Part 14 (2/2)

I went home several times, but Alma was carrying on just nicely without me. Carrying on was the word. I would never have thought Alma could do it, particularly with the weight she had put on the past few years...but there he was.

George Rames. My boss. I corrected myself...my exboss.

So I felt no real duty to home and wife.

Alma had the house and she had Zasu. And, it appeared, she had George Rames. That fat oaf!

By the end of two weeks, I was a wreck. I was unshaved, and dirty, but who cared? Who could see me...or would have cared had they been able to!

My original belligerence had turned into a more concrete antagonism toward everyone.

Unsuspecting people in the streets were pummeled by me as I pa.s.sed, should the inclination strike me. I kicked women and slapped children...I was indifferent to the moans and cries of those I struck. What was their pain compared to my pain-especially when none of them cried. It was all in my mind. I actually craved a scream or whine from one of them. For such an evidence of pain would have been a reminder that I was in their ken, that at least I existed.

But no such sound came.

Two weeks? h.e.l.l! Paradise Lost!

It was a little over two weeks from the day Zasu had snubbed me, and I had more or less made my home in the lobby of the St. Moritz-On-The-Park. I was lying there on a couch, with a hat I had borrowed from a pa.s.ser-by over my eyes, when that animal urge to strike out overcame me. I swung my legs down, and shoved the hat back on my head. I saw a man in a trenchcoat leaning against the cigar counter, reading a newspaper and chuckling to himself. That cruddy dog, I thought, what the h.e.l.l is he laughing about?

It so infuriated me, I got up and lunged at him. He saw me coming, and sidestepped. I, of course, expected him to go right on reading, even when I swung on him, and his movement took me by surprise. I went into the cigar case and it caught me in the stomach, knocking the wind from me.

”Ah-ah, buddy,” the man in the trenchcoat chastised me, waggling a lean finger in my face, ”now that isn't polite at all, is it? To hit a man who can't even see you.”

He took me by the collar and the seat of my pants and threw me across the lobby. I went flailing through a rack of picture postcards, and landed on my stomach. I slid across the polished floor and brought up against the revolving door.

I didn't even feel the pain. I sat up, there on the floor, and looked at him. He stood there with his hands on his hips, laughing uproariously at me. I stared, and my mouth dropped open. I was speechless.

”Catching flies, buddy?”

I was so amazed, I left my mouth open.

”Y-you, you can see me!” I caroled. ”You can see me!”

He gave a rueful little snort, and turned away. ”Of course I can.” He started to walk away, then stopped and tossed over his shoulder, ”You don't think I'm one of them, do you?” He crooked his thumb at the people rus.h.i.+ng about in the lobby.

It had never dawned on me.

I had thought I was alone in this thing.

But here was another, just like me!

Not for a second did I consider the possibility that he could see me where the others could not, and still be a part of their world. It was apparent from the moment he threw me across the lobby that he was in the same predicament I was. But somehow, he seemed more at ease about it all. As though this was one great party, and he the host.

He started to walk away.

I scrambled to my feet as he was pressing the b.u.t.ton for the elevator, wondering why he was doing that. The elevator couldn't stop for him if it was human-operated, as I'd seen it was.

”Uh, hey! Wait a minute there-”

The elevator came down, and an old man with baggy pants was running it. ”I was on six, Mr. Jim.

Heard it and come right down.”

The old man smiled at the man in the trenchcoat-Jim it was-and Jim clapped him on the shoulder.

”Thanks, Denny. I'd like to go up to my room.”

I started after them, but Jim gave Denny a nudge, and inclined his head in my direction, with a disgusted expression on his face. ”Up, Denny,” he said.

The elevator doors started to close. I ran up.

”Hey! Wait a second. My name is Winsocki. Albert Winsocki, like in the song, you know, buckle down Win-”

The doors almost closed on my nose.

I was frantic. The only other person (persons, I realized with a start) who could see me, and they were going away... I might search and never find them.

I was so frantic, in fact, I almost missed the easiest way to trace them. I looked up and the floor indicator arrow was going up, up, up to stop at the tenth floor. I waited till another elevator came down, with the ones who could not see me in it, and tossed out the operator...and took it up myself.

I had to search all through the corridors of the tenth floor till I heard his voice through a door, talking to the old man.

He was saying, ”One of the newer ones, Denny. A boor, a completely obnoxious lower form of life.”

And Denny replied, ”Chee, Mr. Jim, I just like to sit an' hear ya talk. Wit' all them college words.

I was real unhappy till you come along, ya know?”

”Yes, Denny, I know.” It was a condescending tone of voice if ever I'd heard one.

I knew he'd never open the door, so I went looking for the maid from that floor. She had her ring of keys in her ap.r.o.n, and never even noticed me taking them. I started back for the room, and stopped.

I thought a moment, and ran back to the elevator. I went downstairs, and climbed into the booth where the bills were paid, where all the cash was stored. I found what I was after in one of the till drawers.

I shoved it into my coat pocket, and went back upstairs.

At the door I hesitated. Yes, I could still hear them babbling. I used the master key to get inside.

When I threw open the door, the man named Jim leaped from the bed and glared at me. ”What are you doing in here? Get out at once, or I shall throw you out!” He started toward me.

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