Darkroom by Graham Masterton Page A

wasn’t the college janitor, Walter. He, too, was black, with snow-white hair – but he was only 5ft 5in tall and skinny as a spider.
    He was walking back toward the main entrance when Karen came out, with Perry Ritts from the science department. Perry was deeply tanned, with thinning blond hair that waved in the wind like a flag, and one of those wholesome-guy faces with plenty of teeth and eyes that were always a little too wide, as if everything surprised him. Karen was wearing a pink check blouse that he had never seen before, and she was laughing. She looked a little older, of course, but it suited her, and he had forgotten how pretty she was.
    Jim veered sharply right toward the side entrance. He wasn’t ready to confront Karen yet. He was even less ready to nod and smile at her as she walked past him with Perry Ritts. He had made up a rhyme about Perry Ritts – it wasn’t clean and it wasn’t at all complimentary.

Seven
    J im went for a drink after college with Vinnie and Stu Bullivant from the arts department. Stu looked more like a Minnesota logger than an art teacher, with a massive brambly beard and a red checkered shirt and jeans that could have comfortably accommodated Jim and Stu in each leg. Stu had a theory that
everything
was art, particularly after seven beers. A shopping cart was art, because you filled it with things that revealed your soul.
    â€˜Stand behind any woman at the supermarket checkout, and look at what she’s buying. She wouldn’t let you read her private diary, would she? But she’s spreading out her shopping in front of you, and that’s much more intimate than any diary. What does it say about her, if she’s buying twenty-four bargain-price toilet rolls, and six loaves of medium-cut white bread, and four gallons of milk, and thirty cans of dog food, and a box of incontinence pads, and a dozen Hungry Man TV dinners, and a can of drain unblocker, and a copy of
National Enquirer
? It says everything. It’s a searingly honest self-portrait. Searingly honest! Just because she happens to have created this self-portrait in consumer goods, instead of paint, that doesn’t mean it’s any less meaningful. It’s still art!’
    â€˜I think I’ll stick to Rembrandt,’ said Jim. ‘At least Rembrandt didn’t show you his sprinkled donuts and his wart cream.’
    When Stu had gone to the rest room, for the ninth time, Vinnie lit up a cigarette and said, ‘How are you settling in? Everything OK?’
    Jim hesitated for a moment, but he decided not tell Vinnie what had happened to TT. After all, he wasn’t supposed to have a cat in his apartment at all. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That shower’s something, isn’t it? It’s like going over Niagara Falls without the barrel.’
    â€˜You … ah … you
slept
OK?’
    â€˜Fine. It’s kind of creaky at night, that’s going to take me some time to get used to. But I love that bed. There’s room enough for me and a dozen passionate women.’
    â€˜Well, if you can only find eleven passionate women and you need somebody to make up the numbers, you know my cellphone number … Thirteen in a bed, that’s supposed to be very unlucky, isn’t it?’
    â€˜I don’t know about unlucky.
Exhausting,
yes.’
    When Stu emerged from the rest room, Jim drove him home to Westwood. Stu told him over and over that he was so happy to see him back at West Grove College because there were no genuine people left in Los Angeles, only fakes and liars and snake-oil salesmen.
    â€˜Let me tell you something, Jim, some people are so dishonest these days they’d even buy things they don’t really want, like pâté de foie gras, and dictionaries, so that when you look at their shopping you think they have taste, and education, when they don’t have dick.’
    â€˜Sleep well, Stu,’ said Jim, and waited