Night Train полностью

Some time later I was in the kitchen again, drinking soda again. Watching the man move around again. Not just the cold air had pushed the blood into his cheeks. His movements, now, were sharper and nois­ier, tinnier. And his breath sounded raw. I changed the tape. I smoked. Feeding the thing inside of me. The thing inside of me—it wasn’t any calmer. It too was sharper, noisier—colder, angrier.

He said over his shoulder: “Mike, don’t you have symptoms when you’re on that shit? Physical symp­toms?”

“Yeah, you can do,” I said.

“Doesn’t your face swell up and your hair fall out?” “It can do, yeah. Suddenly you’re Kojak.” “Mike, you’ll believe me when I say...My faith in my powers of observation have—has seen better days. I lived with a mood-drugged suicide for a year without noticing. Maybe I wouldn’t even have noticed that I was living with Kojak. But I’d have noticed that I was fucking him, wouldn’t I? Reassure me.”

“Some people don’t get any physical symptoms. Not double vision. Not even the breath. Jennifer. Jen­nifer was very lucky with her body.”

“A pity about that. A pity about that.”

Her shine is leaving these rooms. Jennifer’s will to order is leaving these rooms. Slow male entropy is beginning—but for the time being nothing else has changed. Her blue trunk still occupies its place beneath the window. Her bureau lies open in its ante-mortem busyness. The bowl of potpourri goes on aging between the lamp and the framed photograph on the table we’re sitting at.

“Jesus,” I said, smiling, “what was she on? Magic mushrooms?”

Trader leaned forward. “Jennifer?”

Graduation: In the photograph the three girls are standing—no, bending—in their robes and flat hats. Jennifer is laughing with her mouth about as wide as a mouth can go. Her eyes are moist seams. The two friends don’t appear to be in much better shape. But there is the fourth girl in the photograph, trapped in the corner of the frame, and she seems immune to this laughter—immune, maybe, to any laughter at all.

“No,” he said. “Jennifer? No. See, this is where it stops adding up for me.”

He paused—and then came the frown or the shadow.

“What does?” I said. “What stops?”

“She hated anything mood-altering—for herself. I mean, she did the usual shit at college like everybody else. But then she quit and that was that. You know Jennifer. One glass of wine, but never two. She had a thing about it. The whole first year I met her, she had this crazy housemate who was—”

“Phyllida,” I said. And saw that shadow again.

“Phyllida. She was taking zinc and manganese and steel and chrome. And Jennifer said, ‘She’s eating a Sherman tank every day. What do you expect? She isn’t anyone now.’ I mean, I like to drink some nights and I like to smoke a little weed, and Jennifer never had a problem with that. But for herself? No sleeping pills, nothing. Even an aspirin was a last resort.”

“She keep up with this Phyllida?”

“No, thank God. A few letters. She got farmed out to her stepmother. And they moved to Canada. That was a buzz.”

After a time I said, “You mind if I ask you a per­sonal question?”

“Come on, Mike. Don’t be ridiculous.”

How was your sex life?

Good, thanks.

I mean in the last year. You didn’t feel that it was dropping off a little?

Maybe. It might have dropped off a little, I guess.

Because that’s almost always a sign. So how often were you making love?

Oh, I don’t know. I suppose in the last year it was down to once or twice a day.

A day? You don’t mean once or twice a week?

Once or twice a day. But more at the weekend.

And who would initiate?

Huh?

Was it always your idea? Listen. Tell me to fuck off and everything, but some women, when they’re that good-looking, it’s like honey from the icebox. It won’t spread. What was she like in the sack?

...Adorable. Relax. I’m feeling good telling you this. It’s funny. That letter you saw is about the only one she ever sent me that’s halfway printable. She used to say, “Do you think anyone would believe how much of our time we spend doing this? Two rational adults?” When we went south on vacation, we’d come back and everyone would ask us why we didn’t have a tan.

So sex was a big part of it.

It didn’t come in parts.

...You never sensed any restlessness in her? I mean, she hooked up with you pretty early. You don’t think she might have felt she’d missed out?