RUNDOWN
BY ROBERT LORY
All panhandlers ask for dimes—but
this one had a very special purpose!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The subway train announced its arrival with a screech of grating steel.The man was shoved from the car onto the platform by the eight p.m.crowd. The noise and the abrupt handling of his body brought him toawareness.
Not that he had been asleep or unconscious. Although he might havebeen. He didn't know for sure.
He found it hard to concentrate, but soon a sign over the platform cameinto focus:
WESTBORO
It meant nothing to him. The second thing he became aware of did.
Another train had replaced his, and directly in front of him wasan army of people, dispassionate towards everything but its oneobjective—to get on.
They came at him all at once, forming a pushing, elbowing, cursing,jarring mass of humanity. He glanced off one to collide with another.He escaped the punishment by a lunge to one side which ended with acrash to the cold cement floor.
He regained some semblance of steadiness on his feet and looked at thesign. It was still Westboro. It still meant nothing to him.
He was lost.
What was worse, he couldn't remember where he was lost from.
He turned to walk, he didn't know exactly where, when he smashed into alittle boy eating an apple.
The boy reacted in a strange manner.
"Leave me alone, you dirty man, you," the boy said. He dropped hisapple and ran off. Scared.
The man flushed with embarrassment, but the boy's remark made him lookdown at himself.
He saw a dirty man. Filthy. His white shirt—it had been whiteonce—was torn at the elbow and was covered with grime, his shoes atthe toes were white where the black polish had worn completely off, hispants reflected no evidence of ever having been pressed and the rightleg was ripped from the knee down.
Two girls in their teens passed and giggled.
He was aware that others had noticed him.
"Hey, lookit the bum," a fat jolly-rover called out to his threeon-the-towning cronies.
"Bum," the man thought, and reached to his back pocket.
No wallet. But not long ago he had one, he was sure, because the feelof its absence was there. Somebody must have taken it, or he mighthave lost it. In that crowd or on the subway or before.... He couldn'tremember where he had been before.
The feeling of not remembering seemed familiar, and he tried hard tothink. But there was nothing static in his mind that he could hold onto. His mind wasn't blank anymore, it was a jumble. He somehow recalledhe had been looking for his money. He fumbled through his other pockets.
He found a dirty handkerchief and two cents.
The feel of the coins brought everything back.
Quickly he felt his pulse. It was slower than he had ever known it tobe. Sure, there were times before when ... but then the doctor alwayshad been nearby. And this time, the most serious time of all—he lookedup at the Westboro sign—he was lost. Perhaps, up on the streets, hewould recognize something.
He began to take the stairs at a run, but his breath came too hard, andhe walked the rest of the way to the turnstile. The arm caught tight ashe started to go through and a sharp pain want through his groin.
"That's the way you go in, pal," somebody offered, an