Free Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth Page A

the Den; she cringed against the far wall.
    “Who is it?”
    “It is the only man who ever really loved you.”
    She hugged and kissed him; then, overcome by double shame, drew away. But if he had accepted her caresses coolly, still he would not scorn her. He took her hand.
    “Ah Peggy. Ah Peggy.”
    She wept afresh, and then one of two things happened. Perhaps she flung herself before him, begging forgiveness and imploring him to love her. He raised her up and staunched her tears.
    “Forgive you?” he repeated in a deep, kind voice. “Love forgives everything, Peggy. But the truth of the matter is, I can’t forget.”
    He held her head in both his hands; her bitter tears splashed his wrists. He left the Den and walked to the bank-edge, leaned against a tree, stared seaward. Presently Peggy grew quiet and went her way, but he, he stayed a long time in the Jungle.
    On the other hand perhaps it was that he drew her to him in the dark, held her close, and gave her to know that while he could never feel just the same respect for her, he loved her nonetheless. They kissed. Tenderly together they rehearsed the secrets; long they lingered in the Sphinx’s Den; then he bore her from the Jungle, lovingly to the beach, into the water. They swam until her tears were made a part of Earth’s waters; then hand in hand they waded shoreward on the track of the moon. In the shallows they paused to face each other. Warm wavelets flashed about their feet; waterdrops sparkled on their bodies. Washed of shame, washed of fear; nothing was but sweetest knowledge.
    In the lumberyard down past the hospital they used square pine sticks between the layers of drying boards to let air through. The beach was littered with such sticks, three and four and five feet long; if you held one by the back end and threw it like a spear into the water, nothing made a better submarine. Perse Goltz had started launching submarines and following them down toward the Jungle as they floated on the tide.
    “Don’t go any farther,” Ambrose said when he drew near.
    Perse asked indifferently: “Why don’t you shut up?”
    “All I’ve got to do is give the signal,” Ambrose declared, “and they’ll know you’re sneaking up to spy.”
    As they talked they launched more submarines. The object was to see how far you could make them go under water before they surfaced: if you launched them too flat they’d skim along the top; if too deeply they’d nose under and slide up backward. But if you did it just right they’d straighten out and glide several yards under water before they came up. Ambrose’s arms were longer and he knew the trick; his went farther than Perse’s.
    “There ain’t no sign,” Perse said.
    “There is so. Plenty of them.”
    “Well, you don’t know none of them, anyhow.”
    “That’s what you think. Watch this.” He raised his hand toward the Jungle and made successive gestures with his fingers in the manner of Mister Neal the deaf and dumb eggman. “I told them we were just launching submarines and not to worry.”
    “You did not.” But Perse left off his launching for a moment to watch, and moved no farther down the beach.
    “Wait a minute.” Ambrose squinted urgently toward the trees. “
Go … up … the … beach.
They want us to go on up the beach some more.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, and even though Perse said “What a big fake you are,” he followed Ambrose in the direction of the new bridge.
    If Ambrose was the better launcher, Perse was the better bombardier: he could throw higher, farther, straighter. The deep shells they skipped out for Ducks and Drakes; the flat ones they sailed top-up to make them climb, or straight aloftso that they’d cut water without a splash. Beer cans if you threw them with the holes down whistled satisfactorily. They went along launching and bombarding, and then Ambrose saw a perfectly amazing thing. Lying in the seaweed where the tide had left it was a bottle with