Read Online Nobody Move by Denis Johnson - Free Book Online Page B

around the shoulders with the towel, holding the ends in either hand, and she didn’t seem to mind.
He studied the general moment, taking the atmospheric temperature, and let her go. “What’s on TV?” he said. “I usually watch in the daytime.”
“No. Really?”
“I get up late and just stay in bed and burn the daylight down.”
“A night person.”
“That’s right, yeah. I blend in better that way.”
“Not the outdoor type.”
“My idea of a health trip is switching to menthols and getting a tan,” he said. “I don’t like push-ups, sit-ups, ex cetera. Et cetera, I mean.” He’d been corrected in this several times, but always forgot.
“You’re cute enough,” she said, “but you got a sissy body.”
“Didn’t you know that?”
“What.”
“That it’s et cetera, not ex cetera.”
“Yeah, man, I did. I just didn’t feel like embarrassing you,” she said, and headed for the bathroom.
When she came out he told her, “I watched you going to the shower and I almost thought I could break down crying.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Come here.” She sat beside him, both of them naked, and he kissed her, and the temperature felt better. “I’d like to try it sober.”
“Can we wait till after breakfast, when I’m not hung over?”
“Sure. Let’s go downstairs. What are we having?”
“Beer.”
“No problem. Day or night, Sally can fix it.”
“Is he sleeping in the other guy’s trailer? Who’s the other guy again?”
“Capra.”
“Where do they sleep? Downstairs, or in the trailer?”
“Who? Sally and Capra? They don’t sleep together.”
“Sally told me they’re moving in together.”
“Wow. No shit?”
“That’s the story.”
“If it’s love, it’s love,” he said. “I had a woman I lived with off and on for—Jesus. Six years. And it was never love. And if it ain’t love, it ain’t love.”
“I’ll tell you what’s love: Jimmy Luntz loves to state the obvious.”
“Don’t piss on my philosophy.”
“I’m just hung over. And I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“You name it.”
“No. You name it.”
“Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Anything else—hell, I’ll spit right in its face.”
“What do you mean? There’s nothing else.”
“See? Boy loves to state the obvious.”
When they made love a while later he tasted a little beer on her breath, but she was sober. They lay together afterward, and she rested her leg over his. They watched a show on TV about the miracles of forensic science, and Anita told him it was a bogus show. “There are six thousand unsolved murders a year in this country.”
“Let’s hope so,” he said, and switched it off. “What now?”
“Let’s do what I always do.”
“Which is?”
“Double down, honey.”
“You want to try me in a different position?” The way she said it, his throat tightened and he couldn’t answer.
She asked him to go on his knees by the bed—while she sat on the edge with her feet on the floor and her legs apart—and get into her that way.
It didn’t work. Anita said, “You’re too—”
“I’m not eight feet tall, yeah. It can’t happen.”
But she liked it fine the regular way and called him Daddyman and cried no, no, no when she came. He lay beside her and dried the sweat between her breasts with a corner of the bedsheet. Then to keep from asking questions he sat up and put his feet on the floor and lit a cigarette. But she touched his back with her fingers, and the question asked itself. “Why are you with me?”
“I like a bad man who hates himself. I want all the bad people to hate themselves.”
“Are you bad, Anita?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate yourself?”
“Not enough.”

    Luntz kept track of the days. Today was Tuesday.
Luntz went down once around 3:00 p.m. and came back upstairs with burgers and fries and soft drinks and vodka. She made love like a drunken nun, and he liked that, but the conversation afterward was not at all aimless or relaxed. “What you really want,” he told her,