She laughed. The sound had none of the brightness I had heard in her earlier giggle, but I thought even a rueful laugh was better than none at all. ‘I won’t have to. He’ll find it. That’s just the way he is. But I had to go, Pete. And I’ll probably join the Committee of Resistance even though George Gilman always looks like a little kid who just got caught eating boogers and Harry Swidrowski has the world’s worst breath. Because it’s . . . the thing of it is . . . you see . . . ‘ She blew a frustrated I-can’t-explain sigh into my ear. ‘Listen, you know where we go out for smoke-breaks?’
‘At Holyoke? By the Dumpsters, sure.’
‘Meet me there,’ Carol said. ‘In fifteen minutes. Can you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have a lot more studying to do so I can’t stay long, but I . . . I just . . . ‘
‘I’ll be there.’
I hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth. Ashley Rice was standing in the doorway of the lounge, smoking and doing a little shuffle -step. I deduced that he was between games. His face was too pale, the black stubble on his cheeks standing out like pencil-marks, and his shirt had gone beyond simply soiled; it looked lived-in. He had a wide-eyed Danger High Voltage look that I later came to associate with heavy cocaine users. And that’s what the game really was; a kind of drug. Not the kind that mellowed you out, either.
‘What do you say, Pete?’ he asked. ‘Want to play a few hands?’
‘Maybe later,’ I said, and started down the hall. Stoke Jones was thumping back from the bathroom in a frayed old robe. His crutches left round wet tracks on the dark red linoleum.
His long, crazy hair was wet. I wondered how he did in the shower; certainly there were none of the railings and grab-handles that later became standard in public washing facilities. He didn’t look as though he would much enjoy discussing the subject, however. That or any other subject.
‘How you doing, Stoke?’ I asked.
He went by without answering, head down, dripping hair plastered to his cheeks, soap and towel clamped under one arm, muttering ‘Rip- rip, rip -rip’ under his breath. He never even looked up at me. Say whatever you wanted about Stoke Jones, you could depend on him to put a little fuck-you into your day.
21
Carol was already at Holyoke when I got there. She had brought a couple of milk-boxes from the area where the Dumpsters were lined up and was sitting on one of them, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. I sat down on the other one, put my arm around her, and kissed her. She put her head on my shoulder for a moment, not saying anything. This wasn’t much like her, but it was nice. I kept my arm around her and looked up at the stars. The night was mild for so late in the season, and lots of people — couples, mostly – were out walking, taking
advantage of the weather. I could hear their murmured conversations. From above us, in the Commons dining room, a radio was playing ‘Hang On, Sloopy.’ One of the janitors, I suppose.
Carol raised her head at last and moved away from me a little — just enough to let me know I could take my arm back. That was more like her, actually. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I needed a hug.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘I’m a little scared about facing my dad. Not real scared, but a little.’
‘It’ll be all right.’ Not saying it because I really thought it would be I couldn’t know a thing like that — but because it’s what you say, isn’t it? Just what you say.
‘My dad’s not the reason I went with Harry and George and the rest. It’s no big Freudian rebellion, or anything like that.’
She flicked her cigarette away and we watched it fountain sparks when it struck the bricks of Bennett’s Walk. Then she took her little clutch purse out of her lap, opened it, found her wallet, opened that, and thumbed through a selection of snapshots stuck in those small celluloid windows. She stopped, slipped one out, and handed it to me. I leaned forward so I could see it by the light falling through the dining-hall windows, where the janitors were probably doing the floors.