The Theory of Games by Ezra Sidran Read Free Book Online

uncomfortable. I know you’ve got him penned up somewhere. Would you please bring him to me?”
    The whole room went white with electricity as a bolt of lightning struck close. Time held still for a split-second and then shuddered and then the bang came quick. Jim jumped in his fifteen-hundred dollar suit.
    “Bill doesn’t like rain,” I repeated, “would you please bring him to me?”
    Jim nodded; no confirmation from his earpiece this time and less than a minute later they brought Bill in. His head was low, his eyes were high in his skull; the hair on the ridge of his back was standing straight up.
    “It’s okay Bill; jus’ the rain the tall grass needs,” I said. I could just barely scratch the top of Bill’s head. I tried to be reassuring; I knew that this wasn’t the time to make our move; Bill wasn’t focused at all. I skritched Bill behind his left ear, “Jus’ the rain, Bill; we’ve seen it a million times. Never been no harm to us. Soon we’ll be back on our porch, again, watching the rain. Okay, Bill?”
    Bill looked up – and, oh, what I would give at this moment to put my soul into Bill and his into me – so that he would know that the rain was no threat. Don’t fear the rain and lightning Bill; focus on the bad men all around us. But we all have our irrational fears and, for Bill, it was storms.
    When I first met Bill he was already a year-and-a-half old. I know he had been badly treated; left out in the rain. He hated the rain as only a soul who had been left out to drown in a thousand storms chained to a lead could. Bill, I can’t go back in time; I can’t undo what has been done.
    I did what I could for Bill and they took him away.
    “You keep him dry,” I said, “and warm or I won’t tell you another damn thing.”
    Jim tried to reassure me.
    “And his medicine, too,” I said.
    Jim said that they had vets on duty; the first time he had said that. I don’t know if they really had licensed veterinarians on duty or if he was just bullshitting me to get more information. Like I said, it’s not like I was negotiating from a position of strength. I don’t know.
     
    I don't feel no ways tired.
The good Lord has not taken me this far just to leave me now.
     
    Sometimes you can get strength from words. Sometimes it’s the words themselves that hold the power and sometimes it’s just the syllables like chanting brings focus, and with focus comes the strength.
    And then today’s interrogation began.
     
    In my mind I heard the distant squeal of a cork wrenched from the great cosmic whiskey bottle. Far away I heard the comforting burble of whiskey pouring into a thick-walled glass. Far, far away I was home. Far, far away I was safe and Bill was safe and Kate was safe and Nick was safe and I was playing the Blues in a warm, dry juke joint and John the Howler was there and Clyde the Foot was there and we were all bellied up to the bar and the owner brought the good whiskey out from deep under the bar and we were all safe. Oh, dear sweet Lord can’t we just be fucking safe for one fucking moment ?
     
    And then – whack! – that roundhouse left from Jim and it was the start of another day in restraints at the house of horrors.
    Look, Jim, I’m getting real tired of you hauling off and whacking me. Obviously you don’t give a rat’s ass about the Lanchester Equation and you don’t care about the BILL equation anymore. I’m gonna go out on a limb here, Jim, but what I think you want to know about is General Stanhope.
    With that, Jim stopped whacking me so I guess it was General Stanhope that he wanted to know about.
    Stanhope walked into the Officer’s Club, the O-Club, about 2:30 in the afternoon on the third day I was at Maxwell. There was something about him that didn’t smell right from the start. His dress blues were just a little too pressed, the creases too sharp. The fruit salad (the service ribbons) over his left breast was just one row too long. I thought I saw a Vietnam