Topdog / Underdog Read Online Free Page A

This time Lincoln wakes up, as hungover and horrid as before.
    Booth swaggers about, his moves are exaggerated, rooster-like. He walks round and round Lincoln making sure his brother sees him.
     
    Lincoln
    You hurt yrself?
     
    Booth
    I had me “an evening to remember.”
     
    Lincoln
    You look like you hurt yrself.
     
    Booth
    Grace Grace Grace. Grace . She wants me back. She wants me back so bad she wiped her hand over the past where we wasnt together just so she could say we aint never been apart. She wiped her hand over our breakup. She wiped her hand over her childhood, her teenage years, her first
boyfriend, just so she could say that she been mine since the dawn of time.
     
    Lincoln
    Thats great, man.
     
    Booth
    And all the shit I put her through: she wiped it clean. And the women I saw while I was seeing her—
     
    Lincoln
    Wiped clean too?
     
    Booth
    Mister Clean, Mister, Mister Clean!
     
    Lincoln
    Whered you take her?
     
    Booth
    We was over at her place. I brought thuh food. Stopped at the best place I could find and stuffed my coat with only the best. We had the music we had the candlelight we had—
     
    Lincoln
    She let you do it?
     
    Booth
    Course she let me do it.
     
    Lincoln
    She let you do it without a rubber?
     
    Booth
    —Yeah.
     
    Lincoln
    Bullshit.
    Booth
    I put my foot down—and she melted . And she was—huh—she was something else. I dont wanna get you jealous, though.

    Lincoln
    Go head, I dont mind.
     
    Booth
    (Rest) Well, you know what she looks like.
     
    Lincoln
    She walks on by and the emergency room fills up cause all the guys get whiplash from lookin at her.
     
    Booth
    Thats right thats right. Well—she comes to the door wearing nothing but her little nightie, eats up the food I’d brought like there was no tomorrow and then goes and eats on me.
    (Rest)
     
    Lincoln
    Go on.
     
    Booth
    I dont wanna make you feel bad, man.
     
    Lincoln
    Ssallright. Go on.
     
    Booth
    (Rest)
    Well, uh, you know what shes like. Wild. Goodlooking. So sweet my teeth hurt.
     
    Lincoln
    A sexmachine.
     
    Booth
    Yeah.
     
    Lincoln
    A hotsy-totsy.
     
    Booth
    Yeah.

    Lincoln
    Amazing Grace.
     
    Booth
    Amazing Grace! Yeah. Thats right. She let me do her how
    I wanted. And no rubber.
    (Rest)
     
    Lincoln
    Go on.
     
    Booth
    You dont wanna hear the mushy shit.
     
    Lincoln
    Sure I do.
     
    Booth
    You hate mushy shit. You always hated thuh mushy shit.
     
    Lincoln
    Ive changed. Go head. You had “an evening to remember,” remember? I was just here alone sitting here. Drinking. Go head. Tell Link thuh stink.
    (Rest) Howd ya do her?
     
    Booth
    Dogstyle.
     
    Lincoln
    Amazing Grace.
     
    Booth
    In front of a mirror.
     
    Lincoln
    So you could see her. Her face her breasts her back her ass. Graces got a great ass.
     
    Booth
    Its all right.

    Lincoln
    Amazing Grace!
     
    Booth goes into his bed area and takes off his suit, tossing the clothes on the floor.
     
    Booth
    She said next time Ima have to use a rubber. She let me have my way this time but she said that next time I’d have to put my boots on.
     
    Lincoln
    Im sure you can talk her out of it.
     
    Booth
    Yeah.
    (Rest)
    What kind of rubbers you use, I mean, when you was with Cookie.
     
    Lincoln
    We didnt use rubbers. We was married, man.
     
    Booth
    Right. But you had other women on the side. What kind you use when you was with them?
     
    Lincoln
    Magnums.
     
    Booth
    Thats thuh kind I picked up. For next time. Grace was real strict about it. Magnums.
     
    While Booth sits on his bed fiddling with his box of condoms, Lincoln sits in his chair and resumes drinking.
     
    Lincoln
    Theyre for “the larger man.”

    Booth
    Right. Right.
     
    Lincoln keeps drinking as Booth, sitting in the privacy of his bedroom, fiddles with the condoms, perhaps trying to put one on.
     
    Lincoln
    Thats right.
     
    Booth
    Graces real different from them fly-by-night gals I was making do with. Shes in school. Making something of herself. Studying cosmetology. You