Read Online 69 Barrow Street by Lawrence Block - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lawrence Block
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himself for what he was things would be one hell of a lot easier. Life would be a constant ball with lots of things happening, and so what if he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror without getting sick to his stomach? There were still a hell of a lot of kicks to try, still a countless number of women to make it with and a countless number of ways to make it.
Marijuana—as much as he wanted as often as he wanted it with no guilt feelings attached. Bennies and Dexies and goof-balls. Cough syrup with a high codeine content. Cocaine to sniff, heroin to sniff and to joy-pop.
So many ways.
Coke and snuff and aspirin. You mixed the three ingredients in a bowl and drank what you wound up with and got high on it.
Nutmeg. You took a spoonful of it and chewed it up and swallowed it and got high.
Mescalin. You took the peyote buds and cored them and chewed them up and swallowed them. They tasted terrible but after a while you managed to get them down and keep them down. And then for the next twelve hours you were in dreamland, entranced by the beauty in the folds of a piece of cloth, hearing colors and smelling music and seeing perfume, with all your senses joyfully confused and your appreciation of everything intensified beyond description.
So many kicks.
Too many kicks.
Too many kicks spoil the broth, he thought insanely. Too many kicks in the head break a man’s spirit. Too many kicks in the…
He had to relax. He pitched his cigarette into the fake fireplace and stared at it.
Too many kicks.
He stood up. It was tempting, the notion of not pretending anymore, of letting himself go to hell completely. And perhaps it was the right thing to do, the course that was morally right as well as attractive. What did the word perversion mean, anyway? He knew that a good ninety percent of the sexual customs of the average human being were technically abnormal and quite often illegal. In his own home state, for example, almost anything the least bit different was against the law, although the laws were in fact never enforced. Ohio actually made any sort of intercourse virtually impossible due to a strange law prohibiting any person from touching the genitals of any other person—this law applied to married persons as well, and anybody who observed it would have one hell of a tough time doing much of anything.
A perversion, he decided, was only something that everybody wanted to do in secret but that very few people ever got around to doing. Almost any individual you could select had within him the basic desire to commit almost any act you could conceive of. If the average spinster schoolteacher got rid of her inhibitions for an hour of two she would be no better and no worse than a twisted, vicious woman like Stella.
But there had to be a difference. He thought suddenly of Susan Rivers, the girl he had met just yesterday. Was it only a day ago that he and Susan had met for breakfast? It seemed impossible. So much had happened since then, so much…
Stella had told him that the girl was a lesbian, and it was probably the truth. Stella had a second sense about things like that; she seldom made a mistake.
So Susan was probably a lesbian.
And that, of course, was a perversion.
But there was a difference between Susan and Stella. Christ, there had to be. There had to be some way of distinguishing between a deviation from the sexual norm and cruel, vicious decadence. Common human decency and kindness had to count for something. Anything a person did was all right, but when a person did things that hurt other people it stopped being permissible.
That had to be it.
He stood very still, his hands at his side and his mind working double-time. In the bedroom Stella was still asleep; he could hear her slow, rhythmic breathing. Outside on Barrow Street there were more people walking around than usual, but the street was still very quiet.
Ralph was thinking.
He couldn’t let himself go to seed, not completely, not yet. There was
Marijuana—as much as he wanted as often as he wanted it with no guilt feelings attached. Bennies and Dexies and goof-balls. Cough syrup with a high codeine content. Cocaine to sniff, heroin to sniff and to joy-pop.
So many ways.
Coke and snuff and aspirin. You mixed the three ingredients in a bowl and drank what you wound up with and got high on it.
Nutmeg. You took a spoonful of it and chewed it up and swallowed it and got high.
Mescalin. You took the peyote buds and cored them and chewed them up and swallowed them. They tasted terrible but after a while you managed to get them down and keep them down. And then for the next twelve hours you were in dreamland, entranced by the beauty in the folds of a piece of cloth, hearing colors and smelling music and seeing perfume, with all your senses joyfully confused and your appreciation of everything intensified beyond description.
So many kicks.
Too many kicks.
Too many kicks spoil the broth, he thought insanely. Too many kicks in the head break a man’s spirit. Too many kicks in the…
He had to relax. He pitched his cigarette into the fake fireplace and stared at it.
Too many kicks.
He stood up. It was tempting, the notion of not pretending anymore, of letting himself go to hell completely. And perhaps it was the right thing to do, the course that was morally right as well as attractive. What did the word perversion mean, anyway? He knew that a good ninety percent of the sexual customs of the average human being were technically abnormal and quite often illegal. In his own home state, for example, almost anything the least bit different was against the law, although the laws were in fact never enforced. Ohio actually made any sort of intercourse virtually impossible due to a strange law prohibiting any person from touching the genitals of any other person—this law applied to married persons as well, and anybody who observed it would have one hell of a tough time doing much of anything.
A perversion, he decided, was only something that everybody wanted to do in secret but that very few people ever got around to doing. Almost any individual you could select had within him the basic desire to commit almost any act you could conceive of. If the average spinster schoolteacher got rid of her inhibitions for an hour of two she would be no better and no worse than a twisted, vicious woman like Stella.
But there had to be a difference. He thought suddenly of Susan Rivers, the girl he had met just yesterday. Was it only a day ago that he and Susan had met for breakfast? It seemed impossible. So much had happened since then, so much…
Stella had told him that the girl was a lesbian, and it was probably the truth. Stella had a second sense about things like that; she seldom made a mistake.
So Susan was probably a lesbian.
And that, of course, was a perversion.
But there was a difference between Susan and Stella. Christ, there had to be. There had to be some way of distinguishing between a deviation from the sexual norm and cruel, vicious decadence. Common human decency and kindness had to count for something. Anything a person did was all right, but when a person did things that hurt other people it stopped being permissible.
That had to be it.
He stood very still, his hands at his side and his mind working double-time. In the bedroom Stella was still asleep; he could hear her slow, rhythmic breathing. Outside on Barrow Street there were more people walking around than usual, but the street was still very quiet.
Ralph was thinking.
He couldn’t let himself go to seed, not completely, not yet. There was
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