Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Detachment and Isolation Read Online Free Page A

Booker didn’t seem to mind being the real Booker.
    We debated a bit more and then it turned cheap.
    I called him a fuckhead, he punched me in the arm, and I tried to strangle him. Soon we were rolling around the gas station floor in a blur of blue denim and madras. I managed to pry off one of his Keds and launched it into space. It crashed against the metal venetian blinds and filled the small room with an oily cloud of dust that had us both coughing like coal miners. In short order, Mike pinned me under his knees, where all I could do was flail around like an upended turtle. Somehow I kicked over a display rack, and a torrent ofroad maps rained down on us. I remember having a brief moment to think,
Wow, Delaware,
before I suddenly rose into the sky, as if my spirit was exiting my body. Mike was promptly up there with me.
    Merv had us both by the wrists like he was dangling a couple of ratty stuffed animals. A toothless mechanic with the name “Dud” sewn on his coveralls stood there cackling as he wedged a gob of Red Man into his cheek. “I put mine in the shed last Sundee.” Merv shot him an annoyed look, the kind he reserved for interlopers and people who owned sheds.
    We were swiftly propelled out the door. Mike got a kick in the ass as he walked toward the car. I was in the clear until I laughed, then got one too. “I can’t believe you guys came from my balls,” Merv grumbled. We heard that one a lot when we did something wrong. It was my dad’s version of an Atticus Finch moment, minus the porch swing and gentle wisdom.
    Back behind the wheel, Merv turned to Booker as if he had the worst possible news. “Booker,” he said somberly, “the Coke machine was out of order. There are no Cokes. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.” His hand rested on our passenger’s shoulder. Booker, who didn’t want a Coke in the first place, took it in stride. “Tha’s all right,” he said. “The world done pretty good with water up to now. Heh-heh.” Merv chuckled and agreed. Then Mike and I joined in, laughing a little too hard in an attempt to keep the mood light. “Ha-ha!” I beltedout, literally slapping my knee. “Water’s still the best drink in the world! Right, Dad? And it’s free too! Ha-ha! Water!” Merv’s eyes were quickly in the rearview, shooting me an urgent dispatch to cut the shit.
    Booker glanced at his watch.
    The sky was turning overcast as we journeyed south across Front Street, parallel to the Susquehanna River, leisurely making our way toward the hospital.
    “I do two hundred and fifty push-ups every morning,” my dad informed Booker as he ignited another cigarette. “My doctor looks at me like I’m a freak. He gave me a stress test and I almost burned the fucking machine out.”
    Booker’s shoulders had fallen into a mild slump—the posture of a man on a bus ride from Bangor to Corpus Christi.
    “But I’ve always maintained my body,” Merv went on. “It’s my natural instinct. I remember once when I was a kid, I hugged my grandmother so hard I broke three of her ribs. See, I don’t know how to regulate my strength. If I hold a canary in my hand, I’ll crush it. It’s heartbreaking.”
    “Ol’ grandma,” a drained Booker murmured, now phoning it in.
    “I got in so many fights the social worker came to my mother and told her I was going to wind up either in reform school or the electric chair.
    “Almos’ had you choppin’ rocks.”
    “I never started a fight in my life, but I took shit from no one. See, everyone was pissed off back then. No one had money. We were all fucking starving.”
    Merv delicately spat a loose piece of tobacco from his tongue.
    “I remember I beat the shit out of this one prick who shot my cat with a BB gun. He said, ‘I don’t like Jews and I don’t like Jew cats.’ I told him very sweetly, ‘Well, this Jew’s about to shove that fucking gun up your ass.’ It was a Daisy—I can still picture it.”
    “Uh-oh. So Daisy got it, huh?”