The Shrinking Man (8 page)

He’d been running since it had all started. Running physically, from the man and the boys and the cat and the bird and the spider, and—a far worse kind of flight—running mentally. Running from life, from his problems and his fears; retreating, backtracking, facing nothing, yielding, giving in, surrendering.

He still lived, but was his living considered, or only an instinctive survival? Yes, he still struggled for food and water, but wasn’t that inevitable if he chose to go on living? What he wanted to know was this: Was he a separate, meaningful person; was he an individual? Did he matter? Was it enough just to survive?

He didn’t know; he didn’t know. It might be that he was a man and trying to face reality. It might also be that he was a pathetic fraction of a shadow, living only out of habit, impulse-driven, moved but never moving, fought but never fighting.

He didn’t know. He slept, curled up and shivering, no bigger than a pearl, and he didn’t know.

He stood up and listened carefully. The cellar was still. The spider must have gone. Surely, if it were still intent on killing him, it would have ventured into the carton again. He must have been asleep for hours.

He grimaced, swallowed, as he realized that his throat hurt again. He was thirsty, hungry. Did he dare go back to the water heater? He blew out a hissing breath. There was no question. It had to be done.

He felt around until his hands closed over the thick, icy shaft of the pin. He picked it up. It was heavy. Amazing that he had been able to handle it so well. Fright, probably. He lifted the pin in both hands, then shifted it to his right side and held it there. It dragged at his arm muscles as he climbed out of the sewing box and moved up the shifting hill of clothes toward the opening in the side of the carton. If the spider appeared, he could easily grab the pin with both hands and use it as he had before. It gave him the first definite sense of physical security he had had in weeks.

At the opening, he leaned out cautiously, looking up first, then sideways, and finally down. The spider was not to be seen. His breathing eased a little. He slid the pin out through the opening, then, after letting it dangle a moment, dropped it. It clanged on the floor and rolled a few feet before stopping. Hastily he slid out of the carton and let himself drop. As he landed, the water pump began its chugging wheeze, making him jump to the pin, grab it up, and hold it poised as if to ward off attack.

There was no attack. He lowered the gleaming spear and shifted it to his side again, then began walking across the floor toward the water heater.

He moved out from beneath the mountainous shadow of the fuel
tank into the grayish light of late afternoon. The rain had stopped. Out beyond the filmed windows was Utter stillness. He walked by the vast lawn-mower wheels, glancing up warily to see if the spider were crouching up there.

Now he was on the open floor. He began the short hike to the water heater. His eyes went to the refrigerator, and in his mind he saw the newspaper up there, and he endured again the agony of the photographer’s invasion of his home. They had posed him in his old shoes, which were five sizes too large, and Berg said, “Look like ya was rememberin’ when ya could wear ’em, Scotty.” Then they posed him beside Beth, beside Lou, beside a hanging suit of his old clothes; standing beside the tape measure, Hammer’s big, disembodied hand sticking out from the edge of the photograph, pointing at the proper mark; being examined by the doctors appointed by the
Globe-Post
. His case history had been rehashed for a million readers, while he suffered a new mental torture each day, thrashing in bed at night, telling himself that he was going to break the contract he’d signed whether they needed the money or not, whether Lou hated him for it or not.

He had gone on with it anyway.

And the offers came in. Offers for radio and television and stage and night-club appearances, for articles in all kinds of magazines except the better ones, for syndication of the
Globe-Post
series. People started to gather outside the apartment, staring at him, even asking for his autograph. Religious fanatics exhorted him, in person and by mail, to join their saving cults. Obscene letters arrived from weirdly frustrated women—and men.

His face was blank and unmoving as he reached the concrete block. He stood there a moment, still thinking of the past. Then he refocused his eyes and started, realizing that the spider might be up there waiting to spring.

Slowly he climbed the block, pin always ready for use if necessary. He peered over the edge of the block. His sleeping place was empty.

With a sigh, he slung the pin over the edge and watched it roll to a stop against his bed. Then he climbed down again for the crackers.

After three trips he had all the cracker bits in a pile beside his bed. He sat there crunching on a fist-sized piece, wishing he had some water. He didn’t dare go down to the pump, though; it was getting dark, and even the pin was not enough assurance in the dark.

When he’d finished eating, he dragged the box top over his bed, then sank back on the sponge with a soft groan. He was still exhausted. The nap in the carton had done little to refresh him.

He remembered and, reaching around, he searched for the wood and charcoal. Finding them, he scratched a careless stroke. It would probably cross another stroke, but that hardly mattered. Chronology became less of a concern each day. There was Wednesday and there was Thursday, there were Friday and Saturday.

Then nothing.

He shuddered in the darkness. Like death, his fate was impossible to conceive. No, even worse than death. Death, at least, was a concept; it was a part of life, however strangely unknown. But who had ever shrunk into nothingness?

He rolled on his side and propped his head on an arm. If only he could tell someone what he felt. If only he could be with Lou; see her, touch her. Yes, even if she didn’t know it, it would be a comfort. But he was alone.

He thought again of the newspaper stories, and of how sick it had made him to become a spectacle, how it had driven him into nerve-screaming wrath, making him maniacal with fury against his plight.

Until, at the peak of that fury, he had sped to the city and told the paper he was breaking his contract, and stormed away in a palsy of hatred.

42″

Two miles beyond Baldwin, a tire blew out with a crack like the blast of a shotgun.

Gasping, Scott froze to the wheel as the Ford lurched off balance, scouring wide tire marks across the pavement. It took all the strength in his arms to keep the car from ramming the center wall. The steering wheel shuddered in his grip, he guided the car off the highway.

Fifty yards farther on, he braked the car and twisted off the ignition. He sat there for a moment, wordless, glaring straight ahead with baleful eyes. His hands were white-ridged fists quivering in his lap.

At last he spoke. “Oh, you son-of-a—” Fury sent a jolting shudder down his back.

“Go ahead,” he said, rage crouching behind the patience of his
tone. “Go ahead, pour it on. Sure. Go ahead; why not?” His teeth clicked together. “Don’t just stop with a flat tire, though,” he said, words thumping at the closed gates of his teeth. “Kill the generator. Tear out the spark plugs. Split the radiator. Blow up the whole goddamn son-of-a-bitch car!” Apoplectic rage sprayed across the windshield.

He thudded back against the seat, spent, his eyes shut.

After a few minutes, he pulled up the door handle and pushed the door open. Cold air rushed over him. Drawing up the collar of his topcoat, he shifted his legs and slid down off the raised seat.

He landed on gravel, spilling forward, hands out for support. He got up quickly, cursing, and fired a stone across the highway. With my luck it’ll break a car window and put out an old lady’s eye! he thought furiously. With my luck.

He stood shivering, looking at his car, hunched blackly over the collapsed tire. Great, he thought, just great. How in the hell was he supposed to change it? His teeth gritted. He wasn’t even strong enough for
that
. And, of course, Terry couldn’t watch the children today and Lou had to stay home. It figured.

A spasm shook him beneath the topcoat. It was cold. Cold on a May night. Even that figured. Even the weather was against him. He closed his eyes. I’m ready for a padded cell, he thought.

Well, he couldn’t just stand there. He had to get to a phone and call a garage.

He didn’t move. He stared at the road. And after I call the garage, he thought, the mechanic will come and he’ll talk to me and look at me and recognize me; and there’ll be guarded stares, or maybe even open ones, the kind Berg always gave him—blunt, insulting stares that seemed to say, Jesus, you
are
a creep. And there would be talk, questions, the kind of withdrawn camaraderie a normal man offers to a freak.

His throat muscles drew in slowly as he swallowed. Even rage was preferable to this; this complete negation of spirit. Rage, at least, was struggle, it was a moving forward against something. This was defeat, static and heavy on him.

Weary breath emptied from him. Well, there was no other way. He had to get home. He might have called Marty under any other circumstances; but he felt awkward about Marty now.

He slid his hands into the slash pockets of his coat and started trudging along the roadside gravel.

I don’t care, he kept telling himself as he walked. I don’t care if I
did
sign a contract. I’m tired of playing guinea pig for a million readers.

He walked on quickly in his little-boy clothes.

Moments later, headlight beams bleached across him and he stepped farther away from the road and kept on walking. He certainly wasn’t going to try to get a ride.

The dark car hulk rolled past him. Then there was a slowing of the tires on the pavement and, looking up, Scott saw that the car was stopping. His mouth tightened. I’d rather walk. He formed the words with his lips, getting them ready.

The door shoved open and a fedora-topped head appeared.

“You alone, my boy?” the man asked huskily. The words came out from one side of his mouth. The other side was plugged with a half-smoked cigar.

Scott trudged toward the car. Maybe it was all right; the man thought he was a boy. He might have expected it. Hadn’t they refused to let him in the movie one afternoon because he wasn’t accompanied by an adult? Hadn’t he been forced to show his identification before that bartender would serve him a drink?

“You alone, young fellow?” the man asked again.

“Just walking home,” Scott said.

“Have you far to go?” An intelligent voice, somewhat thickened. Scott saw the man’s head bobbing. So much the better, he thought.

“Just to the next town,” he said. “Could you give me a ride, mister?” Deliberately he raised the already raised pitch of his voice.

“Certainly, my boy, certainly,” the man said. “Just climb aboard and it’s bon-voy-
age
for you and me and Plymouth, vintage fifty-five.” His head drew in like that of a startled turtle. It disappeared into the shell of his car.

“Thanks, mister.” It was a form of masochism, Scott knew, this playing the role of boy to its very hilt. He stood outside the car until the heavy-set man had pushed up awkwardly and was sitting behind the steering wheel again. Then he slid onto the seat.

“Just sit right here, my boy, just—Caution!”

Scott jumped up as he sat on the man’s thick hand. The man drew it away, held it before his eyes.

“You have injured the member, my boy,” he said. “Wreaked havoc to the knuckles. Eh?” the man’s chuckle was liquid, as if it came up through a throatful of water.

Scott’s smile was nervously automatic as he sat down again. The car reeked of whisky and cigar smoke. He coughed into his hand.

“Anchors, so be it, Od’s blood, aweigh,” the man declared. He tapped down the shift to drive position and the car jerked a little, then rolled forward.
“Fermez la porte
, dear boy,
fermez la
goddam
porte
.”

“I have,” Scott told him.

The man looked over as if he were delighted. “You understand French, my boy. An excellent boy, a most seemly boy. Your health, sir.”

Scott smiled thinly to himself. He wished he were drunk too. But a whole afternoon drinking in a darkened bar-room booth had done nothing to him at all.

“You reside in this humid land, my boy?” the heavy man asked. He began slapping himself about the chest.

“In the next town,” Scott said.

“In the next town, the following city,” the man said, still slapping at himself. “In the adjacent village, the juxtaposed hamlet. Ah,
Hamlet
. To be or not to be, that is the—God damn it’s a match. My kingdom for a match!” He belched. It was like a drawn-out leopard growl.

“Use the dashboard lighter,” Scott said, hoping to get both of the man’s unsteady hands back on the wheel.

The man looked over, apparently astounded. “A brilliant boy,” he said. “An analytic fellow. By God, I love an analytic fellow.” His bubbly chuckle rippled in the stale-smelling car.
“Mon dieu
.”

Scott tensed suddenly as the heavy man leaned over, ignoring the highway. The man knocked in the lighter, then straightened up again, his shoulder brushing Scott’s.

“So you live in the next town,
mon cher,”
he said. “This is… fascinating news.” Another leopard-growl belch. “Dinner with old Vincent,” said the man. “Old Vincent.” The sound that came from his throat might have indicated amusement. It might, as well, have indicated the onset of strangulation. “Old Vincent,” said the heavy man sadly.

The cigarette lighter popped out and he snatched it from its electric
cavity. Scott glanced aside as the man relit his dark-tipped cigar.

The man’s head was leonine beneath the wide-brimmed fedora. Glows of light washed his face. Scott saw bushy eyebrows like awnings over the man’s darkly glittering eyes. He saw a puffy-nostriled nose, a long, thick-lipped mouth. It was the face of a sly boy peering out through rolls of dough.