Jack thinks is really pretty adorable.
âI guess I should get going.â
âYou can stay. If you like. I mean, not to fool around. Just to sleep. Like I said, I donât sleep with people unless I know them pretty well.â
Jack thinks about how cold it is outside, of his bicycle, and the snow, and then sees this girl and her narrow but warm bed, and says, âOkay. If you donât mind.â
Odile nods and then pulls off her gray sweater, and she has a soft white T-shirt underneath, which traces the angular shape of her thin frame, and she is unbuttoning her pants but without standing up, which Jack finds pretty fascinating, and then this girl, this person he barely even knows, is in her white underwear, which Jack cannot help but stare at, and she is diving under the blankets, and Jack does not know what to do with himself, and so he unbuttons his shirt and decides to leave his pants on, and he begins to climb under the blankets, and she looks at him and says, âYou can take off your pants,â and he nods, and turns around, and wonders what kind of underwear he has on, and he is secretly glad they are boxers, and relatively clean, and he feels an erection beginning to come on, and so he hurries beneath the comforter and sheets, and she turns away from him then, facing the wall, and there is her shoulder, and the shiny strap of her nude-colored bra, and freckle after freckle along her long neck, and he does not know if he should say something or do something else, and so ceases to think, only lies there, and in the absence of thought he listens to the girl breathing, and she turns her head toward him a little and says, âGoodnight,â and they sleep like that together for the first time without really touching each other, but the feeling is enough, at least for now, the inexplicable thrill of someone being beside you in a strange bed, and all that it might mean.
AND AT EIGHT A.M.
He wakes up with a crick in his neck and the girl, Odile, is still sleeping pretty soundly and so he climbs out of the bed and finds a black magic marker on her bureau and writes his phone number on the lower part of her narrow back. Her nose twitches a little as he does it but otherwise she doesnât even seem to notice. Now she can call me or not call me , Jack reasons, dragging his bicycle out into the snow. This way it isnât up to me at all .
And there, outside her apartment, is a yellow sparrow barking in a gray tree limb, and he records five seconds of that.
AND AS HE RIDES.
He decides the next time heâs alone with her he will put his tongue in her ear. Or something.
Really?
Maybe. Because heâs got to try. Because she is too interesting, too beautiful not to even do anything.
And he doesnât want to go home and go to sleep. Because he knows he wonât, he knows he canât. So he rides around, taking out his tape recorder, capturing the noise of different kinds of light.
A STREETLAMP.
A HEADLIGHT.
A NEON SIGN.
Each of them different.
And then he gets some coffee and rides to the Lincoln Park Zoo and runs around recording the sounds of different animals, the lemurs, the gibbons, the birds. And what he really wants is the sound of a tiger. But itâs just lying there on top of some fake rocks, sniffing at the snow. And so he waits. He leans against the metal railing for about a half hour or so and finally, when the zookeeper opens the gate and throws in a dripping red hunk of meat, the tiger lets out a loud roar, the kind of roar from a jungle movie. Itâs perfect. And Jack gets it on tape. Itâs probably only three or four seconds long but thatâs okay. And then he is unlocking his bicycle and riding home and then itâs starting to snow again. And wow. Itâs really coming down again, like a cartoon, like itâs the idea of snow, like itâs not even the real thing. Everything is white and soft and dazzling. And Jack, in front of his apartment
âI guess I should get going.â
âYou can stay. If you like. I mean, not to fool around. Just to sleep. Like I said, I donât sleep with people unless I know them pretty well.â
Jack thinks about how cold it is outside, of his bicycle, and the snow, and then sees this girl and her narrow but warm bed, and says, âOkay. If you donât mind.â
Odile nods and then pulls off her gray sweater, and she has a soft white T-shirt underneath, which traces the angular shape of her thin frame, and she is unbuttoning her pants but without standing up, which Jack finds pretty fascinating, and then this girl, this person he barely even knows, is in her white underwear, which Jack cannot help but stare at, and she is diving under the blankets, and Jack does not know what to do with himself, and so he unbuttons his shirt and decides to leave his pants on, and he begins to climb under the blankets, and she looks at him and says, âYou can take off your pants,â and he nods, and turns around, and wonders what kind of underwear he has on, and he is secretly glad they are boxers, and relatively clean, and he feels an erection beginning to come on, and so he hurries beneath the comforter and sheets, and she turns away from him then, facing the wall, and there is her shoulder, and the shiny strap of her nude-colored bra, and freckle after freckle along her long neck, and he does not know if he should say something or do something else, and so ceases to think, only lies there, and in the absence of thought he listens to the girl breathing, and she turns her head toward him a little and says, âGoodnight,â and they sleep like that together for the first time without really touching each other, but the feeling is enough, at least for now, the inexplicable thrill of someone being beside you in a strange bed, and all that it might mean.
AND AT EIGHT A.M.
He wakes up with a crick in his neck and the girl, Odile, is still sleeping pretty soundly and so he climbs out of the bed and finds a black magic marker on her bureau and writes his phone number on the lower part of her narrow back. Her nose twitches a little as he does it but otherwise she doesnât even seem to notice. Now she can call me or not call me , Jack reasons, dragging his bicycle out into the snow. This way it isnât up to me at all .
And there, outside her apartment, is a yellow sparrow barking in a gray tree limb, and he records five seconds of that.
AND AS HE RIDES.
He decides the next time heâs alone with her he will put his tongue in her ear. Or something.
Really?
Maybe. Because heâs got to try. Because she is too interesting, too beautiful not to even do anything.
And he doesnât want to go home and go to sleep. Because he knows he wonât, he knows he canât. So he rides around, taking out his tape recorder, capturing the noise of different kinds of light.
A STREETLAMP.
A HEADLIGHT.
A NEON SIGN.
Each of them different.
And then he gets some coffee and rides to the Lincoln Park Zoo and runs around recording the sounds of different animals, the lemurs, the gibbons, the birds. And what he really wants is the sound of a tiger. But itâs just lying there on top of some fake rocks, sniffing at the snow. And so he waits. He leans against the metal railing for about a half hour or so and finally, when the zookeeper opens the gate and throws in a dripping red hunk of meat, the tiger lets out a loud roar, the kind of roar from a jungle movie. Itâs perfect. And Jack gets it on tape. Itâs probably only three or four seconds long but thatâs okay. And then he is unlocking his bicycle and riding home and then itâs starting to snow again. And wow. Itâs really coming down again, like a cartoon, like itâs the idea of snow, like itâs not even the real thing. Everything is white and soft and dazzling. And Jack, in front of his apartment
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