Free Inappropriate Behavior: Stories by Murray Farish Page B

and when I turn to look at him it appears he has no interest in holding me. I pull my arm away from him, and he says—Wait a minute, buddy. But I don’t wait. I walk back to the corner of Broadway and Tenth. We’ve rolled around for nearly half the block.
    Across the street, on the campus green, a group has formed around a hipster guy in a striped pink shirt, who is holding my sign with the candidate’s face and jumping up and down. The students all seem to have bumper stickers, and they’re peeling them and sticking them on their shirtfronts.
    Allison is at the edge of the crowd with her little slut roommate, who is letting another hipster boy stick the bumper sticker to her rear end. Soon the hipster with the sign has formed his group into a parade, and he’s off, leading the students in a happy march up the hill toward Bledsoe Hall. Allison looks back over her shoulder, once, for a brief second, and she recognizes me. She looks at me, and in that moment, for the first time in what has to be months, I smile. I know I’m smiling because it hurts my mouth where the Dry Lady scratched me. Allison is about to smile back, but just then that little bitch monster of a roommate comes to her and pulls her away, and off they run, chasing the hipster with my sign and laughing. I watch them finally disappear over the hill.
    Up the street, the man from before is coming back with a cop. I turn toward the campus, where some people are still milling around, and looking away, I move quickly toward the English and Philosophy Building. I plan to ask my English teacher for asylum if I have to. I perform several acts of tactical evasion, including blending in with a crowd that has gathered to hear someone recite Shakespeare, and I cross from there into the cafeteria, and back through Lowndes Hall to Eighth Street, where I’ve parked my car. I’ve escaped.
    It is one week until Election Day. I don’t believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention.

    Song for Jodie #186 (an urgent ballad)
    When you smile at me
    I know you’re just a child
    I know you’re just a child
    When you smile—————————

    Clive says—The police called, your brother called, the landlord called, when are you going to pay the rent, have you seen my latest copy of Field & Stream , what happened to your face?

    It’s 2:15 a.m. outside Knapp Hall. Allison is inside, her light is out. This is the third time I’ve walked around the dorm tonight. I can’t sleep nights. I haven’t had a solid bowel movement in over a week. I feel something is building here. This afternoon, fighting with the Dry Lady, I felt that if someone killed me, if a cop or somebody walked up and shot me dead on the streets of Lubbock, Texas, it wouldn’t mean anything, that they wouldn’t even file a report or give me a funeral.
    I am not a person like other people.
    After the fight with the Dry Lady, my brother said I couldn’t stand on the corner anymore. He said the police had come to campaign headquarters looking for me. He said, Why can’t you just do one thing right, John? He said he was being demoted.
    This is the third time now the security guard has seen me pass the front doors of Knapp Hall. He comes outside and stands on the steps, looks at me. I keep moving toward the corner of the building. I keep looking up at Allison’s window. I keep looking at the security guard, because I want him to. I really do. I want him to, just this once.
    I have the gun tucked in my windbreaker. From now on, I carry it everywhere I go. It finally made sense to me after I killed Clive earlier tonight. The whole thing, for the past several weeks at least, has been planned by someone who means me harm.
    I think a person ought to be like other people. I don’t have that exactly right.
    Anyway, I left Clive dead on the couch with four holes in his chest. Later, I will take