Such Men Are Dangerous Read Online Free PDF Page A

the letter. I didn’t even let myself read it, just burned each sheet and flushed the ashes down the toilet.
    I started scanning the yellow pages for psychiatrists, then gave up and threw the book halfway across the room. If I made an appointment I would break it or forget it. Or lose the address, or miss my train, or something.
    Because the obvious truth was that I could not be trusted. I did not know my own mind, and could not, because my mind was in too many places at once. I have seen men freeze in combat, attacked on the right and the left at once and unable to return fire in either direction, standing stupidly in their tracks until bullets knocked them down. I now knew how they felt. I was dangerous, to myself and to anyone near me. I had to be all alone somewhere until things settled down.
    Do nothing, I thought.
    Two perfect words, answering everything. See Sharon or don’t see Sharon? Do nothing. Get a job or don’t get a job? Do nothing. Join a mercenary army? Do nothing.
    I cashed in all my government bonds, drew all my money out of the several banks who were taking care of it. I bought a money belt at Abercrombie ft Fitch and put 193 hundred dollar bills in it, along with my discharge and my birth certificate and my diploma. Then I wore it underneath my clothes and resolved never to take it off, not even in the shower. Wherever I went, I wanted to have everything with me.
    Then I packed everything that seemed important into one suitcase and told the bellhop to do what he wanted with the rest. I paid my hotel bill and took a taxi all the way to Idlewild. It would have been cheaper to take the coach from the terminal, but I was sure something would go wrong if I didn’t get to the airport as quickly as possible. I got there. All I had decided until then was that I wanted to go someplace warm; it was October, and I didn’t want to have to buy winter clothes. By the time I was at the airport I had settled on Miami, probably because I had been there once, years ago. I was able to get a flight leaving in four hours. I bought a newspaper and spent four hours reading it. I read everything, want ads, stock-market quotations, everything I could find. I was first in line for my flight, first on the plane, first off when we landed.
    On the plane I made a list of rules:
    DO NOTHING
    1. Never write a letter to anyone.
    2. Make no phone calls.
    3. Don’t talk to anyone.
    4. No women exc. whores if you have to.
    5. Two drinks every day before dinner, otherwise none.
    6. Three meals every day.
    7. Exercise regularly, swimming and calisthenics, keep in shape.
    8. Plenty sleep, sunshine.
    9. Don’t go anywhere exc. movies.
    10. When in doubt, do nothing.

THREE
    T HE S UN W OKE me. It slanted through my door every morning, a few seconds earlier than the previous day, a few seconds later than the following day. Midwinter had come and gone, and now the sun was rising just a little bit earlier every morning, and so was I. There were no clouds in the sky, hardly a ripple on the surface of the ocean. They could have used my view for an airlines ad. I walked straight from the cabin to the ocean and swam around in it for fifteen or twenty minutes, then came back and built a fire on the beach while I let the sun dry me. I broke the last two eggs into the frying pan and noted that it was my day to row across to Mushroom Key. I ate two eggs every morning and went to Mushroom Key every sixth day to buy a dozen more eggs and whatever else I needed. The store was the closed-in porch of Clinton Mackey’s house, and was thus open seven days a week, which saved me the trouble of owning a calendar. I could usually figure out about what day of the week it was and could make a fair stab at the date. This day, for example, was probably a Thursday, because I seemed to remember that it had been Friday when I last rowed over to Mackey’s. (Or was that the time before?) And it was somewhere around the middle of January, maybe just past the middle,