Best Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

would stay as far away as possible from Mike the Apron.
    Why did he frighten me so much? Everything frightens me but Mike frightened me extra-special because his teeth and sour eyes reminded me of my Dad like no one had since his death. He scared me so much that I quickly began noticing things about him. I noticed that he wore baseball hats turned backwards, had a white T-shirt with a leather vest over it and around his neck several necklaces with pieces of bone and metal on them that made a very soft tinkling when he moved, like coins in your pocket. On his feet were pointy cowboy boots. In his pocket, a folding knife, along with a wallet that was attached by a chain to his pants. Maybe he was chewing something all the time. Maybe it was tobacco.
    People look like animals. A woman can seem like a cat walking on its hind legs and men in business suits can have fangs and the cold eyes of something that kills for a living. Human voices are also filled with the sounds of animals coming up into them from below. Mike was a coyote. He was hairy like a coyote and sneaky like a coyote. He made a call like a coyote that was lonesome and sad and left you thinking maybe he was a nice person alone in the woods and crying out for company. But like a coyote he actually hunted in packs and tore holes in the sides of his prey with his teeth and drank their blood like cherry cola.
    Yesterday was the second time I was with him. We were taking a group trip to the Seabright Mall in the van. Normally a staff named Duane drives on this trip but I was already buckled into my seat when I saw Mike open the front door and get in.
    â€œEverybody in a good mood?” he said as he started the van and the feeling of the motor came up through our legs.
    No one said anything.
    â€œNo penalty for talking, folks,” he said. “And air is free.”
    But still nobody said anything.
    â€œPayton Living flies on high,” he sang, “touch the earth and touch the sky.”
    Everyone stayed silent.
    â€œSuit yourself,” he said and then drove out of the driveway and up to a stop sign. He turned in his seat, looked directly at me and said very slowly and loudly, “Ba-doing!”
    We drove to the mall through a flat going-pastness that was filled with the houses of the people who lived there set back from the road. Some of these houses had little farms alongside them with tractors crawling up and down neatly planted fields of corn and wheat. Geese flew overhead. Horses stood still in the sunshine. It was a picture on a wall that people lived inside of. A little while later Mike pulled the van off the main road into the parking lot of the mall and began backing it up into a space with a look on his face of indigestion.
    â€œThis goddamn thing has an ass like my first wife,” he muttered under his breath. Then, when the van stopped moving, he said in a nice public voice:
    â€œOkay, sports fans, file out nice and easy.”
    All of us walked in single file like we’d been taught through the main door into the Seabright Mall. The air-conditioning roared a moment and we were inside. The ceilings went up very high. The air smelled of sugar and salted plastic. Girls were everywhere. They popped their gum like pistol shots or talked into their phones and screamed with laughter. Babies yelled.Microphoned voices spoke loudly from the ceiling. People looked at us.
    People had always looked and in just the same way. But now there were almost a dozen of us together and so the looking was different. It went on longer and always finished with a shake of the head or a fake smile. I had on shorts, sneakers and a T-shirt that was pleasingly tight on my belly. Dr. Vauncy the dentist had recently fixed my chipped front teeth from when I bit a rock in a dish of lentils and now I had a “million-dollar smile.” Next to me was Connie who I’d once touched the secret hair of in the dark. She was wearing sweatpants and her belly was