Insomnia | Page 3

They
were old-school Yankees, for the most part, raised to believe that what
a man doesn't choose to talk about is no,one's business but his own.

it was on one of these walks that he first became aware that something
had gone very wrong with Ed Deepneau, his neighbor from up the street.

Ralph had walked much farther from the Harris Avenue Extension than
usual that day, possibly because thunderheads had blotted out the sun
and a cool, if still spmradic, breeze had begun to blow. He had fallen
into a kind of trance, not thinking of anything, not watching anything
but the dusty toes of his sneakers, when the four-forty-five United
Airlines flight from Boston swooped low overhead, startling him back to)
where he was with the teeth-rattling whine of its jet engines.

He watched it cross above the old GS&WM railroad tracks and the Cyclone
fence that marked the edge of the airport, watched it settle toward the
runway, marked the blue puffs of smoke as its wheels touched down. Then
he glanced at his watch, saw how late it was getting, and looked up with
wide eyes at the orange roof of the Howard Johnson's just up the road.
He had been in a trance, all right; he had walked more than five miles
without the slightest sense of time passing.

Carolyn's time, a voice deep inside his head muttered.

Yes, yes; Carolyn's time. She would be back in the apartment, counting
the minutes until she could have another Darvon Complex, and he was out
on the far side of the airport ... halfway to Newport, in fact, Ralph
looked up at the sky and for the first time really saw the bruise-purple
thunderheads which were stacking up over the airport.

They did not mean rain, not for sure, not yet, but if it did rain, he
was almost surely going to be caught in it; there was nowhere to shelter
between here and the little picnic area back by Runway 3, and there was
nothing there but a ratty little gazebo that always smelled faintly of
beer.

He took another look at the orange roof, then reached into his right

hand pocket and felt the little sheaf of bills held by the sliver
money-clip Carolyn had given him for his sixty-fifth. There was nothing
to prevent him walking up to Hojo's and calling a cab ...

except maybe for the thought of how the driver might look at him.

Stupid old man, the eyes in the rear-view mirror might say.

Stupid old man, walked a lot further than you shoulda on a hot day. If
you'd been swimming, you woulda drownded.

Paranoid, Ralph, the voice in his head told him, and now its clucky,
slightly Patronizing tone reminded him of Bill McGovern.

Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. Either way, he thought he would
chance the rain and walk back.

What if it doesn't just rain ? Last summer it hailed so hard that one
time in August it broke windows all over the east side.

"Let it hail, then," he said. "I don't bruise that easy."

Ralph began to walk slowly back toward town along the shoulder of the
Extension, his old high-tops raising small, parched puffs of dust as he
went. He could hear the first rumbles of thunder in the west, where the
clouds were stacking up. The sun, although blotted out, was refusing to
quit without a fight; it edged the thunderheads with bands of brilliant
gold and shone through occasional rifts in the clouds like the
fragmented beam of some huge movie-projector. Ralph found himself
feeling glad he had decided to walk , in spite of the ache in his legs
and the steady nagging pain in the small of his back.

One thing, at least, he thought. I'll sleep tonight. I'll sleep like a
damn rock.

The verge of the airport-acres of dead brown grass with the rusty
railroad tracks sunk in them like the remains of some old wreckwas now
on his left. Far in the distance beyond the Cyclone fence he could see
the United 747, now the size of a child's toy plane, taxiing toward the
small terminal which United and Delta shared.

Ralph's gaze was caught by another vehicle, this one a car, leaving the
General Aviation terminal, which stood at this end of the airport.

It was heading across the tarmac toward the small service entrance which
gave on the Harris Avenue Extension. Ralph had watched a lot of
vehicles come and go through that entrance just lately; it was