over, pushed the dead weight of it to the edge and shoved it over the brink with a nudge of his foot.
Momentarily on his stomach again, he watched the package’s heavy fall, saw it bounce once on the floor, and heard the crunching noise as it came to rest. He smiled. It had held together.
Standing once more, he started around the top of the refrigerator to see if there were anything he might use. He found the newspaper.
It was folded and propped against the cylindrical coil ease. Its lettered faces were covered with dust and part of the sink’s leaking had splashed water across it, blotting the letters and eating through the cheap paper. He saw the large letters OST and knew it was a copy of the New York
Globe-Post
, the paper that had done his story—at least as much of it as he had been able to endure.
He looked at the dusty paper, remembering the day Mel Hammer had come to the apartment and made the offer.
Marty had mentioned Scott’s mysterious affliction to a fellow Kiwani, and from there the news had drifted, ripple by ripple, into the city.
Scott refused the offer, despite the fact that they needed the money desperately. Although the Medical Center had completed the tests free of charge, there was still a sizable bill for the first series of examinations. There was the five hundred owed to Marty, and the other bills they’d accumulated through the long, hard winter—the complete winter wardrobe for all of them, the cost of fuel oil, the extra medical bills because none of them had been physically equipped to face an Eastern winter after living so long in Los Angeles.
But Scott had been in what he now called his period of furies—a time when he experienced an endless and continuously mounting anger at the plight he was in. He’d refused the newspaper offer with anger. No, thank you, but I don’t care to be exposed to the morbid curiosity of the public. He flared up at Lou when she didn’t support his decision as eagerly as he thought she should have, saying, “What would you like me to do—turn myself into a public freak to give you your security?”
Erring, off-target anger; he’d known it even as he spoke. But anger was burning in him. It drove him to depths of temper he had never plumbed before. Strengthless temper, temper based on fear alone.
Scott turned away from the newspaper and went back to the rope. Lowering himself over the edge with an angry carelessness, he began sliding down the rope, using his hands and feet. The white cliff of the refrigerator blurred before his eyes as he descended.
And the anger he felt now was only a vestigial remnant of the fury he’d lived with constantly in the past; fury that made him lash out incontinently at anyone he thought was mocking him.…
He remembered the day Terry had said something behind his back; something he thought he heard. He remembered how, no taller than Beth, he’d whirled on her and told her that he’d heard what she’d said.
Heard what? she asked. Heard what you said about me! I didn’t say anything about you. Don’t lie to me. I’m not deaf! Are you calling me a liar? Yes, I’m calling you a liar! I don’t have to listen to talk likethat! You do when you decide to talk about me behind my back! I think we’ve had just about enough of your screaming around here. Just because you’re Marty’s brother—Sure, sure, you’re the boss’s wife, you’re the big cheese around here. Don’t you talk to me like that!
And on and on, shrill and discordant and profitless.
Until Marty, grim, soft-spoken, called him into the office, where Scott had stood in front of the desk, glaring at his brother like a belligerent dwarf.
“Kid, I don’t like to say it,” Marty told him, “but maybe—till they get you fixed up—it’d be better if you stayed home. Believe me, I know what you’re going through, and I don’t blame you, not a bit. But… well, you can’t concentrate on work when you’re…”
“So I’m being
Momentarily on his stomach again, he watched the package’s heavy fall, saw it bounce once on the floor, and heard the crunching noise as it came to rest. He smiled. It had held together.
Standing once more, he started around the top of the refrigerator to see if there were anything he might use. He found the newspaper.
It was folded and propped against the cylindrical coil ease. Its lettered faces were covered with dust and part of the sink’s leaking had splashed water across it, blotting the letters and eating through the cheap paper. He saw the large letters OST and knew it was a copy of the New York
Globe-Post
, the paper that had done his story—at least as much of it as he had been able to endure.
He looked at the dusty paper, remembering the day Mel Hammer had come to the apartment and made the offer.
Marty had mentioned Scott’s mysterious affliction to a fellow Kiwani, and from there the news had drifted, ripple by ripple, into the city.
Scott refused the offer, despite the fact that they needed the money desperately. Although the Medical Center had completed the tests free of charge, there was still a sizable bill for the first series of examinations. There was the five hundred owed to Marty, and the other bills they’d accumulated through the long, hard winter—the complete winter wardrobe for all of them, the cost of fuel oil, the extra medical bills because none of them had been physically equipped to face an Eastern winter after living so long in Los Angeles.
But Scott had been in what he now called his period of furies—a time when he experienced an endless and continuously mounting anger at the plight he was in. He’d refused the newspaper offer with anger. No, thank you, but I don’t care to be exposed to the morbid curiosity of the public. He flared up at Lou when she didn’t support his decision as eagerly as he thought she should have, saying, “What would you like me to do—turn myself into a public freak to give you your security?”
Erring, off-target anger; he’d known it even as he spoke. But anger was burning in him. It drove him to depths of temper he had never plumbed before. Strengthless temper, temper based on fear alone.
Scott turned away from the newspaper and went back to the rope. Lowering himself over the edge with an angry carelessness, he began sliding down the rope, using his hands and feet. The white cliff of the refrigerator blurred before his eyes as he descended.
And the anger he felt now was only a vestigial remnant of the fury he’d lived with constantly in the past; fury that made him lash out incontinently at anyone he thought was mocking him.…
He remembered the day Terry had said something behind his back; something he thought he heard. He remembered how, no taller than Beth, he’d whirled on her and told her that he’d heard what she’d said.
Heard what? she asked. Heard what you said about me! I didn’t say anything about you. Don’t lie to me. I’m not deaf! Are you calling me a liar? Yes, I’m calling you a liar! I don’t have to listen to talk likethat! You do when you decide to talk about me behind my back! I think we’ve had just about enough of your screaming around here. Just because you’re Marty’s brother—Sure, sure, you’re the boss’s wife, you’re the big cheese around here. Don’t you talk to me like that!
And on and on, shrill and discordant and profitless.
Until Marty, grim, soft-spoken, called him into the office, where Scott had stood in front of the desk, glaring at his brother like a belligerent dwarf.
“Kid, I don’t like to say it,” Marty told him, “but maybe—till they get you fixed up—it’d be better if you stayed home. Believe me, I know what you’re going through, and I don’t blame you, not a bit. But… well, you can’t concentrate on work when you’re…”
“So I’m being
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