Pity Him Afterwards

It was a one-room shed, as old as the hills. Half the roof had rotted away, part of one wall had fallen outward, and if there had once been flooring, it was now all gone. The windows were blank rectangles in the standing walls, and there was no door in the doorway.

Mel stepped inside, gazed around, and said, “Charming.”

“I hoped you’d like it,” she said. “The servants are off today, so we’ll have to rough it.”

“In appointments like this, who could complain?”

They were both feeling very giddy, and completely unaware of the passage of time. They’d spent a long, long while doing a lot of necking and very little talking, and had stopped only when it had become obvious to both of them that within the next minute they must either stop or mate. The spell broken, they were nervously hysterical with one another, laughing too much, touching one another gingerly and trying to make believe that they were all calm inside.

They’d gone swimming again, for the cooling influence of the water, and then had spent a while just lying on the ground, smoking and talking idly. They got around to Mary Ann’s future again, and this time she agreed that she probably would go to New York this fall, and he would introduce her to everybody he knew, because who knows, somebody might know of a job for her. They talked it over and decided she should ask Bob Haldemann for some acting jobs in the plays this summer, so she could qualify for Equity membership and then try her hand at acting when she got to the city. She couldn’t very well expect to walk into New York and be given a job as a director, but if she could act even fairly decently she might get some work and meet some people, and once again, who knows?

The sun had climbed to the top of the sky and then slid halfway down the other side, so that now it was facing them, shining hot and yellow in their eyes, finally forcing them to move on. “I still haven’t showed you the shed,” she reminded him.

“I’m game,” he said. “Let’s go.”

So they picked their way in through the shrubbery, the ground marshy and oozing beneath their bare feet, and came to the shed. They played a nonsense game here, making it up as they went along, gradually becoming Cynthia and Reginald in an English sentimental comedy, drinking imaginary tea from imaginary cups and telling one another how much they would miss one another while she was being a missionary in Ceylon and he was back with his outfit in Inja.

Then a voice said, “Doctor Chax.”

They turned, and Mel smiled with surprise. “Ken! What are you doing here?”

The madman came into the room with a stick.

Chax.

The madman had come to the island. Had crawled from the little boat with the orange sail, had rested awhile on the wet ground, exhausted from the unfamiliar labor of steering a small sailboat across open water, exhausted more from the turmoil raging inside his head.

Chax.

All his beings were active now, all his selves, commingled and confused together. Even the artificial ones, the ones he had assumed with conscious knowledge, for conscious purposes. All mixing together, all babbling at once, all in mortal terror of extinction.

Chax.

The sun beat down, baking his body, drying the sweat that sprang constantly to his burning forehead, covering his eyes with orange haze. Once again — as always and always — he was alone and exposed, the bright light of the sun beating down from above, pointing him out to his enemies, and the flat empty water all around. All around this time, encircling him, holding him while his enemies crept closer.

Chax.

Up on his feet, the madman moved. Aimless, directionless, goalless, only driven to move by the knowledge of pursuit and by the thrashing flailing shrieking inside his head. Moving on around the perimeter of the island until he had come to a small grassy spot at the water’s edge, and a gleaming white rowboat with red trim bobbing there, floating at the end of a thick rope.

Chax.

On the island. Somewhere on the island. Someone was on this island, and who could that someone be but Chax? He must have a headquarters, he must have a hidden lair, some place from which his orders beamed, some place in which he could watch his television pictures, direct the persecution and the torture and the experimentation on Robert Ellington, Robert Ellington, who had been chosen from all the world as his special victim, the particular guinea pig, the lone opponent.

Chax.

Here he must be, and here the madman would find him. Find him, seek him out, search out the entrance to his underground lair, his burrows and caverns, track him down and smash him once and for all in his own fortifications. And then, with the brain gone, could the limbs go on? The persecution would have to end, the hunters would have to give up their search.

Chax.

The madman groped inward from the water, crawling now on all fours, searching for the entranceway. He came upon a gnarled and stunted tree, and ripped from it a dead branch to use as a club. Then he crawled on, looking for his enemy.

Chax.