"Davis, Jerry - Random Acts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

anywhere near the campus. This spot way up the hill is the closest
he could get. For the same reason my vehicle is even farther away
--- I haven't seen it in over a week.
Pris and I help Tom put the rubberized canvas covering over
his car ---it's a gleaming 1967 Camero convertible with a totally
un-stock, high performance engine and transmission, not at all
street legal --- and having secured that, we plod down the hill
toward the Euclid. I'm right in the middle of suggesting we stop
at Rodney Red's Bar, which we're passing, when Tom suddenly
exclaims "Hey!" He stops and points.
"What?" Pris asks.
"The bum. Look." He's pointing at the Euclid building, which
is only a half block away. The steps are clearly visible, and
sitting on them is our bum.
"No, that can't be the same . . ." I start, but trail off. It
is the same bum. I can tell by his jerking, uneven motions, like a
wind-up toy with broken gears. Nobody else moves like that. How in
the hell? I wonder. How in the hell did he get here before us?
"That must have not been our bum at the meeting," Tom says.
"It looked like him to me," I say. Then again, the bum at the
meeting didn't act like our bum. We reach the steps of the Euclid
and he looks up at us, grinning a grotesque, rotten-toothed grin
with gaping holes, and bobs his head up and down like a lizard.
"How did you get back here so fast?" Pris asks him.
The bum stops his bobbing nod, and draws his head back in a
way that makes his neck look like rubber. "Huh?" he says.
"The meeting," Tom says. "How did you get back from the
meeting before us?"
The bum lowers his eyebrows, scrunching up his face.
"Whaaat?"
"You weren't at the meeting?" Tom says. "You know, about the
little red lights?"
The bum's face jumps forward on his rubber neck. He moves his
arm up in an awkward way to rub his creased forehead; he looks as
though he's dislodged it. "I wasn't at any meeting," he says.
Tom looks at me with his camera lens eyes. "That wasn't him."
"I guess not," I say.
Pris looks back and forth between us, puzzled, her lips
forming a little pout. Her hair has fallen over her left eye, and
she pushes it back. "Oh well," she says, then smiles.
Tom unlocks the Euclid's front door and we enter the
building, plodding up the dusty steps and making a left, walking
all the way down the dingy hall to the last door on the right. Tom
unlocks that door and we enter behind him, passing the bathroom
and the kitchen and head straight into the living room. Tom plops
down on our ratty couch and Pris gingerly steps over and sets
herself down on his lap. He grins, putting his arms around her,
and she leans against him intimately and sticks her tongue into
his mouth. I sit across from them in a reclining chair and watch.
This hurts. Why am I punishing myself? I have a hollow