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

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


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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
feeling in my chest, as if all the organs had been relocated, and
there's a unpleasant tingling in my arms. Suppressed emotions. I
take a breath, stand up, and turn away. They obviously want to be
alone.
I walk around the chair and into my room, turning on the
light. My bed has camera equipment strewn all across it, and along
my walls are shelves with terrariums full of specimens, and on my
desk is an old IBM Selectric II typewriter and piles and piles of
notes and dust and clutter . . . and goddamn it, I don't want to
deal with the mess, not right now. I don't even want to be here
--- the room is so small it gives me claustrophobia. Turning
around, I go back into the living room just in time to catch a
glimpse of Tom carrying Pris in his arms, heading toward his
bedroom. When they get inside he lifts one leg and closes his door
with his foot. I sigh and walk down the hall to the apartment door
and quietly let myself out.
I am so fucking stupid sometimes. Why do I let things like
this happen to me? How could I be so careless as to fall
hopelessly in love with my roommate's girlfriend? I trudge down
the outer hall, down the steps, and out of the Euclid, patting the
shoulder of our bum as I go. The sun has set, and twilight is
rapidly fading to night. I make a left and take a walk through the
Berkeley campus, heading up into the hills behind, up behind the
Greek Theater, up nearly to the laboratory buildings that are at
the top. From the hill I can see all the way across the bay to San
Francisco, the city where Pris comes from . . . it sparkles like a
billion diamonds through the distant haze. The air up here is cool