When the cop was within ten yards of him, the man

turned, gave a slight jump, then nodded as if accepting

Death Wish that the moment had passed. He appeared to be in his
middle thirties, tall with a long narrow face and thick
By: Lawrence Block black eyebrows.
'Looking at the city?' said the cop. 'I saw you here,
and thought I'd come and have a talk with you. It can
The cop saw the car stop on the bridge but didn't think
get lonely at this hour of the night.' He patted his
too much about it. People often stopped their cars on
pockets, pretending to look for his cigarettes and not
the bridge late at night, when there was not much
finding them. 'Got a spare cigarette on you?' he asked.
traffic. The bridge was over the deep river that cut the
city neatly in two, and the center of the bridge The man gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. The
provided the best view of the city. cop thanked the man and looked out at the city.
Suicides liked the bridge, too. The cop didn't think of 'Looks pretty from here,' he said. 'Makes a man feel at
that until he saw the man get out of the car, walk peace with himself.
slowly along the footpath at the edge, and put a hand ''It hasn't had that effect on me,' the man said. 'I was
on the rail. There was something about that lonely just thinking about the ways a man could find peace
figure, something about the grayness of the night, the for himself.
fog coming off the river. The cop looked at him and
swore, and wondered if he could get to him in time. ''Things usually get better sooner or later, even if it
takes a little while,' the cop said. 'It's a tough world,
He didn't want to shout or blow his whistle because he but it's the best we've got, and you're not going to find
knew what shock or surprise could do to a probable a better one at the bottom of a river.
suicide. Then the man lit a cigarette, and the cop knew
he had time. They always smoked all of that last 'The man said nothing for a long time, then he threw
cigarette before they went over the edge. his cigarette over the rail and watched it hit the water.
He turned to face the cop. 'My name's Edward Wright. you started taking in everyone who thought about
I don't think I'd have done it. Not tonight.' suicide, you'd never stop. He went back towards the
other side of the bridge. When he reached it, he took
'Something particular bothering you?' said the cop.
out his note-book and wrote down the name, Edward
'Not... anything special.' Wright. So he would remember what the man meant,
'Have you seen a doctor? That can help, you know.' he added, Big Eyebrows, Wife Dead, Thought About
Jumping.
'So they say.'
'Want to get a cup of coffee?' said the cop.
****
The man started to say something, then changed his
mind. He lit another cigarette and blew out a cloud of
smoke. 'I'll be all right now,' he said. 'I'll go home, get The psychiatrist stroked his pointed beard and looked
some sleep. I haven't been sleeping well since my at the patient.
wife -'
'... no longer worth living,' the man was saying. 'I
'Oh,' the cop said. almost killed myself the night before last. I almost
'She died. She was all I had and, well, she died.' jumped from the Morrissey Bridge.'

The cop put a hand on his shoulder. 'You'll get over it, 'And?'
Mr. Wright. Maybe you think you can't live through 'A policeman came along. I wouldn't have jumped
it, that nothing will be the same, but-' anyway.'
'I'd better get home,' the man said. 'I'm sorry to cause 'Why not?'
trouble. I'll try to relax, I'll be all right.'
'I don't know.'
The cop watched him drive away and wondered if he
The endless talk of patient and doctor went on.
should have taken him into the police station. But if
Sometimes the doctor went through a whole hour
without thinking at all, making automatic replies but 'Twenty,' said the man.
not really hearing a word that was said to him. I
'Ten can kill you,' said the doctor. 'How long ago did
wonder, he thought, whether I do these people any
you take them?'
good at all. Perhaps they only want to talk, and need a
listener. 'Half an hour. No, maybe twenty minutes.'
He listened next to a dream. Almost all his patients 'And then you decided not to act like a fool, yes?
told him their dreams, which annoyed the psychiatrist, Twenty minutes. Why wait this long?'
who never remembered having a dream of his own. 'I tried to make myself sick.'
He listened to this dream, glancing now and then at
his watch and wishing the hour would end. The 'Couldn't do it? Well, we'll try the stomach pump,' the
dream, he knew, indicated a decreasing wish to live, a doctor said.
development of the death wish, and a desire for It was very unpleasant, but finally the doctor said,
suicide that was prevented only by fear. But for how
long? 'You'll live.'

Another dream. The psychiatrist closed his eyes and 'Thank you, Doctor.'
stopped listening. Five more minutes, he told himself, 'Don't thank me. I'll have to report this.'
and then this fool would leave.
'I wish you wouldn't. I'm... I'm under a psychiatrist's
The doctor looked at the man, saw the heavy care. It was more an accident than anything else,
eyebrows, the expression of guilt and fear. 'I have to really.
have my stomach pumped, Doctor,' the man said. 'Can
you do it here or do we have to go to a hospital?' 'The doctor raised his eyebrows. 'Twenty pills? You'd
better pay me now. I can't risk sending bills to people
'What's the matter with you?' who may be suicides.'
'Pills.'
'Sleeping pills? How many did you take?' *****
 a tall man with thick black eyebrows. He looked
outside, recognized his visitor, and opened the door.
'This is a fine gun for the price,' the clerk said. 'But for
just a few dollars more-' His visitor put a gun in Edward Wright's stomach.
'No, this will be satisfactory. I'll need a box of bullets.' 'Mark-'
The clerk gave him a box. 'Or three boxes for-' 'Invite me in,' the man said. 'It's cold out here.'
'Just the one.' 'Mark, I don't-'
The shopkeeper opened a book. 'You'll have to sign 'Inside.'
there, to keep the law happy.' He checked the
In the living room, Edward Wright stared at the gun
signature when the man had finished writing. 'I'm
and knew that he was going to die.
supposed to see something to identify you, Mr
Wright. Can I see your driver's license?' He checked 'You killed her, Ed,' the visitor said. 'She wanted a
the license, compared the signatures, and wrote down divorce. You couldn't let her have that, could you? I
the license number. told her it was dangerous to tell you, that you were
nothing but an animal. I told her to run away with me
'Thank you,' said the man.
and forget you but she wanted to do the right thing,
'Thank you, Mr Wright. I think you'll get a lot of use and you killed her.'
out of that gun.'
'You're crazy!'
'I'm sure I will.'
'You made it look like an accident, didn't you? How
*** did you do it? Tell me, or this gun goes off.'
At nine o'clock that night, Edward Wright heard his 'I hit her.' Wright looked at the gun, then at the man. 'I
back doorbell ring. He walked downstairs, glass in hit her a few times, then I threw her down the stairs.
hand, finished his drink and went to the door. He was You can't go to the police with this, you know. They
can't prove it and they wouldn't believe it.'
'We won't go to the police,' the man said. 'I didn't go Wright did not exactly believe him, but the gun at his
to them at the beginning. They didn't know of a head left him little choice. He wrote the note and
motive for you, did they? I could have told them a signed his name.
motive, but I didn't go, Edward. Sit down at your
'Turn round, Edward.'
desk. Take out a piece of paper and a pen. There's a
message I want you to write.' He turned and stared. The man looked very different.
He had put on false eyebrows and false hair, and he
'You can't- '
had done something to his eyes.
'Write I can't go on any longer. This time I won't fail,
'Do you know who I look like now, Edward? I look
and sign your name.' He put the gun against the back
like you.
of Edward Wright's shaking head.
Not exactly like you, of course, but a good imitation
'You'll hang for it, Mark.'
of you.'
'Suicide, Edward.'
'You - you've been pretending to be me? But why?'
'No one will believe I was a suicide, note or no note.
'You just told me you're not the suicidal type, Edward.
They won't believe it.'
But you'd be surprised at your recent behavior.
'Just write the note, Edward. Then I'll give you the There's a policeman who had to talk you out of
gun and leave you to do what you must do.' jumping off the Morrissey Bridge. There's the
psychiatrist Who has been seeing you and hearing you
'You-'
talk about suicide. There's the doctor who had to
'Just write the note. I don't want to kill you, Edward. I pump your stomach this afternoon. It was most
want you to write the note, and then I'll leave you unpleasant. I was worried my false hair might slip, but
here.' it didn't. All those things you've been doing, Edward.
Strange that you can't remember them. Do you
remember! buying this gun this afternoon?'
'You did, you know. Only an hour ago. You had to Wright's wallet, and the receipt for the gun into
sign for it. Had to show your driver's license, too.' Wright's pocket.
'How did you get my driver's license?' 'You shouldn't have killed her,' he said to Wright's
dead body. Then, smiling privately, he went out of the
'I didn't. I created it.' The man laughed softly. 'It
back door and walked off into the night.
wouldn't fool a policeman, but no policeman saw it. It
fooled the clerk though. Not the suicidal type? All
those people will swear you are, Edward.'
'What about my friends? The people at the office?'
'They'll all help. They'll start to remember your
moods. I'm sure you've been acting very shocked and
unhappy about her death. You had to play the part,
didn't you? You should never have killed her, Edward.
I loved her, even if you didn't. You should have let
her go, Edward.'
Wright was shaking with fear. 'You said you weren't
going to murder me. You were going to leave me with
the gun-'
'Don't believe everything you hear,' the man said, and,
very quickly, he pushed the gun into Wright's mouth
and shot him. Afterwards, he arranged things neatly,
wiped his own fingerprints from the gun and put
Wright's fingerprints on it. He left the note on top of
the desk, put the psychiatrist's business card into
RAY BRADBURY time for Mrs. Singer to close her store, Mother relents
and tells you:
The Night
"Run get a pint of ice cream and be sure she packs it
You are a child in a small town. You are, to be exact, tight."
eight years old, and it is growing late at night. Late
for you, accustomed to bedding in at nine or nine-
thirty; once in a while perhaps begging Mom or Dad You ask if you can get a scoop of chocolate ice cream
to let you stay up later to hear Sam and Henry on that on top, because you don't like vanilla, and Mother
strange radio that is popular in this year of -2011. But agrees. You clutch the money and run barefooted
most of the time you are in bed and snug at this time over the warm evening cement sidewalk, under the
of night. apple trees and oak trees, toward the store. The town
is so quiet and far off, you can only hear the crickets
sounding in the spaces beyond the hot indigo trees
It is a warm summer evening. You live in small that hold back the stars.
house on a small street in the outer part of town where
there are few street lights. There is only one store
open, about a block away: Mrs. Singer's. In the hot Your bare feet slap the pavement, you cross the street
evening Mother has been ironing the Monday wash and find Mrs. Singer Moving ponderously about her
and you have been intermittently begging for ice store, singing Yiddish melodies.
cream and staring into the dark.

"Pint ice cream?" she says. "Chocolate on top? Yes!"

You and your mother are all alone at home in the
warm darkness of summer. Finally, just before it is
You watch her fumble the metal top off the ice-cream
freezer and manipulate the scoop, packing the
cardboard pint chock full with "chocolate on top, and always running. He is allowed to stay up later
yes!" You give the money, receive the chill, icy pack, than you. Not much later, but enough to make him
and rubbing it across your brow and cheek, laughing, feel it is worthwhile having been born first. He is
you thump barefootedly homeward. Behind you, the over on the other side of town this evening to a game
lights of the lonely little store blink out and there is of kick-the-can and will be home soon. He and the
only a street light shimmering on the corner, and the kids have been yelling, kicking, running for hours,
whole city seems to be going to sleep…. having fun. Soon he will come clomping in, smelling
of sweat and green grass on his knees where he fell,
and smelling very much in all ways like Skipper;
Opening the screen door you find Mom still which is natural.
ironing. She looks hot and irritated, but she smiles
just the same.
You sit enjoying the ice cream. You are at the core of
the deep quiet summer night. Your mother and
"When will Dad be home from lodge-meeting?" you yourself and the night all around this small house on
ask. this small street. You lick each spoon of ice cream
thoroughly before digging for another, and Mom puts
her ironing board away and the hot iron in its case,
"About eleven-thirty or twelve," Mother replies. She
and she sits in the armchair by the phonograph, eating
takes the ice cream to the kitchen, divides it. Giving
her dessert and saying, "My lands, it was a hot day
you your special portion of chocolate, she dishes out
today. It's still hot. Earth soaks up all the heat and
some for herself and the rest is put away, "Skipper
lets it out at night. It'll be soggy sleeping."
and your father when they come."

You both sit there listening to the summer

Skipper is your brother. He is your older
silence. The dark is pressed down by every window
brother. He's twelve and healthy, red-faced, hawk-
and door, there is no sound because the radio needs a
nosed, tawny-haired, broad-shouldered for his years,
new battery, and you have played all the "Wait awhile, Doug."
Knickerbocker Quartet records and Al Jolson and
"Why?"
Two Black Crows records to exhaustion; so you just
sit on the hardwood floor by the door and look out "Because. I say so."
into the dark dark dark, pressing your nose against the "You look funny, Mom."
screen until the flesh of its tip is molded into small
dark squares.
Mom sits down a moment, then stands up, goes to the
door, and calls. You listen to her calling and calling
"I wonder where your brother is?" Mother says after Skipper, Skipper, Skiiiiiiiiiperrarrrr over and
a while. Her spoon scrapes on the dish. "He should over. Her calling goes out into the summer warm
be home by now. It's almost nine-thirty." dark and never comes back. The echoes pay no
attention.
"He'll be here," you say, knowing very well that he
will be. And as you sit on the floor a coldness that is not ice
cream and not winter, and not part of summer's heat,
You follow Mom out to wash the dishes. Each sound, goes through you. You notice Mom's eyes sliding,
each rattle of spoon or dish is amplified in the baked blinking; the way she stands undecided and is
evening. Silently, you go to the living room, remove nervous. All of these things.
the couch cushions and, together, yank it open and
extend it down into the double bed that it secretly She opens the screen door. Stepping out into the night
is. Mother makes the bed, punching pillows neatly to she walks down the steps and down the front sidewalk
hump them up for your head. Then, as you are under the lilac bush. You listen to her moving feet.
unbuttoning your shirt, she says:
She calls again. Silence. "Just down the block. Come on. Better put your
shoes on, though. You'll catch cold."

She calls twice more. You sit in the room. Any

moment now Skipper will reply, from down the long "No, I won't. I'll be all right."
long narrow street:

You take her hand. Together you walk down. St.

"All right, Mom! All right, Mother! Hey!" James Street. You smell roses in blossom, fallen
apples lying crushed and odorous in the deep
grass. Underfoot, the concrete is still warm, and the
But he doesn't answer. And for two minutes you sit crickets are sounding louder against the darkening
looking at the made-up bed, the silent radio, the silent dark. You reach a corner, turn, and walk toward the
phonograph, at the chandelier with its crystal bobbins ravine.
gleaming quietly, at the rug with the scarlet and
purple curlicues on it. You stub your toe on the bed
purposely to see if it hurts. It does. Off somewhere, a car goes by, flashing its lights in the
distance. There is such a complete lack of life, light,
and activity. Here and there, back off from where you
Whining, the screen door opens, and Mother says: are walking toward the ravine, you see faint squares
of light where people are still up. But most of the
houses, darkened, are sleeping already, and there are a
"Come on, Shorts. We'll take a walk."
few lightless places where the occupants of a dwelling
sit talking low dark talk on their front porches. You
"Where to?" hear a porch swing squeaking as you walk near.
"I wish your father was home," says Mother. Her You are only eight years old, you know little of death,
large hand tightens around your small one. "Just fear, or dread. Death is the waxen effigy in the coffin
wait'll I get that boy. I'll spank him within an inch of when you were six and Grandfather passed away—
his life." looking like a great fallen vulture in his casket, silent,
withdrawn, no more to tell you how to be a good boy,
no more to comment succinctly on politics. Death is
A razor strop hangs in the kitchen for this. You think your little sister one morning when you awaken at the
of it, remember when Dad, has doubled and flourished age of seven, look into her crib and see her staring up
it with muscled control over your frantic limbs. You at you with a blind blue, fixed and frozen stare until
doubt Mother will carry out her promise. the men come with a small wicker basket to take her
Now you have walked another block and are standing away. Death is when you stand by her high chair four
by the holy black silhouette of the German Baptist weeks later and suddenly realize she'll never be in it
Church at the Comer of Chapel Street and Glen again, laughing and crying, and make you jealous of
Rock. In back of the church a hundred yards away, her because she was born. That is death.
the ravine begins. You can smell it. It has a dark
sewer, rotten foliage, thick green odor. It is a wide
But this is more than death. This summer night
ravine that cuts and twists across the town, a jungle by
wading deep in time and stars and Warm eternity. It
day, a place to let alone at night, Mother has often
is an essence of all the things you will ever feel or see
declared.
or hear in your life again, being brought steadily home
to you all at once.
You should feel encouraged by the nearness of the
German Baptist Church, but you are not—because the
Leaving the sidewalk, you walk along a trodden,
building is not illuminated, is cold and useless as a
pebbled, weed-fringed path to the ravines edge,
pile of ruins on the ravine edge.
Crickets, in loud full drumming chorus now, are
shouting to quiver the dead. You follow obediently
behind brave, fine, tall Mother who is defender of all
the universe. You feel braveness because she goes
before, and you hang back a trifle for a moment, and
then hurry on, too. Together, then, you approach,
reach, and pause at the very edge of civilization.

The ravine. THIS IS BRADBURY'S ENDING....

Here and now, down there in that pit of jangled You realize you are alone. You and your mother. Her
blackness is suddenly all the evil you will ever hand trembles.
know. Evil you will never understand. All of the
nameless things are there. Later, when you have
grown you'll be given names to label them Her hand trembles.
with. Meaningless syllables to describe the waiting
nothingness. Down there in the huddled shadow,
among thick trees and trailed vines, lives the odor of Your belief in your private world is shattered. You
decay. Here, at this spot, civilization ceases, reason feel Mother tremble. Why? Is she, too, doubtful? But
ends, and a universal evil takes over. she is bigger, stronger, more intelligent than yourself,
isn't she? Does she, too, feel that intangible menace,
that groping out of darkness, that crouching
YOUR ASSIGNMENT STARTS HERE.... malignancy down below? Is there, then, no strength in
growing up? no solace in being an adult? no sanctuary
in life? no flesh citadel strong enough to withstand the
scrabbling assault of midnights? Doubts flush you.
Ice-cream lives again in your throat, stomach, spine
and limbs; you are instantly cold as a wind out of The essential impact of life's loneliness crushes your
December-gone. beginning-to-tremble body. Mother is alone, too. She
cannot look to the sanctity of marriage, the protection
of her family's love, she cannot look to the United
You realize that all men are like this. That each person States Constitution or the City Police, she cannot look
is to himself one alone. One oneness, a unit in a anywhere, in this very instant, save into her heart, and
society, but always afraid. Like here, standing. If you there she'll find nothing but uncontrollable
should scream now, if you should holler for help, repugnance and a will to fear. In this instant it is an
would it matter? individual problem seeking an individual solution.
You must accept being alone and work on from there.
You are so close to the ravine now that in the instant
of your scream, in the interval between someone You swallow hard, cling to her. Oh, Lord, don't let her
hearing it and running to find you, much could die, please, you think. Don't do anything to us. Father
happen. will be coming home from lodge-meeting in an hour
and if the house is empty. . .?
Blackness could come swiftly, swallowing; and in one
titanically freezing moment all would be concluded. Mother advances down the path into the primeval
Long before dawn, long before police with flashlights jungle. Your voice trembles. 'Mom. Skip's all right.
might probe the disturbed pathway, long before men Skip's all right. He's all right. Skip's all right.'
with trembling brains could rustle down the pebbles to
your help. Even if they were within five hundred
yards of you now, and help certainly is, in three Mother's voice is strained high. 'He always comes
seconds a dark tide could rise to take all eight years of through here. I tell him not to, but those darned kids,
life away from you and -- they come through here anyway. Some night he'll
come through and never come out again -- '
 and realize what it is. The crickets have stopped
Never come out again. That could mean anything. chirping.
Tramps. Criminals. Darkness. Accident. Most of all --
death.
Silence is complete.

Alone in the universe.

Never in your life a silence like this one. One so
utterly complete. Why should the crickets cease?
There are a million small towns like this all over the Why? What reason? They have never stopped ever
world. Each as dark, as lonely, each as removed, as before. Not ever.
full of shuddering and wonder. The reedy playing of
minor-key violins is the small towns' music, with no
Unless. Unless --
lights but many shadows. Oh the vast swelling
loneliness of them. The secret damp ravines of them.
Life is a horror lived in them at night, when at all Something is going to happen.
sides sanity, marriage, children, happiness, is
threatened by an ogre called Death.
It is as if the whole ravine is tensing, bunching
together its black fibres, drawing in power from all
Mother raises her voice into the dark. about sleeping countrysides, for miles and miles.
From dew-sodden forest and dells and rolling hills
where dogs tilt heads to moons, from all around the
'Skip! Skipper!' she calls. 'Skip! Skipper!'
great silence is sucked into one centre, and you at the
core of it. In ten seconds now, something will happen,
Suddenly, both of you realize there is something something will happen. The crickets keep their truce,
wrong. Something very wrong. You listen intently
the stars are so low you can almost brush the tinsel. The stars suck up like the stung antennae of ten
There are swarms of them, hot and sharp. million snails.

Growing, growing, the silence. Growing, growing the The crickets sing!
tenseness. Oh it's so dark, so far away from
everything. Oh God!
The darkness pulls back, startled, shocked, angry.
Pulls back, losing its appetite at being so rudely
And then, way way off across the ravine: interrupted as it prepared to feed. As the dark retreats
like a wave on a shore, three kids pile out of it,
laughing.
'Okay Mom! Coming, Mother!'

'Hi, Mom! Hi, Shorts! Hey!'

And again:

It smells like Skipper all right. Sweat and grass and

'Hi, Mom! Coming, Mom!' his oiled leather baseball glove.

And then the quick scuttering of tennis shoes padding 'Young man, you're going to get a licking,' declares
down through the pit of the ravine as three kids come Mother. She puts away her fear instantly. You know
dashing, giggling. Your brother Skipper, Chuck she will never tell anybody of it, ever. It will be in her
Redman and Augie Bartz. Running, giggling. heart though, for all time, as it is in your heart, for all
time.
You walk home to bed in the late summer night. You
are glad Skipper is alive. Very glad. For a moment
there you thought --

Far off in the dim moonlit country, over a viaduct and

down a valley, a train goes rushing along and it
whistles like a lost metal thing, nameless and running.
You go to bed, shivering, beside your brother,
listening to that train whistle, and thinking of a cousin
who lived way out in the country where that train is
now; a cousin who died of pneumonia late at night
years and years ago. . . You smell the sweat of Skip
beside you. It is magic. You stop trembling. You hear
footsteps outside the house on the sidewalk, as
Mother is turning out the lights. A man clears his
throat in a way you recognize.

Mom says, 'That's your father.'

It is.