OCR Text |
Show 215 wouldn't accept i t as a valid withdrawal, so he wrote i t again, substituting rapier ironies for the invective, and personally delivered i t one afternoon to Paul whom he caught coming out of his Russian class on campus, and whom he bore no grudge. "Where the fuck have you been and what the fuck is this?" He waved the envelope Lorin had j u s t handed him. " I t explains everything," said Lorin, and hurried away so he didn't run into Noel who as far as he knew was nowhere near but the world was small. Over the next few days he was transient and i r r i t a b l e , and kept leaving things behind at the various places he stayed. He forgot to take his elect r i c alarm clock when he l e f t the g i r l s in the apartment next door to Shannon and Harry's, and never went back for i t because he hated warmed-over goodbyes. He l e f t a bag of d i r t y laundry at McBrides', a pair of tennis shoes and an umbrella at John Drury's, a carton of books at Lisa and Mark Telford's, where he also broke a cup while carrying i t on a saucer between the breakfast table and the sink after Mark had gone to work leaving him alone with Lisa. At the last place he stayed, a redwood bungalow up Coldwater Canyon rented by the g i r l who had shared his locker and whose husband was in the army in Germany and where regrettably he took advantage of his host's absence, he forgot his toothbursh and mouthwash on the day he f i n a l l y l e f t for Utah. A man's disintegration began with his possessions, and he was getting away just in time. This period of wandering was freshened, of course, by t r i p s to the well. You could savor your misery by v i s i t i n g old haunts s t i l l vibrant with mirages of Yvonne, but at the same time to turn away from water on principle made |