Read Online Angels by Denis Johnson - Free Book Online

nothing, not even herself, in the emptiness of the dark screen. Miranda fell asleep in the seat beside hers. Baby Ellen snored in Jamie’s arms, and Jamie strapped her into the plastic infant carrier. It was not possible to be less conscious than Baby Ellen was at this moment. She breathed through her toothless mouth, her eyelids like two bruises laid over her vision, the sole drifting inhabitant of an infantile oblivion that Jamie found both enviable and scary.
    Jamie failed to know the situation when the man began tugging her sleeve and pushing his face into hers, his wild blond hair blotting out the world; and then she realized she’d been sleeping, was now in Chicago—”I found out where he was, ” the man said. “He was in this place uptown a half an hour ago. And the bartender says he’d bet anything he’s staying somewhere in that neighborhood. It’s up north of Wilson.”
    â€œSo what’s the deal?” Jamie said, trying to focus on the deal.
    â€œTrouble is, I don’t know the names of the places around there, so I can’t find the phone numbers. We could go up there and look around, maybe leave a few messages. I don’t really know what to do, to tell you the truth. I mean, what do you want to do?”
    â€œWell, I don’t know. My mind is just completely shut down.” She looked around the bus station’s upper level, seeking some indication in its sinister drabness of what her next move should be. “My neck feels like it’s on fire,” was all she could summon in the way of further speech.
    The man, whom she was beginning to feel might be all right—he was, at this moment, in fact, her only friend in the world—placed a gentle hand on her arm. “Tell you what. Let’s get some coffee. Then we can lay out all the options, and we can figure this whole thing out.”
    To move themselves from immediately inside the door into the coffee shop was like undertaking a safari. They sat in a booth, the man across from the three of them. The suitcase stcod in the aisle, a bulwark against the Greyhound and its hasty embarkations, cold farewells, and dubious moves. Everywhere she looked it seemed to be written: Wouldn’t you like to reconsider? Reconsider what? she wanted to know. Everything I do will be wrong. I got no idea where I get my ideas. Coffee appeared before her, and her friend reached across the small distance between them, laying two white tablets beside her cup. “Just about anywhere you go,” he said, “the bus station is the exact center of town. In case of a nuclear attack, this bus station would be Ground Zero.” He tossed two or three similar tablets into his mouth and washed them down with an evidently painful swallow of hot coffee, screwing up his face. “If we were here when World War Three started, a bomb would drop almost in this restaurant—and do you know what? We’d be atomized and radioactive. It wouldn’t feel like dying. We’d be turned completely into particles of light. This is the center of things.”
    â€œSome center.”
    â€œI don’t say it’s as happy as Walt Disney. But it is Ground Zero.”
    â€œWhat are these things?” Jamie touched the pills beside her cup.
    â€œWhite crosses. They’re very mild. They’re equal to about two cups of coffee each. Right on, down the hatch. In three minutes you’ll feel wide awake. Let me know if you want any more. Do you want a donut or something?”
    Jamie ate a donut. Miranda slept heavily against her, openmouthed, perfectly motionless, and beside Miranda, Baby Ellen slept in her infant seat. It came over Jamie that she carried her younger daughter everywhere in this seat as if she were an appliance.
    They considered the situation. It was beginning to look doubtful that she’d locate Bill Houston by hanging around the neighborhood where he was known to be staying. It made