Shelby Read Online Free Page B

outset Mom and Dad were tolerant, but with the arrival of Matthew, Mark, Luke and a fourth apostle named Edward Longshanks (who turned out to be a 13th century British King), support diminished.
    â€œIt’s not healthy, Ed,” Mom said, nodding her head towards my older brother Derek and me after Uncle Larry had removed himself from the breakfast table for his ritual half-hour morning movement that would leave the bathroom inaccessible for another thirty minutes thereafter. “And he’s getting more and more like your father—and what’s he doing in the bathroom that takes so long? Waiting for the second coming?”
    â€œDon’t joke about that, Peg. Obviously he’s blocked up—and don’t bring my old man into this! He’s dead, isn’t that enough?”
    â€œLarry has no business saying you’re on a one-way train ride to hell for reading out the morning horoscope—especially in front of the kids. You’ve given him a roof to live under, for crying out loud!”
    Dad became defensive (guilt-riddled, according to Mom, over having battled with his own father a year earlier only to have him meet his demise before amends had been made). “He’s my brother, Peg. He’s harmless. You think I’d let him hang around the kids if he wasn’t?”
    â€œI guess we’ll have to wait and see …”
    Sometime thereafter came the command from God.
    To this day I’m unclear on the details, but I do know a nude Uncle Larry ransacked Mom and Dad’s bedroom one night, standing between their separate beds bellowing about redemption and the sins of our household while throwing paintings, photographs, top drawers and, finally, a lit match into a pile on the floor. Dad, so legend has it, after getting out of bed and putting out the fire, stunned Larry with three or four slaps to the head and physically tossed him from the house with a sarcastic promise to write. My recollection is one of terror, partly from the screaming but moreso from the possibility of losing both parents to the hell-fires. I was discovered the following morning, asleep in my closet.
    It was two years before we heard another word about Uncle Larry. Late one summer evening we got a call from the Edmonton City Police saying Larry’s landlord had found him huddled naked in the corner of his apartment, sweating, the blinds down, gnawing on his own arm.
    Uncle Larry wound up in an asylum where he remained for three and a half years—upholding our family’s tradition of mental illness. Upon release he preached that only his undying love for God got him through the ordeal (Gran added: The four meals a day, laxatives, sponge baths, a private room and a colour T.V. couldn’t have hurt). Repercussions from the arm chewing included sensation loss in his fingertips that to the present leaves his handwriting illegible, the result being banking dilemmas everytime I attempt to cash my monthly summer paycheque. Whenever he can, which is whenever I work for him, Larry reminds me there is a Hell.
    Despite feeling fluish after an all-night study session, my exam adrenalin flowed full throttle as I sat in the auditorium at 8:30 Monday morning and awaited the start of the Medical Collegiate Admissions Test. There were no disrupting thoughts of Minnie T. or Uncle Larry or SMEGMA BOMB! or any other of life’s trivialities. Nay, my brain felt poised and clear.
    The first dozen questions, general chemistry, were as challenging as chit-chat in a home for senior citizens. By nine-thirty I’d stumbled a few times, but my overall performance exceeded expectation. It came as a surprise when the examiner yelled “Stop” at 10:20. I raised my head to see a room full of would-be doctors seemingly more at ease than tourists tanning in the Galapagos Islands. Panicked, I oozed a cold sweat and pencilled in the last forty blank computer ovals at random.
    The situation worsened with