Join Read Online Free Page B

with a bottle and refills his shot glass. “Last call,” she says. Rope makes an effort to waggle his index finger at her.
    Rope is slumped in his chair. His arms are dead weights, one resting on the table, one limp at his side. His mouth is hanging open slightly. His eyes—though deeply bloodshot—look clear. The drive is nearly unconscious, but the person within it is alert.
    â€œCan hol’ ma liquor,” Rope says. The mouth on the handsome drive smiles. “Sorry, I’ll do betta wif my speech.” Rope is putting more effort into working the drunken drive.
    â€œI don’t mind,” Chance says.
    â€œNo.” Rope laughs, speaking slowly, enunciating. “Don’ imagine you do. Apple jus’ told you more than she should haf about me, din’t she?”
    Chance Three nods.
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Rope says, with increasing clarity, his body still slumped and unmoving. “Really.”
    Chance says, “Apple said you were two of the original one thousand.” Rope’s eyes move slowly in agreement. Chance continues, “It sounds as though you . . . have a lot of experience with . . .” Chance can’t finish the sentence.
    â€œWith what?” Rope asks. In join lore there’s a phenomenon commonly referred to as “possession.” It’s meant to describe exactly this. Rope is alert, energized, unfazed by the alcohol, but the drive is a mess.
    â€œWhat do I haf experience with?” Rope asks again, slowly, and Chance hears keen interest in the voice.
    Chance leans forward. “One of my drives has cancer, end stage,” he says. “I think the prognosis is maybe three or four months.”
    Rope says nothing. Chance watches him. Rope’s eyes close. Eventually, Chance sighs and begins to get up.
    â€œAhm sorry. This drive’s cooked. Meet me here, tomorra, nine a.m. ,” Rope says. He tips forward and then falls onto the table. He knocks his empty shot glass over, and it spins off the side of the table, raps on the wood floor, and rolls. A trickle of blood spills from Rope’s mouth.
    Both the Apples arrive at Chance’s left. “Leave him,” says bartender Apple. “I’ll clean him up in a few minutes.” Waitress Apple raises her eyebrows expectantly, as if saying, Now would be a good time to leave.

    The day after Chance Five turned six years old, he was part of a crowd of children pouring down narrow steps and into the wide world outside their green school bus. In Chance’s memory, the children fan out into a crisp, bright morning. The shadows of Chance’s playmates are stark black silhouettes stenciled onto the white plain of Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat. The plain stretches without variation from a southern scoop-mining operation toward the hazy northern outlines of low and distant peaks.
    â€œThe culpeo,” Nana says, “is a fox who lives in the mountains close by, but no dogs or foxes or wolves can live on the salt plains.” She is smiling at Alain, comforting him with this confirmation that the salt plains are unlikely to shelter wild dogs. Alain is Chance’s best friend and was bitten by a dog last year. He has a scar on his left hand, between his fingers.
    Chance and Alain have talked about joining when they get old enough and then living together forever. Nana says good friends make good joins. But when he’s fifteen, Alain will move away, and he and Chance will lose touch.
    Chance watches his shadow and raises a leg up to his side. His shadow moves as if it’s a giant. He stomps his yellow Soxters down onto the salt and then grinds them to make the crunching louder. “Arh! Arh! Arh!” he says. His shadow is enormous and manic. Alain is laughing at it.
    Nana says, “Chance has a giant!” And here memory works its magic. Chance’s name at this time was Javier. Nana’s actual words, if she did say