Bedlam and Other Stories Read Free

gone from St. Johnsbury to Hollywood. But now Garbeau had wanted to talk about the war.
    â€œHartley, God,” she’d said. “How could you go through what you did and not wind up, just, an empty shell of a human being?”
    â€œWell”—Hartley had grinned—“I wrote a song about you.”
    She hadn’t seen he was joking. She’d lifted her eyes to him, almond French-Canadian eyes Hartley had thought were beautiful since the age of fourteen. Over her rum, Garbeau’s expression was still all piety.
    â€œOh, on your guitar ?”
    Piety, piety, piety. Everyone was always so impressed that he’d had a guitar with him in the prison camp. Hartley had long ago stopped bothering to point out that it wasn’t his guitar. You couldn’t do a recon up Hill 1338 carrying a guitar. The guitar had belonged originally to one of the Dak To support personnel, a P.O. boy who’d gotten picked up during a convoy hit. The boy had died under torture.
    â€œThat’s right.” Hartley had grinned again, forcing it wider. “I wrote a song just for you. I called it, ‘For Ronnie G.’”
    She’d smiled back uncertainly.
    â€œNo,” he’d gone on, “no, that’s not true. I called it ‘For V.G.’ So no one there would know who I meant.”
    After that it had been as simple as Hartley had expected it would be. He believed he understood the psychology at work. Since the woman had allowed herself to come so close already, since she’d already made herself vulnerable, Hartley needed only to jiggle that first impression the least bit. To demonstrate the fun they could have with a shared trust. Then the interest in him would turn special. Any number of times, he’d seen the signals change in a woman’s look. But only here in Florida had he pressed beyond a look, beyond the surreptitious gropings and prolonged good-night kisses he’d gotten once or twice before.
    In Garbeau’s room, however, things hadn’t been nearly so cut and dried. At the first snort of her cocaine Hartley had thought he’d turn inside out. He’d made fists in his pants pockets. Watching her undress, with every button and snap he’d suffered another nightmare about how he might perform and what it might do to him. When she’d turned and seen the bulges in his pockets, she’d made a funny moue. And his guts had gone blank. If she hadn’t knelt to unlace his boots, unbuckle his belt, they wouldn’t have come off. Meantime Hartley had heard himself saying the most childish things. He’d told her that this past April he’d run the Marathon in under three hours. He’d told her how many situps he could do. Never in his life had he sounded like such a fake. And so, soon, even the delicious slippery movement of Garbeau’s pelvis, even the lecherous wisdom of her small features—so all of it had become for Hartley a trial. He’d thought: Hey, I was just kidding around .
    Nonetheless he’d performed. And after calling his wife he’d gone through it again this morning, with more zip and cocaine. Then they’d set off on this tourist ramble along the coast, ending up here, where he sat and itched while Garbeau ate like a fiend and then ran into the surf. Now she was waving her arms at him, oddly. Hartley shifted and felt his scars irritate him in different places. Yes oddly. Garbeau seemed just able to keep her head above water, though it couldn’t have been more than hip-deep where she was. Hartley squinted and saw her panicky eyes, the forced and painful shape of her mouth.
    The lifeguard had started clambering down from his high seat. But Hartley beat him easily. The soldier was at the water’s edge while the lifeguard was still getting his board. Hartley got Garbeau around the breasts. She had her knees tucked up tight and he cradled her in two arms, carrying her well above the