About Harry Towns by Bruce Jay Friedman

Author:Bruce Jay Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802197450
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

That night, Ramos came by with the coke. Towns didn't weigh it, look at it, measure it. He never did. It seemed like a fat pack and he guessed that the girl had given him a good count because of the death. The main thing was that it was in there. He gave Ramos some of it, which was protocol, and told him he would see him around. “I'll stick with you, man,” said Ramos, but Towns said he would rather be alone. He didn't want people saying “man” to him and telling him he had “a terrific head.” All of which Ramos was capable of. The coke had a perfumed scent to it, a little like the fragrance of the divorcee. Had she rubbed some of it against herself? His guess was that she had. He took a snort of it, got into his bathrobe, and put on some Broadway show music, the kind his mother liked. The music would be the equivalent of driving up to the old summer resort. But it didn't work. It didn't go with the coke. During his mother's illness, he had put her up in his apartment and moved into a hotel, the idea being that she would get to enjoy the steel and glass and the view and the doorman service. But she didn't go with the apartment either, and they both knew it. She stayed there a few weeks, probably for his sake, to ease his mind about not having sent her away on lavish trips, and then she said she wanted to go back to her own home. She left without a trace, except for some sugar packets she had taken from a nearby restaurant and put in his sugar jar. To give him some extra and free sugar. He wondered if he should go over and take a look at the sugar. He was positive that it would start him crying again, but he didn't want to do that just then. He could always look at the sugar. Instead, he switched on some appropriate coke music, took another snort of the drug, and stared out at his view of the city, the glassed-in one that was costing him an arm and a leg each month. His mother had made a tremendous fuss over this view, but once again it was for his sake. She had been very ill and wanted to be in her own apartment. Staying in his had been a last little gift for him, allowing him to do something for her. He kept the tinfoil packet of coke open beside him and he knew that he was going to stay where he was until dawn. He was not a trees-and-sunset man, but he liked to be around for that precise time when the night crumbled and the new day got started. He liked to get ready for that moment by snorting coke, letting the drug drive him a hundred times higher than the thirtieth floor on which he lived.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.