The man in the white coat set the ladder firmly against the floor so that the top ended in the slightest kind of tilt near the chute door. It was not Ernie's intention to crawl through the door, but the way the man motioned, and the way the men turned briefly and waved, simply as if they might be old acquaintances waiting for him in a hotel lobby—it was, to say the very least, overwhelming.
There was a fragrance, an allure about the room. It smelled of apples and tobacco and brought nostalgic thoughts of college days and—and faint wisps of the past that were not nostalgic. He thought of Melinee. He really ought to tell her about this.
The chalky finger motioning at him, the unconcerned old men on the sofa—and the table. It was the antique table, missing from the upstairs hall, that lured him in. There it sat against the far wall. He grabbed a jutting two-by-four and twisted his body through the opening.
The ladder must have been shoved to one side, or perhaps it was the claustrophobic effect of going through the small opening—anyway, something. It turned his mind, his body, wrong-side out. Like the squeezing out of a wet mop by a steamroller.
At the foot of the ladder, the man in the bartender's jacket led him to the three men. One of them, exceptionally fat, jovial, excused himself politely and took Ernie aside.
"You look pale, Ernie," he said. "Having trouble?"
Groggily, Ernie looked about him. "It's this room. It's lopsided. I think a good thirty degrees cattywonkus."
The man doused a cigar and a quick frown crossed his brow. "Good point. Very good point. Come with me, Ernie."
Ernie looked; the other men paid him no mind. The little man waddled through a maze of foundation columns, as if the whole world were suspended above them. He walked behind the bar to a small glass-encased desk, U-shaped and covered with dials all reading A-B-C-D.
"Kronkite!" the man called. A whirring inside the room shut off. A man with goggles and a metal halo stuck his head out the door. "Kronkite, Ernie here says we are thirty degrees off. Can you shift the equilibrium? Frankly, I hadn't noticed it."