Rock Island Line David Rhodes (ereader iphone .txt) 📖

I don’t want to. I don’t think I can realistically ever have anything to do with another person. See, I sort of decided not to.”

“Why did you decide that?”

“Because I just don’t want any involvement, or attachment. I like being alone. It suits me.”

“Oh,” she said. It was beginning to get dark. “Well, I’m sorry to’ve been such a trouble to you.” With this she turned to leave. “And I’m sorry about this evening.”

There was a long pause.

July said, “Please don’t be offended.”

“I’m not.”

They walked together.

“Listen, meet me in a week . . . not at the museum. Somewhere else,” he said cautiously.

“That’s a funny thing for a person who’s decided to be alone to want to do.”

“I know. I must seem like such a fool to you. You . . . Do you have a telephone number?”

She gave it to him and they parted.

July went directly home and sat on his bed looking out the window. He sank into a long period where time seemed fragmented and speeded up, and the remote spots of light, blue and red under the wings of the planes, crossfired in the dark sky. Half awake and half dreaming, his thoughts were no more coherentthan swirling waters thick with brown mud. It was a druglike trance and it wasn’t until hours later that he finally came out of it and set about fixing himself something to eat in the kitchen while the rest of the boardinghouse slept like cats. But when returning to his room he purposely left the door open. In the hall, right outside, was the black public telephone on the wall; and looking at it made him feel funny. He’d never had anyone to call on it before. Now, if he wanted to, he’d just have to put in a dime, listen for the tone (he knew the phone worked, he’d listened to people making calls on it) and dial the number. Eight five two six nine four eight, listen to the ring, the click as the receiver was picked up, and hear Mal say hello. Or it might be her roommate, and in that case he could just say, “Hi, is Mal there?” as though he used a phone all the time. It all seemed unbelievable and a little frightening: standing right outside his own room where he lived by himself, he could talk to her. Also (and this he dared not even imagine) she could call him; the phone could ring, somebody would answer it and say, “Who?” Then pound on his door and say, “Hey, July, it’s for you.” The very thought made him blush, the receiver hanging from the cable cord . . . “Better hurry. Sounds like a girl.”

He fed Butch and went to sleep. For the next week, until Friday, he forced himself not to think about the decision he had to make. Then he bought a packet of file cards on his way home from work. After dinner (canned stew), arguments would come to him and he’d write them down, one per card. All night he did this. Then he read them over to make sure he hadn’t written one argument twice, and weeded out any duplications that didn’t provide another consideration. For instance, on one card he’d written: having someone to talk to, and on another: being able to communicate ideas and feelings. But in the case where he had written: no privacy, and on another: not enough time to be alone, that was OK because there was a difference between them.

He’d taken the following Saturday off (a thing that was a little disturbing in itself; he’d never done it before), and as soon as he got up he made straight for the cards. There were more than forty, one argument on each, and as he read them he wrote either 1 or 2 in the corner, 1 standing for no I won’t take the chance, and 2 standing for yes I will. After he did that he was so nervous he went out and walked around the block before coming back and dividing the 1s and 2s into separate piles. Then, assuring himself a final time that he had been as impartial as he could’ve been, he entrusted himself completely to the reasoning process and counted them.

Nearing the end, he feared and anticipated the outcome. He’d had a feeling it’d turn out the way it did: the 2s had it, by a majority of one card. It was the argument of the possibility of life everlasting, he thought, that had tipped the scale. Living alone, nice as it was, was bound to get stale if it went on forever. That was the argument that had kept it from being both sides equal, to which there was no reasonable contradiction.

So that job was over. The decision was made. He never once wondered whether he’d made the right choice. It was the only logical thing to do. The problem that lay before him now was the telephone call—and he had to do it.

What if she’d given him the wrong number?

Ring, hello, hello, is Mal there? Mal? Is Mal Rourke there? Listen, buster, somebody’s really pulled you through a wringer. There’s nobody here by that name, click.

Or what if she’d decided he really wasn’t all that she’d cut him out to be, and what did he honestly know about that guy in the uniform? Maybe he’d slipped into the picture somewhere. Maybe he’d been in it all along. Ring, hello (male voice). Hello, can I talk to Mal? Who is this? July. Hey, it’s a guy named July! (Laughter in the background.) Sorry, buddy, click. His imagination was reeling.

He went out into the hall, put in a dime, heard the tone and hung up. The next time he dialed the number and listened tothe beginning of one ring and hung up. He went back into his room and sat on the bed, sure he would never have the nerve to make