The Reincarnation of Peter Proud Read Online Free PDF Page B

through the offices, vapid but soothing. His eyes grew heavy. The streamlined chair glided along the curve of his spine. He lay almost flat on his back, an astronaut waiting for blastoff. The red of the California sunset filtered through the half-closed shutters of the window and glinted off the stainless steel tubes and chrome gadgets.
    He stared up at the rectangular band of light in the fixture just above him. The name of the manufacturer was inscribed on the panel: Castle. It seemed to him he had seen this name inscribed on the equipment of every dentist he had visited.
    C-A-S-T-L-E.
    White letters on a dark background. He stared at them hypnotically. He started to break them up into four-letter words, the way you played those word games they sometimes featured on the puzzle page of newspapers.
    Cast, case, cleat, cale, Celt, stale, steal, scat, seat, last, least, lest, east …
    It gets dark early in December. Through the shutters of Marty Stein’s window he could sense that night threatened the sunset. He could barely make out, between the shutters, the roof of a high-rise building farther down on Wilshire Boulevard. There was a sign on the roof. He could not make it out clearly, but it seemed to advertise a bank. Bank of America? United California Bank? He was not sure.
    Then the shutters opened, and he saw that he had been mistaken. The big sign on the rooftop actually read: PURITAN.
    However, it was rather hard to see the sign because it was snowing. Coming down hard, whipping against the windowpane. A big blizzard. He could hear the howl of the wind. It rattled the walls. The window was frosted now. It felt cold as he pressed his nose against it, trying to peer through. But he could no longer see the sign. There was too much snow.
    It was piled on the street in high banks all about him. He was on a busy street. Traffic and shops. He could make out a few signs: Puritan Dress Shop, Puritan Lunch. People passed him, jostled him. They wore boots and galoshes and were buried in big coats against the cold. He saw their faces clearly, but he didn’t know anyone. Farther down the street an arched railroad overpass built of gray stone spanned the street. At the moment a train was rumbling over it. And beyond that, he saw a kind of municipal tower.
    Now the snow had gone away. It was a beautiful, hot summer’s day. He was standing on the observation balcony of the tower. He was quite small, and he could barely see over the guardrail. It was high, very high above the city. From here he could see the broad river, its shape a reverse “S” lying in the sun. Across the river were buildings and factories, their chimneys tracing delicate patterns of smoke across the parchment blue sky. By looking down between the guardrails, he could see the cars crawling below, and what seemed to be some kind of public’ square. There were two monuments in the square, each with a figure on a pedestal. From thishigh up he could not identify them. There were diagonal walks and benches.
    Then, quickly, one sequence after the other:
    He was no longer in the open, but in some kind of small, restricted area, behind bars, as though he were in a cage or prison, and he was counting money.
    And then, beyond the cage, HE appeared. The Puritan. The one he thought of as “Cotton Mather.” A giant, frightening figure towering over him. It stared down at him with cold, dead eyes. Every detail of him was clear. He wore a tunic of dark red caught at the waist with a leather band. Over this, a sleeveless jacket of dull gray. A doublet and leather hose lined with oilskin. A large conical broad brim hat. Broad white collar of linen. Half boots with shining silver buckles. The face hard and stern….
    Then he was outside. Again, a hot summer’s day. He was playing tennis with Marcia on a clay court. There was a small pond or lake to the left, a big, low rambling building of Cape Cod design to the right. Beyond that, the sweep of a verdant golf course, green