LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

you might want to double date.”

      “Too late for me to get a date,” Mark said, sliding a beer glass around on the table.

      “But now that Jennifer’s back in town…”

      “We’re not married, you know.”

      “You’d be crazy to lose a girl like Jennifer. She’s great,” Jeff said earnestly. “I wish…jeez, here comes Maynard G. Krebs.” Dave was making his way through the crowd toward them. At the table he sat down and grabbed a glass of beer.

      “I’m surprised Timothy Leary Jr. still drinks beer,” Mark joked. Jeff flashed Dave a peace sign.

      “Alcohol and meditation are holy fire. Psychedelics are too heavy.”

      “That beard looks like shit, Dave,” Jeff said pleasantly.

      “Thanks. It does look good, doesn’t it?”

      “Where’d you get that shirt? Salvation Army?” Mark added.

      Dave finished off the glass of draft Hamm’s. “As a matter of fact, yes. You should stop by there yourself, Mark. You wear exactly the same thing every day—Levi’s, blue Gant shirt, Weejuns…you look like some J.C. Penney’s preppie.”

      “Thought I saw you at the mixer last night,” Jeff said to Dave.

      “I was there for a while,” Dave frowned around the room. “Those girls aren’t my type. Too…”

      “…smart?” Mark filled in.

      “…suburban,” Dave finished unperturbed. “No depth.”

      “You shouldn’t be out prowling around anyway,” Jeff said. “You’re going to lose the beautiful Carol.”

      “Not that I ever had her,” Dave said, squinting around the room again. “She wants to spend all her time talking politics, organizing protests, writing that damned One Voice Manifesto. Yesterday we spent an hour arguing over whether Alexander Dubcek’s political coalition is strong enough to reach détente with the Russians in Prague.” He grabbed another partial beer and drained it. “I’ve had it with her. The damned thing is, she’s really interesting, she’s beautiful, she’s usually right in her political assessments. But I want more out of life than political conversation.”

      “Well…” Jeff leaned in toward Dave, “…if you and Carol aren’t going to be at your place tonight, I’d like to borrow your apartment. I’m taking Susan to dinner, and afterward, well, the trailer is too crowded and…we need someplace to go.”

      “I don’t think you’d be very interested in my apartment, not the new one anyway.”

      Mark and Jeff stared at him.

      “I moved out of Tiger Village,” Dave said. “No more Carol, no more swimming pool, no more club house. I got a room in one of those old houses on Paquin Street.”

      Mark was incredulous. “That’s going to ruin your man-about-town image. You didn’t trade in your TR3 for a VW van did you?”

      “Of course not. Women come and go, but you keep your car—that’s important. Anyway, I’m going a different direction now, and I don’t need that glossy Tiger Village lifestyle. Come by some time. 2210 Paquin. I’m on the third floor, apartment 3C.”

      “Damn,” Jeff said. “I wish you’d told me. I’d have sublet your place rather than the trailer.”

      Mark gave him a hurt look and set his beer down. “You guys are all wound up over these women. Sue, Carol, what’s it matter? Tim’s dead. That’s what matters.”

      The three of them sat there and avoided each others’ eyes. The color seemed to have drained out of the room.

      “I’ll see you guys later.” Mark made his way to the door.

      Chapter 3

      Hypnotized by the Hamm’s sign’s bilious blue waters endlessly rippling, Mark sat at the bar, an untasted beer in front of him. The I.V. was quiet. Mark went to the pay phone and dropped a dime in the slot. He slowly dialed the first digit of Jennifer’s phone number, then the next, then stopped. After a while the phone clicked, his dime dropped into the change slot, and the dial tone whined. If he told her about Tim’s death, she would be very caring, but pity and condolence would not ease the restless anger he felt.

      When he returned to the bar, there was a girl sitting on the barstool next to his. She gave him a hug, pushing her small breasts against him. “Remember me?”

      “Debbie,” Mark said.

      “You’re a skydiver. I want to learn skydiving,” she said. She had a cute smile, and brown hair cut so short it seemed boyish, but her body was attractive in a tee shirt and jeans.

      “Okay,” Mark said. She started to raise her hand to order a beer when Mark stopped her. “Let’s get out of here.” He pulled her gently along, off the barstool and out the door. He was surprised to see night had fallen while he’d sat nursing a beer.

      “What’s your hurry?” she said breathlessly as they hurried down the street. At his Chevy, Mark pointed to a tumbled white mass on the backseat. “That is a parachute.”

      As he drove she leaned over the seat feeling the filmy nylon. Then she slid over to sit right beside him, just like high school. He put his arm around her. “I didn’t take time to repack my chute, just threw it in the back seat.”

      “Isn’t it dangerous to leave it tangled up? Will it open right if it’s not…”

      “I’ll straighten it out when I repack.” He parked in the big gravel parking lot behind the University Services building, shut of the engine, and tuned the radio to KAAY. There were three other cars there, lights off, spaced far apart. Debbie lit a joint and they passed it back and forth without speaking. When the joint had burned down to a roach, Mark tossed it out the window and took her in his arms and kissed her with angry passion. They clambered over the seat and into the frothy tangles of the parachute and made love. For a while, the warmth of her body eased the chill that had come into him ever since he’d heard Tim was dead.

      Mark leaned over the seat and turned the radio off. Debbie got a pack of Winstons out of her purse on the front seat. Her body was white in the darkness.

      “Don’t smoke back here, you can burn a hole in the nylon.”

      She put the cigarette away. “Don’t talk much do you?” she said.

      He stepped out of the car naked, oblivious to other cars nearby, and quickly dressed. She wriggled into her jeans and tee shirt and they sat in the front seat smoking cigarettes.

      “You from St. Louis?” Debbie asked, blowing a smoke ring at the stars.

      “Columbia,” he said, staring at the darkness.

      She snorted, “Me too, but not for long. I’m leaving…”

      “We’re all leaving,” Mark muttered. “One way or another.”

      “What about skydiving? When can I...?”

      Mark cut her off. “I’ve got to get going. Where’s your car parked?”

      * * *

      At the end of Tim’s funeral, Mark followed the others out of the old church and stood on Walnut Street blinking in the sun. The rest dispersed to their cars—friend’s of Tim’s parents, a handful of high school classmates Mark had lost touch with long ago.

      The Indian summer afternoon seemed an illusion, a two-dimensional picture in sepia tones.

      Tim’s house on Michaelson Drive was like its neighbors, a modest 1950’s ranch-style with a blue Buick in the carport and a neatly trimmed lawn. The street was lined with mature elm and oak trees. Impatiens lined the Bryants’ driveway. In the over-crowded

Скачать книгу