Absolution Read Online Free PDF Page B

the phone was ringing but this was nothing new because he was always awake before Bernard who was still passed out from the night before, next to the sink. Sometimes Bernard slept there by the sink and sometimes on the floor of the lounge by the couch, keeping the boy awake with talk in his sleep. One morning the boy found him with his head resting on the toilet, vomit sheeting the bathroom. He’d had chicken for dinner, and peas, and then something sweet. The boy could count the peas: thirty-seven whole ones and parts of others.
    He answered the phone. It was the man with the funny voice again.
    Listen kid is Bernard there?
    He’s asleep .
    Fuck wake him up man .
    The boy jabbed at Bernard’s ribs with his bare foot. Bernard. Bernard. There’s a phone call . But the man didn’t move.
    He won’t wake up .
    Fuck throw some water on him man this is important business .
    He’ll hit me .
    He’ll kill you if he hears he missed this call .
    So the boy poured some water in a glass and splashed it in Bernard’s flushed grey face, but the first glass didn’t do anything and the boy had to do it again, but this didn’t do anything either so he got a beer from the refrigerator, popped the lid, and poured it in Bernard’s eyes and then the man snapped upright and wrapped one of those hard hands around the boy’s throat and the other around the hand the boy was holding the beer can with andhe looked like he would snap the boy’s head off and eat it. But the boy put out his other hand, the one holding the phone, and said, He told me to wake you up . Bernard kept holding on to the boy’s neck and his chest was going up and down but he took the phone and the boy dropped the beer can on the floor and the two of them were looking at each other for a long time.
    No man. Give me half an hour rather. I’m in no fit state for public consumption. Can’t be that urgent. They’re already dead, hey?
    Bernard hung up the phone and shook his head and stared again at the boy for a long time and had a funny look in his eyes. Don’t ever do that again or I’ll open you up from your mouth to your arsehole .
    He jumped from the floor like he’d been awake all morning and picked the boy up in the air in his thin arms and shook the child. Don’t ever do that again! Then he put the boy down and punched him in the nose so there was blood all over the lino floor, and the blood went in with the beer and water and Bernard shook his head and said, You clean that up we don’t have time for your bullshit this morning .
    So the boy cleaned up the floor with some kitchen towel and it took a long time because the blood kept coming in gobs from his nose.
    And then Bernard showered. And then he said the boy should shower and the boy showered and then got dressed in khaki pants because he liked them best and the blue checked shirt because his father had given him that for his last birthday so he liked that shirt best and the red shoes because they were the only shoes he had anyway.
    The boy was hungry but they didn’t eat. I’m too rough for eating this morning rather make me some strong coffee, quickly hey . So the boy put on the coffee maker and they both drank a cup but it tasted like cigarettes and Bernard spat his out on the floor and said for him to clean it up and the boy reached for the kitchen towel and as he was bending over the blood started to come again.
    He ate an old banana that had been sitting in the kitchen for a week. He hadn’t been living with his uncle, his mother’s half-brother, for very long, a few months only, since the winter, and there was never enough for more than one person to eat.
    They drove in Bernard’s truck to a police station downtown and Bernard stopped at the entrance to the forecourt and said something to the guard, and the man opened the gate and let them pass and inside it smelled thick like toilets, and there was a black plastic mound. Bernard got out of the truck and looked at the mound and shook his