Hostages to Fortune Read Online Free PDF

preferable.
    Not memories but moisture and mosquitoes kept him from the terrace now. Light from a single lamp illuminated the barroom. The door stood open and through the screen door fog had drifted in from outside and deepened the murkiness. He drew himself a mug of beer from the tap and marked it down on his long-inactive charge account. He sipped it slowly, for he had a long wait for the dawn.
    The peepers had multiplied and now the night belonged to them. Their drone was pierced at fixed intervals by a screech owl uttering its long-drawn, broken, all-too-human-sounding sob. It was a nocturne he knew. He too was one acquainted with the night.
    He sipped his beer and listened to the patter of the raindrops from the leaves of the trees and the distant rush of the water over the spillway of the pond, the steady trill of the frogs, the ululation of the owl like a banshee prophesying doom, and when his mug was either half empty or half full he wondered which was better, to have had sound sleep at night, appetite and good digestion, love, friendship, fatherhood, if only for a while, or was the pain of losing them such that it would have been better never to have known them? According to the poet, it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, and he supposed that went for all of life’s blessings, to none of which had we any claim or assurance of, but it was like asking a man deafened and blinded in midlife whether he would not rather have been born that way. Having heard Mozart, having seen a sunrise and Chartres cathedral and the paintings of Picasso, one could cherish the memory, but not without pangs of regret if one must do so in silence and darkness that would never again admit them.
    Oft in the stilly night
    Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,
    Fond Memory brings the light
    Of other days around me.
    No other spot had for him more fond memories of other days than this one, but to complete that very verse:
    The words of love then spoken;
    The eyes that shone
    Now dimmed and gone,
    The cheerful hearts now broken!
    This unlikely hour was the one at which he knew the barroom best, though not as now, alone in it. After everyone else had said good-night and gone upstairs, after Eddie had rinsed and dried the last glass and mopped the countertop and left them, Tony and he had sat here talking oft and late in the stilly night. Tony had begrudged time lost in sleep, and when with Tony so had he. In those days, before their troubles began, the two of them had always met bubbling over with news for each other, questions to ask, books to recommend, jaunts to plan, amusing encounters to relate, nuggets of nonsense to share. The one would learn the latest sayings, interests, and accomplishments of his godson, the other those of his goddaughter. So as not to disturb the sleepers overhead they spoke low, and that quiet and intent intimacy was a part of his recollection of those nights. Tony was not only a good talker himself, he made a better one of you. When, often at an hour later than this, they switched off the last light and climbed the stairs to their sleeping wives, he went always with the afterglow of a stimulating conversational workout. If only he could recall now some of the many sparkling sayings he had been sure he would never forget! Good things in abundance cheapened themselves; where so many came from there would always be more. Now for company in the night he had the peepers and the owl.
    His thoughts turned—no stopping them—to a night that he had not spent here with Tony. A night under this roof but not in the bar. Another June night but one with no threat of a storm, another sleepless, long night but one not nearly long enough. His wedding night. The words of love then spoken, the eyes that shone, the cheerful hearts, now broken …
    The days of their banns had brought the week to Thursday. The Friday would bring an influx of other members and their guests for the weekend, but