The Pinballs Read Online Free

don’t see pinballs helping each other, do you?”
    â€œCarlie—”
    â€œThey can’t. They’re just things. They hit this bumper, they go over here. They hit that light, they go over there.”
    â€œCarlie—”
    â€œAnd soon as they get settled, somebody comes along and puts in another dime and off they go again.” Carlie was standing by the phone. She reached up and dialed zero. “I can’t help Harvey and I can’t help myself.”
    â€œI think you can,” Mrs. Mason said.
    â€œTake a good look at a pinball machine sometime,” Carlie said. “You might learn something about life.”
    In his room Harvey lay without moving. He had heard every word of the conversation. He wished his father had heard it too.
    â€œYou kids today got it easy,” his father was always saying. “It was tough when I was a kid—none of this five dollars here and ten dollars there.”
    Harvey, who asked for money only when he needed it for food, always waited in silence.
    His father would rave some more about how easy Harvey had it, and then he would pull some bills from his pocket. He would toss them at Harvey so Harvey would have to pick them up from the floor. Then Harvey’s father always ended with “Later you’ll find out things aren’t so easy, and you’ll find out the hard way, like me.”
    Harvey looked down at his legs. When his father said “the hard way,” Harvey thought, he meant the hard way.
    Slowly, as if his arms were broken instead of his legs, he began to eat his cereal.

7
    After supper the three of them settled in the living room. Thomas J was writing a letter to the Benson twins. It was addressed to Miss Thomas and Miss Jefferson Benson, Sundale Hospital.
    It started out:
    Hi,
    How are your hips?
    As soon as Harvey had seen Thomas J writing a letter, he had asked for paper too. He was having a hard time getting started on his letter. He didn’t want to write to his father, and he didn’t know his mother’s address in Virginia, but he felt left out not to be writing. Although he had not put down a word, he kept lifting his head and asking things like “How do you spell ‘wonderful’?”
    â€œI hope you’re not describing yourself,” Carlie said without looking up. She was also writing. The letter was to her mother.
    â€œI’m not saying what I’m describing,” Harvey said in a superior manner. His eyebrows were raised.
    â€œCould it be me?” Carlie asked. “Are you by any chance making a list of all the things I am? Wonderful. Exciting. Temptatious. Don’t forget to mention that my hair is good enough for a creme-rinse commercial and my skin is so soft no Brillo soap pad can smooth it.”
    Harvey tried to think of an answer. He couldn’t.
    Carlie broke off. She looked down at her letter. She bent over it.
    Carlie didn’t bother with punctuation when she wrote. Her letter went:
    Please send for me I won’t cause you any trouble I have learned my lesson and anyway it wasn’t me who caused the trouble It was Russell From now on I will just keep out of his way I will keep out of everybodys way All I want is to come home Anyway Russell hit me harder than I hit him Talk to the social worker and tell her everything is all right Make everything all right I want to come home
    Harvey watched Carlie writing her letter. He was jealous that she had so much to say. He still hadn’t written a word. He shifted in his wheelchair. His casts itched and his right leg hurt.
    He thought of writing that to his father, but he didn’t think his father would care whether his legs itched or hurt or whatever. In the hospital his father had seemed very sorry. He had actually cried. Real tears. He had said, “I didn’t know. I thought I was in reverse. I just bought the car, see, and I didn’t know.”
    The tears were not for him, Harvey had