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caroming off the walls, and was lying back against the closed slab of
hardwood, dragging in painful gouts of air before he realized that he could
not get away that easily. It would be waiting for him when he got back,
whenever he got back.
But he went. There was a bar where they played nothing but Sinatra records,
and he absorbed as much maudlin sorrow and self-pity as he could, finally
tumbling from the place when the strings and the voice oozed forth:
Night s black agents
Come for me.
They know my love s
A twisted memory.
There was another place, a beach perhaps, where he stood on the sand, silent
within himself, as the gulls wheeled and gibbered across the black sky, kree
kree kree, driving him a little more mad, and he dug his naked hands into the
sand, hurling great clots of the grainy darkness over his head, trying to kill
those
rotten, screaming harridans!
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And another place, where there were lights that said things, all manner of
unintelligible things, neon things, dirty remarks, and he could not read any
of them. (In one place he was certain he saw the masked revelers from his
dream, and frothing, he fled, quickly.)
When he returned, finally, to the apartment, the girl with him swore she
wasn t a telescope, but yeah, sure, she d look at what he had to show her, and
she d ten him what it was. So, trusting her, because she d said it, he turned
the key in the door, and opened it. He reached around the jamb and turned on
the light. Yeah, yeah, there he was, there he was, that thing there he was,
all right. Uh-huh, there he is, the thing with the staring eyes, there he is.
 Well? he asked her, almost proudly, pointing.
 Well what? she replied.
 Well what about him?

Who?
 Him, him, you stupid bitch! Him right there!
HIM!
 Y know, I think you re outta your mind, Sid.
 M name s not Sid, and don t tell me you don t see him, you lying
sonofabitch!
 Say lissen, you said you was Sid, and Sid you re gonna be, and I don t see no
goddam nobody there, and if you wanna get laid allright, and if you don t,
just say so and we ll have another drink an
that ll be that!
He screamed at her, clawing at her face, thrusting her out the door.  Get out,
get outta here, g wan, get out! And she was gone, and he was alone again with
the creature, who was unperturbed by it all, who sat implacably, softly,
waiting for the last tick of time to detach itself and fly free from the
fabric of sanity.
They trembled there together in a nervous symbiosis, each deriving something
from the other. He was covered with a thin film of horror and despair, a
terrible lonelyache that twisted like smoke, thick and black within him. The
creature giving love, and he reaping heartache, loneliness.
He was alone in that room, the two of them: himself and that soft-brown,
staring menace, the manifestation of his misery.
And he knew, suddenly, what the dream meant. He knew, and kept it to himself,
for the meaning of dreams is for the men who dream them, never to be shared,
never to be known. He knew who the men in the dreams were, and he knew now why
none of them had ever been killed simply by a gun. He knew, diving into the
clothes closet, finding the duffle bag full of old Army clothes, finding the
chunk of steel that lay at the bottom of that bag. He knew who he was, he
knew, he knew, gloriously, jubilantly, and he knew it all, who the creature
was, and who Georgette was, and the faces of all the women in the damned
world, and all the men in the damned dreams, and the identity of the man who
had been driving the car who had saved him (and that was the key), and he had
it all, right there, right in his hands, ready to be understood.
He went into the bathroom. He was not going to let that bastard in the comer
see him succeed. He was going to savor it himself. In the mirror he now saw
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himself again. He saw the face and it was a good face and a very composed
face, and he stared back at himself smiling, saying very softly,  Why did you
have to go away? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]