_ XIX
It was with some nightmare surprise that Oliver on waking regarded his tidy cell. Then he remembered and in spite of the fact that yesterday evening with all that belonged to it kept hurting wherever it was that most of him lived with the stiff repeating ache of a nerve struck again and again by the same soft hammer, he couldn't help laughing a little. The popular college remedy for disprized love had always been an instantaneous mingling of conflicting alcohols--calling a large policeman a big blue boob seemed to produce the same desired result of bringing one to one's senses by first taking one completely out of them without the revolving stomach and fuzzed mind of the first instance. He tried to think of yesterday evening airily. Silly children quarreling about things that didn't matter at all. Of course Nancy should have the job if she wanted--of course he'd apologize, apologize like Ecclesiastes even for being alive at all if it was necessary--and then everything would be
all right, just all right and fixed. But the airy attitude somehow failed to comfort--it was a little too much like trying to shuffle a soft-shoe clog on a new grave. Nancy
had been unreasonable. Nancy
had said or hadn't denied that she wasn't sure she loved him any more. He
had released her from the engagement and told her good-by. He stared at the facts--they sprang up in front of him like choking thorns--thorns he had to clear away with his hands before he could even touch Nancy again. Was he sure--even now? All the airiness dropped from him like a clown's false face. As he thought of what would happen if Nancy had really meant it about not loving him, it seemed to him that somebody had taken away the pit of his stomach and left nothing in its place but air.
Anyhow the first thing to do was to get out of this place--he examined the neat bars in the door approvingly and wondered how the devil you acted when you wanted to be let out. There wasn't any way of opening a conversation about it with no one to talk to--and the corridor was merely a length of empty steel--and, damn it, his train left at Ten Seven and he had to see Nancy and explain everything in the world before it left--and if he didn't get back to New York in time he might lose his job. There must be some way of explaining to the people in charge that he hadn't done anything but kid a policeman--that he must get out.
He went over to the door and tried it tentatively--no inside doorknob, of course, this wasn't a hotel. He looked through the bars--nothing but corridor and the cell on the other side. Should he call? For an instant the fantastic idea of crying "Waiter!" or "Please send up my breakfast!" tugged at him hard, but fantasy had got him into much too much trouble as it was, he reflected savagely. It made you feel ridiculously self-conscious, standing behind bars like this and shouting into emptiness. Still he had to get out. He cleared his throat.
"Hey," he remarked in a pleasant conversational tone. "Hey!"
No answer, he grew bolder.
"Hey!" This time the conversational tone was italicized. A rustle of voices somewhere rewarded him--that must be people talking. Well, if they talked, they could listen.
"HEY!" and now his voice was emphatic enough for headline capitals.
The rustle of voices ceased. There was a moment of stupefied silence. Then,
"SHUT UP!" came from the end of the corridor in a roar that made Oliver feel as if he had been cooing. The roar irritated him--they might be a little more mannerly. He clutched the bars and discovered to his pleased surprise that they would rattle. He shook them as hard as he could like a monkey asking for peanuts.
"Hey there! I want to get out!" and though he tried to make his voice as impressive as possible it seemed to him to pipe like a canary's in that long steel emptiness.
"I've got to catch a train!" he added desperately and then had to stuff his coat sleeve into his mouth to keep from spoiling his dramatics with most unseasonable mirth.
There were noises from the end of the corridor--the noises of strong men at bitter war with something stronger than they, strange rumblings and snortings and muffled whoops. Then the voice came again and this time its words were slow and deliberately spaced so as to give it time to master whatever rocked it between whiles.
"Say--you--
humorist" said the voice and here it rose sharply into an undignified squawk of laughter, "You--innercent child--comedian--you--Charlie--Chaplin--of the--hoosegow--you
shut up--or I'll come down there and--bend--something--over--your merry little face--
understand? " "Yes sir," said Oliver subduedly.
"Ah right. Now go bye-bye--mama'll call you when she's ready to take you walking" then explosively "I got to catch a train! Oh Holy Mike!"
Oliver left the window and went back toward his bunk, considerably chastened. As he did so a bundle of second-hand clothes on the floor rolled over and disclosed a red and unshaven face.
"Wup!" said Oliver--he had almost stepped on it.
"Wha'?" said the bundle, opening sick eyes.
"Oh nothing. I only said good morning."
"Wha'?"
"Good morning."
"Wha'?"
"Good morning."
After incredible difficulties, the bundle attained a sitting position.
"You kid'n me?" it demanded thickly, looking at Oliver with as much surprise as if he had just grown up out of the floor like a plant.
"Oh no. No."
"You're
nah kid'n me?"
"No."
"Ah ri'. 'S countersign. Pass. Fren'."
It attempted a military gesture but succeeded merely in hitting its mouth with its hand. It then looked at the hand as if the latter had done it on purpose and became sunk in profound cogitation.
"Not feeling very well today?" Oliver ventured.
It looked at him.
"
Well? " it said briefly. Then, after a silence devoted to trying to find where its hands were.
"Hoosh."
"What?" said Oliver.
"
Hoosh. Goo' hoosh. Gran' hoosh. Oh,
hoosh!" and as if the mention of the word had stricken it back into clothes again it slid slowly down on its back, closed its eyes and began to snore.
Oliver, perched on his bunk for what comfort there was, sat and considered. He looked at the bundle--the bars--the bars--the bundle. The bundle wheezed apoplectically--no sound of footsteps came from beyond the bars. Oliver wondered if Nancy loved him. He wondered if he would ever catch that Ten Seven. But most of all he wondered why on earth he had happened to get in here and how on earth he was ever going to get out. _