The Clear-Out Read Online Free Page B

life.
    “It’s my life,” he muttered. “I can finally do with it what I want to do.”
    To drown out his thoughts, Duncan turned on the car radio. He tried to find a station that would come in clearly, but all he got was static.
    “Must be a storm somewhere,” he said.
    Finally, he got an oldies station. He sat back to enjoy songs that were new when he was young.
    And then the music stopped.
    And Duncan heard the words.
    They were almost whispered, but he heard them loud and clear.
    What happens?
    And Duncan drove straight into a telephone pole.
    As he sat there, his right fender crunched up, strangers rushed over to see if he was all right. Police sirens came closer and closer. Duncan wished he had just stayed in bed.
    “Come back, Tess,” he said. “I want to go home.”

CHAPTER NINE
    Duncan had never been to the skateboard park.
    The town had built the park last year, and Duncan was angry that it had been paid for with tax money. He had written a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. “Why do kids need to skateboard?” he had written. “Walking is free. If their parents want them to have a skateboard park, then let their parents pay for it.”
    And now, there he was, at the very same park.
    He sat on a bench, and Kevin sat in his chair. They drank Tim Hortons coffee and watched kids on skateboards roll up and over cement cliffs.
    “What in the world would make someone want to do that?” Duncan asked.
    “You must have done some crazy things in your life,” Kevin said. “Everyone has. Or if you didn’t do crazy things, you wanted to.”
    “I worked,” Duncan said. “I paid my bills. I played a lot of golf.”
    “Not much to write on your gravestone, is it?”
    “Will the writing on yours be any better?”
    “I’m a proud gay man. That in itself is a sign of success.”
    Duncan couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he said nothing.
    “There he is,” Kevin said, spotting the kid they were looking for. “Hey, Fly King! Over here!”
    “Fly King?” Duncan asked.
    “That’s his skate name.”
    “Do I have to call him that?”
    “He’s doing you a favour,” Kevin reminded him. “Would it kill you to be nice?”
    Fly King took his time coming over. He skated up and down the valleys, going around and doing jumps off the ramps. Duncan had to admit that the kid was good. Not that he was any judge of skateboarders.
    Fly King skated right up to them, stopped, and picked up his board in one smooth motion. He did not seem surprised to see them.
    “She wants to know what happens,” Fly King said.
    “She wants to know what happens to what? To me? Is she worried about me?”
    The kid laughed.
    “The book, man,” the kid said. “She wants to know what happens in the book.”
    “What book?”
    “The book she was reading when she kicked it.”
    Duncan came close to hitting the kid.
    “What book?”
    “How should I know?” Fly King replied. “Don’t you know? You were there, man.”
    “Ask her,” Duncan demanded.
    “Doesn’t work that way.” Fly King put his skateboard back on the ground. “I don’t talk to them. They talk to me. And only when they feel like it. They’re dead. They do what they want.”
    “What am I supposed to do now?” Duncan asked. He didn’t feel any closer to knowing what was going on.
    “Read the book, bro. Tell her what happens.”
    In the next moment, the kid was gone, dropping down into a cement valley.
    “There were so many books,” Duncan said. “I don’t know what she was reading at the end.”
    “How can you not know that?” Kevin said. “Didn’t you ask her?”
    “She was always reading,” Duncan said. “I asked her all the time, ‘What are you reading?’ ”
    The full question he had asked was, What are you reading that for?
    As if he could hear Duncan’s thoughts, Kevin asked, “Did you ever listen to her answer?”
    Duncan didn’t reply. Of course he hadn’t listened to her answer. In the beginning, she would tell