Part 40 (2/2)
Hall held his breath for a moment, then let it out, slowly. As he relived the episode, he found that it was easier to stay awake. Much easier.
”That,” he said, ”was the end of the first dream. I woke up sweating and trembling, and thought about it most of the day, wondering where it had all come from. I'd only been to Venice Pier once in my life, with my mother. Years ago. But that night, just as it'd happened with the serials, the dream picked up exactly where it had left off. We were settling into the seat. Rough leather, cracked and peeling, I recall.
The grab bar iron, painted black, the paint rubbed away in the center.
”I tried to get out, thinking. Now's the time to do it; do it now or you'll be too late! But the girl held me, and whispered to me. We'd be together, she said. Close together. If I'd do this one thing for her, she'd belong to me. 'Please! Please!' Then the car started. A little jerk; the kids beginning to yell and scream; the _clack-clack_ of the chain pulling up; and up, slowly, too late now, too late for anything, up the steep wooden hill . . .”
”A third of the way to the top, with her holding me, pressing herself against me, I woke up again.
Next night, we went up a little farther. Foot by foot, slowly, up the hill. At the half-way point, the girl began kissing me. And laughing. 'Look down!' she told me. 'Look down, Philip!' And I did and saw little people and little cars and everything tiny and unreal.
”Finally we were within a few feet of the crest. The night was black and the wind was fast and cold now, and I was scared, so scared that I couldn't move. The girl laughed louder than ever, and a strange expression came into her eyes. I remembered then how no one else had noticed her. How the ticket-taker had taken the two stubs and looked around questioningly.
”Who are you?” I screamed. And she said, 'Don't you know?' And she stood up and pulled the grab-bar out of my hands. I leaned forward to get it.
”Then we reached the top. And I saw her face and I knew what she was going to do, instantly: I knew. I tried to get back in the seat, but I felt her hands on me then and I heard her voice, laughing, high, laughing and shrieking with delight, and--”
Hall smashed his fist against the wall, stopped and waited for calm to return.
When it did, he said, ”That's the whole thing, Doctor. Now you know why I don't care to go to sleep. When I do--and I'll have to, eventually; I realize that!--the dream will go on. And my heart won't take it!”
The psychiatrist pressed a b.u.t.ton on his desk.
”Whoever she is,” Hall went on, ”she'll push me. And I'll fall. Hundreds of feet. I'll see the cement rus.h.i.+ng up in a blur to meet me and I'll feel the first horrible pain of contact--”
There was a click.
The office door opened.
A girl walked in.
”Miss Thomas,” the psychiatrist began, ”I'd like you to--”
Philip Hall screamed. He stared at the girl in the white nurse's uniform and took a step backward.
”Oh, Christ! No!”
”Mr. Hall, this is my receptionist, Miss Thomas.”
”No,” Hall cried. ”It's her. It is. And I know who she is now, G.o.d save me! I know who she is!”The girl in the white uniform took a tentative step into the room.
Hall screamed again, threw his hands over his face, turned and tried to run.
A voice called, ”Stop him!”
Hall felt the sharp pain of the sill against his knee, realized in one hideous moment what was happening. Blindly he reached out, grasping. But it was too late. As if drawn by a giant force, he tumbled through the open window, out into the cold clean air.
”Hall!”
All the way down, all the long and endless way down past the thirteen floors to the gray, unyielding, hard concrete, his mind worked; and his eyes never closed . . .
”I'm afraid he's dead,” the psychiatrist said, removing his fingers from Hall's wrist.
The girl in the white uniform made a little gasping sound. ”But,” she said, ”only a minute ago, I saw him and he was--”
”I know. It's funny; when he came in, I told him to sit down. He did. And in less than two seconds he was asleep. Then he gave that yell you heard and . .
”Heart attack?”
”Yes.” The psychiatrist rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. ”Well,” he said. ”I guess there are worse ways to go. At least he died peacefully.”
Introduction to
THE CROOKED MAN.
by Robert Bloch
It's difficult for me to write objectively about a colleague who was also my friend. In order to do so I would need the skill, the intelligence and the perceptive insight of someone who ranks as a major talent.
Someone like Charles Beaumont.
Fortunately, there's no need for me to establish his creative credentials. The stories in this collection are proof of his professional prowess, along with his outstanding achievements in television and films.
Let me confine myself instead to our personal relations.h.i.+p. I was never privileged to count myself a close companion of this remarkable man, but during the latter years of his life our paths crossed constantly, and for this I am truly grateful.
When I came out to Hollywood, late in 1 959, 1 was a lowly apprentice as a scriptwriter, while Chuck had already begun his spectacular rise. I'd met him casually on a few prior occasions and knew him as a highly-acclaimed contributor to _Playboy_. Now we found ourselves together on a social basis and I witnessed the soaring of his career. Soon he was enjoying well-earned eminence for his work on _Twilight Zone_ and his filmwriting future appeared a.s.sured. One of his screenplays, _The Intruder_,seemed destined to become a major production with a top director, big-name stars and high-budget promotion.
Then, as so often happens in such circ.u.mstances, problems arose and high hopes fell. But eventually the film was made--on a shoe-string budget, a curtailed productionschedule--the stuff of which bad dreams are made. Bad dreams, and B pictures.
So when I was invited, along with Chuck's friends and the usual studio functionaries, to a screening at Twentieth Century-Fox, I had qualms and misgivings about what to expect from the evening's entertainment.
To my surprise and delight, _The Intruder_ proved to be just that--a surprise and a delight. Shot on location, in black-and-white, it is arguably Roger Corman's best directorial effort. The then virtually-unknown leading player, one William Shatner, contributed a remarkable performance. So did his supporting cast--including none other than Charles Beaumont himself, in a small part as a high school princ.i.p.al. Two other writer friends of his, George Clayton Johnson and Bill Nolan, had a hoot playing a pair of redneck racists. But the film, a powerful drama of bigotry and rabble-rousing in a southern setting, was truly ahead of its time; apparently the general public was not yet ready to respond to the social issues which the script so realistically raised.
The film failed, but Chuck succeeded. He went on to other a.s.signments on top productions, and though these too were apt to furnish frustrations, Beaumont's talent was recognized. Almost twenty years later, when I found myself working with George Pal on his last projects before his sudden death, he told me how highly he esteemed Chuck's work on _The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao_ and _The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm_. It was still a matter of his major regret that studio executives forced changes in the shooting scripts which Pal had wanted to keep inviolate. And the portions of these films which were not tampered with clearly demonstrate Beaumontian brilliance in comedy concepts.
Chuck's life, however, had lost any claim to comic elements. As success increased, the toll on his health escalated.
Attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago, in 1962, 1 was surprised to encounter Chuck--a tired, driven man who, by his own account, was in the process of fleeing Hollywood for good. He was finis.h.i.+ng an a.s.signment for Playboy, heading for New York, and after that he meant to hole up and get to work on what he hoped would be a major novel.
All this I learned when we'd repaired to the bar. As he confided his plans over drinks I asked him just where he intended to do his actual writing on the book.
”I'm going to Rome,” he said.
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