Joe Read Online Free

shut.
     
    “Slam it hard,” Joe said. “They all in back there?”
     
    “I reckon. Shoot. I was still in the bed.”
     
    He backed the truck around quickly and pulled it down into low. He took off, but the gears crashed when he tried to shove it up into second. He pushed in the clutch hard and tried again. It finally caught, but the valves rattled as it struggled up the hill.
     
    “I got to buy me a new truck,” he said. The black boy beside him giggled like a girl. “Where’s your hat, Junior?”
     
    “Run off and left it. Shorty say you’s fixin to leave me if I didn’t come on.”
     
    “Hell, we late. Be daylight before we ever get out there. I guess ever one of y’all needs to stop at the store.”
     
    “I got to get somethin to eat,” he said. “What you take for this old truck if you buy you a new one?”
     
    “This truck ain’t old. It’s just got some minor stuff wrong with it.”
     
    They stopped under the red light and waited for it to turn green. Another cruiser came up the hill and turned in with its blue lights flashing. He pulled the shift down into low and took off again, clashed the gears and dropped it into third. The truck sputtered, lurched violently and died. He cranked on it and the lights dimmed until he pushed them off.
     
    “Ragged son of a bitch,” he said. It cranked finally and he wound the hell out of it in low, up to almost twenty-five before he dropped it into high gear. It rattled a loud complaint but it went on.
     
    “Linkage messed up,” said Junior.
     
    “Let’s see if we can fix it at dinner.”
     
    “All right.”
     
    They turned at the intersection and took the road that led out of town. The stores were just opening.
     
    “Say you was still in the bed, Junior?”
     
    “Yessir. I got off with Dooley and them last night. Don’t even know what time we got in. It was late.”
     
    “I guess y’all was drinking some whiskey.”
     
    “Shoot. Whiskey and beer both. I won me a little money and then got drunk and lost it.”
     
    Joe looked out at the coming morning. It was coming fast.
     
    “Shit,” he said. “We got to hurry. Y’all can’t stay with it in this heat. Gonna be ninety somethin today.”
     
    “You done got the ice?”
     
    He started to touch the brake and then he shook his head, mashing the gas harder instead.
     
    “Why, hell naw. We ain’t got time to go back for it now. There’s probably still some left in the cooler. Freddy may have some. We’ll get some out there if he does.”
     
    “Let me get one more of them cigarettes off you.”
     
    “Up there on the dash, son. I’m gonna have to start takin cigarettes and beer out of you boys’ pay. I went out to the truck other evening after we quit and it was one beer in the cooler. Y’all drink it up fast as I can buy it.”
     
    “Them old cold beers good when you get off,” said Junior.
     
    “Well I guess so when it’s free.”
     
    They rode in silence for a few miles, the dark trees whipping past on both sides and the lights beginning to come on in the houses along the road. Once in a while they had to straddle a smashed possum.
     
    “And say that was Noony that got shot? Was he the one that used to work for me? Little short guy?”
     
    “Naw. That’s his brother. Duwight. Noony the one been in all that trouble with the law. I think he spent about three years in the pen.”
     
    “He did? When was he down there?”
     
    “I don’t know. He been out I guess three or four years.”
     
    “I just wondered was he the one I used to know one time. What did he get put in the pen for?”
     
    “I think he cut somebody. He just got to where he stayed in jail all the time. He’s on probation right now.”
     
    “He is?”
     
    “He was. Motherfucker dead now.”
     
    Joe got the last cigarette and crumpled the pack and threw it out the window. He leaned over the steering wheel with both arms as the old truck rushed along. He could hear faint cries coming