"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Docs mistake. Hewas always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. Oime it was afull-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you t give your heart to a wild thing:the more you do, the strohey get. Until theyre strong enough to run into thewoods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. Thats how youll end up,Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. Youll end up looking at the sky."
"Shes drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
"Moderately," Holly fessed. "But Doew what I meant. I explai to himvery carefully, and it was something he could uand. We shook hands and heldon to each other and he wished me luck." She gla the clock. "He must be inthe Blue Mountains by now."
"Whats she talkin about?" Joe Bell asked me.
Holly lifted her martini. "Lets wish the Doc luck, too," she said, toug her glassagainst mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- its better to look at thesky than live there. Su empty place; so vague. Just a try where thethunder goes and things disappear."
TRAWLER MARRIES FOURTH. I was on a subway somewhere in Brooklyn when Isaw that headlihe paper that ba beloo another passeheonly part of the text that I could see read: Rutherfurd "Rusty" Trawler, themillionaire playboy often accused of pro-Nazi sympathies, eloped to Greenwichyesterday with a beautiful -- Not that I wao read any more. Holly had marriedhim: well, well. I wished I were uhe wheels of the train. But Id been wishingthat before I spotted the headline. For a headful of reasons. I hadnt seen Holly, notreally, since our drunken Sunday at Joe Bells bar. The intervening weeks had givenme my own case of the mean reds. First off, Id been fired from my job: deservedly,and for an amusing misdemeanor too plicated to ret here. Also, my draftboard was displaying an unfortable i; and, having so retly escaped theregimentation of a small town, the idea of entering another form of disciplined lifemade me desperate. Between the uainty of my draft status and a lack ofspecific experience, I couldo find another job. That was what I was doingon a subway in Brooklyurning from a discing interview with aor ofthe now defuneer, PM. All this, bined with the city heat of the summer,had reduced me to a state of nervous iia. So I more than half meant it when Iwished I were uhe wheels of the train. The headline made the desire quitepositive. If Holly could marry that "absurd foetus," then the army nessrampant in the world might as well march over me. Or, and the question is apparent,was my e a little the result of being in love with Holly myself? A little. For Iwas in love with her. Just as Id once been in love with my mothers elderly coloredcook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family namedMdrick. That category of love gees jealousy, too.
When I reached my station I bought a paper; and, reading the tail-end of thatsentence, discovered that Rustys bride was: a beautiful cirl from the Arkansashills, Miss Margaret Thatcher Fitzhue Wildwood. Mag! My legs went so limp with reliefI took a taxi the rest of the way home.
Madame Sapphia Spanella met me in the hall, wild-eyed and wringing her hands.
"Run," she said. "Bring the police. She is killing somebody! Somebody is killing her!"
It sounded like it. As though tigers were loose in Hollys apartment. A riot ofcrashing glass, of rippings and callings and overturned furniture. But