American Romantic by Ward Just Page A

and still he wondered why no one was there to shoo away the pig. His mouth was as dry and thick as parchment. His head was still afire as if his brain were frying. Smoke from the dying campfire burned his eyes, the scene before him indistinct and without meaning. He was in a zone of no meaning and was very much afraid. He had no idea where he was or how he had come to be there. When next he looked the pig had gone away. The rats and hares and the brown bear had vanished. The snake crawled into the firepit. He tried to remember the name of the girl in Conrad’s story, the monosyllabic girl indifferent to the ship captain’s charms. The name was gone. He slept, dreamlessly this time. When he awoke his head was almost free of pain and his eyes mostly focused except for the fur. He gagged again but nothing came up. He was empty inside, the interior of him a kind of wasteland or battlefield, scorched earth. Harry stretched both his arms and crawled to the entrance of the hut and saw that he was utterly alone. He was very weak but pulled himself upright.
    He said softly, Hello? But there was no answer to that.
    Who’s there? But no answer to that either.
    He stood with his back resting against the hut but after a moment he sank to his haunches and waited, breathing heavily. He watched an insect alight on his wrist. Harry moved his thumbnail, thinking of it as a miniature guillotine, a way of asserting control. Appreciating the situation. Then he thought better of it, the insect was a pretty creature, feathery blue wings and a black body. Harry moved his wrist and the insect flew off, leaving a tiny spot of blood. He wondered if it was a tsetse fly and then remembered that tsetse flies were native to Africa. He wiped the blood away and squeezed the spot dry. He remained on his haunches looking at the dead campfire and thinking about the comrade captain and the girl guard, Madame Mao, the one with the plate of rice and rotten fish. She never smiled, not once. They were anonymous to him. He did not know their names or where they came from. They were surely local militia, otherwise they would have been supplied with Kalashnikovs. The carbines were no doubt stolen from one of the many American arsenals. The guards were disciplined, though, keeping to themselves, rarely speaking or smiling. Their sexual adventures at night were a diversion. Harry remembered the underdone fish and the rice thick as glue and the cup of warm water. He knew also that he had been abandoned and would have to leave this place alone and at once.
    He returned to the hut and put on shorts and a clean shirt from the rucksack. He shook loose a cigarette from the pack and with difficulty—his hands were shaking—lit it and immediately began to retch. But the spasm passed and he sat for a while blowing smoke rings and wondering what came next. Tobacco smoke was a comfort, gathering in the hut as it would in a badly ventilated tavern. All that was missing was a jukebox and a sympathetic bartender in a white apron, someone feeding quarters into the jukebox. He held that thought, remembering the bar near Columbia that he and his roommates went to. There were two shuffleboard machines and a dartboard, Sinatra on the jukebox, also Mabel Mercer and Billie Holiday, the Benny Goodman Orchestra. It was a hell of a good jukebox, best in the neighborhood. Beer on tap. No fights. The bartender’s name was Fred and he had a daughter, Fredda, a pretty girl enrolled at Barnard. An aspiring poet, Fredda often helped her father behind the bar. Those were good times, none better. But they didn’t teach survival skills at Columbia. Shortsighted of them.
    He had only the vaguest idea where he was, and when he stubbed out the cigarette he realized that the smell inside the hut was appalling and so he shuffled out into the dusk, stumbling once, weak as any invalid. Adieu Columbia. Adieu Fredda. The dying sunlight hurt his eyes and he heard once again the cry of a