Steel by Richard Matheson Page B

to get the undertaker and said I would pay the costs. He was glad to leave.
    I sat down on the bed, feeling very tired. I looked into young Riker’s open bag and saw, inside, the shirts and underclothes, the ties and stockings.
    It was in the bag I found the clippings and the diary.
    The clippings were from Northern magazines and newspapers. They were about Hickok and Longley and Hardin and other famous pistol fighters of our territory. There were pencil marks drawn beneath certain sentences—such as Wild Bill usually carries two derringers beneath his coat and Many a man has lost his life because of Hardin’s so-called “border roll” trick.
    The diary completed the picture. It told of a twisted mind holding up as idols those men whose only talent was to kill. It told of a young city boy who bought himself pistols and practiced drawing them from their holsters until he was incredibly quick, until his drawing speed became coupled with an ability to strike any target instantly.
    It told of a projected odyssey in which a city boy would make himself the most famous pistol fighter in the Southwest. It listed towns that this young man had meant to conquer.
    Grantville was the first town on the list.

DEAR DIARY
    June 10, 1954
Dear Diary:
    Honest, sometimes I get so sick of this damn furnished room I could absolutely vomit!
    The window is so dirty—half the time on Saturday and Sunday mornings I think it’s going to rain even if the sun is shining.
    And such a view! Underwear yet, dripping on wash lines. Girdles, overalls. If it isn’t enough to make a girl wish she was dead. It all stinks.
    And that jiboney across the hall. He makes life worse than it is. Where he gets his money for booze, who knows? Probably he robs old ladies. Drunk—sings all the time, makes lunges at me in that hallway that looks like a dungeon hall in an Errol Flynn picture. For two cents—less—I’d send to the mail order factory for a thirty-two caliber pistol. Then I’d shoot the crumb. They’d put me away, no more worries. Aaah, it ain’t worth it.
    And what jolly joy is tomorrow night. Harry Hartley takes me to the Paramount and for one lousy show and a cheap chow mein feed he wants I should play wife to him all night. Honest, men!
    Honest, it’s so stinking hot.
    Now I have to wash out some stuff for tomorrow. I hate to think about it. Oh, shut up! Those dumb dopes across the way—jabber, jabber! New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers—they should all drop dead!
    And when I think of that lousy subway ride tomorrow—twice! Those bodies like sardines, the faces popping like roses. Some pleasure!
    God, what I wouldn’t do to get away from this. I’d even marry Harry Hartley and if I’d do that, I know things are bad.
    Oh, to go to Hollywood and be a star like Ava Gardner or them. Having the men fall all over themselves to kiss your hand. Go away, Clark, you bother me. Yeah, he should bother me. I’d crawl all over him.
    Oooh, this lousy, stinking place! A girl hasn’t no future here. What can I look forward to? No guy who likes me except that fat dope. Chow Mein Harry I think I’ll call him.
    Vacation in two weeks. Two weeks of nothing. Go to Coney with Gladys. Sit on the damn beach and look at the garbage float on the water and go crazy watching kids neck themselves blind. Then I get all sun-burned and maybe a fever even. And I go to a million movies. It’s some life.
    I wish it was a couple of thousand years from now, that’s what I wish. Then—no work. I live in a fancy spot and they have rocket ships and you can eat pills for a meal and free love. Would I go for that! The pills, of course. Like fun!
    This isn’t no time to be living. Wars, people yelling at each other and what can a girl expect out of life?
    Oh, I’ve got to wash my lousy underwear.
    June 10, 3954
Dear Factum:
    Sometimes—yes!—I become so ill of this cursed