Down With the Shine Read Online Free

showing some good sense. Or maybe he’s a genuinely nice guy. I suspect the latter, and as much as that eeks me out, it kind of intrigues me too. It’s like being friends with a creature you’ve always thought was only make-believe, like a unicorn. It seems too good to be true. So I’m constantly waiting for him to tear the horn off and become an ass like everyone else.
    In the meantime, Larry has two other things going for him.
    Number one is his size. At six foot five and 250 pounds, Larry is big enough to be intimidating. Not that he uses his size to do anything. He has this idea that it isn’t fair for him to hit back because he’s so much bigger than everybody else.
    Number two is his car. When he turned sixteen, Larry’s parents let him pick out any car he wanted. He chose a bright yellow Mazda Miata. I don’t know how the salesperson kept a straight face watching Larry climb into that tiny convertible for a test drive. Seeing him in this car reminds me of when I had my Ken doll use a Matchbox car to pick up Barbie at her shoe box house. It’s still nice, though, to have a friend with wheels. Especially one willing to drive me wherever I want to go and who never thinks to ask for gas money.
    “Lennie.” Larry says my name again. Louder. And whinier. “Maybe we should go to my house instead. Watch a movie or play some Donkey Kong .” After growing tired of Grand Theft Auto , DK has become our new obsession. Normally, I’d be all over that suggestion, but tonight—
    “No.”
    “My mom made her amazing chocolate cake.”
    “Your mom hates me.”
    “She—” Larry stops. He doesn’t like to lie. “Donkey Kong?”
    “Yes, I have a weakness for Donkey Kong .”
    “Yeah. Donkey Kong rocks.”
    I laugh, for a moment forgetting I don’t really like Larry. It happens occasionally. “Yes, he does, but not tonight. Tonight we rock. It’s gonna happen exactly the way I’vebeen telling you. Once they see what we’ve brought”—I jingle the jars in the bag at my feet—“they’re gonna roll out the red carpet for us. Just trust me, okay?”
    Larry wipes his sweaty palms once more, gulps, wiggles his butt in his seat, before finally grinning. “Yeah. Yeah!” He fist-pumps the air. “You’re right, it’s gonna be great.” He sounds like he believes it. As if my saying it makes it true. As if I am someone worthy of trust.
    Cleary, Larry is not the sharpest guy around.
    . . . Or maybe not, because at first everything does go exactly as I said it would.
    We walk in like we own the place, not slinking in the back past the idiots doing keg stands, but strolling right through the front door and straight into the kitchen. One by one I pull the mason jars out of my bag and line them up on the glass table. I can feel a crowd gathering behind me, but nobody says a word. Grabbing the first one, I spin the lid off and let it hit the shiny hardwood floors. Larry snags a plastic cup and holds it out to me, but I push it away. “You always drink moonshine straight from the jar,” I say. It’s not strictly true—tradition only dictates that the first swig comes straight from the jar—but I like the way it sounds. I push the shine into Larry’s hand and then pick up a second one for myself. Off comes the second lid.
    “Make a wish,” I say to Larry, holding up my jar.
    This is another moonshine ritual I’ve seen performed a million times. Everyone buying shine needs to have a drink with my uncles first. Uncle Rod usually takes the lead, slurping a bit from the jar of shine and then pouring a few fingers into some Looney Tunes glasses they got from a gas station years ago. My uncles sit at the kitchen table with the poor schmuck, and as he lifts the glass to his lips they tell him to make a wish. Usually it’s some eye-roll-worthy, sad-sack nonsense like, “I wish my wife weren’t so mean to me” or “I wish I could get that promotion at work.” “Penny-ante shit” is what Uncle Jet calls it, but