Red Baker Read Online Free Page A

wonderful!”
    But I didn’t hear him. I was busy staring at her dancing and moving to Aretha Franklin, shaking her ass, and running her hands up and down her smooth, flat belly, and I thought of the snow outside, and of Vinnie and his crooked moustache that looked like a caterpillar trying to crawl off his face, and of the plant closed down, dark and silent, and then Crystal and I were in that big white convertible moving across the endless sun-baked road, heading down through the palm trees to the land where dreams didn’t die.

W hen Dog left me off in front of our row house on Aliceanna Street, I suddenly had an attack of the Red Baker Special Express Guilts. Began feeling all clammy and wet, like old cardboard left out in the sleet and snow. I mean, what was I doing hanging out there at the bar, seeing Crystal, when I should have been home taking care of my family, figuring out our next move?
    Like a high school jerk I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth so Wanda wouldn’t smell the booze and then spat it out on the street, remembering that Wanda knew the only time I chewed gum was when I was drinking hard whiskey. Maybe that was the whole problem, I thought, as I looked in the window and saw her arranging some daisies she’d just bought. You want someone to know you, to share your every secret, someone who you can fill up the lonely mortal space with, and then after they do, you feel all empty and hollowed out. They steal your secrets, they know the fear under your charms. You’re whittled right down to the bone.
    So you go out in the street, where you can kid yourself that you’re a different man, acting out a new part with a stranger.
    The thought of all that, plus losing the job, made me want to head down the street to Slap’s Tavern, but I made it into the house and tried for an optimistic smile.
    “Hi,” she said in that flat tone of voice she used when she had been hurt or disappointed. “Where have
you
been?”
    “Well,” I said, taking off my wet coat and hanging it on the wood peg by the stairs, “I could lie and tell you I was visiting sick orphans down at the Children’s Hospital or reading to the blind over at Church Home Hospital, but the truth is I just came from the Paradise, where Dog and I celebrated the losing of our jobs with a few beers.”
    “I see,” she said, turning her back to me and going on with the flower arranging.
    “Where’s Ace?” I said.
    “He’s down in the basement talking on the telephone. We’ve been waiting to have dinner.”
    “Hell, I’m sorry.”
    “I know,” she said, and she sounded goddamned exhausted. I wanted to come over and hug her and tell her that I really meant it, I
was
sorry, but there didn’t seem to be any way of pulling that off just now.
    “I already know about the layoff, Red. We knew it was coming, and I guess I half expected you to be late, but you could have called.”
    “I’m sorry, Wanda. Look, it’s been a tough day.”
    “Yeah,” she said, “I know it has, but you still should have called.”
    I shrugged and rubbed my jaw, trying to figure out how to move past this, to tell her what I wanted to say, when Ace came into the room, spinning his basketball on his index finger.
    “Hey, Dad, look at this.”
    He spun it hard and then let it slide from finger to finger, still keeping it going. Wanda and I stood there looking at him, and she couldn’t help but smile.
    “I could never do this until today,” he said. “I mean, I couldn’t even do it on one finger, and now it’s easy to do it on all five.”
    “Hell, kid, I played ball for twenty years and still can’t do it at all.”
    “That’s okay,” he laughed. “You can’t stop my drive shot anymore either.”
    He began to dribble the ball toward me, and Wanda jumped out of the way, sitting down on the blue couch as Ace faked to his left, then his right.
    “You’ll never make it to the door, kid.”
    “The only way you can stop me is to foul. Old guy!”
    He gave me