Play Me Backwards Read Online Free Page B

sermon. And the words to all the hymns. And the inscriptions on the gravestones of everyone in the churchyard who got killed by a whale. I wondered if he really remembered it at all, or if he was just making it up. He had to be making at least part of it up.
    In fact, when he opens the book by saying, “Call me Ishmael,” he’s not exactly saying, “My name is Ishmael.” He’s just telling you to call him that. It isn’t exactly the same thing, if you think about it. Fucker’s real name was probably Bernie or something.
    But you can tell he has a head on his shoulders, at least. He says right up front that the reason he got into whaling was that it wasa “damp, drizzly November” in his soul, and all he could think to do on land was follow funeral processions through the street and hang around outside of coffin warehouses, and he was getting to a point where he couldn’t see a guy walking down the street without wanting to knock his hat off his head. So he figured he ought to go out and kill monsters until he felt better. I respected that.
    I kept waiting for him to bust out some big revelation that would make me understand life, or at least make me start to feel like the semi-intellectual person that I used to be again, but after two full CDs and more than two hours of talk about whaling and the sea, all that happened to me was that I got really hungry for seafood.
    So I cruised back into Cornerville Trace and up to Cedar Avenue, where I went into Captain Jack’s and ordered a Fish ’n’ Fries platter with a Mountain Dew. To call what they served at Captain Jack’s “seafood” wasn’t much more of a stretch than calling my job “work,” but it was either that or Red Lobster, and Red Lobster was too expensive. Plus, it was probably full of Valentine’s Day couples, which was the last thing I wanted to see.
    I sat down in a booth and wondered if Anna was eating fish-and-chips too, since she was in England and all, while I hummed along with the Billy Joel song on the radio. I was the only person in the whole place, except for the clerk, a middle-aged woman who was probably one of those fast-food lifers, and some guy who was frying up the food in the back. When I came in, they were yelling back and forth at each other over whose turn it was to clean the bathroom, and by the time my food was ready the fight had evolved into a really appetizing debate over whether men or women messed bathrooms up worse.
    Happy goddamn Valentine’s Day to me.
    I was about halfway through my food when the front door opened up and Paige Becwar, the girl who’d come into the Ice Cave with Joey Brickman, stepped inside. She looked like shit compared to how she’d looked a few hours before. Like a damp, drizzly November in her soul had crept up to the surface and was smearing her makeup around.
    My first instinct was to politely ignore her, but when she saw me she said “oh, thank God,” and slid into the other side of my booth.
    â€œUh, hi,” I said.
    â€œI’m not mean to you, am I?” she asked.
    â€œNot that I know of.”
    â€œGood. Because if I was ever mean to you, I’m totally sorry. I know I’m mean to some people, and I really need someone to be nice to me right now.”
    She grabbed a napkin and started dabbing her eyes. Up close I could see that she was wearing at least enough makeup to drown a monkey.
    â€œSo, uh, what’s wrong?” I asked as I took a bite of fried fish and tried not to look at her cleavage.
    â€œJoey’s a dick.”
    â€œWhat did he do? Take you here for Valentine’s Day instead of someplace expensive?”
    â€œYou mind not making fun of me?” she asked. “I’m in a bad place.”
    â€œIt’s not that bad,” I said. “I mean, it’s not Red Lobster or anything, but it’s okay.”
    â€œMentally, asshole,” she said. “A