Angels Read Online Free PDF Page B

money. “Ninety-six dollars.”
    â€œ I know how much it is. It’s just that I’d be out of a job. I’d lose this job for sure.”
    â€œYou won’t need no job, with ninety-six dollars”
    â€œPhiladelphia!” the young driver said.
    â€œYou got it! You’re getting it! The Liberty Bell! Which my poor wife sitting right over there has always wanted to see, poor woman, and she never has seen it yet, poor little old gal. And she’s dying. Got a disease, if you want to know the truth. Ninety-six dollars!”
    â€œNow, hold up a minute,” Jamie said from her seat, but Bill Houston waved her off. She said nothing else, waiting to see how far this whole show was headed.
    â€œI just can’t go anywhere I want to with a crazy man to Philly,” the driver said. “Philadelphia!” He put his hat back on his head. He checked his hand brake. He looked at his watch. “Standing in front of the white line,” he said in a neutral tone, pointing down at the line. “Delaying the bus driver. Attempted bribery.”
    â€œWhat? What is this?” Bill Houston slammed his palm against the metal pole and made it ring. “Right in the middle of negotiations you’re handing me the goddamn rules. Don’t you know when the world is trying to do you a kindness?”
    â€œTalking to the driver. Trying to get the driver to go off his specific route,” the driver said.
    â€œNinety-six dollars,” Bill Houston said. The driver put his bus in gear.
    â€œNow you turn this bus off,” Bill Houston said, “and let’s talk.”
    â€œJust please wait one minute,” Jamie put in. “Hold up there,” she said good-naturedly. Nobody was listening. Bill Houston had taken a pint bottle of Gordon’s Gin from his pants pocket and was waving it around in the area of his mouth.
    The driver was maneuvering his bus around a circle with a lawn and a big ugly statue in its midst. “Consuming alcoholic beverages on the bus! Standing in front of the white line talking to the driver with ninety-six dollars attempted bribery!”
    â€œGoddamn I’ll show you ninety-six dollars bribing.” Bill Houston moved his face and his fistful of money in front of the driver’s face. The driver continued driving his bus, leaning to one side to see past Bill Houston’s head and hand. “I don’t want this money, see?” Bill Houston said. “1 just don’t give a shit about this money. Do you give a shit about this money?”
    â€œ I do!” Jamie said. “Bill! Sit down!”
    â€œYou better leave me alone—right now,” the driver told him. “You’re disturbing the other passengers on my bus.”
    â€œOkay,” Bill Houston said. “ You don’t give a shit about this money. I don’t give a shit about this money. Okay. All right, that’s just perfectly okay with me.” He placed the bills in a pile on the floor beside the driver’s seat. Jamie and the driver looked on as he adjusted the flame on his Bic butane and then set the money afire.
    Jamie wailed terribly.
    The driver wanted to watch the street and Bill Houston with amazed eyes both at once, turning his head rapidly from front to side. “Burning money! On the bus! My Christ! A fucking lunatic! Get away from that white line!”
    Jamie had leaped forward to save the money. She stamped on it repeatedly, shouting along with the driver. Bill Houston was ready, the flame on his butane set high as possible, and he blocked her feet with his arm as he knelt by the pile of dollars, ravaging it with flame. Jamie managed to snatch the top few bills from the pile and held them tightly in her fist, but the rest was charred past rescue.
    The driver stopped his bus and opened the door, and the three of them regarded the black smoldering heap until it was ash and the smoke had all blown out the door, and the bus ride