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He sometimes played the elevator game with Jane, a silent communion of eyebrows and squints or—more likely—a fast-talking, low-murmured loop around the bar, marking targets.
He was an omnivore, an orange-hanky flagger, an aficionado of all-you-can-eat buffets.
Paul was repulsive, apart from the human flow of life; Paul was sitting alone outside waiting for a ride that would never come.
How could straight people, for instance, have real friends when their entire lives were an inhabitation of a myth?
Poor Justin, thought Paul, and suppressed a nameless something which threatened to bloom into guilt.
Jane had tape-to-tape, for one thing, and lots of vinyl, and everything the Pixies had ever released. Fags 0, Dykes 1.
Paul disliked instrumental music. He wanted stories, all the time.
Her melancholy blankness, her hidden stores of thought and pain.
Sometimes Diane would leave her peacoat on for hours after she got home, like a blanket or armor. To warm her or to keep him out, Paul wondered.
Paul liked any food that exploded into his mouth: grapes, Freshen-Up gum, soup dumplings. There was something pleasing, something orderly, about swallowing a mess.
Paul realized he was going to have to say something mean. Sometimes that was the only way to get free.
What do you do after you fail the test and you’re still alive?
“You’re a changed man,” said Ruffles one morning, desultorily pouring cornflakes into a bowl. “I’m not a man,” said Paul.
