Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall Read Online Free Page B

teacher didn’t seem to notice Barton. I raised my hand.
    “Yes, Mr. Sparling,” the teacher said.
    “I think Barton is dead,” I said.
    The teacher looked at Barton. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my,” she said. The kids at the back tipped their chairs upright and leaned forward in their desks.
    “Barton,” the teacher called weakly. She came out from behind her desk.
    “You killed Barton,” Wiley Pocock said. Everyone looked at Wiley.
    “My god,” the teacher said.
    She walked quickly over to Barton’s desk, her hand sill over her mouth. “Barton,” she said. She touched him on the shoulder. Barton opened one eye. He opened the other eye. He moved his eyes from one side to the other. He lifted his head.
    “Barton,” the teacher said. “My god, Barton.” Barton smiled.
    The teacher walked back up the aisle, past the desks, back up to the front of the class. She went around behind her desk and stood for a long moment with her back to the classroom, touching her hair with her hands and smoothing her skirt.

T HERE’S NEVER any jelly in these donuts,” she said, crossing her eyes, trying to see the donut as it entered her mouth.
    “All the jelly is on your chin,” he said.
    She turned her eyes down and tried to look at her chin. Then she put her hand up and started feeling around on her chin for the glob of jelly. When she found the glob of jelly, she wiped it off with her index finger.
    He tried not to look at her big, bare legs, which looked especially big against the black vinyl seats of the car. When one or the other of them spoke, their voice fell out and joined the hum of the wind on the other side of the window.
    Driving down a long gradual hill in a small town where neither of them knew the actual name of the town, he opened the window and put his arm out into the cool rush of air.
    “I could live in this town,” he said. Some dogs were standing in a group of trees in a park farther down the road. The car drove past an old man pushing a wheelbarrow with some groceries in it.
    “Could you close the window?” she said.
    He pulled his arm in and closed the window. He put his hand on the gear shift knob and told her to quit using her toe to pop the cassettes in and out of the tape deck.
    It was Sunday and the air smelled of rivers.
    ~
     
    Tutti says, if your Achilles tendon snaps, your foot just hangs there. We are out running and Tutti keeps stopping to stretch her Achilles tendon. “It’s stiff,” she says.
    “Maybe we should go back,” I say.
    “No,” she says.
    “Don’t snap your Achilles tendon,” I say.
    “Don’t be an asshole,” she says.

M OTHER IS trying to bake loaves of bread, but they come out hard, like rocks. She tells me to get the hell out to the parking lot and bring in the car battery.
    I go into bars with windows. In between loud songs you can hear the sound of dogs.
    Some trees have poked themselves up at the sky where the snow has stopped a moment before.
    No one gets away from whatever it is that is holding them back.
    The black-haired girl goes out to the road and looks up as far as she can see. “Come here,” she says.
    My mother and I used to have long conversations where I wanted to run out of the house and scream. She would look up at me, her eyes all baggy and red because of how late it was. The kitchen light hung above us.
    ~
     
    We were in Quebec one time before we got married. We were walking along the street in whatever city we were in and we were getting ready to go to the bank to get some money, because we were running low on money, and Tutti was practicing what she was going to say to the bank teller.
    “Parlez-vous ling-long?” Tutti said.
    I laughed.
    “Isn’t that right?” she said.
    “That’s right,” I said.
    “No it isn’t,” she said.
    ~
     
    Okay, here is a list of the guys who have died this week. Write it down, okay, because I’m not going to say it twice. Bob Simpson’s father died three weeks ago, but I didn’t