Blackwork Read Online Free PDF Page A

the actual lyrics of the song.
    Billie quickly rose and moved to intercept him, but he made a surprisingly deft dodge to avoid her. Ryan went to an empty stool and leaned across it, bracing one hand on the rounded front edge of the bar.
    “I’ll have a pint of porter, please,” he said, careful of his pronunciation.
    “Oh, Ryan, for corn’s sake!” said Leona. She looked over at his vacated booth, where Joey was sitting with a half-empty glass of stout, looking surprised. “You know we don’t sell liquor to you anymore! Has Joey been buying for you? Well, no more. I think it’s time for you to go home.”
    “Oh, yeah? I don’t gotta. An’ I jus’ wanna let you know, Leona Cunningham, I’m still, I’m still on ta you.” He pointed a thick forefinger at her.
    “Well, I’m glad to know that, but we’re still not serving you,” said Leona in a calm voice. Like Billie, she wore a dark blue Barleywine T-shirt under her light-colored apron.
    He turned fast to grin fiercely at Billie, who, standing too close behind him, took a step backward. But she said bravely, “I also think you should go home, Ryan.” Her voice was hard and tight.
    “Why? My money’s as good as anyone’s!” he said.
    “Because you’re drunk.” Billie looked around Ryan at Leona. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to serve him any liquor.”
    “I haven’t sold him a beer all evening,” said Leona.
    Joey Mitchell called from back in the booth, “My fault!”
    Ryan executed, badly, a complicated bow toward Joey. “An’ I . . . I thank you.”
    “Plus,” said Leona to Billie, “you’re the one who invited him.”
    “He told me he quit drinking.”
    “An’ you ’nvited me to talk ’bout the fire truck,” said Ryan. “So now what, you gonna try an’ throw me out, Billie Leslie Lesbian?”
    Billie, who was in fact married and a grandmother, said, “You want me to call the cops like we did last time you were drunk in here?”
    “You an’ what army?”
    “Awwww, Ryan, why don’t you go home and sleep it off?” growled the largest of the three men occupying bar stools.
    Ryan, without warning and with amazing swiftness, struck the man on his shoulder hard enough to knock him off the stool. This made the other two men climb down and back into a corner, where they stood on reluctant alert for a brawl.
    Leona suddenly had a very small baseball bat in her hand.
    Lars rose from his place at the committee table but just stood behind his chair, watching.
    Billie reached into an apron pocket. “That’s it, I’m calling the cops right now,” she announced, bringing out a cell phone.
    “Now wait, now wait, I ain’t done nuthin’!” shouted Ryan. “It was a accident! Anyway, it was self-defense! You put that away, jus’ gimme a beer and we’ll forget, forget all about it.” He bent to help the fallen man to his feet. “There, see? No harm done.”
    “Don’t touch me!” said the man, but not loudly, shrugging off Ryan’s hands. He backed away to join his companions in the corner.
    “Go home, Ryan,” counseled Leona.
    “I can’t. An’ you know I can’t,” he said, his voice suddenly turning sad.
    “Why not?”
    “The wife threw me out.”
    Betsy, sitting in riveted silence with the rest of the committee, had forgotten that. She had seen his wife at church two Sundays ago, sorrowful and angry, two shamed-looking little girls with her. It was enough to make a person think prohibition wasn’t such a bad thing.
    Ryan was saying, “Come on, gimme, gimme a beer. Jus’ one ver’ little one?”
    “No,” Leona said. She had put the bat down but not away. “Where are you staying?”
    “In Shelly Donohue’s basement. Got a nice room down there.”
    Betsy was shocked to hear this. Shelly was a local school teacher who also worked part-time in Crewel World. The “nice room” was doubtless Shelly’s sewing room. Who had persuaded Shelly to let him stay there? Betsy could not imagine Shelly volunteering to