Memoirs Of An Invisible Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

the fact that we had been up most of the night. And we were still, I think, quite drunk.
    I pushed Anne back down onto the seat. It was not wide enough for her to stretch out, and she was slouched down in a semisitting position with her shoulders and head leaning back against the window. Her skirt was up around her waist, and her legs were spread open, one of them extended along and over the edge of the seat onto the floor and the other drawn up, with her foot braced against the armrest by the aisle. I stood poised over her. She had her hands on my hips. I thought briefly of getting her to the washroom, where we would have enjoyed a greater sense of privacy — at some cost, however, in comfort and convenience. Anne probably made the same half-hearted calculation. The thing was, there was no one in the car and no one likely to enter it. And if someone did, how important would it be in the larger scheme of things? The main thing — the only thing in that agonizingly delicious moment — was to push ahead to certain bliss.
Carpe diem.
    But as I began to lower myself onto Anne, the train abruptly began to brake, and I paused uncertainly to look out the window. My first thought was that we had arrived at Princeton Junction. Damn. But it was not Princeton Junction. It was not really anywhere — or not anywhere this train should be stopping. This was not in itself particularly disturbing: if you have ever ridden on one of these trains you will know that, although they operate on the most important and most traveled rail route in the country, their movements are as random as the physical limitations of steel rails will permit. That is, they are always mysteriously speeding up, slowing down, or stopping altogether at unpredictable intervals bearing no relation to published schedules or the location of stations. And when they come to a full stop, they will pause for entirely random periods of time — sometimes a few seconds, sometimes many hours. The employees of the railroad, if they have any idea themselves what is happening or why, never ever communicate it to the passengers. Then, mysteriously, forward progress resumes.
    Under the circumstances, I might have welcomed an unscheduled stop. The difficulty on this occasion was that we were slowing abruptly to a full halt right in the middle of some unfamiliar station. We were on the outside track right next to the platform, and there were people — thankfully only a few — waiting on the platform for the next local. Perhaps they were to be allowed to board our train instead. I certainly hoped not. But at the very least they would be wonderfully positioned to look in through the windows; and as it happened, our particular window of our particular car came to a violent and full halt directly opposite three well-to-do ladies of late middle age. This afforded them a commanding view of Anne sprawled bare-breasted and spread-eagled across the seat and of me poised erect and quivering above her. Were it not for the pane of glass separating us, they could have reached out and touched us. Not, I suppose, that they would have wanted to.
    Of course, I had an excellent view of them too, although that was not proving to be of much comfort to me. They possessed portly dimensions and staid clothing befitting their age and station. Their demeanor was forbidding. From the fact that they were standing on the southbound platform, we can conclude that, living midway between the two cities, they had decided to spend their day in Philadelphia rather than New York. They stood side by side facing us. The one in the middle had some sort of needlework in her hands, and from their position it appeared that the three of them had been leaning over it and discussing it earnestly. However, when our little
tableau vivant
was hauled so abruptly before them and deposited there, their eyes turned to us and widened; each of their mouths formed instantly into a little, voiceless O of astonishment and censure. I felt