Alone Again Or | Page 9

floor. She knew that no student was supposed to be in the hallways after dark. The student had used a ceramic rope ladder to get into his room; he pressed conduction card in his wallet and it lowered from his window. Most of the University kids she had slept with used a make of rope ladder to get in and out of their rooms at night. She sipped her vodka and remembered one occasion; the mark had lived on the thirtieth floor and they were both drunk. She'd been wearing a skirt and the wind had whipped up the side of the building. She climbed the distance ass in the wind, trying to concentrate on not falling off.?
She tried not to laugh at the memory. After an estimated ten minutes, when the back of her head began to tingle, she walked on.?
No more visions of other people's thoughts and dreams troubled her as she made her way out of the building.?
Outside she walked quickly knowing a girl her age, just too old to look like college age but with a backpack, would be suspicious to the mayor's police at four in the morning.?
I got that kid to sleep, she thought. I wonder if he's ever slept before.?
She decided her probably never had and laughed. She considered the possibility he'd find his dreams more psychedelic than his drugs and smiled again.
She walked to her apartment building through the silent oil scented city streets.?
Her landlord was a thin man from South America, near the Gulf of Mexico, where a single large government was the only government. No city leaders with any power were part of the system. He'd moved to America but got in trouble for having foc. It was still legal in his country and as he'd told Jennifer one night he hadn't understood. But he had enough money saved to buy a building in one of the outer circles and outfit it with utilities. People with records could buy property in the outer area of the city.
He was awake and outside when Jennifer approached the building on the sidewalk.?
He's always fucking awake, she thought. Until I get back home.
The landlord, Jacob, wore nothing but black pants and a white t-shirt everyday. He leaned backwards with his hands pressed in his lower back. Jennifer could see his ribs through the shirt and heard his back pop.?
"Hey, hey you, Jenny," he said in his raspy voice when she neared. He was the only one that called her Jenny. "You have the rent? Or we going to go at it? Huh?"?
She fished in the backpack and handed him fifty dollars out of the boy's wallet.
He gyrated his hips lightly at her.?
"I still remember," he said.?
Jennifer nodded, keeping her composure. She was drunk, and he always reminded her.
One day, Jennifer ran out of alcohol. She'd thought she had another bottle, enough to last her until the nighttime, underneath the coiled blankets on her bed, but when she looked for it, it wasn't there. It was daytime outside, and she knew going out in the daytime, sober, with people everywhere would only be a confusing meshing of visions.
Jennifer lived in the basement. On the first floor lived a little girl who was insane. For hours Jennifer had tolerated visions of nails coming out of the walls, the feeling that something small, furry, and possessing eyes on stalks was living in her throat, and the sounds of wailing small children.
When she could no longer stand it she went to Jacob, stripping naked in his foyer before ringing the doorbell. She managed to say "I don't have the rent money for this month" even though she did, and Jacob took over, probably thinking her slow response a result of drunkenness. He got really warmed up and visions of other women and sexual fantasies filled her mind. Jacob's brain was closer and more focused than the little girl's or anyone else's in the roughly twenty foot radius her brain absorbed when he was fucking her, so she saw only his thoughts. As soon as she saw nothing but black and felt his spasms beneath her, she said if he had a drink. She drank enough to make it to the store and buy more alcohol. Jacob never stopped reminding her.
The basement room seemed to insulate her from most people's thoughts. The little girl had left weeks ago, and Jennifer assumed her tormented images had been deeper and more intense than most of the other tenants in her range, because if she sobered up entirely she still only saw slight images and heard faint sounds.?
She'd never been able to afford a television. She did frequently buy chalk from the twenty four hour gas station on the way back from the bars and sex, to draw murals on her walls