IrvingWeiss

The Man in the “Crushed Derby”

The man in the belted raincoat wearing a black beret that looked more
like a crushed derby was always on the corner of 4th and Loom among
the four or five people every morning waiting for the M-31 bus at 8
AM. The regulars presumably going to work. Men in suits or zippered
jackets, women mostly in jackets and light overcoats. Whenever
Darman (or Dharmin), regular in his habits, arrived at the bus stop five
or ten minutes before the M-31 turned in at the curb almost always on
time, the man in the belted raincoat and crushed derby was invariably
standing close to the curb facing the road among the cluster of
passengers impatient to board.

He was the first person Darman always recognized even after he had
gotten to identify by appearance most of the other regulars. It was the
raincoat and the strange hat no matter what the weather that spring
season.

One morning Darman woke up too late to walk the twelve blocks to
the bus stop, his usual exercise for the day. Even if he ran, he wasn’t
likely to reach the bus on time, so he hailed a cab from the stand
around the corner. As they were reaching the bus stop, Darman
realized he was already too late, the bus was veering away, and he
hesitated too long to decide about whether to sprint out into the
street and try to stop it. So he asked the driver, repeating it twice, to
speed past and meet the bus three stops ahead, at Varnye rather than
Morbin, about a mile or so down the avenue.

After he’d paid the driver and was pocketing his wallet and the cab
had gone off, Darman was surprised to see that first among the ten or
so people boarding the bus waiting at the curb at Varnye was the man
in the crushed derby. Darman climbed aboard after them and standing
tall among the passengers packed close in the front looked over the
heads of those around him. He could just make out the hat. It was an
anecdote worth repeating to his colleagues at the law office. Or was
it?

Even though Darman had an experimental turn of mind, he knew how
to clear his head and didn’t usually worry a thought. His work at the
bureau was mainly concerned with settling long unclaimed estate
searches. It was left for him to make final decisions.

The next morning he boarded the bus on time, and sure enough the
man was there on time himself. Darman assumed that what had
occurred the week before was a fluke. For both of them.

One morning when he needed to get to his desk earlier than usual, he
set the alarm back to let him make the 6:30 bus instead of the 8 o’
clock. But what happened that day wasn’t just that he was prepared to
wait for an earlier bus. He got to the bus stop where fewer and
different people than met the later bus were waiting--and there
among them was the man in the crushed derby all ready to board the 6:
30 M-3 close among the first passengers mounting the steps. It gave
Jon Darman a turn. Legal mind or not, speculations and wild ideas
began to take over. Building in his mind was more than an anecdote.

The next morning Darman, standing at the curb, hailed a taxi just
about to pass his building, saving him the trouble of hiring one at the
stand, and told the driver to take him to Burnam Place, one stop even
beyond Varnye.

He recognized the driver as the same longhaired Near-Easterner that
had driven him in a hurry the week before to Varnye and mentioned
the coincidence of being in the same cab. The driver said, yes, he
remembered him also. They chatted. There was no hurry this time
because Darman had planned his little venture beforehand with a half
an hour to spare.

And as they approached the Burnam place stop, where obviously a
totally new group of people was waiting, he saw what he had expected
and now fear welled up in his throat. Crushed Derby was boarding, the
very first one to step up. By the time Darman was ready to enter, there
was no hope of striking up a conversation with the man as he had
intended to—or thought he was ready to do-- because too many
people were already packed togeether in between them.

Anxiety. Paranoia. The only thing he could think of doing from now on,
even if he dreaded facing the prospect, was to vary his bus-waiting
time, vary the bus stop. For how long? This couldn’t be happening to
him-- but it was. There was no doubt it was. No matter when or where,
the man was always waiting for him. Of course. Waiting for Darman to
find him. What else could it be?

He did exactly that for a week: varied his places and times of
departure, but it made no difference. The man was always there. The
man was always there. True enough, sometimes the man in the hat,
the man in the raincoat, wasn’t all that identifiable--when the weather
was bad and everybody waiting for the bus at whatever stop was
scattered hugging buildings nearby or head down or hidden behind
umbrellas.

The idea that he was suffering from delusions occurred to him; almost
to the extent of relieving the panic of thinking he was being pursued.
Government agents. His legal profession. The time he was being
vetted for a state department position. Absurd. But still.

Only his weekends were blank. He thought of taking a trip elsewhere
by train or plane for a few days--only that might have clinched the
horror of expectation. Within the ingenious variety of bus-to-work
choices: the man was always there.

Darman lived by himself but he socialized, was well employed, went
out with girlfriends, liked sports, seemed to enjoy life, but he didn’t
comfortably fit a type: there was a reticent side to him, sometimes felt
he was holding back, one could even call him something of a loner,
whether his nature had led him to the kind of legal work he was
engaged in or his work responsibilities made him more secretive than
he might otherwise have been. Starting up in his thoughts was some
kind of foreboding. That man in the raincoat and that hat was pointedly
connecting to him. Connecting in the sense of an indefinable
prescience attaching itself. Something terrible was up, even if-- he
had to admit—even if it was in some way happening in his mind and
not really in objective, physical reality.

At this point, Darman, feeling only a little foolish, decided he would
take the bus at his regular stop on a Sunday afternoon, when the M-34
ran only once an hour. He wasn’t superstitious, ordinarily, that is-- but
of course he now obviously was. His heart beat faster the closer he
came to the bus stop. Only three people were there. Two men in
outdoor jackets—and the Man. Neither of the men in jackets was
talking to the other. Darman’s man was standing apart.

Darman walked straight up to his nemesis, close enough to make the
man turn his head toward him.

“Why are you following me?” Darman asked in a low tone and steady
voice.

The man didn’t answer. Instead he looked for an instant at the other
two men, who may or may not have heard Darman’s question.

“I asked you why you’re following me? Darman said in a more
nervous, much louder, voice, this time catching the other two men’s
attention.

Crushed Derby let a few seconds pass. “I heard you. I don’t know you.
The question is, who exactly is doing the following? I’ve barely even
looked your way before. I wouldn’t recognize you if I saw you again.”

Which was probably true, and Darman knew it.

“But it’s true,” the man added. “You do keep coming upon me.”

“Don’t turn it around, “ Darman said sarcastically. “You know exactly
what I mean. Why is it every time I couldn’t possibly expect to see you,
you’re always there? Either you know something about me I don’t
know or you want something from me, or you’re deliberately intent on
unbalancing my mind, though why you’re doing it, I can’t figure out.“

The man responded with a wan smile and again looked sideways at
the other two men in a glance of almost winking complicity, their
having obviously heard what was going on.

He sighed slightly. “What kind of work do you do?” But even as
Darman asked the question, he knew he didn’t really want an answer.
So he waited without saying a word.

“Think of me as one of the living dead. I’ll repeat that: one of the
living dead,” the man said. “There are millions of us. Run this through
your head: it’s you who for whatever reason must have been singled
out to follow me and confront me—not me to look for you. Actually, I’
ve never even looked at you until now. In any case, it’s over with. I
may never have anything to do with you again. The rest is up to you.
Isn’t it better to get it straight from me”—and he appealed to the two
other men waiting for the bus who were listening avidly to every
word—“than to think you were losing your mind?” And the bus just
then stopping at the stanchion, its doors opening, he climbed aboard.
The first man in the jacket went up the steps. The second man in the
jacket following right behind looked back at Darman and shook his
head in apparent sympathy, pointing at the man in the raincoat.

Darman shrieked in rage and frustration as the bus drove off.

Some of the people in the bus heard him burst out even as it drew
away; they were peering through the window, heads bent. He sat
down heavily on the bus-stop bench he’d never used before, his
heart pounding, his thoughts in turmoil. For a moment the suspicion
occurred to him that someone in the bureau might know more about
what was going on than he did, that he’d been left out of some inside
circle. It was just too elaborate to be a practical joke He was too upset
to walk back to his apartment. Seeing a nearby empty cab going in the
opposite direction, he hailed it and got in.

“Where to?” The voice and back of the head seemed yes and no
familiar. His heart still beating fast, Darman said in a sharp tone, “The
other direction. I live next block to the taxi stand less than a mile. “
He paused and then, stressing the words: “But don’t turn your head
around!”

“Don’t turn my head around?” repeated the driver, acting surprised
but doing just exactly that, twisting his bushy hair around to face
Darman as he gunned the motor, the road ahead empty on a Sunday
morning.

“For God’s sake, don’t turn your head around!” Darman screamed as
he groped for the door handle, the taxi bouncing ahead now. And
opening the door, he threw himself out of the cab onto the road,
rolling over and over three times as his own head sharply struck the
curb.