"Matt Ruff - Bad Monkeys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ruff Matt)

You thought you might have better luck with the janitor?

Sure. I mean, four oтАЩclock in the afternoon, the guy goes into an abandoned part of the building. What
for? Not to mop floors. And he wasnтАЩt carrying any tools, so he couldnтАЩt be doing repairs. So whatтАЩs
that leave?

Any number of things, IтАЩd imagine. But I take it you were hoping for vice?

You bet I was. And weтАЩre talking about a young guy with long hair and a Jesus beard. So what kind of
vice was he likely to be into?

But it wasnтАЩt what you thought.

No, actually, it was what I thought. ItтАЩs just, it was also more than what I thought.

Past the connecting door was a long hallway lined with empty classrooms. The janitor was in the last
room on the left, but halfway down the hall I could already smell the pot. Good stuff, tooтАФhe obviously
knew the right people. So I tiptoed down there, trying to work out how to play this. I figured I could
either go in casual and friendlyтАФтАЬHey, can I get a hit off that?тАЭтАФor I could be a hard-ass and threaten to
turn him in if he didnтАЩt give me his whole stash.

Which approach did you decide on?

I couldnтАЩt make up my mind. I didnтАЩt know the guy at all, right, so I had no idea how easily heтАЩd scare,
or share. And meanwhileтАФI was standing right outside the room, nowтАФI started hearing these monkey
noises.

Monkey noises?

Yeah. Literal monkey noises, I thought at first, like maybe he had a pet chimp in there with him.
Farfetched, I know, but who can tell with pot-smokers? So I took a peep around the doorframe to see
what kind of sideshow I was about to burst in on.

The janitor was over by the windows. He had a telescope set up, and his face was mashed down over
the eyepiece like it had been glued there. His left arm was curved above his head, like this, holding a joint
in the air, and his right arm was curved down towards his waist, like this, holdingтАжWell, I couldnтАЩt see
exactly what he was holding, for which thank God, but from the way his elbow was pumping it wasnтАЩt
hard to guess.

As for the monkey noises, that was actually two sounds in one. He was grunting, of course, but also, to
sort of brace himself, heтАЩd pulled a pupilтАЩs chair up sideways behind him and planted his butt on the
armrest, and the feet of the chair were going squeak-squeak-squeak in time with the grunts: voil├а, instant
chimp sounds. Which, all things considered, wasnтАЩt too far off the mark.

So IтАЩm watching this, and IтАЩm like, yuck, but at the same time, I still really wanted some dope. I definitely
had the goods to blackmail this guy now, but the idea of confronting him in the act was too gross to
contemplate, so I decided to wait him out and see if heтАЩd leave the roach behind when he was done with
his business. That was something Moon and I used to do at her parentsтАЩ parties, go around collecting
leftovers out of the ashtrays and recycling them into bong hits. It was a great way to get high without
actually having to talk to any freaks.