Running in Place

The house is so still Ben hears her coming half a block away--high heels going tap tap tap, one foot striking the concrete harder than the other. Coming closer, tap tap, tap tap, not limping exactly, but uneven so you can't mistake it. As he listens he picks up the rhythm of her stride. Why is she out so late? Is she crippled or just trying to get someone's attention? Nearer and nearer, until at last she's stepping along just on the other side of the plate glass window, clack clack! Clack clack! If the drapes and window glass weren't in the way he could go over and reach out and touch her, bring her to heel and lay her low.

Time passes, footsteps fade. Off she goes, tapping her way out of his life. Ben pictures her tall with red hair, a flaming mop of it, but what does he know? In his head it all turns black. So he leans forward and starts to stack the notebooks and loose papers he's scattered across the kidney shaped coffee table. Ben goes over and pulls back the curtain. He peers through the plate glass window at the double row of storefronts lining the street between here and the light at Harrison and James. No sign of anyone, he should have looked out sooner.

He watches the deserted street. In the bedroom, Danny murmurs in his sleep. Somewhere all the while, far beyond where he can see, girls with good legs are coming up to guys on barstools in three button suits, smoking purple skinny perfumed cigarettes and laughing. You’ll need a password if you want to get in there. The password’s the key. Ben stares out through the glass until a solitary pair of headlights swings into view, then drops the drape and goes over and sits down and listens for returning footsteps, the knock on the door. On the floor near his foot, the first page from the Sentinel's second section: Lunik III finishes its moon orbit and sweeps back toward earth; a local high school student drowns in less than three inches of rainwater.

The college catalogue lies face down in front of him. He picks it up and pages through course offerings, ticking off the ones he's taken. Doing this feels cozy, like sucking the silky corners of his blanket when he was small. Plotting his moves all the way to graduation. Labor History, an A minus. A stray thought about telepathy that used to worry him a lot back in high school comes to him now and gets in his way. He hasn't the first idea where it came from, most likely too much jerking off and reading sci fi like Body Snatchers, except it took in the whole human race from Eisenhower on down to kids sitting next to him in soda fountains sucking down cokes and the frosty lady behind the counter who'd frown at him over her glasses if he paged through paperbacks on the rack too long. They pretended to be normal people with normal brains, but unbeknownst to him they were in constant worldwide telepathic communication.

They were joined up in a giant play they were all putting on non-stop 24 hours a day for his exclusive benefit. It looked and felt like real life but it was fake. The entire earth nothing but a stage set. He lost sleep when he thought about it too much. There were even times it seemed he'd spotted one of them leaning the wrong way, except when he turned and looked they'd stare off into space as though everything was fine and perfectly normal.

Sometimes he wondered if they could read his mind. That would have been something. If he'd ever said anything they'd have locked him up or worse. So he didn't, and after awhile the thoughts went away by themselves. He rechecks the requirements for a minor in political science: nineteen hours, three American and six comparative plus The Politics of the Soviet Union and a semester of theory plus electives. He ticks off Political Parties and Pressure Groups, a B+, second highest grade in the class. WZQV-TV was showing Portrait of Jennie at ten-fifteen but now it's over. Joseph Cotten falls for Jennifer Jones skating on the rink in Central Park only it turns out she's a girl who died long ago in a shipwreck. God, she's pretty. Toward the end Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones have one perfect night. They hold each other and look out at the giant moon and realize how hopeless it all is. Then Joseph Cotten stands on the far edge of a rocky island beside a lighthouse and watches Jennifer Jones drown all over again.

The storm is terrible, unstoppable. They call out to each other but it's all been decided by fate, long ago. Her sad little boat breaks up on the rocks. Jennie! Jennie! She's far beyond his reach, been dead for years before he was ever even born.