Then I remembered Stoke plunging toward Holyoke with his head down and his hair hanging in his eyes, Stoke muttering “Rip-rip, rip-rip, rip-rip” under his breath.
“What the fuck was a cripple doing on the third floor?” I asked out loud.
A little guy with a huge mass of golden hair—a kind of Peter Frampton dwarf, if you could dig that—looked around. His face was pale and pimply. Blood was drying beneath his nose and on one cheek. “What, man?” he asked.
“What the fuck was a cripple doing on the third floor of a college dorm? One with no elevator? Wouldn’t they have put him on the first floor?” Then I remembered Stoke plunging toward Holyoke with his head down and his hair hanging in his eyes, Stoke muttering “Rip-rip, rip-rip, rip-rip” under his breath. Stoke going everywhere as if everything was his enemy; give him a quarter and he’d try to shoot down the whole world.
“Man, I’m not following you. What—”
“Unless he asked them to,” I said. “Unless he maybe right out demanded it.”
“Bingo,” said the little guy with the Peter Frampton hair. “Got a joint, man? I want to get high. This place sucks. I want to go to Hobbiton.”
