Haldeman, Joe - 1968 by Haldeman Joe

Author:Haldeman, Joe
Language: eng
Format: epub

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Easy for you to say, white man. Me think about Li alla time.

Numbah One boom-boom."

"Boom-boom." He nodded slowly and looked at the top page on the clipboard, Spider's high school transcript. "Look, uh, you got straight A's in English all through high school."

"College, too, one semester. Read an' write, big deal."

"But you didn't major in English."

He started rocking even faster. "Astronomy.Ad astra per aspera. "

"Pardon?"

"Up your ass-tra with your aspirin. Latin." He stopped. "Ooday ooyay eakspay igpay atinlay?"

"Uh, yes, when I was-"

"Onnenkay eesay rechenspay igpay atinlayaufeutschday?"

"Uh, hmm." Folsom concentrated on tapping the top ash off his pipe and tamping down the dottle. "Yeah, what I meant was, maybe we could communicate better if you expressed yourself in writing. You know, writing in English?"

"Ja, auf englisch."He reversed the cigarette again and took a huge drag, bringing the ember down to within a fraction of an inch of his fingers. He put it out with exaggerated care. "Meestair Bond. You bring me ze fountain pen and ze stack of papair, and I will write anyzang you want."

"Good. Good, I'll get right on it." He stabbed the intercom. "Phillips. Are you there?"

He was about two seconds away. Again, a single rap on the door, and he slid in. "Trouble, Doc?"

"Oh, no. No, we're done." He made a shooing motion with his left hand. Phillips helped Spider stand and move dragging toward the door. "I'll get you that pen and paper right away."

Spider stopped in the doorway and looked at him with a haughty air."Bond papair, if you please." Then he looked at the floor again and shuffled off.

Folsom watched the door glide shut. "Bethsheba cheddar cheese," he said under his breath, and sighed.

"Queers."

He stared at the transcript for the tenth time, without the name of the school registering: Bethesda-Chevy Chase, it said. "Home of the Barons."

Girl Talk

Beverly was at the doughnut shop having coffee with her ex-roommate Sherry, who looked deceptively wholesome in a starchy new maternity dress. Beverly had never seen her in anything but faded jeans or skin.

"So Soldier Boy's in the hospital." Beverly was clasping and unclasping her hands, staring at the newspaper between them. She nodded. "At least he's alive." They both looked at the headlines. Tet was still crackling along, hard fighting in Hue. But the main headlines were about the crippled Paris peace talks-the United States accusing North Vietnam of answering our restraint with a vicious sneak attack-and thePueblo, with the United States conceding the ship may have strayed into foreign waters; let's put our nukes away for the time being.

"Yeah, but amental hospital."

"Bev, look. He was always kinda weird."

"Well, he was eccentric." She sipped thoughtfully. "He might've gone to Canada if I'd gone with him."

"Really? You told me about the Peace Corps. I didn't know he'd talked about actually dodging."

"It doesn't seem like draft-dodging to me anymore. It's asking another country for political asylum."

Sherry laughed. "I know whoyou've been hanging around with." Stage whisper: "You talk politics in bed?"

"No, we talk about you.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.