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early age. All things considered, he was doing well—making enough to send something back to his mother every month, keep up the payments on the two-year-old replacement for the seven-year-old Ford, and build up a bank account to three thousand dollars. The only real problem was convincing the draft board that he was the sole support of his mother, and hoping they wouldn’t find out about her job at the Country Club back in Iowa. The situation in Vietnam was getting worse, and Brad preferred being a paid supernumerary on the screen than an unpaid hero in the jungle. Rhoda, ever the advocate of survival over integrity, suggested that he move into one of the larger units and share it with a queer as civilian status insurance, but Brad had his limitations.
    When Harry finally reported that he couldn’t get backing for the series, but that he believed in it enough to film a pilot himself if he could raise the scratch, Brad volunteered his three thousand dollars for a starter and got an I.O.U. from Harry scrawled on his personal office memo paper. Even if lying was the name of the game, nobody could live without believing something, and Brad believed Harry Avery and was willing to sweat out the wait with him, however long it took.
    And then it was late November and President Kennedy made a fence-mending visit to Dallas, after which nothing was the same for anyone anywhere. Brad wrote a long Christmas letter to his mother and enlisted in the army, which seemed the logical thing for an all-American boy named Omar Bradley Smith to do. He signed over the Ford to Rhoda, who was making enough now to keep up the payments, and left his meagre possessions stashed in her garage. “It will be all over in a few months,” he said, which is what every man has always said about every war, and then he was flown to Vietnam and reality set in.
    Two years later Brad was sent to a Rest and Relaxation centre and saw a crowd of soldiers laughing it up in front of the TV set. He grabbed a beer and sat down to watch the fun and quickly lost his sense of humour. Rhoda was on the screen—Rhoda playing the lady rancher harassed and romanced by a trio of renegade cowboys known as
The Bandits
. It was his story line and his characters, and he spent the next two weeks catching up on what had been happening back in the States.
The Bandits
was produced by Harry Avery and starred a new personality, Rhona Brent. It was the top rated show of the season for two years, and Rhona Brent had received an Emmy for her role as Prudence. During the next long months, until his discharge, he caught the show whenever possible. Halfway through the third season Prudence was killed by a fall from a horse, and the gossips speculated that she had retired to raise a family, because she was now Mrs. Harry Avery. They had to be wrong because, early in their relationship, Rhona had confided that she had an abortion the year before she met Charley, and was butchered inside in a way that made it impossible for her to conceive. He said nothing to anyone about the series, but he did write to Harry and never received an answer.
    Brad’s mother died while Brad was still overseas. Finally, he was returned Stateside and discharged from the army. He had gone in a buck private and come out a P.F.C. He had a few battle ribbons, one slight scar over his right eyebrow where he had been grazed by a Vietcong sniper, and his termination pay. He was a hero at last, in a world that had stopped believing in heroes.
    As soon as his discharge was final, Brad returned to the site of Rhona’s bungalow court and found that it had been replaced by a hi-rise apartment complex where rents started at 300 dollars and went higher than the penthouse. He located Harry’s new office on the Strip and never got beyond the pleasant but evasive receptionist. Mr. Avery was in Europe. Mrs. Avery was in Europe. Nobody knew when they would return. Brad then contacted a lawyer who examined the I.O.U., noted that it was