American Short Stories for the EFL Classroom

continued from No. 6

CONTENTS
OF  THE  DEAD  MAN’S  POCKETS

At the little living-room desk Tom Benecke rolled two sheets of flimsy and a heavier top sheet, carbon paper sandwiched between them, into his portable. Inter-office Memo, the top sheet was headed, and he typed tomorrow’s date just below this; then he glanced at a creased yellow sheet, covered with his own handwriting, beside the typewriter. “Hot in here,” he muttered to himself. Then, from the short hallway at his back, he heard the muffled clang of wire coat hangers in the bedroom closet, and at this reminder of what his wife was doing he thought: Hot, no – guilty conscience.
He got up, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his gray wash slacks, stepped to the living-room window beside the desk and stood breathing on the glass, watching the expanding circlet of mist, staring down through the autumn night at Lexington Avenue, eleven stories below. He was a tall, lean, dark-haired young man in a pullover sweater, who looked as though he had played not football, probably, but basketball in college. Now he placed the heels of his hands against the top edge of the lower window frame and shoved upward. But as usual the window didn’t budge and he had to lower his hands and then shoot them hard upward to jolt the window open a few inches. He dusted his hands, muttering.
But still he didn’t begin his work. He crossed the room to the hallway entrance and, leaning against the doorjamb, hands shoved into his back pockets again, he called, “Clare?” When his wife answered, he said, “Sure you don’t mind going alone?”
“No.” Her voice was muffled, and he knew her head and shoulders were in the bedroom closet. Then the tap of her high heels sounded on the wood floor and she appeared at the end of the little hallway, wearing a slip, both hands raised to one ear, clipping on an earring. She smiled at him – a slender, very pretty girl with light brown, almost blonde, hair – her prettiness emphasized by the pleasant nature that showed in her face. “It’s just that I hate you to miss this movie; you wanted to see it too.”
“Yeah, I know.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Got to get this done though.”
She nodded, accepting this. Then glancing at his desk across the living room, she said, “You work too much, though, Tom – and too hard.”
He smiled. “You won’t mind though, will you, when the money comes rolling in and I’m known as the Boy Wizard of Wholesale Groceries?”
“I guess not.” She smiled and turned back toward the bedroom.
At his desk again, Tom lighted a cigarette; then a few moments later as Clare appeared, dressed and ready to leave, he set it on the rim of the ash tray. “Just after seven,” she said. “I can make the beginning of the first feature.”
He walked to the front-door closet to help her on with her coat. He kissed her then and, for an instant, holding her close, smelling the perfume she had used, he was tempted to go with her; it was not actually true that he had to work tonight, though he very much wanted to. This was his own project, unannounced as yet in his office, and it could be postponed. But then they won’t see it till Monday, he thought once again, and if I give it to the boss tomorrow he might read it over the weekend... “Have a good time,” he said aloud. He gave his wife a little swat and opened the door for her, feeling the air from the building hallway, smelling faintly of floor wax, stream past his face.
He watched her walk down the hall, flicked a hand in response as she waved, and then he started to close the door, but it resisted for a moment. As the door opening narrowed, the current of warm air from the hallway, channeled through this smaller opening now, suddenly rushed past him with accelerated force. Behind him he heard the slap of the window curtains against the wall and the sound of paper fluttering from his desk, and he had to push to close the door.
Turning, he saw a sheet of white paper drifting to the floor in a series of arcs, and another sheet, yellow, moving toward the window, caught in the dying current flowing through the narrow opening. As he watched, the paper struck the bottom edge of the window and hung there for an instant, plastered against the glass and wood. Then as the moving air stilled completely, the curtains swinging back from the wall to hang free again, he saw the yellow sheet drop to the window ledge and slide over out of sight.
He ran across the room, grasped the bottom edge of the window and tugged, staring through the glass. He saw the yellow sheet, dimly now in the darkness outside, lying on the ornamental ledge a yard below the window. Even as he watched, it was moving, scraping slowly along the ledge, pushed by the breeze that pressed steadily against the building wall. He heaved on the window with all his strength and it shot open with a bang, the window weight rattling in the casing. But the paper was past his reach and, leaning out into the night, he watched it scud steadily along the ledge to the south, half plastered against the building wall. Above the muffled sound of the street traffic far below, he could hear the dry scrape of its movement, like a leaf on the pavement.
The living room of the next apartment to the south projected a yard or more farther out toward the street than this one; because of this the Beneckes paid seven and a half dollars less rent than their neighbors. And now the yellow sheet, sliding along the stone ledge, nearly invisible in the night, was stopped by the projecting blank wall of the next apartment. It lay motionless, then, in the corner formed by the two walls – a good five yards away, pressed firmly against the ornate corner ornament of the ledge, by the breeze that moved past Tom Benecke’s face.
He knelt at the window and stared at the yellow paper for a full minute or more, waiting for it to move, to slide off the ledge and fall, hoping he could follow its course to the street, and then hurry down in the elevator and retrieve it. But it didn’t move, and then he saw that the paper was caught firmly between a projection of the convoluted corner ornament and the ledge. He thought about the poker from the fireplace, then the broom, then the mop – discarding each thought as it occurred to him. There was nothing in the apartment long enough to reach that paper.
It was hard for him to understand that he actually had to abandon it – it was ridiculous – and he began to curse. Of all the papers on his desk, why did it have to be this one in particular! On four long Saturday afternoons he had stood in supermarkets counting the people who passed certain displays, and the results were scribbled on that yellow sheet. From stacks of trade publications, gone over page by page in snatched half hours at work and during evenings at home, he had copied facts, quotations, and figures onto that sheet. And he had carried it with him to the Public Library on Fifth Avenue, where he’d spent a dozen lunch hours and early evenings adding more. All were needed to support and lend authority to his idea for a new grocery-store display method; without them his idea was a mere opinion. And there they all lay in his own improvised shorthand – countless hours of work – out there on the ledge.
For many seconds he believed he was going to abandon the yellow sheet, that there was nothing else to do. The work could be duplicated. But it would take two months, and the time to present this idea was now, for use in the spring displays. He struck his fist on the window ledge. Then he shrugged. Even though his plan were adopted, he told himself, it wouldn’t bring him a raise in pay – not immediately, anyway, or as a direct result. It won’t bring me a promotion either, he argued – not of itself.
But just the same, and he couldn’t escape the thought, this and other independent projects, some already done and others planned for the future, would gradually mark him out from the score of other young men in his company. They were the way to change from a name on the payroll to a name in the minds of the company officials. They were the beginning of the long, long climb to where he was determined to be, at the very top. And he knew he was going out there in the darkness, after the yellow sheet fifteen feet beyond his reach.
By a kind of instinct, he instantly began making his intention acceptable to himself by laughing at it. The mental picture of himself sidling along the ledge outside was absurd – it was actually comical – and he smiled. He imagined himself describing it; it would make a good story at the office and, it occurred to him, would add a special interest and importance to his memorandum, which would do it no harm at all.
To simply go out and get his paper was an easy task – he could be back here with it in less than two minutes – and he knew he wasn’t deceiving himself. The ledge, he saw, measuring it with his eye, was about as wide as the length of his shoe, and perfectly flat. And every fifth row of brick in the face of the building, he remembered – leaning out, he verified this – was indented half an inch, enough for the tips of his fingers, enough to maintain balance easily. It occurred to him that if this ledge and wall were only a yard above ground – as he knelt at the window staring out, this thought was the final confirmation of his intention – he could move along the ledge indefinitely.
On a sudden impulse, he got to his feet, walked to the front closet and took out an old tweed jacket; it would be cold outside. He put it on and buttoned it as he crossed the room rapidly toward the open window. In the back of his mind he knew he’d better hurry and get this over with before he thought too much, and at the window he didn’t allow himself to hesitate.
He swung a leg over the sill, then felt for and found the ledge a yard below the window with his foot. Gripping the bottom of the window frame very tightly and carefully, he slowly ducked his head under it, feeling on his face the sudden change from the warm air of the room to the chill outside. With infinite care he brought out his other leg, his mind concentrating on what he was doing. Then he slowly stood erect. Most of the putty, dried out and brittle, had dropped off the bottom edging of the window frame, he found, and the flat wooden edging provided a good gripping surface, a half inch or more deep, for the tips of his fingers.
Now, balanced easily and firmly, he stood on the ledge outside in the slight, chill breeze, eleven stories above the street, staring into his own lighted apartment, odd and different-seeming now.
First his right hand, then his left, he carefully shifted his finger-tip grip from the putty less window ledging to an indented row of bricks directly to his right. It was hard to take the first shuffling sideways step then – to make himself move – and the fear stirred in his stomach, but he did it, again by not allowing himself time to think. And now – with his chest, stomach, and the left side of his face pressed against the rough cold brick – his lighted apartment was suddenly gone, and it was much darker out here than he had thought.
Without pause he continued – right foot, left foot, right foot, left – his shoe soles shuffling and scraping along the rough stone, never lifting from it, fingers sliding along the exposed edging of brick. He moved on the balls of his feet, heels lifted slightly; the ledge was not quite as wide as he’d expected. But leaning slightly inward toward the face of the building and pressed against it, he could feel his balance firm and secure, and moving along the ledge was quite as easy as he had thought it would be. He could hear the buttons of his jacket scraping steadily along the rough bricks and feel them catch momentarily, tugging a little, at each mortared crack. He simply did not permit himself to look down, though the compulsion to do so never left him; nor did he allow himself actually to think. Mechanically – right foot, left foot, over and again – he shuffled along crabwise, watching the projecting wall ahead loom steadily closer…
Then he reached it and, at the corner – he’d decided how he was going to pick up the paper – he lifted his right foot and placed it carefully on the ledge that ran along the projecting wall at a right angle to the ledge on which his other foot rested. And now, facing the building, he stood in the corner formed by the two walls, one foot on the ledging of each, abandon the shoulder-high indentation of each wall. His forehead was pressed directly into the corner against the cold bricks, and now he carefully lowered first one hand, then the other, perhaps a foot farther down, to the next indentation in the rows of bricks.
Very slowly, sliding his forehead down the trough of the brick corner and bending his knees, he lowered his body toward the paper lying between his outstretched feet. Again he lowered his fingerholds another foot and bent his knees still more, thigh muscles taut, his forehead sliding and bumping down the brick V. Half squatting now, he dropped his left hand to the next indentation and then slowly reached with his right hand toward the paper between his feet.
He couldn’t quite touch it, and his knees now were pressed against the wall; he could bend them no farther. But by ducking his head another inch lower, the top of his head now pressed against the bricks, he lowered his right shoulder and his fingers had the paper by a corner, pulling it loose. At the same instant he saw, between his legs and far below, Lexington Avenue stretched out for miles ahead.
He saw, in that instant, the Loew’s theater sign, blocks ahead past Fiftieth Street; the miles of traffic signals, all green now; the lights of cars and street lamps; countless neon signs; and the moving black dots of people. And a violent instantaneous explosion of absolute terror roared through him. For a motionless instant he saw himself externally – bent practically double, balanced on this narrow ledge, nearly half his body projecting out above the street far below – and he began to tremble violently, panic flaring through his mind and muscles, and he felt the blood rush from the surface of his skin.
In the fractional moment before horror paralyzed him, as he stared between his legs at the terrible length of street far beneath him, a fragment of his mind raised his body in a spasmodic jerk to an upright position again, but so violently that his head scraped hard against the wall, bouncing off it, and his body swayed outward to the knife edge of balance, and he very nearly plunged backward and fell. Then he was leaning far into the corner again, squeezing and pushing into it, not only his face but his chest and stomach, his back arching; and his finger tips clung with all the pressure of his pulling arms to the shoulder-high half-inch indentation in the bricks.
He was more than trembling now; his whole body was racked with a violent shuddering beyond control, his eyes squeezed so tightly shut it was painful, though he was past awareness of that. His teeth were exposed in a frozen grimace, the strength draining like water from his knees and calves. It was extremely likely, he knew, that he would faint, slump down along the wall, his face scraping, and then drop backward, a limp weight, out into nothing. And to save his life he concentrated on holding on to consciousness, drawing deliberate deep breaths of cold air into his lungs, fighting to keep his senses aware.
Then he knew that he would not faint, but he could not stop shaking or open his eyes. He stood where he was, breathing deeply, trying to hold back the terror of the glimpse he had had of what lay below him; and he knew he had made a mistake in not making himself stare down at the street, getting used to it and accepting it, when he had first stepped out into the ledge.
It was impossible to walk back. He simply could not do it. He couldn’t bring himself to make the slightest movement. The strength was gone from his legs; his shivering hands – numb, cold and desperately rigid – had lost all deftness; his easy ability to move and balance was gone. Within a step or two, if he tried to move, he knew that he would stumble and fall.
Seconds passed, with the chill faint wind pressing the side of his face, and he could hear the toned-down volume of the street traffic far beneath him. Again and again it slowed and then stopped, almost to silence; then presently, even this high, he would hear the click of the traffic signals and the subdued roar of the cars starting up again. During a lull in the street sounds, he called out. Then he was shouting “Help!” so loudly it rasped his throat. But he felt the steady pressure of the wind, moving between his face and the blank wall, snatch up his cries as he uttered them, and he knew they must sound directionless and distant. And he remembered how habitually, here in New York, he himself heard and ignored shouts in the night. If anyone heard him, there was no sign of it, and presently Tom Benecke knew he had to try moving; there was nothing else he could do.
Eyes squeezed shut, he watched scenes in his mind like scraps of motion-picture film – he could not stop them. He saw himself stumbling suddenly sideways as he crept along the ledge and saw his upper body arc outward, arms flailing. He saw a dangling shoestring caught between the ledge and the sole of his other shoe, saw a foot start to move, to be stopped with a jerk, and felt his balance leaving him. He saw himself falling with a terrible speed as his body revolved in the air, knees clutched tight to his chest, eyes squeezed shut, moaning softly.
Out of utter necessity, knowing that any of these thoughts might be reality in the very next seconds, he was slowly able to shut his mind against every thought but what he now began to do. With fear-soaked slowness, he slid his left foot an inch or two toward his own impossibly distant window. Then he slid the fingers of his shivering left hand a corresponding distance. For a moment he could not bring himself to lift his right foot from one ledge to the other; then he did it, and became aware of the harsh exhalation of air from his throat and realized that he was panting. As his right hand, then, began to slide along the brick edging, he was astonished to feel the yellow paper pressed to the bricks underneath his stiff fingers, and he uttered a terrible, abrupt bark that might have been a laugh or a moan. He opened his mouth and took the paper in his teeth, pulling it out from under his fingers.
By a kind of trick – by concentrating his entire mind on first his left foot, then his left hand, then the other foot, then the other hand – he was able to move, almost imperceptibly, trembling steadily, very nearly without thought. But he could feel the terrible strength of the pent-up horror on just the other side of the flimsy barrier he had erected in his mind; and he knew that if it broke through he would lose this thin artificial control of his body.
During one slow step he tried keeping his eyes closed; it made him feel safer, shutting him off a little from the fearful reality of where he was. Then a sudden rush of giddiness swept over him and he had to open his eyes wide, staring sideways at the cold rough brick and angled lines of mortar, his cheek tight against the building. He kept his eyes open then, knowing that if he once let them flick outward, to stare for an instant at the lighted windows across the street, he would be past help.
He didn’t know how many dozens of tiny sidling steps he had taken, his chest, belly and face pressed to the wall; but he knew the slender hold he was keeping on his mind and body was going to break. He had a sudden mental picture of his apartment on just the other side of the wall – warm, cheerful, incredibly spacious. And he saw himself striding through it, lying down on the floor on his back, arms spread wide, reveling in its unbelievable security. The impossible remoteness of this utter safety, the contrast between it and where he now stood, was more than he could bear. And the barrier broke then, and the fear of the awful height he stood on coursed through his nerves and muscles.
A fraction of his mind knew he was going to fall, and he began taking rapid blind steps with no feeling of what he was doing, sidling with a clumsy desperate swiftness, fingers scrabbling along the brick, almost hopelessly resigned to the sudden backward pull, and swift motion outward and down. Then his moving left hand slid onto not brick but sheer emptiness, an impossible gap in the face of the wall, and he stumbled.
His right foot smashed into his left anklebone; he staggered sideways, began falling, and the claw of his hand cracked against glass and wood, slid down it, and his finger tips were pressed hard on the puttyless edging of his window. His right hand smacked gropingly beside it as he fell to his knees; and, under the full weight and direct downward pull of his sagging body, the open window dropped shudderingly in its frame till it closed and his wrists struck the sill and were jarred off.
For a single moment he knelt, knee bones against stone on the very edge of the ledge, body swaying and touching nowhere else, fighting for balance. Then he lost it, his shoulders plunging backward, and he flung his arms forward, his hands smashing against the window casing on either side; and – his body moving backward – his fingers clutched the narrow wood stripping of the upper pane.
For an instant he hung suspended between balance and falling, his finger tips pressed onto the quarter-inch wood strips. Then, with utmost delicacy, with a focused concentration of all his senses, he increased even further the strain on his finger tips hooked to these slim edgings of wood. Elbows slowly bending, he began to draw the full weight of his upper body forward, knowing that the instant his fingers slipped off these quarter-inch strips he’d plunge backward and be falling. Elbows imperceptibly bending, body shaking with the strains – the sweat starting from his forehead in great sudden drops, he pulled, his entire being and thought concentrated in his finger tips. Then suddenly, the strain slackened and ended, his chest touching the window sill, and he was kneeling on the ledge, his forehead pressed to the glass of the closed window.
Dropping his palms to the sill, he stared into his living room – at the red-brown davenport across the room, and a magazine he had left there; at the pictures on the walls and the gray rug; the entrance to the hallway; and at his papers, typewriter and desk, not two feet from his nose. A movement from his desk caught his eye and he saw that it was a thin curl of blue smoke; his cigarette, the ash long, was still burning in the ash tray where he’d left it – this was past all belief – only a few minutes before.
His head moved, and in faint reflection from the glass before him he saw the yellow paper clenched in his front teeth. Lifting a hand from the sill he took it from his mouth; the moistened corner parted from the paper, and he spat it out.
For a moment, in the light from the living room, he stared wonderingly at the yellow sheet in his hand and then crushed it into the side pocket of his jacket.
He couldn’t open the window. It had been pulled not completely closed, but its lower edge was below the level of the outside sill; there was no room to get his fingers underneath it. Between the upper sash and the lower was a gap not wide enough – reaching up, he tried – to get his fingers into; he couldn’t push it open. The upper window panel, he knew from long experience, was impossible to move, frozen tight with dried paint.
Very carefully observing his balance, the finger tips of his left hand again hooked to the narrow stripping of the window casing, he drew back his right hand, palm facing the glass, and then struck the glass with the heel of his hand.
His arm rebounded from the pane, his body tottering. He knew he didn’t dare strike a harder blow.
But in the security and relief of his new position, he simply smiled; with only a sheet of glass between him and the room just before him, it was not possible that there wasn’t a way past it. Eyes narrowing, he thought for a few moments about what to do. Then his eyes widened, for nothing occurred to him. But still he felt calm: the trembling, he realized, had stopped. At the back of his mind there still lay the thought that once he was again in his home, he could give release to his feelings. He actually would lie on the floor, rolling, clenching tufts of the rug in his hands. He would literally run across the room, free to move as he liked, jumping on the floor, testing and reveling in its absolute security, letting the relief flood through him, draining the fear from his mind and body. His yearning for this was astonishingly intense, and somehow he understood that he had better keep this feeling at bay.
He took a half dollar from his pocket and struck it against the pane, but without any hope that the glass would break and with very little disappointment when it did not. After a few moments of thought he drew his leg onto the ledge and picked loose the knot of his shoelace. He slipped off the shoe and, holding it across the instep, drew back his arm as far as he dared and struck the leather heel against the glass. The pane rattled, but he knew he’d been a long way from breaking it. His foot was cold, and he slipped the shoe back on. He shouted again, experimentally, and then once more, but there was no answer.
The realization suddenly struck him that he might have to wait here till Clare came home, and for a moment the thought was funny. He could see Clare opening the front door, withdrawing her key from the lock, closing the door behind her and then glancing up to see him crouched on the other side of the window. He could see her rush across the room, face astounded and frightened, and hear himself shouting instructions: “Never mind how I got here! Just open the wind –”. She couldn’t open it, he remembered, she’d never been able to; she’d always had to call him. She’d have to get the building superintendent or a neighbor, and he pictured himself smiling, and answering their questions as he climbed in. “I just wanted to get a breath of fresh air, so –”.
He couldn’t possibly wait here till Clare came home. It was the second feature she’d wanted to see, and she’d left in time to see the first. She’d be another three hours or – He glanced at his watch; Clare had been gone eight minutes. It wasn’t possible but only eight minutes ago he had kissed his wife good-bye. She wasn’t even at the theater yet!
It would be four hours before she could possibly be homeland. He tried to picture himself kneeling out here, finger tips hooked to these narrow strippings, while first one movie, preceded by a slow listing: of credits, began, developed, reached its climax and then finally ended. There’d be a newsreel next, maybe, and then an animated cartoon, and then interminable scenes from coming pictures. And then, once more, the beginning of a full-length picture – while all the time he hung out here in the night.
He might possibly get to his feet, but he was afraid to try. Already his legs were cramped, his thigh muscles tired; his knees hurt, his feet felt numb, and his hands were stiff. He couldn’t possibly stay out here for four hours, or anywhere near it. Long before that his legs and arms would give out; he would be forced to try changing his position often – stiffly, clumsily, his coordination and strength gone – and he would fall. Quite realistically, he knew that he would fall; no one could stay out here on this ledge for four hours.
A dozen windows in the apartment building across the street were lighted. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the top of a man’s head behind the newspaper he was reading; in another window he saw the blue-gray flicker of a television screen. No more than twenty-odd yards from his back were scores of people, and if just one of them would walk idly to his window and glance out... For some moments he stared over his shoulder at the lighted rectangles, waiting. But no one appeared. The man reading his paper turned a page and then continued his reading. A figure passed another of the windows and was immediately gone.
In the inside pocket of his jacket he found a little sheaf of papers, and he pulled one out and looked at it in the light from the living room. It was an old letter, an advertisement of some sort; his name and address, in purple ink, were on a label pasted to the envelope. Gripping one end of the envelope in his teeth, he twisted it into a tight curl. From his shirt pocket he brought out a book of matches. He didn’t dare let go the casing with both hands but, with the twist of paper in his teeth, he opened the matchbook with his free hand; then he bent one of the matches in two without tearing it from the folder, its red-tipped end now touching the striking surface. With his thumb, he rubbed the red tip across the striking area.
He did it again, then again, and still again, pressing harder each time, and the match suddenly flared, burning his thumb. But he kept it alight, cupping the matchbook in his hand and shielding it with his body. He held the flame to the paper in his mouth till it caught. Then he snuffed out the match flame with his thumb and forefinger, careless of the burn, and replaced the book in his pocket. Taking the paper twist in his hand, he held it flame down, watching the flame crawl up the paper, till it flared bright. Then he held it behind him over the street, moving it from side to side, watching it over his shoulder, the flame flickering and guttering in the wind.
There were three letters in his pocket and he lighted each of them holding each till the flame touched his hand and then dropping it to the street below. At one point, watching over his shoulder while the last of the letters burned, he saw the man across the street put down his paper and stand – even seeming to glance toward Tom’s window. But when he moved, it was only to walk across the room and disappear from sight.
There were a dozen coins in Tom Benecke’s pocket and he dropped them, three or four at a time. But if they struck anyone, or if anyone noticed their falling, no one connected them with their source.
His arms had begun to tremble from the steady strain of clinging to this narrow perch, and he did not know what to do now and was terribly frightened. Clinging to the window stripping with one hand, he again searched his pockets. But now – he had left his wallet on his dresser when he’d changed clothes – there was nothing left but the yellow sheet. It occurred to him irrelevantly that this death on the sidewalk below would be an eternal mystery; the window closed – why, how, and from where could he have fallen? No one would be able to identify his body for a time, either – the thought was somehow unbearable and increased his fear. All they’d find in his pockets would be the yellow sheet. Contents of the dead man’s pockets, he thought, one sheet of paper bearing penciled notations – incomprehensible.

He understood fully that he might actually be going to die; his arms, maintaining his balance on the ledge, were trembling steadily now. And it occurred to him then with all the force of a revelation that, if he fell, all he was ever going to have out of life he would then, abruptly, have had. Nothing, then, could ever be changed; and nothing more – no least experience or pleasure – could ever be added to his life. He wished, then, that he had not allowed his wife to go off by herself tonight – and on similar nights. He thought of all the evenings he had spent away from her, working; and he regretted them. He thought wonderingly of his fierce ambition and of the direction his life had taken; he thought of the hours he’d spent by himself, filling the yellow sheet that had brought him out here. Contents of the dead man’s pockets, he thought with sudden fierce anger, a wasted life.
He was simply not going to cling here till he slipped and fell; he told himself that now. There was one last thing he could try; he had been aware of it for some moments, refusing to think about it, but now he faced it. Kneeling here on the ledge, the finger tips of one hand pressed to the narrow strip of wood, he could, he knew, draw his other hand back a yard perhaps, fist clenched tight, doing it very slowly till he sensed the outer limit of balance, then, as hard as he was able from the distance, he could drive his fist forward against the glass. If it broke, his fist smashing through, he was safe; he might cut himself badly, and probably would, but with his arm inside the room, he would be secure. But if the glass did not break, the rebound, flinging his arm back, would topple him off the ledge. He was certain of that.
He tested his plan. The fingers of his left hand clawlike on the little stripping, he drew back his other fist until his body began teetering backward. But he had no leverage now – he could feel that there would be no force to his swing – and he moved his fist slowly forward till he rocked forward on his knees again and could sense that his swing would carry its greatest force. Glancing down, however, measuring the distance from his fist to the glass, he saw it was less than two feet.
It occurred to him that he could raise his arm over his head, to bring it down against the glass. But, experimenting in slow motion, he knew it would be an awkward girl-like blow without the force of a driving punch, and not nearly enough to break the glass.
Facing the window, he had to drive a blow from the shoulder, he knew now, at distance of less than two feet; and he did not know whether it would break through the heavy glass. It might; he could picture it happening, he could feel it in the nerves of his arm. And it might not; he could feel that too – feel his fist striking this glass and being instantaneously flung back by the unbreaking pane, feel the fingers of his other hand breaking loose, nails scraping along the casing as he fell.
He waited, arm drawn back, fist balled, but in no hurry to strike; this pause, he knew, might be an extension of his life. And to live even a few seconds longer, he felt, even out here on this ledge in the night, was infinitely better than to die a moment earlier than he had to. His arm grew tired, and he brought it down.
Then he knew that it was time to make the attempt. He could not kneel here hesitating indefinitely till he lost all courage to act, waiting till he slipped off the ledge. Again he drew back his arm, knowing this time that he would not bring it down till he struck. His elbow protruding over Lexington Avenue far below, the fingers of his other hand pressed down bloodlessly tight against the narrow stripping, he waited, feeling the sick tenseness and terrible excitement building. It grew and swelled toward the moment of action, his nerves tautening. He thought of Clare – just a wordless, yearning thought – and then drew his arm back just a bit more, fist so tight his fingers pained him, and knowing he was going to do it. Then with full power, with every last scrap of strength he could bring to bear, he shot his arm forward toward the glass, and he said, “Clare!”
He heard the sound, felt the blow, felt himself falling forward, and his hand closed on the living-room curtains, the shards and fragments of glass showering onto the floor. And then, kneeling there on the ledge, an arm thrust into the room up to the shoulder, he began picking away the protruding slivers and great wedges of glass from the window frame, tossing them in onto the rug. And, as he grasped the edges of the empty window frame and climbed into his home, he was grinning in triumph.
He did not lie down on the floor or run through the apartment, as he had promised himself; even in the first few moments it seemed to him natural and normal that he should be where he was. He simply turned to his desk, pulled the crumpled yellow sheet from his pocket and laid it down where it had been, smoothing it out; then he absently laid a pencil across it to weight it down. He shook his head wonderingly, and turned to walk toward the closet.
There he got out his topcoat and hat and, without waiting to put them on, opened the front door and stepped out, to go find his wife. He turned to pull the door closed and the warm air from the hall rushed through the narrow opening again. As he saw the yellow paper, the pencil flying, scooped off the desk and, unimpeded by the glassless window, sail out into the night and out of his life, Tom Benecke burst into laughter and then closed the door behind him.

By Jack Finney

GLOSSARY:

flimsy	adj. lacking strength or substance
portable	n. something capable of being carried, as a typewriter or television set
creased	adj. folded; wrinkled
mutter	v. to speak quietly or in a low voice
muffled	adj. made quieter
clang	n. a loud, ringing sound like that of a large bell
slacks	pl. n.  old-fashioned a pair of trousers, usually of a type that fit loosely
circlet	n. a small circle
shove	v. to put something somewhere in a hurried or careless way
budge	v. start or cause to move
jolt	v. shake roughly
doorjamb	n. upright piece forming the side of a door opening
swat	n. (Colloq.) a smart or violent blow
flick	v. strike lightly with a quick, snapping blow
accelerated	adj. hastened; caused to go faster or happen sooner
flutter	v. to make a series of quick delicate movements up and down or from side to side
window ledge	v. a shelf below a window
casing	n. an enclosing frame around a door or window opening
scud	v. run or move swiftly
ornate	adj. much decorated
convoluted	adj. involved; intricate; twisted
poker	n. a metal rod for stirring a fire
improvised	adj. something made, invented, or arranged without previous planning
shorthand	n. a fast way of writing using symbols for words
duplicate	v. copy; do the same thing
shrug	v. to raise your shoulders and then lower them in order to express a lack of knowledge or interest
payroll	n. a list of the people employed by a company showing how much each one earns
verify	v. confirm; prove the truth of
indented	adj. formed by a dent or depression; notched
tweed	n. coarse wool cloth made of threads of two or more colors
sill	n. piece of wood or stone across the bottom of a door or window
erect	adj. standing with your back and neck very straight
putty	n. a soft mixture of calcium carbonate and linseed oil, used for fastening panes of glass, etc.
brittle	adj. easily broken
mortar	n. a mixture of lime, sand, and water for holding bricks or stones together
compulsion	n. a very strong or uncontrollable desire (to do something repeatedly)
trough	n. V-shaped channel or drain
taut	adj. firm; tight
spasm	n. sudden, convulsive involuntary contraction of a muscle [spasmodic?adj.]
grimace	v. twist or distort the face, as in expressing pain, contempt, disgust, etc.
calf	n. the fleshy part at the back of the human leg below the knee
limp	adj. soft and neither firm nor stiff
numb	adv. having lost the power of feeling or moving
subdued	adj. not loud
lull	n. a short period of quiet after noise or activity
rasp	v. make a harsh, grating sound
stumble	v. to step awkwardly while walking or running and fall or begin to fall
flailing	adj. thrashing; moving about violently
pant	v. breath hard and quickly, or in a labored manner
pent-up	adj. confined; shut up
giddy	adj. dizzy [giddiness n.]
flick	n. quick, light blow; v. strike lightly with a quick, snapping blow
belly	n. the underpart of an animal’s body; abdomen
course	v. race; run
scrabble	v. scratch or claw about clumsily or frantically
sheer	adv. very steeply
gropingly	adv. feeling about with the hands; searching for blindly
sag	v. sink under weight or pressure
imperceptibly	adv. very slight; cannot be seen or felt
davenport	n. couch, sofa
clenched	adj. pressed closely together
moistened	adj. slightly wet
sash	n. frame for the glass of a window or door
rebound	n. springing back
totter	v. sway in an unsteady way
tufts	n. small bunch of feathers, hair, etc., loose at one end and close together at the other
bay	n. the position of one stopped from a pursuit, growth or development
instep	n. the curved upper part of the foot between the toes and the heel
crouch	v. to bend your knees and lower yourself so that you are close to the ground and leaning forward slightly
astounded	adj. surprised; amazed
interminable	adj. endless; so long as to seem endless
cramp	n. a sudden, painful contracting of muscles from chill, strain, etc.
thigh	n. upper part of the leg above the knee
score	n. twenty of anything
sheaf	n. a bundle of things of the same sort bound together
alight	v. come down from the air and settle
snuff	v. put an end to suddenly and completely
forefinger	n. the finger next to the thumb
gutter	n. channel along the side of a street, to carry off water
topple	v. fall forward
leverage	n. effectiveness; power; the mechanical advantage gained by the action of a lever
protrude	v. stick out, project
shard	n. fragment or broken piece, especially of glass or pottery
sliver	n. a very small thin piece of something, usually broken off something larger: a sliver of glass
scoop	v. 1. dip; dig out
	2. take out with or as if with a scoop, a shovel-shaped implement for digging or dipping
	3. (Slang) publish a piece of news before a rival newspaper does

TRUE-FALSE
Some of the statements below are true and some are false. Choose the false statements and tell why they are incorrect.
1. Tom has a guilty conscience because he is not helping his wife clean the closet.
2. Tom was a very good football player in college.
3. Tom wanted to go to the movie with his wife.
4. Clare plans to see two movies.
5. Tom could not easily duplicate the information on the yellow sheet.
6. Tom had no desire to look down onto the street below.
7. Tom was standing when he tried to break the window.
8. Tom dropped the coins to try to get the attention of people below.
9. The upper window wouldn’t open because it was stuck shut by a covering of paint.
10. In order to break the window, Tom must not draw his arm back as far as he can.

Key:

l. F; 2. F; 3. T; 4. T; 5. Т; 6. F; 7. F; 8. T; 9. T; 10. T

MEANING  FROM  CONTEXT  I

Choose the meaning that is closest to the meaning in the context of the story. Look for clues to help you guess correctly.

1.	budge		6.	jolt
	a. close			a. pull
	b. move			b. open
	c. break			c. shake
2.	dangling		7.	pent-up
	a. broken			a. confined
	b. stumbling			b. fear
	c. hanging			c. piled
3.	davenport		8.	rebound
	a. desk			a. spring back
	b. sofa			b. slide off
	c. floor			c. turn away
4.	give out		9.	scud
	a. become exhausted			a. fall
	b. distribute			b. move swiftly
	c. break			c. roll over
5.	interminable		10.	swat
	a. boring			a. kiss
	b. unreadable			b. smell
	c. endless			c. slap

Key:

l. b; 2. с; 3. b; 4. a; 5. с; 6. с; 7. a; 8. a; 9. b; 10. c

MEANING  FROM  CONTEXT  II

Below is a list of twelve words from the story, followed by twelve sentences with blanks. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate word based on the meaning you understand from the context of the sentence and the story. The stem form may have to be changed to fit the context.

a.	astound	g.	giddy
b.	course	h.	imperceptible
c.	crease	i.	muffle
d.	duplicate	j.	pant
e.	flail	k.	squat
f.	flick	l.	verify

1. We didn’t notice ____________ movement of the hands on the clock.
2. Even though they expected it to be expensive, they were ______________ by the amount of the hotel bill.
3. You should make a ______________ of your key in case you lose it.
4. He had to show his passport in order to _______________ his identity.
5. The dog was ______________ heavily after running for three miles.
6. The children turned in circles until they began to feel _______________.
7. He removed the insect with a _______________ of his finger.
8. They may have thought it was good dancing, but to me it was just _______________ arms and legs.
9. He used a hot iron to put a sharp _______________ in his trousers.
10. Airplanes now employ a special device to _________________ the sound of their engines.
11. The farmer had to _______________ uncomfortably to milk the cow.
12. It was dangerous to be in the canoe because the river _______________ between two huge rocks.

Key:

l. h; 2. a; 3. d; 4. l; 5. j; 6. g; 7. f; 8. e; 9. с; 10. i; 11. k; 12. b

WHAT  IS  YOUR  UNDERSTANDING?
1. Is the setting of the story in New York City particularly important? Why or why not?
2. How does Tom resist his temptation to go along with his wife to the movies?
3. Why does Tom have to push to close the door?
4. Why did the Beneckes pay less rent than their neighbors?
5. Tom didn’t want to present his idea to his employer without the information on the yellow sheet of paper. What difference would having the paper make?
6. Explain Tom’s thought that he could move along the ledge indefinitely if it were only a yard above ground?
7. When Tom is out on the ledge he does not allow himself time to think. What would thinking do and why must it be avoided?
8. What caused Tom to realize how short a time he had been out on the ledge?
9. Why can’t Tom hit the window harder with his shoe?
10. What methods does Tom use to try to attract attention while out on the ledge?
11. Why does Tom think that if he fell his death would be a mystery?
12. If Tom doesn’t try to break the glass with his fist, what does he believe the alternative to be?

WHAT  IS  YOUR  INTERPRETATION?
1. Tom’s wife tells him that he works too much. What gives you an indication of how she feels this may be affecting their relationship?
2. Tom’s awareness or lack of awareness of time is important to the effectiveness of the story. How does the author use the incidents of the burning cigarette and the sequence of events in the movie theater to illustrate the relativity of time?
3. How does the yellow sheet – the “contents of the dead man’s pockets” – represent a wasted life?
4. Why do you think Tom said “Clare!” as he hit the window?
5. What do you think the ending of the story indicates about Tom’s future?
6. How does Tom balance the two sides of the question of whether to go out after the yellow sheet of paper? What are the points on each side? What do you think convinces him to risk his life for the paper?
7. How might laughing at the idea of going out on the ledge make it more acceptable? How could making a joke out of the incident be used to further Tom’s career?

OPTIONAL  ACTIVITIES
1. Figurative Language
Give an explanation or an alternative way of saying each of the following metaphors and similes from the story. Also, see if you can find other examples of this type of figurative language.

in the back of his mind
explosion of terror
moving black dots of people
knife edge of balance
strength draining like water
scenes in his mind like scraps of motion picture film
the flimsy barrier erected in his mind

2. The author builds the suspense in the story toward the climax by having Tom go through a series of crises. Locate these crises. How does each serve to make the story more effective?

3. Just For Fun
Below are two lists of vocabulary words from the story: the nouns are parts of the body and the verbs (or their adjective forms) are associated with each part.

a. Match the noun with a verb as it is used in the story.
b. Many of the nouns could be paired with different verbs or adjectives on the list. Try making sentences using these different combinations.

back	arch
blood	bend
body	cling
calf	drain
eye	expose
finger (tip)	rack
hand	rasp
head	rush
knee	scrape
leg	shiver
teeth	squeeze
thigh	sway
throat	tremble

to be continued