Interference Read Online Free Page A

neighbour’s lawn, however, is a mess. Tom knows that with a stiff west wind all those leaves next door will be on his lawn again and he’ll have to start all over. The man never cleans up leaves, never shovels snow, never picks up his dog shit. He’s really not a great neighbour. Although he’s quiet. Stays inside. Tom never has to talk to him. That’s a huge bonus. Trish, Rachel’s mom, is over all the time, worrying Maria with every little detail of her life. “I really appreciate your help,” Tom says. “Even though I didn’t think I needed it, I sure did. My wife, well, she ends up talking so much I never get anything done.” Tom laughs. A throaty laugh. It comes out funny because Tom feels guilty the minute he laughs. He feels as if Maria can hear him. The man nods, smiles with half his face.
    â€œIt was no problem at all,” the man says. “I like raking.”
    â€œAnd painting?” Tom says.
    â€œPainting?”
    â€œYour coveralls. All that paint. You must be a painter.”
    â€œNo, that’s not paint,” the man says. He wraps his arms around himself, huddles in as if trying to protect himself. “That’s just rust and such.”
    â€œCars then?”
    The man shakes his head, shrugs.
    â€œYou work on cars?” Tom asks.
    â€œNo,” the man says. “Not on cars. Not really.”
    â€œWell, I’m going in to wash my hands. Can I get you something? A lemonade? Coke?”
    â€œThat would be nice of you,” the man says. “I’d like a Coke, if you have one.”
    Tom walks around the man, still huddled on the bottom step, and enters his house. He leaves the door open and the screen door bangs shut behind him as he meanders down the hall. The dog is overjoyed to see him. Wiggles his hips until his body is bent in half. The tail whaps on the floor like it’s beating a drum. Tom bends to pat him. He then pours himself a glass of water and washes his hands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing hard under his nails and up his wrists where the dirt from the leaves has travelled. Even though he was wearing gloves most of the time he still managed to get dirty. Becky would be horrified if she could see her father’s hands. This is something he doesn’t get in an office, dirt under his fingernails. This is the feeling of hard, simple work, not frustrating computer-controlled work. Afterwards, Tom pulls a Coke from the fridge and pours it into a glass for the man. He adds ice and thinks for a bit about adding a lemon slice but then realizes that the man might think he’s weird. A nice face; a nice house; a nice family; a nice, clean, leaf-free lawn and then a lemon slice. It might just be too much.
    As he steps over his dog and carries the glass of Coke to the front door, down his long narrow hallway, he hears Maria’s car pull up to the curb. She comes into the house just as Tom reaches the front door.
    â€œHere you go.” Maria hands him some $ 20 bills. “I figure we should give him about $ 40 , or even $ 60 ? What do you think?”
    â€œI think $ 40 is fine. He was here only two hours and we didn’t ask him to help out. Plus we gave him lunch.”
    Maria stands in Tom’s way. “You want lemon in that Coke?”
    â€œNo, it’s not for me, it’s for him.”
    â€œWhat do you think happened?” she whispers. “His face?”
    Tom shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. He’s a hard worker.”
    â€œMust be difficult, though, to be judged all your life for that face.”
    â€œMaybe it just happened. Maybe he hasn’t had long to deal with it.” Tom knows, when he says this, that it isn’t true. The man has lived most of his life with that face — it’s in the way he moves, the way his eyes take you in when you talk to him, the way he approaches the world. And, if this is the case, it means that whatever happened to him,