Cataract City Read Online Free PDF

heavier’n wood, that’s for sure.”
    As soon as Hillicker said it, I knew he was right. The truth was there in Mr. Diggs’ eyes. “I don’t … didn’t think …” he stammered. “You’re saying there’s some rule against …”
    I’d never seen a full-grown man struggle so badly with his words. He shrunk two full sizes right there in the dusty gym.
    Adam Lowery snatched Dunk’s car off the track and handed itto his dad. Mr. Lowery flipped it over and scratched its black finish with a pocketknife.
    “Mmm-hmm,” he said. He sunk the knife’s tip in and popped off a square of carpenter’s putty. Out fell a cube of solid metal, landing with a metallic
clink
. In the ensuing silence you could have heard an ant trundle across the wooden floor.
    “You
cheat
,” Adam said to Dunk. He pointed at Mr. Diggs and said: “Cheaters, the both of you.”
    A collective gasp went round from one boy to another. You could rag another boy about his weight or the fact his mom made him wear suspenders or just about anything, really, but you never,
ever
ragged on a grown man—especially to accuse him of cheating. Even if it appeared that was exactly what he’d done.
    Mr. Diggs spoke in a thick, choked voice. “My son didn’t know a thing about it.”
    “You can only use what comes in the kit,” our leader said softly. “Plus paint and varnish. Did you read the instructions?”
    Mr. Diggs ran the flat of one hand over his flushed face. Dunk was gripping his other hand so hard that his fingertips had turned white.
    “I guess I didn’t. Not properly.”
    “Cheating at a Kub Kar Rally,” Mr. Lowery said. “Jesus, Jerry. Of all the skunky—”
    “Just a second now, Stan,” my father said. “The wheels on your son’s car are thin as pizza cutters. Been bevelled, haven’t they? You shaved them down right fine—or your boy did.”
    Mr. Lowery’s lips pressed into a thin white line. His fingers twitched below the worn hem of his deerskin jacket.
    “Well?” my father said to our leader. “Is that legal?”
    After a moment our leader said: “Strictly speaking, no.”
    “You can’t mean …” Mr. Lowery said. “The wheels are right out in the open. You can
see
them.”
    “I wasn’t going to say anything, but rules are rules,” my dad said. “That’s something I learned in a book, Stan.”
    The rally was won by Kevin Harley, who’d come in third. Kevin’s father kissed the stupid trophy and held it above his head, beaming, as if he’d just won the Stanley Cup.
    Afterwards I overheard some of the other fathers talking about Duncan.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree …
    Two weeks after the rally, as spring shaded into an early summer, the Eastern Wrestling Alliance returned to town.
    The Memorial Arena was filling by the time I showed up with my father. I pushed through the turnstile, pulling on Dad’s hand like a dog straining against its leash. Dad was still in his work clothes, tie hanging from his neck like a wet noose.
    “Come
on
, Dad.”
    “Hold your horses, Dutchie.”
    The ring was bathed in a halo of light thrown by a mesh-enclosed lamp burning above. Dunk waved at us from the fifth row, wearing his Bruiser Mahoney T-shirt.
    “We had front row but we couldn’t save enough seats,” he told me.
    “You could’ve stayed,” I said.
    “Nah,” he said. “Better to sit together.”
    The curtain-jerker was between Disco Dirk and the Masked Assassin. Dirk swivelled his hips and preened for the ladies, which was wasted effort seeing as there weren’t more than a handful of them there. The Assassin caught Dirk with a pumphandle slam and pinned him, much to everyone’s relief.
    A few more matches, then an intermission. We stood in line at the concession stand. Further back stood Mr. Lowery and Mr. Hillicker with their sons. Mr. Lowery jutted his chin at my father and said something to Mr. Hillicker; their dark laughter drifted up the queue.
    Our fathers bought two draft beers