Dreadful Summit Read Online Free PDF

hot day, and he would say it’s a f–ing hot day and you wouldn’t even notice. Everybody did it, and they laughed at me because I tried not to. I think I was a pretty good kid.
    That’s why I’m glad my father didn’t think about the fights and maybe say something to me about not going. Because I was going to do something he wouldn’t like anyhow, and if he told me straight out not to do it, it would make it that much worse. I would do it even if he told me not to, but it would have been the first time, and I would feel bad about it. This way was much better.
    I stood still for a long time in front of the dresser, but all I heard was a little mumbling and splashing. I was wearing a sweater and I slipped it off. My father and I kept all our clothes in the bedroom closet together, his on the right-hand side, and mine on the left. I swung open the closet door so it wouldn’t squeak and got out a necktie and put it on. Then I got my suit coat out and my overcoat. When I had them on, I took my good hat and bent the brim down in front. Even so, when I peeked in the mirror, it looked like a kid’s hat. I put it back and took out my father’s hat. It was black with a real snap brim, and I looked good in it. Like a man. I knew because I already tried it on.
    When I was all dressed except for some buttons, I looked out in the hall, but everything was okay. I sneaked out as far as the stairs and then I remembered the tickets. It would have been a nice pickle if I went all the way up to Madison Square Garden and didn’t even have a ticket to get in. I went back into the room, grabbed the tickets, and looked at the clock. It was only quarter to nine, so I had plenty of time to get to the fights before they broke up. It would only take ten, fifteen minutes in the Ninth Avenue bus.
    When I got out to the stairs again, I was soaked with sweat through and through. The house was pretty warm, and the coat was heavy, and besides that, I was sick with the feeling I had to go out and get it over with. I felt my face and it felt flaming hot but that was maybe because my hand was all ice-cold and wet. I wondered if I was getting sick with anything serious.
    I went down the stairs on the side by the wall where it wasn’t so squeaky. Even so, the house was so quiet that every step I took sounded like a fire alarm to me. When I got to the bottom it was pitch-black there, so I had to feel around for the door-knob. Once I got the door open it was better, because the night light was on in the bar.
    It was a funny feeling walking through the bar. On the table where I was eating supper was the plate with the steak bone on it and a couple of French fried potatoes. I picked one up but it felt somehow like a dead man’s finger might and I dropped it quick. The book was there too. I picked it up and put it down under the bar where I kept it.
    Then I went to the cash register and opened the big drawer under it. The gun was there all right; I could hear it scrape a little when I pulled the drawer out. I reached it and took it out, and it felt colder and heavier than I could ever remember. It didn’t feel like it could kill anybody. It just felt like a big heavy tool. Like a monkey wrench or something.
    I stuck it in my right-hand overcoat pocket, but the pocket was too small and the butt stuck out. So I pulled it out, and then I remembered I didn’t even look to see if it was loaded. I broke it open the way Flanagan did when he cleaned it, and there were bullets in every chamber. I closed it up, and this time I stuck it into my right-hand pants pocket, because it was pretty big.
    I must have shoved too hard or something, because the next thing I knew there was a rip and the barrel went right through my pants. It felt like a piece of ice rubbing along my leg, and I pulled at it but the front sight must have caught in the pocket because I could hardly get it out, and when I did there wasn’t much