Brick High-Rise Chapter Nine

Previous chapter: Chapter eight

Page 86

Brick High-Rise Page 86
Four floors down, an apartment had been ransacked by a party of tenants from the 15th floor. These sporadic raids on apartments were taking place with increasing frequency. Empty apartments, even if left for no more than a single day, were especially vulnerable.

Page 87


Brick High-Rise Page 87
The stairways were littered with broken glass, splintered kitchen chairs and sections of handrail. Even more significant, the pay-phones in the elevator lobbies had been ripped out, as if the tenants, like Anne and himself, had agreed to shut off any contact with the world outside.

Page 88


Brick High-Rise Page 88
A group of residents, all from the 14th and 15th floors, leapt out and hurled themselves into the mêlée. They were led by Richard Wilder, cine-camera gripped like a battle standard in one hand.

Page 89


Brick High-Rise Page 89
He held the cine-camera against his cheek as if he were visualizing the setting and choreography of a complex duel to be fought at some more convenient time on a stage higher in the building.

Page 90


Brick High-Rise Page 90
“They’re all making their own films down there,” Anne told him, clearly fascinated by her heady experience of the lower orders at work and play. “Every time someone gets beaten up about ten cameras are shooting away.”

“They’re showing them in the projection theatre,” Jane confirmed. “Crammed in there together seeing each other’s rushes.”

Page 91


Brick High-Rise Page 91
During the previous hour a few trivial incidents had occurred — the middle-aged wife of a 28th-floor account-executive had been knocked unconscious into the half-empty swimming-pool

Page 92


Brick High-Rise Page 92
No one, even on the top floors, seemed aware of the contrast between the well-groomed revellers and the dilapidated state of the building. Along corridors strewn with uncollected garbage, past blocked disposal chutes and vandalized elevators, moved men in well-tailored dinner- jackets. Elegant women lifted long skirts to step over the debris of broken bottles.

Page 93


Brick High-Rise Page 93
Hours later, at some period after midnight when it seemed to Royal that these parties had been going on for ever, he found himself drunk in an empty apartment on the 39th floor. He was lying back on a settee with Jane against his shoulder, surrounded by tables loaded with dirty glasses and ashtrays, all the debris of a party abandoned by its guests.

Page 94


Brick High-Rise Page 94
During the sexual act that followed she watched them without speaking, as if she approved, not from any fashionable response to marital infidelity, but from what Royal realized was a sense of tribal solidarity, a complete deference to the clan leader.

Next Post: Chapter 10

2 Comments

  1. Again, I’m just astonished by the level of detail and care. You’re bringing these scenes from the book brilliantly to life, and really capturing the horror of it all. I actually find myself getting chilled by your scenes here. As always, bravo and thank you for sharing!

  2. Again, I’m just astonished by the level of detail and care. You’re bringing these scenes from the book brilliantly to life, and really capturing the horror of it all. I actually find myself getting chilled by your scenes here. As always, bravo and thank you for sharing!

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