City Boy Read Online Free Page B

it.
    He sucked in a mouthful of smoke, felt it rising in him like an elevator. Lungs, bloodstream, brain, top floor, everybody out. The kid’s stuff was excellent. No wonder he always looked so slack jawed. Not that Jack was feeling entirely crisp and articulate himself at the moment. Chloe didn’t like him smoking, and over time he’d pretty much given it up. It wasn’t anything he’d promised her never to do, so technically he wasn’t going behind her back, what the hell, she was probably already pissed at him for staying up here, which in some stoned way seemed to make everything all right.
    “You’re not a cop or anything, are you?”
    The kid was sitting on the floor with his back against an armchair that was the mate of the wretched sofa. The girl had come in and draped herself across him and was rubbing one hand in slow circles above, below, and over the kid’s crotch.
    Jack was too stoned to pretend not to stare. “No, I’m not a cop, I’m a writer.”
    Damned if he knew why he said it. He felt pointlessly embarrassed.
    “I really didn’t think you were, I just had to ask, you know?” The kid had only heard the not cop part. He was safe. “Because cops’ll sit right down with you and smoke your shit, but they have to tell you who they are if you ask them. It’s the law.”
    Jack was pretty sure this was not the case, but he nodded, Uh-huh. His head felt like it was full of syrup.
    “Oh, this is perfect.” The kid jumped up, spilling the girl in a heap, and bent over the stereo, turning the noise up to painful levels. The song was “I Shot the Sheriff,” the kid accompanying it on a spirited air guitar.
    “Whoa, whoa,” Jack flagged him down. “You can’t play it that loud. Wife. Work. Sleep. Remember?”
    The kid shrugged and looked sulky, but lowered the volume. Jack said, “Headphones. Quiet hours. We’ve got to get something worked out here, Rich.”
    The kid said Sure, okay, but in the moment before he did so Jack caught the knowing look that passed between him and the girl. It was plain to them he was some hung-up fussbudget fixated on tiny decorum, an inhabitant of boring squaredom. They had their own absorbing world of sex and music and intrigue. He wasn’t any part of it. When you were under twenty, the boundaries were clear. He could hang with them, smoke their herb, groove to their music or pretend to. He would still amuse them.
    Maybe it was just his brain on drugs that made this rankle. Hey, wiseass, you’re the one who’s the joke here. Let’s get that straight. He hated having his insulated bubble of smugness punctured, wanted to believe, in the face of all evidence and history to the contrary, that he was the only one capable of insight, observation, judgment. It was always a shock to realize that someone else was peering back in at him, that he was himself horribly visible.
    He was ready to get up and leave, he was through with these people, but before he could get his hands and feet and all his other balky parts in motion, the door buzzer sounded.
    The apartment building had a security door and a buzzer for people who wanted entrance. Also an intercom that was supposed to let you ask who was there, but this was broken, and looked as if it had been for some time. It wasn’t a problem for Jack and Chloe, who would only have to open their front door to see who was standing outside. But the kid would have to go downstairs. He and the girl looked at each other.
    “Randy.”
    “You think?”
    The kid jumped up and hit the entry buzzer. Now it really was time for Jack to leave, but he lingered, just to see what new sort of oddity might walk through the door, and also to administer a few more cautions about the music.
    There were feet on the stairs. The kid opened the apartment doorthen made an effort to close it again, too late, somebody he didn’t expect already half inside, the kid giving up and walking away, the girl leaning forward with her lips pushed into a pout—all