"II faut que j'aille chercher un livre," repeated Bud, and was distracted by a stab of pain in his missing legs. The phantom pain still came back on occasion, despite it having been almost seven years since that horrific day in the jungle in Tay Ninh, when a dot detaching itself from a fast-approaching swept-wing silhouette was the last thing he saw before a shock wave catapulted his consciousness into a fog of unremitting pain. He turned off the tape recorder, reached down, and massaged his stumps.
"Bud? Bud Armstrong? Is that you?" The voice belonged to Cory Richards, with whom Bud had gone to high school and who, like Bud, had returned to their small town and recently taken up residence again, albeit on the moneyed side of the tracks. He was balancing a sandwich on top of his coffee with one hand, and carried a briefcase in the other as he navigated between the tables of the coffee shop. Cory was smiling, and he seemed to glitter as he walked. He stopped at Bud's table. "May I?" he asked. Bud nodded, and Cory sat down opposite Bud. They shook hands.
"So how the heck have you been?" asked Cory, taking hold of his sandwich. "I was sorry to hear about what happened to you in 'Nam. What are you up to these days?"
"Oh, I'm getting by," said Bud. "I get a disability check, and the GI Bill pays for college." He paused to take another sip of coffee and rewind the cassette. "I'm studying French."
Cory's eyebrows shot up, as he chewed a big bite of his pastrami-on-rye. "What on earth for?" he mumbled.
"I missed out in school, and I figured it was about time," said Bud. "Who knows? Maybe it'll come in handy."
Cory barked a little laugh. "Do you know how hard it is to pick up a foreign language?" asked Cory, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Especially when you're our age? Come on! My company sent me to a private language tutor a few years ago to learn some basic Spanish for a trip to South America, and it was a waste of time. In one ear and out the other. What's the point of you trying to learn French, anyway?"
"I don't know," said Bud, cracking a little smile. "Maybe I'll go live in France and hang out in some French coffee shops for a change." He looked around at the other customers.
"You don't want to do that," said Cory. "Believe me, right here, in our little town, you're in the best place to live in the world. Why, I just got back from a business trip to the USSR, and what a sorry place that was! Not a swallow of Coca-Cola to be had and they've never ever heard of ketchup!"
"That sounds like it might be an interesting place to visit," said Bud.
"I don't think so. Those Russians, they're not like us, Bud" said Cory. "And they don't tolerate cripples very well, there, either, or in France, for that matter!" He took a sip of his coffee. "Why didn't you sign up for something more… vocational? Something you can put to use in the real world from the confines of that wheelchair?"
Bud shrugged and let the silence stretch a little before changing the subject. "So, how're things going with you?" he asked.
A sharp hiss that sounded like "Chuh!" exploded from behind Cory's lips. "Oh, I guess I'm doing pretty well, all things considered."
"What does that mean?" asked Bud.
"Well, the commute is tolerable, the job pays well, and I'm senior to all the other vice-presidents in my company. But my boss is a jerk, and half the people who work for me are idiots, so... it sort of balances out."
"Why don't you quit, get another job?" asked Bud.
Cory gave his head a little shake. "It's not as easy as it sounds," he said, "the wife really digs the expensive house and her shiny car, my son's private school tuition consumes another chunk of change with alarming regularity, and anyway, with the economy the way it is, and everything, this is just not the right time to change jobs or take any risks." Cory glanced down at his watch. "Wow! Look at the time!" he said, and pushed away from the table. "Listen, I've got to run, but we'll get together again soon and talk over old times, okay?" he asked.
"Sure," said Bud, though he was sure no such meeting was intended or would ever take place. The two men shook hands.
"Remember what I said," said Cory, "it takes a lot of time and effort to learn a language. I know, because I've tried. You'd be better off studying something else, something more practical."
"Thanks," replied Bud, and as Cory walked out the door into the sunlight, Bud thought, "but I have all the time in the world to do anything I want. Maybe even take up watercolors." He grinned, and rubbed his stumps once more to make the pain go away.
* * *
Bud had little interest in attending the 40th anniversary reunion of his high-school graduating class, but his wife Mathilde had all but insisted, and quite persuasively. "I want to run my fingers through the soil from which you sprang," she said dramatically, laughing and striking a pose of Venus rising from the sea as she let her bath robe fall from her arms in a heap around her ankles. Then she stepped closer to Bud's wheelchair, where he threw an arm around her bare buttocks and she craned her head down to kiss the top of his balding head, the way they had done a thousand times before.
The flight from Guadeloupe, to where Bud and Mathilde had retired after Bud's career as a successful watercolor artist in Marseilles, was a little better than what one might expect after the terror attacks of 2001, especially as they still let the handicapped board early. Attendance at the reunion was sparse. There were only a dozen or so other people there besides Bud and Mathilde.
Among them was Cory Richards, who was there with his wife. He seemed not to remember Bud, at first, and at times during the evening, Bud caught other attendees trying hard not to stare at where Bud's legs ought to have been. People chatted, toasts were proposed, all against a backdrop of mediocre catered food. In all major aspects, in all major essentials, it was a very quiet and forgettable evening.
"That man, Cory," said Mathilde to Bud on the plane back to their Caribbean home, "is he the one who recommended you not learn French, not go to France?"
"Yes," said Bud. "That's the one."
"What a sorry, pathetic little man," said Mathilde. "I don't think he has once in his life stepped outside the confines of his self-imposed comfort zone."
"What do you mean?" asked Bud.
"Well, he's given himself ulcers because he hates his work and neither he nor his wife appear to have had an original thought in years. I was amused at how condescending they were toward you at dinner, yet at the same time they were quite envious."
"Really?" asked Bud.
"Oh, yes. It was quite obvious. And did you notice their body language when they were sitting together at dinner?"
"No," said Bud. "What did it tell you?"
"It told me that they are utterly miserable in each other's company," said Mathilde.
"Not like us," said Bud.
"No, not like us at all," said Mathilde, taking Bud's hand in hers and turning to face him so she could look him directly in the eyes. "Do you know what I think you should do?"
"What?"
"I think you should send them one of your watercolors as a gift," she said. "For old time's sake."
"Which one is that?" asked Bud.
"The first one you painted after we arrived on Guadeloupe, of that outrageously gaudy parrot in the bamboo cage," said Mathilde. "You may give it whatever title you choose," she added, settling back in her seat, "but I think 'Portrait of Cory, an old school chum' would not be inappropriate."
Bud couldn't help chuckling, together with Mathilde, all the rest of the way home.
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