Horace Afoot Read Online Free

sheriff doesn’t respond. He leans over and picks up the radio handset and clicks it twice, then puts it back without speaking into it. I assume it is some sort of signal. I settle back in the seat and watch the town slip by. When we arrive at the police station he tells me not to get out. He walks around and opens the door for me. I feel like a visiting dignitary emerging from the back of the car.
    The sheriff marches me into the station. I insist that I’m being wrongfully accused. He shrugs and says, “Sorry, bud.”
    The fine is five hundred dollars. I should feel indignant but can’t bring myself to. The situation is ridiculous. I pay their ransom with all the take-your-goddamn-money smugness I can muster; I actually enjoy paying. Part of it is the thought that freedom must be bought, that these days
autarkeia
means being able to pay. I have no desire to fight the steroid-fed sheriff. It’s too much trouble.
    On my way back home Tom Schroeder rides past on his motorcycle. He slows down and gives me the finger as he goes by. The kid is a true-blue asshole. One day he’ll get killed in a pileup of cars and trucks on the interstate. He showed up on my doorstep one afternoon with a bag full of cassettes and compact discs.
    “Want to listen to some music?”
    I had been asleep and didn’t hear him correctly. I stepped out onto the porch. He’d driven his motorcycle right up the walkway. It leaned precariously on its kickstand like some old, leaky nag. “Music?”
    He pulled some compact discs from the bag to show me.
    “Isn’t it a little hot to be wearing all that leather?”
    He examined himself as though he hadn’t ever thought about it. His greasy blond hair was fastened to his head by a black bandanna, boots all scuffed and decorated with little chains.
    “Keeps me cool when I’m riding.” He unzipped his jacket, tee shirt soaked through, plastered to his body. Through it I could see a massive tattoo decorating his chest, some kind of jailhouse angel with cleavageand a Harley Davidson logo and a sneer and wings spread from shoulder tip to shoulder tip.
    “I have lots of oldies. Fetus over Frisco. Generation X.”
    “I’m not interested.”
    “The Sicfucks. Dead Kennedys. Butthole Surfers. Meat Puppets.”
    I turned to go back inside. “Not interested.”
    “Here. Take a look. Check ’em out.” He began pulling discs and cassettes out of his bag and stood there holding out his wares, a larcenous grin on his face.
    “Do you still listen to them?”
    “’Course I do, man.”
    “They don’t bore you?”
    “Fuck no, man. Good music is never boring.”
    I stepped back inside and closed the door on him. Schroeder yelled some obscenities, then stomped down the steps and rode away with a roar of smoke and ripped turf. A few days later he came back with a bag full of pornographic videos and asked if I wanted to borrow them. I told him if he didn’t stop bothering me I’d call the police. Now he harasses me at every opportunity.
    Back at home I try a few phone calls.
    “Horace here.”
    “Wallace?”
    “No. Horace.”
    “Wallace? Is that you?”
    “No. It’s Horace.”
    “Wallace, I thought you were upstairs napping. Where have you gotten off to?”
    “I’m not Wallace. My name is Horace.”
    “You’re not Wallace?”
    “No. My name’s Horace. Hor-ace.”
    “Don’t you swear at me, Mister. How dare you?”
    “Who’s Wallace?”
    “He’s my husband. Who are you?”
    “I’m calling to ask what you think love is.”
    “Did you say your name was Horace?”
    “Do you have any thoughts on the subject?”
    “On love? Wait a minute; am I going to be on the margarine commercial?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “I am, aren’t I ? The one that goes,
Do you looooove butter? Yes, I looove butter
. Then I try Parks Margarine and you go,
Do you still loooove butter
? That’s the one, right?”
    “No.”
    …
    “Horace here.”
    “What can I do for you?”
    “Define love in your own