Agyar Read Free Page B

long you’ll be staying?” he said.
    “You mean in Lakota? Or in this house.”
    “Well, both.”
    “Am I bothering you?”
    “Au contraire. I like the company.”
    “Au contraire?” I said. “What is this au god damn contraire?”
    He winced just a little at the profanity and said, “You forget that I’s a eddicated nigguh.”
    “Right. I don’t know how long I’ll be around. Word reached me that an acquaintance was here and wanted to see me. I’ll see what she wants, then be on my way. I prefer bigger cities, in general.”
    “Why are you going to her rather than the other way around?”
    “She’s older than me.”
    “So?”
    “You ask too many questions.”
    “What are you going to do, kill me?”
    I laughed. “Where and what is Howard’s?” I said.
    “I don’t know; find a phone book.”
    “Good idea,” I said. “Do you have paper and pens here, in case I want to write to her?”
    “Better than that, there’s a typewriter in one of the upstairs rooms. Can you type?”
    “I used to. I’ll take a look at it tomorrow. There’s paper?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good,” I said, then yawned.
    “Tired?”
    “Yes. It’s winter. I always get more tired in winter.”
    “Seems reasonable. Shall I light the way, suh?”
    “With what?”
    “Mah two glowin’ eyes.”
    “Don’t bother. Just practice up the poltergeist stuff in case anyone tries to wake me.”
    “Shore, bawse.”
    “Thanks. I’ll double your salary.”
    He probably would have said “Shit,” but, as I had already learned, Jim never, ever swore. I went down to my room and slept.
     
    Here it is, less than forty-eight hours since I left this machine, and I’m back here again, though I’m not certain why.
    It is always strange to be in the grip of emotion and not know what that emotion is. Or, to put it another way, to have been through the sort of experience that ought to engender a strong response, to be waiting to feel that response. I’m not sure if I want to set it down at all, yet I feel the need to tap on these keys. It’s addicting, I think, this business of putting one word after another. Byron mentioned something about that once while he was sick from taking too much of some drug or another.
    I got up several hours before the appointed hour, so I showered, brushed my teeth (the house, though deserted, has its own well, the pump of which still works),
got dressed, then found a flower shop just as it was closing. The proprietor took pity and invited me in, and I ordered a bunch of purple roses to be sent to Jill. I toyed with having a cactus sent to young Don, and I might have done so if I’d known how to reach him.
    I took a turn around part of the city, getting to know it the way as a young man I’d gotten to know the twists and turns and buildings at University. I listened in on a few private conversations, just because they were there, but heard nothing worth the trouble of repeating. Eventually I found a phone booth. The difference between Lakota and Staten Island can be expressed in the fact that the phone booth had a city directory in it, looking as if there was no reason for it not to be there. I looked up the address of Howard’s, asked directions of a young man getting into a blue ’86 Ford Pinto, and set out for Woodwright Avenue, called the Ave, which was in the sort of funky part of town, called the Tunnel, that lies between two of the colleges.
    Howard’s turned out to be a nightclub on the Ave with a fake wood front and a covered entryway complete with doorman and red carpet, just like in a real city. I think it is what they call “trendy.” A useful word. Whenever the door opened I could hear nonthreatening jazz creep hesitantly out onto the street, then change its mind and slink back inside when the door closed. To my eyes, Kellem blended into the scene the way Bette Midler would have blended into a monastery, yet no one seemed to notice her.
    It’s funny how I’d forgotten so much of what she