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The minute the limo turned out of the driveway, Jon felt relief wash over hi house to hih he spenthouse was pure Mona--her taste, her style, expensive and overdone He went through all her drawers but didn’t learn much, except she used K-Y jelly

Lionel had left hias for his one In March, Jon had totaled the used car his dad had given hi it Fine with hi around on the Vespa his dad had bought for him his freshman year As the end of school approached, Jon asked if he could use his father’s old Olivetti typewriter for suirls Jon had to suppress a s Mona was a chae sales that weekend until he came across a Se return He paid fifteen bucks for that and then stopped at the hardware store and bought four gallons of paint For the two years he’d been living in his aerie above the garage, he’d been content to leave it in its original bare and shabby state Now he saw it differently Three dor eaves arretlike, perfect for a writer in residence

He painted the walls a dark charcoal gray, close to black, in part to annoy Mona, but more nearly because it soothed and quieted the chatter in his head He went through the e areas For bedding, he’d been using a sleeping bag, flung on top of the bare mattress, but now he made up his bed with a set of Mona’s expensive cotton sheets and two quilted coverlets his ht down a secondhand chest of drawers and a hat rack, and hehis clothes He scrubbed his ser of the two rooe sale acquisition, this one for twenty-five dollars, with a reading lamp thrown in He moved his desk under the middle , placed his typewriter in the center, and laid in a supply of paper, carbons, typewriter ribbons, and white-out Once everything was arranged, he sat there for four days, drinking coffee and staring at the view During his preparations, he was brio to work, his raph, but he spent ure out why Walker was so successful with girls while he reirlfriends his senior year Two of theive him the time of day It was always "Walker this, Walker that" Their only purpose in talking to Jon was to ask how Walker felt about the heard Walker trash both in private, Jon wondered if they’d lost their tiny nored or snubbed or insulted them He’d date them, screw them, and break up with them Given the tears and upsets and phone calls and public scenes, they were totally sa about him Jon detached hi love, flirtation, passion, and sex

Just to feel like he was doing so, he went into his father’s study and pulled out a copy of Heway’s The Sun Also Rises He took it back to his desk and typed out the first two chapters He liked the plain, choppy feel of the prose, but transcribing someone else’s work didn’t spark inspiration While he liked the language, he wasn’t connected to the content The words belonged to Hees were his For Jon, the subject y If he could write about anything, ould it be? He couldn’t think of a thing

He had to laugh at hi writer’s block Just to shake himself loose, he closed up shop for the day and broke into a house four doors down The oas a Hollywood producer who spent the occasional weekend in Horton Ravine Jon knew their habits because the couple had coiven and they talked nonstop about thee that Jon had no use for Mona liked hiood and he wore a coat and tie and said sir andto discover the kid’s stash of dope and pornography Farm animals? Come on

In the master bedroom, at the back of a closet, Jon came across a wooden box There was no lock on it and when Jon opened it, he found a handgun It was a Mauser HSc 380 ACP He took it out of the box and hefted it in his hand Pasted in the lid of the box there was prolish that he read with interest The pistol was a double-action, all-steel srips Very cool According to the pahts, a positive thuazine safety, and an exposed haun in his waistband and helped himself to a box of aun just like it He returned the empty wooden box to the back of the shelf where he’d found it Chances were the guy wouldn’t pull the box out to check He’d assuun here he left it