The Tower of Il Serrohe Read Online Free

out. There was no garbage service, just a rusted fifty-five gallon barrel to periodically cart off to the landfill west of Rio Luna. Meanwhile, Don started a growing list of items to be purchased at the local Smith’s grocery store and aforementioned Walmart.
    “ Bess’s going to shit green weenies when she sees the checks I’m writing,” he thought. “This money should last a couple of months before I have to resort to my own meager earnings. Ah, the check-to-check existence! Keeping closer to reality, the edge of bankruptcy, cutting corners, it’s like being young again!”
    Don hadn’t talked to himself much before and it was great rediscovering his little unknown personal quirks and predilections. Things hidden under orders of silence around Bess, things drowned in booze, things denied even to himself in the dark hours before dawn when waking up with thoughts that he would die one day and then who would give a shit whether he had lived or not? Maybe he wouldn’t even give a shit. But he wanted to give a shit, always and forever.
    Some of that was unsettling to him, but somehow acceptable because all he had to do was say, “Hey, it’s OK, Don, I understand. Even if no one else cares, I do and maybe even God cares. I mean look at the show that goes on up there every night in creation. I mean ‘ Creation .’”
    Now that was a novelty. Don hadn’t thought about or said “God” and really meant God, in a long time. It was just a word he said when something startled him. That view of one little corner of Creation had startled him the night before and he thought “God” and really meant it. But now, making up his shopping list, it struck him consciously. Last night was a bonding with the All, no comment or language needed.
    Daylight needed language. The shopping list required simple concrete nouns, the realities of life. And God was a part of that, too. The old-time religion. It was Sunday and that had always meant church when he was a kid.
    “ I’ve been harping on being young again, so I guess I’d better get ready and do my shopping after church.”
    Driving into town, he stopped at the first church he saw, which turned out to be a small nondenominational congregation, housed in an old converted saloon. They welcomed him as if they known him all his life. The preaching was a bit fundamental, but the parallels to the previous night’s sky experience kept Don entranced.
    Once he had wiggled out of offers for Sunday lunch of fried chicken, he made his shopping rounds.
    The day came to an end all too quickly. And only upon turning off the light did Don remember he had classes tomorrow morning. It seemed centuries since he had left the school Friday afternoon.
    Finally remembering the term had just ended and he had about a week before the grind started all over again, he relaxed and drifted off to sleep.
    Had it been only twenty minutes, or was it now around 4 am?
    There was the sound he had heard in the darkness when he’d nearly crashed into the cottonwood tree. Yet it was now silent.
    Still half asleep, he started to drift off once more. Then it came again, and now he could identify it.
    Leather wings flapping.
    Solid whapping—not the wheezy, whistling sound of feathers. Leather. Skin.
    A bat!
     
     
    four
     
     
    Fully awake, Don reached too far for the lamp and knocked it off the table.
    “ Sonuvabitch!”
    He rolled off the bed onto the floor and desperately felt around. Finding the lamp behind the table, he fumbled for the switch. It came on driving a thousand needles of light into his rapidly dilating eyes.
    “ Damn! Stupid shit!”
    He squeezed his eyelids closed, turning away from the lamp, and slowly opened them allowing his lazy irises to contract.
    It was quiet now.
    Using the lamp like a searchlight, he pointed the open top of its shade around the seemingly cavern-like room. There, up in the far corner by the outside door, was a black mass. He could see it quiver and then noted the fine