          
 
"How could I? It just crept over me in a
divine sickness. That last bit she sang. The Lovely Isle of Innisfree,' was it
not, Qannery?"

 
          
 
"What else did she sing?" asked
Fogarty.

 
          
 
“What else did she sing?" cried Timulty.
"He's just lost half of us our day's wages and you ask what else she sang!
Get off!"

 
          
 
"Sure, it's money runs the world,"
Doone agreed, seated there, closing up his eyes. "But it is music that
holds down the friction."

 
          
 
"What's going on there?" cried
someone above.

 
          
 
A man leaned down from the balcony, puffing a
cigarette. "What's all the rouse?"

           
 
"It's the projectionist," whispered
Timulty. Aloud: "Hello, Phil, darling! It's only the Team! We've a bit of
a problem here, Phil, in ethics, not to say aesthetics. Now, we wonder if,
well, could it be possible to run the anthem over.”

 
          
 
"Run it over?"

 
          
 
There was a rumble from the winners, a mixing
and shoving of elbows.

 
          
 
"A lovely idea," said Doone.

 
          
 
"It is," said Timulty, all guile.
"An act of God incapacitated Doone."

 
          
 
"A tenth-run flicker from the year 1937
caught him by the short hairs is all," said Fogarty.

 
          
 
"So the fair thing is—" here
Timulty, unperturbed, looked to heaven— "Phil, dear boy, also is the last
reel of the Deanna Durbin fillum still there?"

 
          
 
"It ain't in the ladies' room," said
Phil, smoking steadily.

 
          
 
"What a wit the boy has. Now, Phil, do
you think you could just thread it back through the machine there and give us
the FINIS again?"

 
          
 
"Is that what you all want?" asked
Phil.

 
          
 
There was a hard moment of indecision. But the
thought of another contest was too good to be passed, even though already-won
money was at stake. Slowly everyone nodded.

 
          
 
"I'll bet myself, then," Phil called
down. "A shilling on Hoolihan!"