Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney (9 page)

With the short stories he published between 1955 and 1957, culminating in the collection,
The Third Level,
Jack Finney secured for himself an honored place in the ranks of twentieth-century writers of fantasy. His next novel, however, would return to the genre of crime fiction that he had explored in
5 Against the House.

SIX

The House of Numbers

The cover of the July 1956 issue of
Cosmopolitan
magazine advertised "The House of Numbers" as a "complete novel by Jack Finney, so gripping and fascinating you can't put it down." Inside, the "complete suspense novel" spans the course of 26 pages. In May 1957, an expanded version of the story appeared as a paperback first edition (Dell First Edition A139), and the back cover told readers that it was "soon to be an M-G-M movie starring Jack Palance." The movie, reti-tled
House of Numbers,
was released that same year.

The House of Numbers
is told in first-person narration by Benjamin Harrison Jarvis, a 26-year-old man whose brother, Arnie, is a prisoner at San Quentin Prison. The book opens as Ben and Ruth Gehlmann, Arnie's fiancee, view the prison from the vantage point of a small boat in the San Francisco Bay. They plan to help Arnie escape, and Ben tells Ruth to "'take a
good
look.
,
because you're looking at the kind of place you'll end up in instead ... if anything at all goes wrong'" (7).

Ben and Ruth met and rented a house together in Marin County (where Jack Finney lived) in order to plan Arnie's escape. Ruth is beautiful and from a wealthy, old San Francisco family. Arnie bought her an expensive engagement ring but paid for it with bad checks and was sent to prison for fraud. She feels guilty and Ben explains that Arnie also talked him into dropping everything to plan for the escape. Even though they agree that '"it's impossible to get a man out of there,'" (17), Ben suspects that they'll have to go through with the attempt at escape, and the thought frightens him.

Finney uses some narrative trickery in
The House of Numbers,
switching points of view between different narrators. The second and third chapters are narrated in the first person by Arnie Jarvis, who is brought before a San Quentin disciplinary committee that is investigating an attack on a guard. An ex-convict who has been paroled is being brought back to the prison to identify the guard's attacker and, though Arnie feigns disinterest at the hearing, he thinks that he must escape within the next four days to avoid being identified as the culprit.

In chapter three, Arnie grills fellow inmate Al about escape and Al recalls various failed attempts over the years. Arnie retires to his cell to think of a way out.

Chapters four through ten are narrated by Ben. After visiting Arnie in prison, Ben returns and explains the predicament to Ruth, who has already packed her bags to go back to San Francisco. Ben explains that Section 4500 of the California Penal Code prescribes the death penalty for an assault with a deadly weapon committed by a prisoner serving a life sentence. Arnie is facing death, and Ben has a plan to help him escape. Ruth agrees to stay and help.

In chapter five, Ben tells Ruth a good deal about Arnie's background, explaining some of the factors in his life that may have made him commit a crime. Ben explains that Arnie's identity is based largely on what other people think of him —'"he has no conviction inside himself about what he really is; it has to be supplied to him all the time'" (45). Arnie was greatly affected by his father's sudden unemployment when Arnie was in high school, and Arnie's repeated attempts to appear successful culminated with the fraudulent engagement ring purchase that landed him in San Quentin.

After this bit of background, Ben and Ruth split up to spend the afternoon buying supplies to carry out their plan. Finney does not reveal the details of the plan to the reader, just as in
5 Against the House
he held back details of the casino robbery plans in order to create suspense.

Problems begin to emerge in chapter six, when Mr. Nova, a neighbor, approaches Ben and Ruth. He's an aging guard at San Quentin who tells Ben that he saw him at the prison. Nova offers to help Arnie, but Ben declines the offer from the unsavory man and returns home with Ruth to continue preparing. At two a.m., they drive up Highway 101 to the San Rafael ferry near the prison wall. Ben and Ruth's time together has sparked an attraction between them, and they kiss before Ruth drops Ben off at a preselected place.

In chapter seven, Ben climbs over the prison wall and hides inside an empty furniture crate outside the building where the prisoners make furniture. He sleeps poorly and waits for morning, which arrives in chapter eight. The details of the escape plan begin to come clear at this point, when Arnie gives Ben his identification card and takes his place in the furniture crate. Ben is now Arnie, fading into the daily life of prisoners and living the life of a convict. After successfully making it through a search, Ben arrives at his lodging for the night: "I was locked in cell 1042 of San Quentin Prison" (83).

Details of prison life dominate the next two chapters, as Ben learns about the various checks and counts that the guards use to keep track of the inmates. The first count completed, Ben knows that he has successfully replaced Arnie and that his brother will not be missed. Ben then follows the rest of the convicts into the huge cafeteria for dinner. In this portion of the novel, Ben is the eyes and ears of the reader, experiencing first-hand what it is like to be an inmate of San Quentin and describing it all for us from the point of view of an innocent man.

Finney's point of view here is interesting, especially in light of the book's dedication: "To my friend, Harley O. Teets, Warden of the California State Prison, San Quentin" (4). Despite having committed a crime in order to help his guilty brother break out of prison and avoid paying for a violent crime, Ben is portrayed as an innocent man, and his prison experience is a mixture of fear and awe. The awe is rather odd, and reads as if Finney were writing a public relations piece for the benefit of the jail. As Ben looks around the cafeteria, he thinks:

It was a cheerful room, it occurred to me, the floor a rich red, tables of light wood, beautifully made and varnished, the walls a soft green and painted with murals. And it was immaculately clean.
Not bad,
I thought, and leaned back a little on my stool, comfortably; ... [99].

Although this sense of peace does not last long and contrasts with what happens next, the reader gets the sense that Finney is laying it on a bit too thick here, as if trying to present a balanced point of view in order to please a friend.

Ben's problems begin as he absentmindedly lights a cigarette after dinner. With this act, he unknowingly breaks a prison rule, and a guard yells at him. His identification is checked and he sees his neighbor, Nova, watching him. Nova follows Ben back to his cell and Ben resolves to kill Nova to protect his own secret —yet Ben's conscience prevents him from carrying out the murder. "I was willing; I could justify it; I knew I had to do it... But I could not kill him... I was incapable of the act of murder..." (105). Ben is not Arnie; he has an intact superego in place to stop himself from carrying out the desires of his id.

Fortunately for Ben, Nova thinks he is Arnie, and the danger passes. Ben's life in prison continues, and he thinks "I truly understood how utterly anonymous and depersonalized a man became when he entered this place" (110). He thinks of his life outside and his address is of interest: 175 Loming Court, Mill Valley, California (110), in the same town where Jack Finney lived. Finney gives the prison system another plug, as Ben thinks: "The warden of this prison and the men around him at this particular moment in the prison's history, Arnie claimed, did their imaginative and resourceful best for the men California required them to confine" (111). Yet, as chapter ten ends, Ben worries that Arnie might betray him and leave him there, then chides himself for failing to trust his brother.

Chapter eleven returns to Arnie's point of view and he narrates the story of his preparations for escape, preparing a hole in the ground covered with plywood for some unexplained purpose and then returning to his hiding place in the furniture crate.

Ben narrates chapter twelve, in which the escape plans take an interesting twist — Ben takes Arnie's place in the crate and Arnie returns to his cell. That night, Ben climbs the prison wall and meets Ruth, who drives east into Nevada, toward Reno.

Arnie's escape begins in chapter thirteen, which he narrates, as he slips into the hole he had dug two nights before. "I'm in a grave" (130), he thinks, but as time passes and he realizes he will soon be reported as missing, his excitement grows. As Ben told Ruth earlier in the novel, Arnie's sense of self comes from what other people think of him. "You're nobody in prison —" he thinks,
"nothing—
just a pair of blue pants and a shirt. But once you're
missing
from Quentin, damn them all — you're somebody then!" (133). Arnie's thought provides a chilling conclusion to chapter thirteen, as the reader realizes that his need for outside confirmation of his identity was at least partly responsible for his need to escape and put his brother and his fiancée in danger.

The next three chapters alternate between Ben's and Arnie's points of view. Ben buys a gun in Reno, then returns home and carves a dummy revolver out of wood. He and Ruth hear a radio report telling them that Arnie has escaped, and they drive out to the Golden Gate Bridge, where Ruth throws the real gun into the bay.

Meanwhile, Arnie spends the day hiding underground, nearly going crazy in the heat and becoming consumed with jealousy as he thinks of Ben and Ruth together. Next day, Ruth drives Ben to a road near the prison and lets him out. Ben uses the dummy gun to kidnap a man driving alone in a car and force him to drive to a prearranged spot; Ben then steals the car and leaves the man by the side of the road.

The remainder of the book is narrated by Ben, ending the alternating points of view. Ben abandons his stolen car and Ruth picks him up. They express their love for each other and Ben proposes marriage. Despite some guilt feelings about Arnie, they make plans together and go home, only to find Nova waiting for them in their living room. He has figured out their role in Arnie's escape and suggests that a bribe will make him keep quiet. When he suggests that sex with Ruth be part of the bribe, Ben unsuccessfully attacks him.

Ben escapes (or so we think) and returns to San Quentin, climbing over the wall and back into the hole with Arnie. The brothers scale the wall to escape, only to find Nova waiting for them on the other side. They overpower the guard and take him home, where Arnie is crushed to learn that Ruth plans to marry Ben in his place.

Arnie's life has been ruined for nothing — he went to jail due to his plans to marry Ruth, and he escapes only to find that his worst fears have been realized and his own brother has stolen her affections. Arnie loses a fight with Ben and leaves; "my heart cried out for him, but there was nothing to say" (180-81), thinks Ben.

In the final chapter of
The House of Numbers,
Ben and Ruth are taken to see the warden (to whom the novel is dedicated), who tells them that a neighbor of theirs called anonymously to report that Ben had helped Arnie escape. The exchange between Ben and the warden is Finney's last bit of public relations, as the warden convinces Ben to turn in his brother to protect him from himself. The warden tells Ben:

"Listen, Mr. Jarvis, we spend our lives and careers here, scrounging second-hand ball bats and discarded television sets, begging free movie films, fighting for an extra five-cent-a-day food allowance per man, trying to drag this prison a single step closer to what it ought to be! We put in hours we're never paid for — we put in our lives — doing our damnedest with what we're given and what we can scrounge, trying to get these men through prison, and still keep some spark of humanity alive in them. And, yes! —sometimes we fail" [189-90).

This strange conclusion demonstrates the main reason that
The House of Numbers
does not totally succeed as a novel. In
5 Against the House,
Al Mercer explains that he dislikes casinos and thinks robbing one is ethically justified. At no point is the reader forced to consider that the casino is really a nice, honest place underneath it all, where basically good people run a business that benefits its customers.

In
The House of Numbers,
Jack Finney goes out of his way to try to defend the people who run San Quentin, and it weakens the novel, especially because the defense consists mostly of speeches or thoughts (by Ben Jarvis) about how the jail really is not such a bad place after all. Never mind the fact that it reduces its inmates to numbers; the warden is doing his best. Strangest of all is the character of Nova, the sadistic guard, who represents the only authority figure from San Quentin that seems realistic. Finney never explains how such a character functions in such an ideal setting.

Despite these shortcomings, the novel ends effectively, with Ben agonizing over the idea of betraying his brother to the warden. The last line is especially good: "And I was crying for my lost brother as he reached out for his phone" (192). Ben and Arnie are just the latest in a long line of conflicted brothers, going back to Cain and Abel, whose differences defy resolution.
The House of Numbers
was a true "paperback original" of the 1950s —not a great novel, but one with enough interesting twists and turns to be worth reading.