The Roy Stories Read Online Free Page A

about the old days.
    â€œWhatever happened to Cleve Love?” Roy asked. “I never saw him after he got out of reform school.”
    â€œHe’s around,” said Frank. “He owns a vintage clothing store on Armitage.”
    Roy laughed and asked, “Is it named Thor’s?”
    â€œNo. Dragstrip, or Stripjoint, something like that. I haven’t been there.”
    â€œDoes he still carry a hammer?”
    â€œBitsy DiPena, who used to work for him, told me Cleve keeps one on a shelf under the cash register,” said Frank. “She says he’s famous for going after shoplifters with it.”

 
    The Red Studebaker
    Roy was twelve years old when his mother and her third husband, a jazz drummer named Sid “Spanky” Wade, told him that they were going to move out of Chicago to a suburb north of the city. They had already paid for the beginning of the construction of a new house and the foundation had been laid. The next day, a Sunday, the four of them—Roy’s mother, her husband, Roy’s one-year-old sister, and Roy—drove out to see it.
    Roy had no desire to leave the neighborhood, and when he saw the property in Winnebago Gardens, a new development in the middle of nowhere, only sidewalks and streets and other houses under construction, no people, not even a kid on a bike, he knew immediately this place was not for him. The thought of being stranded like a lost Legionnaire in the Sahara made Roy shiver. He disliked Sid Wade and Sid disliked him; and Roy’s mother, as always during her marriages, was either on the verge of a nervous breakdown or in the throes of collapse. His mother’s marriages—of which there would eventually be five—inevitably and rapidly deteriorated into disappointment and fear which found expression in the form of hysteria and vicious vitriol, behavior that terrorized not only her husband of the moment but Roy and anyone else who had to deal with her. This proposed move to the suburbs, to “somewhere quiet and less stressful,” as Sid Wade said, would surely salve her condition. City life made her nervous, agreed Dr. Martell, a heart specialist and old friend of Roy’s grandmother’s, who provided pills for his mother even in the middle of the night.
    Several days after their excursion to Winnebago Gardens, Roy was having dinner with the family when Sid Wade began telling Roy what he could and could not take with him when they moved.
    â€œI’m not moving,” Roy said. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll take care of my own things.”
    Sid Wade dropped his fork onto his plate, his heavy-jowled face turned crimson, and he said, “Of course you’re moving. We all are.”
    â€œNo, I’m not. I’ve already made arrangements to live next door with the McLaughlins. Mr. and Mrs. McLaughlin said it’s all right with them. Jimmy’s going into the army next month, so I’ll have his bunk in the room with Johnny and Billy. I told Mrs. McLaughlin I’d contribute money to the household out of my pay delivering for Kow Kow. I’ll be fine there.”
    Roy’s mother stood up from the table and put her dishes into the sink. Her face was green and her lips were trembling. Her body shook and she was crying.
    â€œLook what you’ve done to your mother!” Sid Wade shouted.
    Roy’s little sister, upset by his loud voice, began crying, too.
    â€œIf your father were here,” Wade snarled, “he wouldn’t put up with your insolence.”
    â€œI’m not being insolent,” said Roy. “And don’t talk about my father. You didn’t know him and he’s dead. You don’t know what he’d say or do. If he were alive, I’d go live with him. Johnny and Billy are my best friends and Mr. and Mrs. McLaughlin are good people.”
    Frank McLaughlin worked as a doorman at the Drake Hotel and his wife took in laundry. They were from