Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/34



GAYLORD TURNED TO FACE THE man. Stared at him with a bewildered look. He had been so completely happy, but here again abruptness and ugliness had ended it. He was like a person who had received a stunning blow without warning and who in the first moment of shock does not realize what has happened. Gaylord withdrew from the touch of strange hands, and his lips parted as if to say something, but no words came.

"How about it baby?" Again the heavy-coated words. "How about let's wiggle the frame."

Gaylord did not see the drunk really. What he saw were black pits where eyes should have been, crooked fangs in place of teeth and poison gas instead of breath. It was not an odor that was familiar to him. It was sickening and repulsive. He wanted to run, slap the clutching hands, but even as he thought this he knew it was senseless, that what he was thinking was impossible, and yet he could not stop thinking.

Again he tried to speak … to point out the mistake … to say he wasn't a girl, but no words came from his quivering lips. The impulse that had carried him forward had vanished, replaced by something strange and grotesque. How could he cope with this? What should he do?

Gaylord shrank against the dark wall and the hands about to encircle him were magnified and distorted. He was petrified. No longer did he hear the music or the shuffling of the crowd. No longer did the stars twinkle. The ecstasy was gone, the fright which had been with him when he had first come into the auditorium was meek in comparison to the way he now felt. If he could only run … run away from everyone. 24