Read Online The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian - Free Book Online Page A

robin’s-egg blue), and it moved gracefully through the water for easily a minute and a half before starting to list, then sink. Still, the teens’ sponsors came through with their pledges.
    “I should warn you,” Talia continued, “there is a downside to paintball—and it’s a big one.”
    “The fact it’s a tad violent? A wee bit antisocial?”
    “Oh, don’t get all PC on me.”
    “Then what?”
    “We’ll have to wear these goggles that are big and gangly. I mean really big. And really gangly. They’re a very bad fashion statement.”
    “We will, huh?”
    She nodded. She noticed that Laurel had used the word
we.
Laurel hadn’t said yes yet, but it was clear to them both she was going.

C HAPTER F OUR
    A LTOGETHER, THERE WERE ten mourners at Bobbie’s funeral at the soldiers’ cemetery in Winooski, and that included a minister Laurel met for the first time; Serena Sargent, whom she had called with the news of Bobbie’s death; a woman who served lunch at the Salvation Army; and a representative from the VFW who wanted to present someone—anyone—with a beautifully folded American flag. But there were also three tenants from the Hotel New England who had known Bobbie the last year of his life, all of whom Laurel guessed were in their forties and fifties. And joining her from BEDS were Katherine Maguire and Sam Russo, the night manager who had been on duty when Serena had first brought Bobbie in. It was drizzling, but it was a warm autumn rain and they were not uncomfortable as they stood beneath the black umbrellas the funeral home had provided and listened to the minister read Psalms for this man he’d never met. Then Katherine shoveled some moist dirt onto the modest casket in the hole and they were done.
    Laurel was glad she had come for many reasons, the most important of which was her desire to say good-bye to this often confused but occasionally charismatic old man. When she had been having breakfast with Talia, she realized that Bobbie had become a mascot of sorts for many of the caseworkers at BEDS: not a poster child—though that was, clearly, something Katherine thought he might become posthumously—but a laudably indefatigable and eccentric spirit. A survivor. He actually liked hanging around the day station. On his good days, he was capable of coaxing smiles from the shell-shocked who stumbled in, once and for all out of options.
    She was touched to witness the friendships Bobbie had made with these other once-homeless men in the short time he had lived at the Hotel New England (but not surprised), and she was glad to see Serena—and to see that Serena was surviving, if not necessarily thriving. Serena remarked that she wanted out from under her aunt’s roof and wanted to do more with her life than to be a waitress. But, still, she looked considerably healthier than the last time Laurel had seen her, and so Laurel told her that she wanted to learn all that she could about Bobbie. Serena agreed to meet her the following week.
    On their way back to the BEDS van they had used to bring everyone from downtown Burlington out to Winooski—everyone, that is, except for Serena and the dignified Korean War veteran who had appeared out of nowhere with that flag—Laurel tromped through the wet grass beside Sam. Sam was only a few years older than she was, perhaps twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He was a former Phish-head with an unruly mop of red hair that he kept back in a ponytail and an unfashionably rotund spare tire on a man so young. But he viewed himself as ample, not fat, and he was capable of quickly making the homeless who arrived at the shelter feel secure—which, for most of the social workers, was no easy task.
    “I’m just curious,” she began. “What do you think: Do you believe Bobbie took all those pictures?”
    “No question. They were all he had with him when he was brought into the shelter. The guy didn’t even have any underwear except the drawers he was wearing—but he had