Blues for Beginners: Stories and Obsessions Read Online Free PDF

“Sort of salty and metallic?”
    There is no shower in Jack’s apartment, just
a small claw footed bathtub and never enough hot water.
    “It’s sort of like plant food and trail mix,”
Shelly says.
    Midway through Seventh Seal Jack leans over
towards Shelly so their shoulders touch. She shifts her weight
towards him, leans into him. When it’s meant to be, it’s easy.
    .
    The red tile floor of the Rathskeller is
slick with spilled beer and the juke box is pitched too loud for
conversation, but Jack finds a nook in the back. He feels expansive
and favored.
    “Do you think it’s merely coincidence that
the first woman in space was named Sally Ride?”he says.
    “Now you’re being silly,” she says.
    He has begun to sense that Shelly subscribes
to the Things Just Happen theory of the universe. It seems to be an
article of faith among women these days that the chains of cause
and effect are so attenuated as not to be worth thinking about.
    “God doesn’t play dice with the Universe,” he
says.
    “That’s Einstein, right?”
    “Correct that. God doesn’t play dice with the
universe and expect to lose.”
    She looks alarmed. He realizes his voice is
too loud.
    “Forgive me, Shelly. I’ve been spending too
much time in my own head.”
    .
    The boarded up drug store they pass on
Wisconsin Avenue is a perfect terrorist stakeout. The van with the
diplomat plates is the tip off. He doesn’t want to alarm her.
    “Come on, Shelly” he says “We’re crossing
over.”
    “The light’s at Calvert,” she says. “Besides
it’s creepy on the other side. There’s the graveyard.”
    “Suppose I told you that we’re about to walk
past a nest of Palestinians with Uzis and I don’t believe in taking
foolish chances?” Jack says.
    “You can’t really believe that,” she
says.
    “You’re an intelligent woman, Shelly. Quick,
tell me which has greater likelihood of existence: ghosts or
Palestinian guerrillas?”
    “Muggers,” she says. “Hiding behind the
tombstones, ready to jump us this very minute.”
    There’s a liberal for you, could be raped at
knife point before she’d use the N-word, so he’d better humor
her.
    “Muggers never hang out in graveyards,” he
says. “They’re all scared of ghosts.”
    Her laugh rewards him, and she lets him take
her hand for the mad dash across Wisconsin Avenue; but the narrow
sidewalk past the graveyard forces them into single file, and she
sprints ahead. He catches up with her at the next corner waiting
for him under the street lamp.
    “Do you walk around pretending to be in spy
movies all the time?” she says.
    “The Greatest Story Never Told, Part II,”
says Jack. “In the final reel the Children of Light get to match
wits with the Prince of Darkness. If you want to pretend you’re not
in this movie be my guest, but you’ll miss the whole point.”
    .
    Shelly’s condo is half the size of Jack’s
lost Watergate sublet, but it is two stories up and gets southern
exposure. Cascades of spider plants and swedish ivy hang in the
windows. He could grow his plants here. Shelly’s living room, full
of mismatched furniture and rag rugs, reminds him of his Aunt May’s
summer house, except for the computer off in a corner and the home
entertainment unit that takes up a wall. Top of the line, state of
the art sound system; legacy, no doubt, of the Man from the Record
Store.
    “Could you stand it if I put on some
Sinatra?” Shelly says.
    Her glance slides away when he tries to meet
her eyes.
    “The way I see it,” says Jack, “I have to
make you feel secure, but obliquely, so you don’t see me doing
it.”
    “Are you making fun of me?” she says.
    “I’m laying out for you a newly virgin heart.
I don’t think you appreciate the significance of what that
means.”
    “It’s been a long time without for me too,”
she says.
    Her voice is small and bleak and matter of
fact. Winter in Korea. Lonely to the bones. But her lips are still
soft, still