Read Online Ransom by Jay McInerney - Free Book Online

there was something in between him and practice. But the longer he stayed, the more practice began to infiltrate his attention, and the less sleep he would have to sustain him.
    Saturday I go out to play.
Wake up Sunday morning, Lord,
I get on my knees and I pray.
    Five weeks ago Sunday Ito had kicked Ransom in the balls. He lay on the asphalt doubled over, choking and gasping for breath. He left the bike in the parking lot, and Yamada gave him a ride home, where he lay down on thetatami without unrolling the futon. Then he got up and puked in the sink. For two days he was down and still felt waves of nausea the third. When he returned to practice on Wednesday night, the sensei asked where he had been. Ransom had been in the dojo long enough to feel that he did not want to say he had been hurt. He said he had had to go to Tokyo on business. The sensei asked why he hadn’t been told. He took for granted proprietorship of his disciple’s schedules. Work did not take precedence, although as an excuse it had greater validity than pain or injury, in which the sensei seemed not to believe. Fortunately, the sensei didn’t ask what business a part-time English conversation teacher would have in Tokyo.
    Miles came over from his table. “They think you’re Keith Richards.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI wouldn’t stand for that.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThat is one sorry-looking dude.”
    â€œGirls and boys of many ages would disagree.”
    â€œDo you know how ugly Keith Richards is? Keith Richards is so ugly, if he fell into a well you’d be pumping ugly for a month. Speaking of ugly, you haven’t seen DeVito?”
    â€œI doubt we will.”
    Miles squinted in the direction of the door. “Don’t look now but here comes the vanguard of the revolution.”
    Yukiko sat down on the stool beside Ransom’s. Her hair was cut very short, and she wore new, steel-rimmed glasses: the Trotsky look. She worked hard at being unattractive.
    â€œWell, howdy, Yukiko,” Miles said. “Was that you I saw on the news hijacking a 747? The stocking mask didn’t do you justice.”
    â€œMaybe I should wear a cowboy hat. Are you still selling them in your little shop?” she said. Miles and Yukiko had a long-standing feud. Yukiko seemed to hold Miles personally responsible for the fate of the American Indians.
    â€œI keep hoping you’ll come in and buy a pair of spurs or something, but I haven’t seen you around in a while,” Miles said. “Where you been—summer camp in Beirut? Outward Bound in Irkutsk?”
    â€œNone of your business.”
    â€œTerrific to see you again,” Miles said, moving off.
    Yukiko turned to Ransom. “I was hoping I wouldn’t see you here. Just because I was hoping you had started to use your time constructively. Or that you had gone home.”
    â€œHome. What’s
home
? Home on the electric range? Where the buffalo roam? Where the heart is? Where you hang your hat? The buffalo are all in zoos, and nobody wears hats any more, which makes it difficult to locate this place—home.”
    â€œPlease don’t try to entertain me.”
    They had met shortly after Ransom arrived in Japan. She worked as a clerk in a bookstore and spent the rest of her time marching, organizing and handing out leaflets. Yukiko had studied at Berkeley for three years in the late sixties, where she was big in the student movement. Their first date was a protest march against the American military presence in Japan, organized by the Red Army Faction at Kyoto University. Yukiko was mysterious abouther affiliation with this group, although Ransom suspected she was not as involved as she wished to be. She was unequivocal in her views, however, advocating socialist revolution. American imperialism and the programmed complacency of the masses were the main obstacles. Ransom was not unsympathetic to this view. His vague