Memoirs Of An Invisible Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

two curves, the intersection defines the point at which the market clears.”
    The conductor looked down at us. Then he reached up and removed two ticket stubs from a slot in the luggage rack above us.
    “That is,” I said uneasily, “supply and demand are in equilibrium.”
    The conductor lowered his gaze again and stared at us. He seemed to feel that something was not quite right.
    “Movements in price will tend toward that point…” Anne pinched me underneath the newspaper. I must have made some inarticulate grunt, since the conductor gave me a suspicious look. “Although a given short-term movement may not—”
    The conductor, leaning over us, proclaimed as loudly as if to a car full of passengers, “Princeton Junction!”
    Both Anne and I started. The conductor continued to stare at us. We silently and intently studied our pad of paper with its intersecting curves.
    Evidently unable to think of anything more to say or do, the conductor finally turned ponderously and shuffled back toward the end of the car.
    The newspaper slid from our laps. The train was already beginning to slow again to a halt. Anne was laughing. I gave her a last, rather violent caress. We both frantically pulled clothing together, fastened buttons, shoved papers into briefcases. Agonizing, aching frustration. We were still tucking in clothing and smoothing hair back into place with our hands as we stumbled awkwardly down the carriage steps onto the platform.
    “Damn!” said Anne, laughing.

W e stood on the platform in a momentary daze and watched the train pull away. The sky was completely dark now; it seemed about to rain. Sudden contact with the cool, moist, threatening air made me feel as if I were just now being awakened after a night of insufficient sleep. The handful of other passengers who had descended here hurried off across the platform to the parking lot or to the little train that would shuttle them to Princeton. I announced to Anne that I was going to find a taxi. We had plenty of time — not that I would have cared if we were late — and I meant to go into Princeton and rent a car so that I could escape with Anne from MicroMagnetics at the earliest possible moment.
    I was disappointed when my companion replied that she had arranged to have us met. At first I imagined that the
Times
in its magnificence provided its employees with drivers wherever the quest for truth took them. In fact, I was informed, we were being met by a representative of Students for a Fair World.
    “Why Students for a Fair World? Princeton Yellow Cabs has better drivers,” I protested. Maybe the
Times
really did have training camps in Ethiopia. “Besides,” I asked, “why do the Students for a Fair World want to go to all this trouble for us? I know we’ve all got to pitch in and help each other in the struggle for a better world and everything, but I really feel this isn’t the best use of their talents, providing drivers for us. Really, we’re doing a disservice to the revolution.”
    “Shut up,” she said affably. “This is probably him now.”
    Indeed, a member of the revolutionary vanguard had appeared farther down the platform. He was really quite striking — handsome with the small, fine features of a model, longish blond hair swept straight back, and dressed entirely in overlaundered, faded denim. He was young enough so that he might still have been an undergraduate.
    “Yes, indeed,” I said. “From the autumn line of revolutionaries by Ralph Lauren.” He was observing us uncertainly. We were evidently not what he was expecting, but we were the only people left at the station.
    “How about letting me do my job?” she said to me and then strode down the platform with a greeting smile. As she approached, he swept one hand through his hair and extended the other in greeting. My heart full of sullenness, I followed as slowly as I could manage to where they stood. If nearly grown men want to put on costumes and play cowboys and