Brighton Read Online Free PDF

leaf with that bat in my hands, praying to Christ they didn’t hit the ball my way in the field. Course they always did.”
    “You were a professional boxer, Shuks.”
    “Boxing’s nothing but a fistfight. No time to think about what can go wrong. Baseball’s different.” He tapped his temple with a knobby finger. “Gotta have it up here. Grace under pressure.”
    “You think I got that?”
    “I know you do. Now, don’t be getting a big head or nothing.”
    “I won’t.”
    Shuks’s chuckle was full of love and smoke and whiskey. “I know. I’m just giving you a hard time.” He licked the side of ham he called a thumb and turned a page to the racing section. “Now, let me see if I can’t make us a few shekels.”
    Kevin watched him mark up the page with a black pen, hesitantto say anything more because it was quiet and peaceful and safe with Shuks and it wasn’t always that way. He took a final drag on the Lucky, crushing it in a tin ashtray and blowing out twin engines of smoke, then stretching his arms over his head and cracking his jaw in a ferocious yawn. Shuks had black rocks for teeth and precious few of those. Kevin remembered the night he’d seen one pulled. It happened at the same table where they were sitting now. Kevin was eight and had snuck into the back of the low-lit room. His great-uncle was slumped in a chair, rag stuffed in his jaw and a bottle of Paddy’s on the table. Three of his brothers sat in a shiftless row along the wall. Kevin’s gram stood over Shuks, a long, red-handled plumber’s wrench in one hand. Shuks pulled out the rag and took a belt of whiskey. Then he nodded and Kevin’s grandmother didn’t wait. One of the brothers turned away as she worked the pliers. The other two watched and winced. She slipped once, ran her upper teeth over her lower lip, and got a better grip. Shuks’s huge blue eye never left her, big man’s hands twitching by his side, left foot tapping out a beat. Kevin remembered the god-awful crack and belly moan. Then the pliers were back on the table—rotting tooth, horned roots and all, in their gory maw. Shuks spit blood and went hard for the bottle. Kevin’s grandmother sat down in a chair, slightly out of breath, and reached for her cigarettes. That was when she noticed Kevin. His eyes must have been as wide as the world because she hustled him out of the room, swearing he’d go to a dentist when the time came and to forget what he’d seen. Fat chance. Kevin’s first trip to Dr. Foster ended when he gave the dentist a busted lip. Kevin’s mom was mortified. Shuks had been proud as all hell and told him he had a good right hand. Kevin studied the creases in his great-uncle’s face, suddenly desperate to commit them tomemory for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom. Shuks turned another page in his Herald and made some more notes.
    “Got a nice one today, kid. Three fifteen at Suffolk.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Kevin crowded closer.
    “Name’s Gun Hill. He’s been out for a couple of months with an injury. Dropping down into the claimers for the first time.”
    “Horse belongs in the fucking glue factory.”
    Shuks and Kevin looked up as one. Bobby was slouched in the doorway, wearing faded jeans and a Sox sweatshirt, black hair curling and still wet from the shower. He came over to the table and picked up the pack of cigarettes. Bobby shook one out and stuck it behind his ear.
    “What do you know about Gun Hill?” Shuks said, grabbing his smokes off the table.
    “Stay away from him, Shuks.” Bobby winked at Kevin, turned around one of the chairs, and sat down. “You already owe Fingers a hundred for the piece of shit you bet on last week.” In addition to driving cabs, Bobby hustled part-time for a local bookie named Fingers. “On top of that, you owe another twenty for the nigger pool from last week.”
    “Speaking of which . . .” Shuks pulled off an enormous lump of black boot and fished out a slip of paper he’d stuck in the