Free Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny Page B

send a charge up there! It's called a tickle circuit . . .  Stop it!"
    Red halted.
    "Huh?"
    "Sorry. Didn't realize I was vocalizing. Flowers was curious about one of my subunits."
    "Oh."
    They crossed the veranda and entered the building.
     

TWO
     
    It was over. Randy had driven Julie to the bus station that morning, helped her with her bags, said good-bye. By now she was well on her way to her parents' home in Virginia. There was nothing of hers in sight in the apartment's small living room or kitchen, between which he wandered, preparing fresh glasses of iced tea and drinking them. He had taken the last of his final exams the previous day and gone with Julie to a good restaurant for a late dinner. He had even gotten a bottle of fine wine to go with it. Neither of them had said it was over, but the feeling was there. Now she was on her way back to Virginia, and he had to line something up for the summer. She had wanted him to go home with her; she'd said that her father could find him a summer job. But Randy had smelled a trap in this. He did not want any strings on him yet. The arrangement they had had was fine, with an agreement as to its temporary nature from the beginning. But she had tried to change the rules with her offer, and he was not ready for anything like that. In the back of his mind, thoughts of the search still lurked, though postponement had weakened that childhood resolution. And there was school. And all the things he wanted to do before he even thought about settling down. No. She had offered. He had refused. Something had changed. A different feeling was there. It was over.
    He moved to the window and looked three blocks through the evening in the direction of the campus. He wore a T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and thong sandals. People on the street below were similarly clad. It had been a bright-skied, humid day with more such days forecast to follow. His arms and legs were coppery beneath scribblings of reddish hair. He drew the back of his hand across his broad forehead and it came away wet. He held the glass against his cheek and regarded the storefronts, parked cars, passing cars, bicycles. Insects still hummed within the trees. An orange cat licked at a melting ice cream cone on the sidewalk below.
    Over . . .  He could work in construction again if he wanted to return to Cleveland. But that was bad too, He might have to live at home — Mr. Schelling had even gone out of his way to say how much they wanted him to — and that was no damn good. Even if he managed to get a place of his own, they would be after him. He had only met the man twice and could not bring himself to call him anything but "Mr. Schelling," even though he had been married to Randy's mother for almost six months now. It was not that he disliked him. It was just that he did not know him and did not care to. No, not back there. That was over too.
    He sipped his tea and turned toward the bedroom. Too hot to think. They had been out late the night before and up early this morning. Sprawl on the bed and hope for a breeze, and maybe an idea would come for a summer job for a classics major. Or would it be linguistics in the fall? Or Romance languages? It would be neat to travel abroad as a secretary, an interpreter . . .
    As he passed the bookcase, his hand moved without premeditation and drew out the copy of Leaves of Grass .
    Then it had been in the back of his mind, the search, the promise . . .
    He carried the book with him into the bedroom. He needed something to fill his mind in there. Maybe that was all there was to it.
    He propped himself up with pillows, turned the pages and read. It was strange, though, the fascination the book held for him. He had consciously had to avoid it this past quarter, for it had attracted him each time he'd passed the bookcase. It was the only thing he owned that had belonged to his father.
    It was dark when he finished reading, and the bedside lamp burned beside him. The moist rings from his glass