Tony and Susan Read Online Free Page B

the others work. He tapped his feet on the ground like a dance. I mustn’t forget this is the man who forced me off the road, Tony Hastings said to himself, not forgetting. The man kept murmuring, ‘Fuck you,’ like a song. Tapping his feet and murmuring ‘Fuck you,’ looking at Tony’s wife and daughter standing by the back door of the car close together, as if saying it to them, and then at Tony, looking at Tony while he murmured it, as if to him. In a kind of tune just loud enough to be heard, ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.’
    ‘What are you looking at?’ the man said.
    ‘What were you trying to do, there on the road?’ Tony said.
    A truck was coming, it went by, loud. If the man answered Tony did not hear it. A car or truck would go by every three or four minutes, maybe more. As long as cars go by we’re safe, Tony thought, wondering what danger he was safe from.
    ‘Hot shot,’ the man said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Law-abiding driver.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘That all you can say, “what”?’
    ‘Look here –’
    ‘I’m looking.’
    He could not speak, caught, not having prepared a speech for his emotions.
    ‘What were you trying to do, there on the road?’ the man said after a while.
    ‘We’re just trying to get where we’re going.’
    ‘Where a you going?’
    Tony held back.
    ‘Where a you going?’
    ‘We’re trying to get to Maine. We’re just trying to get to Maine.’
    ‘What’s in Maine?’
    Tony did not want to answer.
    ‘What’s in Maine?’
    He felt like a boy resisting bullies.
    The man stepped toward him. ‘I said what’s in Maine?’
    The man came close enough for Tony to smell the onions with something sweet and liquory, his face level with Tony’s, and though he was thin, Tony knew the man could destroy him. He took a step backward but the man closed the gap. It’s the age difference, Tony said to himself, not adding that he had not been in a fight since he was a boy and never won one then. I live in a different world, he almost said to himself.
    He didn’t want to say he had a summer place in Maine.
    The man leaned forward, forcing Tony to lean back. He’d better not touch me, he said to himself. The man took hold of Tony’s sweater and pushed a little. ‘What did you say was in Maine?’ he said.
    Let go of me, Tony ought to have said. ‘Let go of me,’ he said. He heard his voice frail like a small kid being tortured.
    Her voice rang out loud in the night: ‘Let my Daddy alone!’
    ‘Fuck you baby,’ the man said. He let go of Tony’s sweater, laughed, and strolled over to the women. Terrified, trembling, trying to heat his cowardly blood to the required temperature, Tony followed. ‘What’s in Maine? Your Daddy won’t tell me, so you tell me, okay? What you going to in Maine?’
    ‘What’s it to you?’ she said.
    ‘Come on baby, we’re nice guys. We’re fixin your tire. You can tell me, what’s in Maine?’
    ‘Our summer place,’ she said. ‘Okay? Satisfied?’
    ‘Your Daddy thinks he’s better than me. What do you think of that?’
    ‘Well he is,’ she said.
    ‘Your Daddy is scared of me. He’s scared I can beat the shit out of him.’
    ‘You’re a lousy little no good,’ she said. ‘You’re a punk, you scum.’ Her voice was high and frantic, like a scream.
    The man took an angry step toward her. When Laura stepped between he pushed her aside. He put his hands on the girl’s shoulders up against the car and instantly Laura was on him again, hitting him, clawing, pulling at him from behind, until he flung about and pushed so she fell. ‘Bitch!’ he murmured. Somehow Tony must have gotten in there too, with a leap of strength before the man’s arm swung around like a crowbar and knocked him back. His nose felt hit like a crowbar, it stung. The man faced the three of them and snarled: ‘Watch it, you sons a bitches, you got no call to talk to me like that.’
    The men by the tire had stopped their work to watch.
    When Tony Hastings saw his