Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (most life changing books txt) 📗

be reported, no girls allowed upstairs or in the television room, chapel service on Sundays required, a choice of Catholic or Protestant services, linen to be turned in Monday morning and checked out the same evening, no spitting or swearing, and any breach of these requirements would necessitate going into a probationary period of two weeks, at the end of which time it would be decided—given that no more rules had been broken—if the desire for self-betterment was strong enough. The ward he was to be on was an experimental one, just being tried. The doors were not to be locked and counselors were always on the floor.

July could see no way out of it. He had his money in his hand and got out $1.50 and put it on the counter. “Your room will be number twelve,” he was told. July looked again at the man’s neck, thinking that surely he must have a hole someplace where air was escaping and robbing him. Then the man started to cough and July went upstairs, and drank from a drinking fountain before locating his room.

There was no lock on the door and that disturbed him. He could hear talking, but not well enough to know how far away it was coming from. He shut the door and surveyed his room: a bed, a dresser, green walls and a window. He looked out and felt a surge of confidence—thinking of himself as a part of the human immensity outside. He stood and let this feeling saturate him, then he turned and sat on the bed. An unspecified number of people walked by his room, talking and joking. He could distinguish some swearing.

As quietly as possible, he moved the dresser over against the door. It was surprisingly light. He checked the drawers and found them empty except for a Bible, which he took out and put on top of the bed, seating himself beside it. Then with slow, nearly sensual motions, one at a time he drew out every object in his pockets and arranged them carefully on the bed, all of the pennies in a long line, quarters together, dimes and nickels. The paper money refused to lie neatly and he pressed the bills several times in the Bible and set them down stacked a quarter-inch apart. He opened both blades of his knife and put it down, pulled out the pistol and sat for a long time holding it, then took out the clip, unloaded it and laid the bullets side by side in a row, their yellow jackets beautiful. He polished the chrome of the gun and the pearl handle with his shirt and put it down too, at right angles to the bullets. He took each key from the ring and laid them out. Then most slowly, and with the most ceremony of all, he took out his billfold, opened it and one after another laid out the pictures, not in a row, but in the pockets left between the other things in his personal inventory. His father andmother smiled up at him from the bed. One picture showed him with them, standing next to the garage eating a piece of cheese. He felt their approval: they wanted him to run away. They were proud of how brave he was. They were pushing him on—on to what he wasn’t sure, but he felt right.

He sat looking, and several times changed one picture’s place with another for a better balance. He counted his money. Less than ten dollars. He put the money in piles. Then he had a new idea and laid it out again. He counted everything, all of his personal inventory. Every piece that could be called something of itself, he counted. Seventy-three. He had seventy-three things counting the Bible, which he decided was his as well, or would be. He looked around the room for something else that could be his, but there was nothing. Then he pulled off a button from his shirt and put it on the bed. Immediately he felt it was a stupid thing to do, and wished he hadn’t done it and began to be afraid. But the smiling pictures looked up at him and his parents’ voices told him, no, it was OK. They wanted him to have seventy-four things.

He began to count them again. He heard a bell sound somewhere. Then many quick footsteps, but little talking. He put his money into one pile and was putting it into his pocket when a knock came on his door; the doorknob turned. “Lights out,” said an older man’s voice as the door bumped into the bureau. “Let me in,” the man demanded angrily. “These doors are to be left open.” The bureau was noisily pushed aside and from the dark hallway into his lit room stepped a man of about fifty, wearing a dark lightweight suit tattered around the sleeve cuffs. July sat still, not knowing what to do. The man came several feet into the room and stopped dead still, as though struck in the face. July could see that he was looking at the gun on the bed. Still he didn’t know what to do. The man seemed paralyzed for what seemed like hours, but finally he moved and shut the door so that none of the boys who were hurrying down the hall to see what was up could look into the room. July began quickly stuffing the keys, knife and pictures back into his pockets.

“Give me that gun,” said the man, advancing toward him, his voice shaking slightly from his outstretched hand. July was pushing the bullets as fast as he could into his pants pocket. One fell to the floor and clattered. The noise seemed to make the man more shaky, but move more quickly. “Give me that gun,” he repeated.

July picked up the empty clip, shoved it up into the handle of the pistol and sat there with it, tears beginning to form in his