Part 2

There it was, Jonesy's story. A nonsense story? Sure. But it left me feeling a little uneasy too. We talked it back and forth a while longer, Jones and me, and the more we talked the more uneasy I got. Foolish or not, Jones himself believed it. He wasn't trying to con me into anything. There was no other point to it. And--well, maybe it was simply the fact that Jones was a good deal of man. What he said had a real conviction to it. Even if the story was hard to believe, still there was what I had seen--and not seen--of Stanley. And even if there was nothing that seemed particularly threatening about the business, it made the two of us uneasy.

There was nothing for us to do about it, though. I went on home to my apartment after I promised Jones I would be around the next night when Stanley, alone or with company, was due back. I don't know what Jones expected. I don't know what I expected. But Stanley's friend, no; we didn't expect that.

The next day I was filling in on the desk, but my mind must have been fumbling around with Stanley's other world. I fumbled all day and finished by crossing up a couple of headlines. So I left the office with the managing editor's curses ringing in my ears, even though he had to admit that the "Present Stench--Future Disaster" line from the sewer gas story did fit very nicely over the item on the mayoralty campaign.

I was down at the Yard a little after five. Jones came along a few minutes later. The group was there. It always is, except when there is a city clean-up. Then it moves over behind the church. Today there was a tension. Jones was smiling, gentle and friendly as always, but there were nerves back of it. Probably the others were mostly just suffering dry nerves. But I was rattled enough so I fumbled a five out and put it on the rock. That, naturally, meant that Coaster Joe and Feeny, who moved the quickest, went to make a run and didn't come back. With the right change for the jug, the wino never skips; with change to bring back, always.

* * * * *

Well, some more silver was painfully dredged up, mostly by Jones, and somebody else went. The wine went around and I admit that this time I took a swallow or two on my turn. I noticed Jones did too. Not much; a little. We were cold sober. Too cold, actually. I needed the little wine I had in me and a lot more.

That bottle and another went around. So did the talk. I was leaning on the wall next to Jones. Neither of us had much to say. Finally, it was just coming on dusk, I asked him, "You're sure he'll come here? Are you sure he'll show at all?"

"He'll be here. Most any time now, Ed. I can feel it. Can't you?"

I could feel something, but it was only a contagion of tension, I told myself.

Then Jones said, "Look there," and pointed.

I followed the line of his big, pink-nailed, black finger off along the path through the park from Broad Street, a little hazy in the summer evening. There was nothing. Then there was a darker spot in the haze and then, not more than about twenty feet away, just about to pass back of the row of bushes along the path, I saw Stanley. Tonight he seemed, somehow, a more positive presence, even at that distance. There was a cocky bounce in his walk and a tilt to his chin that announced "Here is someone to reckon with." Other eyes in our little circle turned his way as he passed behind the bushes. A couple of seconds more and he came around the near side and moved in to join us.

"Hello there, Wino," he said to Jones and there was condescension in it. "Fellows, I want"--proudly--"you should meet a friend of mine."

Around the bushes came a shape, a dark shape; Stanley's friend, from some other place or world. In our group, Saint Betty, a retired queen, choked on the jug and handed it to me. I shoved it along to Jones. The paralyzing effect of Stanley's friend can be measured in the fact that the jug went three times around that thirsty circle--and no one even lifted it to his lips till it fell in the dust at my feet.

Stanley's friend was there all right; really there. What did I say he was like? A dark shape? Yes. But that dark shape and the detail of that shape came through as clear as a hot blue flame to me.

You weren't ever down that way, right? Not to stay, at least. Well, one thing people there have in common is the horrors. Not just the ordinary day-to-day horrors of a hard life but the big horrors. The D.T.s. How do they go? The detail varies. With everyone, there is something that really panics him, gives him that sense of unreasoning, helpless, screaming fear. With a lot of people it is snakes. That's the traditional. With others, it can be heights, or closed rooms; rats, maybe. With me, it has always been spiders, ugly, hairy-legged, bloat-bellied.

The horrors. The height man, when he gets them, will have the sensation of falling, helplessly, endlessly. Once I had spiders. There were hordes, millions of great, stickily scrabbling, poisonous spiders crawling, crawling all over me, over everything--until I woke wrapped up like an iced tamale in the cold wet sheet that is called "calming restraint" in psycho wards.

Stanley's friend? Well, it's an ugly thought, but consider those spiders of mine. And consider people. People, mostly, have religion. "God made man in his image," they say, except God, of course, is the infinitely greater. Now suppose that spiders had a god. A spider god. "God made spiders in his image," the spiders might say, right? So such a spider god, that almighty apotheosis of spiderdom--_that_ was Stanley's friend as I saw him.

* * * * *

I don't know how I could see a thing like that. Maybe I didn't see it, exactly. But absolutely, in some way, by whatever means, the positive perception of such a thing burned itself into my eyes and mind.

The other fellows? No one screamed aloud, although my mind was screaming. Horrors were not less horrible to us, only less unfamiliar than to other people. One by one, the others quivered to shaky feet and they stumbled off through the evening. The jug, three-quarters full yet, stayed there in the dust of the Yard, forgotten.

How long it was, I don't know. Not long--and then only Jones and I were left with Stanley and Stanley's friend. The rest of the park was empty. Across Bug Alley in front of the church an old woman carrying a sack of rubbish was impelled to look our way. She screeched in a high, disappearing pitch and crumpled to the walk. The church was dark and silent.

Jones stood there, big, powerful, leaning against the wall. He smiled at Stanley, but it was a weak, sick smile. How he managed that much, I'll never know. Weak, trembling, stomach churning, I dragged myself up.

"Uh--well," I mumbled, "f'you fellows will excuse me--guess I better be moving along."

Stanley's lip curled. He was irritated. I couldn't help that.

"You see?" It wasn't speech, but the thought came plainly from Stanley's friend, out of a churning of black, hungry thoughts, "You see how it is? Even now, not even such as these will welcome us as friends and equals."

"Yes," snapped Stanley, "I see. I should have known. All right then, we'll do it your way. We will show them all."

I stumbled a step or two toward the path.

"Wino," said Stanley, "Wino Jones. We are going over to the other side now. But we will be back, you hear me? You just wait."

"Sure, Stanley," said Jones, still gentle, kind. "Only, Stanley, are you sure?"

"I'm sure," said Stanley. He turned to his friend. "Come on. Let's go."

They moved together toward the bushes.

Stanley looked back over his shoulder at Jones. "We'll be back," he said, "we'll be back, Wino. You be looking for us."

Then they were gone. Thank the good Lord, they were gone.

"Well," I quavered at Jones, "you did say you were kind of uneasy about him, didn't you?"

"Yes," said Jones, "that's right. You going on home now, Ed?"

"You bet!"

"I don't like to impose, but would you mind if I kind of tagged along? I don't feel too good--after that thing with Stanley, built of all those thousands of hissing, wiggling snakes."

With Jones, it had been snakes, not spiders. The others--to each his own? Somehow that made it seem even worse. Jones wanted to come along with me? I was glad and grateful. I don't know that I could have stood being alone that night.

* * * * *

Up in my apartment, we turned on all the lights. Had a couple of nightcaps. Sat up all night in my luxurious eight-by-ten living-dining-kitchen area for modern living. We talked a little, but not about Stanley and his friend. It was too fresh and we were too shaken. It seemed safer not to mention it.

I suppose we must have dozed off and on. In the morning, I woke up. I still had the shakes. No hangover, but the shakes.

"Jonesy," I said. "Jonesy, I guess maybe I ought to be getting along to work. What are you going to do?"

He woke up, full awake, like that. "I'm not going back," he said. "You know?"

"Yeah."

"I got a feeling. I got kind of a feeling that maybe I am sort of Stanley's doorway or gate back here, if you know what I mean. He was always nearer to me than anyone. You notice he kept telling me to wait for him? I think maybe he needs to feel around and find me to make his way back across from wherever he went. So, if I'm not there, if he can't locate me, could be he won't be able to make his way back--with his friends. I think I better stay as far away from down there as I can get. You reckon there might be some kind of job I could do on that paper you work for?"

"Sure," I said. I knew they needed some men in the circulation department. "That isn't so very far away, though, is it?" I had a sense that he was right about Stanley.

"Not miles. Distance, like that, I don't think it makes much difference where Stanley is. It's the Yard and all that, huh? Seems to be like if I get a steady job, get to be a real, steady, normal citizen, that's what would make me hard for Stanley to find."

"Yes," I said, "I see. The more you are a full part of this world, the farther away you will be from that other one--and Stanley."

"That's it."

"I hope so. Lord, I hope so. You come along down with me this morning. We'll get you a job if we have to kill someone to make a vacancy ... Jonesy, that--that thing, spiders, snakes--you are sure it was real? It was actually here, I mean? And might come back if Stanley can make the way--in force?"

"Yes, Ed. You didn't really have to ask, did you?"

"No," I said.

And that's it and that's all.

* * * * *

Since then--well, Jones is working for the paper. He got to be assistant circulation manager in less than a year. He is as respectable and non-skid-row a citizen as there is in town. Has a girl; getting married next month.

Me? I'm the same, maybe a little better. I go every other week to visit my kids and Jennie, my ex, has taken to staying around now. We even talk a little bit and, last time, I took her some flowers and she blushed like a bride. Something might even come of it--given enough time.

I have checked back on the Yard a few times but so far, at least, nothing more than the standard rack-up of ordinary horrors. I am not going to check any more. What for? Such a thing as Stanley's friend, you couldn't fight, and I wouldn't know what direction to run. If those things ever find a way over here, where would they be coming from? I don't know. From inside, maybe, Jones says. How do you run from that?

Best, I think, forget it. I intend to try. And, so help me, I am through with skid row. Who wouldn't be?