The Sandman by Robert Ward Read Free Book Online

shoulder, and then at the two pale blue eyes which sat in the yellow flesh like two seeds—hard and flat and watery. The face was that of Kathy Albertson, one of his own patients … many years ago, when he was a resident. She had terminal leukemia, and her mouth was dry, small, and she was saying, “Doctor, please … please …,” and Beauregard felt terror growing within him, so that he wanted to rip the needles out of her arm …
    “You ought to go to bed,” said Mrs. O’Shea. “You ought to just take a nice nap.”
    “What?” Beauregard said, suddenly snapped back into his own home.
    “You were nodding off,” Mrs. O’Shea said. “You need a nap.”
    “No,” he said, “I’m all right … really. I met an interesting young man at the hospital today. His name is Peter Cross … and he’s really extraordinary. I was just thinking how Heather would like to meet him.”
    “Funny you should mention it,” Mrs. O’Shea said. “Mrs. Beauregard called today from Paris.”
    “Yes?” Beauregard said, trying not to reveal the excitement he felt growing inside him.
    “She said to tell you that she was coming to New York in a week or so. Maybe in time for the holidays. She wasn’t sure of the exact date. She had to finish her studies first. She went on about her studies for quite a while, but I had no idea what she was talking about. To tell you the truth, she kept mentioning this fellow she had to study with, a man named Herman Neutics. Sounds like a real complicated lad.”
    Beauregard began to laugh out loud. It was the first time he had laughed all week, and the sound of his laughter seemed to come from a tunnel deep inside him.
    “Mrs. O’Shea, you’re a marvel,” Beauregard said. “Hermeneutics is not the name of a man but a branch of philosophy.”
    Mrs. O’Shea shrugged and smiled.
    Beauregard took a sip of his drink and sat down on the white couch. Outside he heard a siren sound … emergency … but his mind drifted toward an image of his wife … walking down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial … her yellow hair shining in the sun, her long, tanned legs outlined against the brilliant speckled concrete. A goddess … and like a goddess she was impatient … had to know everything at once. First philosophy, then English, then psychology, and finally Marxism … God knows what she was into by now. She had always been quixotic, and it had irritated him. Just as his own steady course had bothered her. But now, as he thought of her, all his hostility melted away and he could only remember the good times they had shared at Georgetown—the nights working in the clubs, Beauregard playing piano, doing Mose Allison tunes. That seemed a million years ago … before she had been swept up by every revolutionary change the 60’s had to offer.
    She had come from money and had the natural confidence that money brings. She had never really wanted anything—unlike himself. He was from Atlanta, just as she was, but his family didn’t have any real fortune.
    Not for long anyway. Old Beau, his father, had been a successful GP but had blown the family money on several crazy investments—Health Food Chicken—a fried chicken with a batter made of megavitamins, and the Anatomical Robot, A Health Toy, which was designed to teach kids about the glories of the body. Unfortunately, the toy had been a bit too daring for its day, and the Southern Baptists had staged a robot melting party in Peachtree Square. By the time Beauregard had been ready to walk into the world, the money was spent. And he had to work in bars in Georgetown to pay his way through medical school. Still, they had been good days. He had met Heather, who was a psychology major. She had then switched to history, and finally, after they were married, had been converted to political theory. That was during the 60’s, when every day had seemed like a new breakthrough. God, the people they had met … most of whom he had thought of as bums, hangers-on, or