Читать книгу Sombrero Fallout - Richard Brautigan - Страница 16

GIRL

There had to be a way out of this.

Then he knew what to do. He called a girl on the telephone. She was pleased that it was him when she answered the telephone. ‘I’m glad you called,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come over and have a nightcap with me? I’d like to see you.’

She only lived four blocks away.

There was the sound of romance in her voice.

For years they had been on and off casual lovers and she was very good in bed. She had read all of his books and was very intelligent because she never talked to him about them. He didn’t like to talk about his books and she had never asked him anything about them, but they were all there on her bookshelf. He liked the idea of her having all of his books but he liked even better the fact that they had been lovers for five years now and she had never asked him about them. He wrote them, she read them, and they did some pretty fair fucking together.

She wasn’t his physical type but she compensated for it in other ways.

‘I’d like to see you,’ she said on the telephone.

‘I’ll be over in a few minutes,’ he said.

‘I’ll put a log on the fire,’ she said.

He was feeling better now.

Maybe it would all work out.

Perhaps, it wasn’t hopeless.

He put his coat on and started out the door.

Actually, he did nothing because he had been only thinking about all of this in his mind. None of it was real. He hadn’t touched the telephone and there was no such girl.

He was still staring at the torn pieces of paper in the waste-paper basket. He was staring very intently at them as they made friends with the abyss. They seemed to have a life of their own. It was a big decision but they decided to go on without him.