The Axman Cometh Read Online Free Page B

bottle of vodka in the garbage. That makes two this week."
    "What were you doing in the garbage?"
    "I always look in the garbage," Chapman replies, sauntering into the kitchen. "I like to see what we're throwing out. All I'm trying to tell you is, she's at it again—hello? What? No, sir, I'm Chap, Allen Ray's at work. Who's this? You are? We did? I dunno . You want to talk to my sister?"
    "Who is it?"
    Chap appears in the doorway with the receiver of the telephone stretched to its limit on a long cord. "Say's he's Uncle Gilmore."
    "Oh, give me the phone quick! Jesus, Chapman, you got chocolate all over—hello? Uncle Gilmore, it's Shannon! Yes, I did call you—oh, everything's all right. . . hope I didn't give you that idea. He's just fine. How about yourself?"
    Shannon leans against the jamb of the door to the kitchen, cringing as Chapman gives her a "chocolate hickey" on the neck before springing outside in response to a call from Aaron Wurzheimer , three doors down, his best friend even though the Wurzheimers are Lutherans and the families don't socialize. Shannon pictures Uncle Gilmore as she drew him nearly three years ago, when he dropped by the house for a few hours' visit following an Elks' convention in Kansas City: a runt of a countryman with stubble, florid and bald; he had hooded licorice eyes and a turned-down mouth that could snap shut with surprising ferocity.
    "You probably know," she says, when Gilmore runs out of bad things to say about the winter he's been through and the small rancher's plight at the hands of Eastern Liberal Democrats, and never mind where Lyndon
    Johnson hails from, "that it's Dab's fiftieth birthday coming up—no, the fifth of June— and we're having this big surprise party for him; everybody's coming. So I was kind of hoping you could be here too."
    "Well, gal, I just don't know. Spring is my busiest time, with so many heavies to look after. I did need to make a trip down to Whichertaw along about in June, so I suppose there is a chance—"
    "We'd love to see you. What's a 'heavy?'"
    "Heifer with calf. ' Preciate you thinkin ' about me, though. You'd be, what, about seventeen now?"
    "In four months. Will you try real hard to make it?"
    "Can't promise much; but thanky for the invitation. Got to git now."
    "Give my best to Aunt Zelma and cousin Auline —" Shannon says hurriedly, hearing her uncle call to another part of his house just before hanging up, " Naw , it ain't that, Zelma, it's just some goddamn birthday part—"
    Wincing, Shannon feels eyes on her and glances over her shoulder at the screen door of the back porch; she almost drops the receiver of the telephone because somebody is standing there, on the top step, looking in at
    her; nobody she can recognize because the sun is behind him.
    "Hi."
    "Who is it?"
    "Oh, it's me—Perry. Perry Kennold . From school."
    "Yeah? Hi. What are you—excuse me, I need to hang up the phone. Did you want to come in or something?"
    "Just wondered if I could get a drink of water. I was out walking, but I don't know anybody on this street. Except you. Didn't you used to have a dog? I was kind of afraid I'd run into your dog, but nobody answered the front door."
    "Borneo. He got leukemia and we had to put him away last month. We were all sick about it. Come on in, I'll just—water's okay? We've got ginger ale and Dr Pepper."
    "Maybe a Dr Pepper if that wouldn't be too much trouble."
    "No, have a seat. Perry. Be right back. How did you know we had a dog?"
    "Oh, I was this way before. On your street."
    "Where do you live?" Shannon asks him, opening the refrigerator. One interruption after another, she really wanted to get some painting done. She takes out a couple of
    bottles of Dr Pepper. And now it's almost time to think about supper. Dab and Allen Ray both get home a little past six-thirty, and they can be difficult to put up with if supper's not piping hot and on the table the minute they hit the door. Shannon knows Ernestine won't be down