Hunger and Thirst by Richard Matheson Read Free Book Online

in the mind that the prospect of pictures talking became normal, even expected and common.
    But she didn’t talk and the fact of it brought him back. But the questions went on unsatisfied, probing and needling. Why do I call you by your first name? Miss Gardner then. What made you do this strange thing? Money? Notoriety? What notoriety is there in placing your torso on the newsstands for ogling idiot minds? What glory in residing in dark toilet booths where twist-fingered men spill out the one remaining indication of their manhood and flush it away like dirt?
    He became embarrassed again.
    I’m sorry, he said, apologizing for the barbarous rudeness of his other mind. He looked at her and his mind said like some Pontius Pilate of the cinema—I find no fault in her.
    Beauty, he thought. And looked at her. He framed the word soundlessly with his lips. Beauty.
    And knew; beauty was nothing. It was a dream, a vague imperfect concept, a gimmick, a make-believe factor, an advertising man’s valuable commodity.
    He recalled that once in college, Doctor French had told the class in General Semantics about a gorgeous girl, the most gorgeous girl in town. He told them that all the men were pop-eyed and drooling over her. He said that every time they thought about her they got a lump in their crotch. They gaped at her, at her firm carriage, her pointy breasts, her clear eyes, her fine nose, her ears, her wonderful glossy black hair, her full exquisite lips. The professor said here’s a picture of her and it was a Ubangi girl with big black saucers for lips. We laughed, Ava, pardon, Miss Gardner, he thought. And I’m laughing now.
    But his face registered nothing. It all drifted away. He was back. Sorry that he couldn’t have remained in a reflected bliss but back nevertheless.
    Now in the midst of growing agony again. His back and shoulder burned with a cool liquid flame. He didn’t know how to react. It felt hot and cold at the same time as if someone pressed hot ice against him pulling it away and then pressing it in so that at first he felt cold and then felt the burning.
    What am I thinking about? he wondered. What am I supposed to
do
here? Just lie and think? What does a man do when he’s in a dirty room and
    Paralyzed.
    His throat contracted. He tried to think of what might have happened. He had to think of something, anything to forestall the creeping of irrational fear.
    The bullet had struck his spine. It was the only idea he could think of. It had struck his spine and cut some link between will and execution.
    Then he remembered sitting down on the bed the night before and the sudden violent blow across his back as if the small of his back had been a baseball and Ted Williams had swung at it with all his might and hit it right on the nose. A crushing, breath-snapping blow.
    He tried to sit up.
    He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move at all.
    The drunk was awake. Erick could hear him shuffling around his room. He’d turned on his radio and was listening to a newscast. Odd, he thought, that you can find a newscast no matter when you rise. The drunk changed the station and Erick heard a shred of Beethoven’s Eroica before the drunk cut it off. And it made him think of the park and the merry-go-round that day.
    He wondered abruptly if he should call the drunk and ask for his help.
    His lips twitched. He felt them twitch and knew the answer.
    In his mind he saw a vision. Of the night he came up the stairs and saw the drunk throwing a quick frightened glance over his shoulder like a rat cornered and frenzied. The drunk was stealing out of someone else’s room, holding something in his hand. He had slammed that someone else’s door and gone scuttling down the hall to his own room.
    Erick saw that in his mind. And saw the money on the floor, his only escape from the city. He couldn’t call the drunk. Not only would the money be taken but the drunk might call the police on the phone and that would be the end of it.
    The