Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

am to be obeyed, I am…

The concept died. He drifted away again. What were students or a girl asking about mid-term papers? What was anything?

He glanced at his watch. In a few minutes the train would pull into Centralia. She would change to the main line express to Indianapolis. Then up to Detroit and her mother. Gone.

Gone. He tried to visualize the word, put it into living terms. But the thought of the house without her was almost beyond his means. Because it wasn’t the house without her; it was something else.

He began to think of what John had said.

Was it possible? He was in a mood to accept the incredible. It was incredible that she had left him. Why not extend the impossibilities that were happening to him?

All right then, he thought angrily. The house is alive. I’ve given it this life with deadly outpourings of wrath. I hope to God that when I get back there and enter the door, the roof collapses. I hope the walls buckle and I’m crushed to pulp by the crushing weight of plaster and wood and brick. That’s what I want. Some agency to do away with me. I cannot drive myself to it. If only a gun would commit my suicide for me. Or gas blow its deadly fumes at me for the asking or a razor slice my flesh upon request.

The door opened. He glanced up. Dr. Ramsay stood there, face drawn into a mask of indignation. Behind him in the hall Chris could see the girl, her face streaked with tears.

“A moment, Neal,” Ramsay said sharply and stepped back into the hall again.

Chris sat at the desk staring at the door. He felt suddenly very tired, exhausted. He felt as if getting up and moving into the hall was more than he could possibly manage. He glanced at the class. A few of them were trying to repress smiles.

“For tomorrow you will finish the reading of King Lear,” he said. Some of them groaned.

Ramsay appeared in the doorway again, his cheeks pink.

“Are you coming, Neal?” he asked loudly.

Chris felt himself tighten with anger as he walked across the room and out into the hall. The girl lowered her eyes. She stood beside Dr. Ramsay’s portly frame.

“What’s this I hear, Neal?” Ramsay asked.

That’s right, Chris thought. Don’t ever call me professor. I’ll never be one, will I? You’ll see to that, you bastard.

“I don’t understand,” he said, as coolly as possible.

“Miss Forbes here claims you ejected her from class for no reason at all.”

“Then Miss Forbes is lying quite stupidly,” he said. Let me hold this anger, he thought. Don’t let it flood loose. He shook with holding it back.

The girl gasped and took out her handkerchief again. Ramsay turned and patted her shoulder.

“Go in my office, child. Wait for me.”

She turned away slowly. Politician!—cried Neal’s mind. How easy it is for you to be popular with them. You don’t have to deal with their bungling minds.

Miss Forbes turned the corner and Ramsay looked back.

“Your explanation had better be good,” he said. “I’m getting a little weary, Neal, of your behaviour.”

Chris didn’t speak. Why am I standing here?—he suddenly wondered. Why, in all the world, am I standing in this dim lit hall and, voluntarily, listening to this pompous boor berate me?

“I’m waiting, Neal.”

Chris tightened. “I told you she was lying,” he said quietly.

“I choose to believe otherwise,” said Dr. Ramsay, his voice trembling.

A shudder ran through Chris. His head moved forward and he spoke slowly, teeth clenched.

“You can believe anything you damn well please.”

Ramsay’s mouth twitched.

“I think it’s time you appeared before the board,” he muttered.

“Fine!” said Chris loudly. Ramsay made a move to close the classroom door. Chris gave it a kick and it banged against the wall. A girl gasped.

“What’s the matter?” Chris yelled. “Don’t you want your students to hear me tell you off? Don’t you even want them to suspect that you’re a dolt, a windbag, an ass!”

Ramsay raised shaking fists before his chest. His lips trembled violently.

“This will do, Neal!” he cried.

Chris reached out and shoved the heavy man aside, snarling, “Oh, get out of my way!”

He started away. The hall fled past him. He heard the bell ring. It sounded as though it rang in another existence. The building throbbed with life; students poured from classrooms.

“Neal!” called Dr. Ramsay.

He kept walking. Oh, God, let me out of here, I’m suffocating, he thought. My hat, my briefcase. Leave them. Get out of here. Dizzily he descended the stairs surrounded by milling students. They swirled about him like an unidentifiable tide. His brain was far from them.

Staring ahead dully he walked along the first floor hall. He turned and went out the door and down the porch steps to the campus sidewalk. He paid no attention to the students who stared at his ruffled blond hair, his mussed clothes. He kept walking. I’ve done it, he thought belligerently. I’ve made the break. I’m free!

I’m sick.

All the way down to Main Street and out on the bus he kept renewing his stores of anger. He went over those few moments in the hallway again and again. He summoned up the vision of Ramsay’s stolid face, repeated his words. He kept himself taut and furious. I’m glad, he told himself forcibly. Everything is solved. Sally has left me. Good. My job is done. Good. Now I’m free to do as I like. A strained and angry joy pounded through him. He felt alone, a stranger in the world and glad of it.

At his stop, he got off the bus and walked determinedly toward the house pretending to ignore the pain he felt at approaching it. It’s just an empty house, he thought. Nothing more. Despite all puerile theories, it is nothing but a house.

Then, when he went in, he found her sitting on the couch.

He almost staggered as if someone had struck him. He stood dumbly, staring at her. She had her hands tightly clasped. She was looking at him.

He swallowed.

“Well,” he managed to say.

“I…” Her throat contracted. “Well…”

“Well what!” he said quickly and loudly to hide the shaking in his voice.

She stood up. “Chris, please. Won’t you… ask me to stay?” She looked at him like a little girl, pleading.

The look enraged him. All his day dreams shattered; he saw the growing thing of new ideas ground under foot.

“Ask you to stay!” he yelled at her. “By God, I’ll ask you nothing!”

“Chris! Don’t!”

She’s buckling, cried his mind. She’s cracking. Get her now. Get her out of here. Drive her from these walls!

“Chris,” she sobbed, “be kind. Please be kind.”

“Kind!”

He almost choked on the word. He felt a wild heat coursing his body.

“Have you been kind? Driving me crazy, into a pit of despair. I can’t get out. Do you understand? Never. Never! Do you understand that! I’ll never write. I can’t write! You drained it out of me! You killed it! Understand that? Killed it!”

She backed away toward the dining room. He followed her, hands shaking at his sides, feeling that she had driven him to this confession and hating her the more for it.

“Chris,” she murmured in fright.