The Last Adam (2 page)

Joe had described it to her several times, but either he didn't describe very well, or she just couldn't keep her mind on it. Joe knew. He had been Assistant Mechanic on the Emergency Repair Squad.

She would never have met Joe if he hadn't been; and surely it would have been just as well if she never had met him. That was, Joe would never have come to live in New Winton. If he had never come to live in New Winton, he never would have met Harry Weems. That certainly would have been better as far as Joe was concerned. For herself, May never expected things to be very good. As long as she lived, she more or less expected to realize that whatever was, was a pity; and how much better it would have been if —

Facts were facts, and May didn't mean to do anything but face them and make the best of whatever misfortunes they implied. Still, she couldn't help seeing—the same turn of mind which made her patient in reading so many books made her patient in reflection—that there had been a point in every course of events (and usually countless points) at which the least, most incidental change in any one of a hundred interlocking details of time, place, or human whim, would have turned the whole present into something entirely different. For instance, Joe almost didn't go with Harry Weems that day. The members of the Emergency Squad were scattered up and down the valley; here, a lineman; there, a mechanic; the superintendent at one point; the truck, its driver, and a line engineer at another. The sensible plan was that everywhere would be someone close at hand. Most often, he could handle minor difficulties alone. If he couldn't, the truck would gather up the full crew. That morning, a man somewhere thought he was going to need help. Joe was just waiting for the truck to pick him up. At the last minute, the man who was going to need help decided that he didn't need it. Much pleased, Joe went squirrel-hunting with Harry Weems.

The perfect pattern of things as they were still had half a day and a thousand chances to break up, and change to something else. Through this tangle of alternatives, choices—now a delay, now an acceleration —events made up their mosaic of cause and effect with superlative delicacy and skill. At four o'clock Harry Weems returned. Although he was older than Joe— say, twenty-eight—and gave you a great impression of cheerful sophistication and calm assurance, he was all to pieces. He didn't know how the gun went off. He was walking behind Joe, and they had just seen another squirrel. Joe said: "You get him." Harry Weems was a good shot. He raised his gun to knock the squirrel off the oak limb, and the next thing he knew— indeed, before he knew anything—he had put a .22 bullet in Joe's back.

Doctor Bull said at first that Joe would be all right in a week. He removed the bullet. He pointed out how lucky it was that they had been hunting with .22 rifles instead of shotguns. Fired so close, a shotgun would have blown Joe's back out. It was also lucky that the light single bullet had hit one of Joe's ribs, close to the spine, doing no more than cracking it a little. Though Joe's back hurt him a good deal, they all agreed that it was lucky. Joe didn't complain, except to mention once or twice, after Doctor Bull had dressed the wound a second time, that his wrists seemed to feel queer. Four days later he woke up in the morning unable to move his arms at all. He could move his legs all right; but for some reason he couldn't stand erect. Not yet, that was. Doctor Bull said that it would pass off, but May could see that he had been very much surprised. He got Joe to over Torrington and had an X-ray taken, but in the picture nobody could find anything wrong. That was why Doctor Bull told her not to worry.

As November changed to December, and December to January, presumably there was still nothing wrong. Joe was perfectly well except for his useless arms and not being able to stand. Inside May something took the conviction out of the phrase, not yet. A sick person had either to get worse or get better; but there wasn't any need for Joe to get anything. He could just go on.
You don't mean not yet
,
the inner voice advised her,
you mean not ever. . . .

Buzzing broke about May's ears. To her right, one of the seven toll-line lamps was glowing. Twitching back the key, she bent her head to the curve of the mouthpiece horning up off her breast. "New Winton operator."

"Sorry, New Winton!"cried a snappish voice. "Boston, Massachusetts, calling New Milford. My error."

There was an empty humming of the lines. May was conscious of the light, firm pressure of the metal headband; she seemed to feel it on the bone of her head through her never very thick blonde hair. Half-past five, she saw. Everywhere shifts were waiting to change, and the relief of impending escape worked with the intolerable slowness of that last thirty minutes to make them a little inaccurate. "Only," thought May, "I wish I could stay here; I wish it were only four o'clock." Four o'clock would mean two whole hours in which to sit and be warm; to muse on what caught her eye or came to her ear; to read her book.

Now the buzzing broke out, and, not so tranquil, she noted the light. She took 11 in her left hand and shot it in. "Yes, Mrs. Talbot," she said quickly. "I'm ringing him."

After a while, she said: "I'm sorry, Mrs. Talbot. Doctor Bull can't be back yet. I think probably Mrs. Cole went to the movies in Sansbury, so she ought to be up on the evening train any moment. She may know where the doctor is. I'll try to get her as soon as the train's in."

Mrs. Talbot said nothing at all. There was simply a silence; then the click of her hanging up. Immediately came another sharp signal, a new light glowing. Mrs. Banning's precise voice gave May the number of the house behind the Cobble where Mr. Hoyt, the artist, lived. "Thank you," May said carefully, for Mrs. Banning was supposed to be the one who had complained to the district superintendent about what was called "indifference and slovenly service." Although May guessed what the purpose of the call was, and although the company had been known to discharge people for this seriously regarded offence, May remained quietly, the key caught towards her, listening in.

The voice which answered was Mr. Hoyt's daughter; a soft, flat yet fresh voice, distinctively Southern, skipping the hard consonants with an air of trustful sweetness. "Oh, Valeria," Mrs. Banning said, sweet too, but severe under it, "has Virginia left yet? I want to speak to her."

"She's right here, Mrs. Banning. She's just this minute going."

Plainly Valeria had now put, ignorant of the result, the mouthpiece against her breast. Slightly hollow, but clear to May and of course to Mrs. Banning, she could be heard saying: "Ginny! it's your mother. She sounds kind of mad, honey."

The faint jar of someone taking the telephone came through, and Virginia Banning's voice, vehement, said: "Yes, Mother. I'm coming! "

Mrs. Banning said: "Virginia, I think this is very inconsiderate of you. You know perfectly well that Larry wants the Ford to go to Sansbury."

"Lord!" said Virginia Banning. 'It's hardly half-past five! Even if he were going to New York, he wouldn't have to hurry —"

"Now, Virginia, I am not going to argue with you.

Larry has his evening arranged, and he's all ready —"

"All right! I told you I was coming, didn't I? I can't come while I'm on the telephone, can I?" She was inspired suddenly and said, violently ironic, "Why don't you make Guy let Larry have his car? Nobody's going to use that to-night —"

"Virginia, if you are not home in fifteen minutes —"

May could hear the crack of the replaced receiver. Mrs. Banning hung up then, but not before her voice, faint as it turned, probably towards Mr. Banning, observed something about such a problem.

May guessed that it was a problem. Four months ago, Virginia had been sent home from a girl's school she went to. Doris Clark had listened in on enough of the telephoning which attended this to be able to report that Virginia had so far forgotten the ladylike requirements of her sixteen years as to slap what Doris called the Principal's face. "She was so mad, she was crying," Doris added. "She said the Principal was a God damned old fool, right to Mrs. Banning; if you can imagine-—"

May could imagine. She saw Virginia Banning from a distance, but with a special sympathy. May, who hardly ever got anything she wanted herself, could feel for someone in practically the same situation. The fact that Virginia had, or could have, almost every single thing May would like but didn't get wasn't the point, either. She felt quite sorry, sitting there facing the switchboard. She even wished that she were intimate enough with Virginia to be able to tell her the importance of one great truth that merely being six years older than Virginia had taught May. There was a mercy in the world which you might not at first recognize. If you just kept on not getting what you wanted, you would stop wanting it in any painful way. It would be all right. You would learn to like what you had.

May looked out of the window and saw that while she had been absorbed the lights had come on up and down between the thick lower trunks of the elms. She arose, her wires following her, and pressed the switches, lighting first the porcelain-faced sign with the deep blue silhouette of the bell on the lawn, and then the bulb over the door on the porch. The room lights she didn't want; there was great comfort in this warm dusk.

As though it had chosen to take advantage of her momentary moving away, she saw the pilot light glow. Construction camp, she noted. "Number, please," she said, not taking time to seat herself.

"Listen," said an annoyed voice, "get me New York —quick, will you? The office will be shutting up."

"I will connect you with long distance at Torrington," May said. "One moment, please, Mr. Snyder." She drew out a toll-line plug.

There was a click, followed by the words: "Torrington operator."

May said: "New Winton calling, New York, New York, please." The line hummed higher and a snappish voice, strangely familiar when you remembered that she had no idea what the girl who spoke with it looked like, chanted, "My Danbury lines are engaged, New Winton. I will connect you via New Haven." Out of the murk of sound a voice like one from Heaven observed, "Hello—hello—hello —" The ring and click augmented with a noise like the rush of winds on the miles of dark wires.

"New Haven operator," remarked a new voice, remote, intensely articulate.

"Would you kindly ring New York for me?"

That was Torrington, May knew; and at once it turned back on her. "New Winton! Have you a number?"

When she had obtained it from Mr. Snyder, she twitched the key for Torrington's attention. "This is the New Haven operator," protested the far-away voice. "I am holding this line for Torrington. Please get off."

"My call, New Haven," May said. "New Winton calling New York."

"Thank
you."
The far-away voice sharpened officiously. "Kindly route through Danbury, New Winton. We aren't supposed to take calls —"

"New York City," said a disinterested, new voice. "Number, please?"

"I will give you Torrington, New York —"

"Hello!" objected May. "Here's your call, New York. New Winton, Connecticut, calling Ashland four. . .

May could hear the final throb of the ringing. The ease of these long leaps from city to city more distant absorbed her. She felt translated, gone from here; just as it gave her a small, ever-new pleasure to know that the ringing she heard so clearly was heard, too, through the mutter of New York. The voice that sounded next would be from an office somewhere in the jumble of great towers, looking out on the long angling shadows and glowing murky gorges between enormous buildings, thick pinnacles lighted for the end of the afternoon. "Interstate Light and Power."

"New Winton, Connecticut, calling," answered May. She held the key a moment, refreshed by distance, reluctant to return. Mr. Snyder was saying: "Interstate? Transmission Line Construction. Division three. Snyder speaking. Hughes there? Yes!" he broke out. "Yes! Well, stop him, sister, stop him! This is important."

After a moment, he cleared his throat, adding: "Oh, hello. Hughes? Snyder. New Winton. Sure, the truck came. Is anything wrong? Say, what the hell was the idea of sending those insulators? Haven't they got any specifications? What? They're five-unit strings. Well, all they need is some common sense! How are you going to hang two-twenty kilovolt conductors on them? Yeah, I know. He ought to be back selling coffee percolators. Sure, my fourteens probably went down to the Delaware job. Well, listen, Hughes; straighten up, will you? This damn storm has held everything up. We're scheduled to be through next week —"

Regretful, May let it go, making a mental note to ask Joe right away what five-unit strings were. It cheered him, she found, if, as soon as she got in, she could tell him something which he would then have to explain to her in great detail. She was still standing, and now she heard Helen Webster's overshoe-muffled feet on the porch. It was two minutes to six.

"Hello, darling," said Helen. "Say, this is like an oven!" She parted her coat. "And how about some light?" She turned it on.

After that she shrugged her coat off, jerked the hat from her head. Holding both in one hand, she stooped unsteadily, loosened the fastenings of the overshoes, kicked them off against the wall. Then she hung up the hat and coat, patted her hair, and came down and hopped on the stool.

Blinking in the hard blaze of light, May slipped off the earphone, unhooked the noose of the mouthpiece. She said to Helen Webster: "You have the camp there, talking to New York, via Torrington, New Haven."

The buzzing broke out, the pilot light glowed. "That's Mrs. Talbot again," May said, glancing at the panel. "She's been trying to get Doctor Bull all afternoon."

Helen shoved the earpiece down her disordered black hair. "Number, please?" Her hand with the plug out ready to ring 11 faltered. She slid her other hand over the mouthpiece, turned her dark eyes back on May.

"Oh, my God!"she said. "Listen, May. That poor kid is dead!"

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