Read Online The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams - Free Book Online
Authors: Thomas Williams
Ads: Link
world asif in slow motion. He had time to choose a blow he hadn’t thought of for years—one he’d seen an MP use on a black soldier, in which the forearm is at the last moment of the arc drawn quickly back toward the chest and the law of conservation of momentum increases the elbow’s velocity so that it hits with stunning force.
The young man lay on the filthy deck gasping and hugging his chest. A shout, half moan, arose from those troopers still conscious enough to have witnessed it. Their collective disapproval began to form itself into aggression and the determination to exact revenge. Aaron could read this very clearly in the changes of flexed arms, sucked-in bellies, the stance of feet and legs. In response, his voice listed in their own language their canon of unforgivable definitions—those meaninglessly shameful epithets that are so powerful.
Captain Billy and Mark, he noticed, had put themselves between him and the troopers, so he pulled on the line that led upward to the crying gull. One of the other gulls flapped away dragging its whole line, wooden reel and all. Trying to be gentle, but of course not able to communicate his intent to the gull, he pulled it down from the sky. As it came nearer its great wings beat in an arc as wide as his spread arms, and it stared at him and fought desperately, its tail spreading and angling for control. The wind of its wings blew into his eyes. He saw that it had swallowed the hook and there was nothing he could do but unsheathe his knife and cut the line as close to the beak as possible. Perhaps it would live. He cut the line and the gull rose powerfully in a swift spiral and was gone, as were all the other gulls from this nemesis of a boat.
It was very quiet now; Captain Billy was talking to them. Aaron wondered as to how he was not present in his own body, which he seemed to observe as a system of weapons. His knife resheathed itself, his prisms scanned, his bipod adjusted upon itself its marvelous complications of balance. He was at that point of readiness, of purity of intent, in which the body and mind are most nearly one.
But of course the Joe’s Spa Troops never did rally, their cause being rather doubtful even to them. Their grumbling, in fact, degenerated still further into something like a collective whine. Aaron, out of sudden and devastating embarrassment, retired to the bow. Soon Mark came to help him haul in the anchor, and the
Frodo B
., as bloody as if it had fought boarders, cutlass and pistol across its decks, turned with the blue swells and churned toward home.
After the subdued troopers had been helped onto their bus and the bus departed, the crew hosed the gore off decks and railings and retrieved those handlines that weren’t snarled beyond all reason. They filled two GI cans with bottles, cans and other trash that the troopers hadn’t had the energy to throw to the innocent sea. The dead fish were, according to their kind and condition, relegated to lobster bait or saved for food. After two hours or more, when the
Frodo B
. rode clean again at its moorings, Captain Billy brought out a six-pack the troopers had abandoned and they sat in the slanting afternoon sun, each with a warm beer.
Mark began to laugh. Between his high, mirthful wheezings, he glanced at Aaron, and finally held up his beer. “Here’s to nonviolence,” he said. “Oh,
my! See see shoo sboor
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said to Captain Billy. He was terribly ashamed and depressed—emotions he had tried to hold at bay while he almost frantically helped clean and scour the
Frodo B
.“It was none of my business. I acted like an idiot.”
Captain Billy just smiled, seeming to encompass within his youth not only the proper answer but a patience and tolerance that made Aaron’s violence seem even more undignified and juvenile. This made him conscious of his age; he could have been the father of these men. He thought of the blow that had decked the trooper with such
The young man lay on the filthy deck gasping and hugging his chest. A shout, half moan, arose from those troopers still conscious enough to have witnessed it. Their collective disapproval began to form itself into aggression and the determination to exact revenge. Aaron could read this very clearly in the changes of flexed arms, sucked-in bellies, the stance of feet and legs. In response, his voice listed in their own language their canon of unforgivable definitions—those meaninglessly shameful epithets that are so powerful.
Captain Billy and Mark, he noticed, had put themselves between him and the troopers, so he pulled on the line that led upward to the crying gull. One of the other gulls flapped away dragging its whole line, wooden reel and all. Trying to be gentle, but of course not able to communicate his intent to the gull, he pulled it down from the sky. As it came nearer its great wings beat in an arc as wide as his spread arms, and it stared at him and fought desperately, its tail spreading and angling for control. The wind of its wings blew into his eyes. He saw that it had swallowed the hook and there was nothing he could do but unsheathe his knife and cut the line as close to the beak as possible. Perhaps it would live. He cut the line and the gull rose powerfully in a swift spiral and was gone, as were all the other gulls from this nemesis of a boat.
It was very quiet now; Captain Billy was talking to them. Aaron wondered as to how he was not present in his own body, which he seemed to observe as a system of weapons. His knife resheathed itself, his prisms scanned, his bipod adjusted upon itself its marvelous complications of balance. He was at that point of readiness, of purity of intent, in which the body and mind are most nearly one.
But of course the Joe’s Spa Troops never did rally, their cause being rather doubtful even to them. Their grumbling, in fact, degenerated still further into something like a collective whine. Aaron, out of sudden and devastating embarrassment, retired to the bow. Soon Mark came to help him haul in the anchor, and the
Frodo B
., as bloody as if it had fought boarders, cutlass and pistol across its decks, turned with the blue swells and churned toward home.
After the subdued troopers had been helped onto their bus and the bus departed, the crew hosed the gore off decks and railings and retrieved those handlines that weren’t snarled beyond all reason. They filled two GI cans with bottles, cans and other trash that the troopers hadn’t had the energy to throw to the innocent sea. The dead fish were, according to their kind and condition, relegated to lobster bait or saved for food. After two hours or more, when the
Frodo B
. rode clean again at its moorings, Captain Billy brought out a six-pack the troopers had abandoned and they sat in the slanting afternoon sun, each with a warm beer.
Mark began to laugh. Between his high, mirthful wheezings, he glanced at Aaron, and finally held up his beer. “Here’s to nonviolence,” he said. “Oh,
my! See see shoo sboor
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said to Captain Billy. He was terribly ashamed and depressed—emotions he had tried to hold at bay while he almost frantically helped clean and scour the
Frodo B
.“It was none of my business. I acted like an idiot.”
Captain Billy just smiled, seeming to encompass within his youth not only the proper answer but a patience and tolerance that made Aaron’s violence seem even more undignified and juvenile. This made him conscious of his age; he could have been the father of these men. He thought of the blow that had decked the trooper with such
Similar Books
