Dues of Mortality Read Online Free PDF

in the twelve o'clock position. What
a shock , he thought. Something else he couldn’t do
right. “Well, if at first you don’t succeed,” he
said and stuck the barrel in his mouth.
    Again,
nothing happened. But this time it was definitely his fault.
Apparently, attempting to fire a bullet into your head leaves you
kind of drained after the first try. Now, he could more easily push
an elephant uphill than pull the trigger. He needed a drink, he
thought...or a nap; something, anything that rendered him as close to dead as possible. He gazed over,
once more, to the glassless window. The rain had stopped and a
brusque wind had cleansed some of the house of its foulness, stirring
up a hunger for fresh air. He shoved the gun back into his pocket,
coerced himself to his feet, and trudged out of the house, patting at
the hard metal bulge. Don’t
worry. Next time, we’ll get it right .

Chapter 5

    Glenda
Jameson had been up since 6:30 a.m. pounding the pastel pavement.
She’d filled out four applications, roamed through a half-dozen
office buildings and left her references at the regional employment
agency, before ending her morning with a resentful trip through a
pricey downtown grocer. Stupid-ass ,
she thought, cursing herself. A painful heel spur had instigated the
most exceptional course of self-invectives this morning. As did the
calls to her parents to borrow money and the unpaid bill that got her
comwatch cut off. But most of all, she cursed the sex! Stupid ! Stupid! Stupid ! From
the very night she lost her virginity to Gunner, the golden-blonde
dishwasher with the ass of an Olympic swimmer, Glenda promised
herself never to regret giving her body to a man. And never to fall
into the trappings of making her virtue a puritanical treasure hunt.
Gunner had been the one who ingeniously brought Glenda to her first
orgasm resulting from a team effort, revealing sex as something to be cherished and appreciated as
a human being, not feared and repudiated as a woman. Now, for the
first time, she wished she could trade in her vagina for a newer
model, or at least for one that hadn’t been with that
man !
    If
it weren't for the weekend birthday getaways in the Poconos and the
trips to the Caribbean that were so...“Oh, just forget about
it, girl,” Glenda thought out loud. “They’re a dime
a dozen.” Besides, she couldn’t have stayed at her old
job. SiPlus was really circling the drain thanks to Peter, or
“Simple” Simonton as he was referred to in the lines at
the unemployment office. Or was it just Peter “Simpleton?”
Either would do, given that so many people were going to have
problems putting food on the table because of one man’s
obsession with having it all. What was he thinking? There were
thirty-year veterans at that plant. The union was never going to
stand for the ax being taken to their benefits like that; naturally,
they were going to strike.
    Glenda
picked up her pace as the groans and growls of an empty stomach
deafened her to the bustle of street and pedestrian traffic alike.
She couldn't wait to strip off her high collared blouse and
conservative business skirt and slip into her tank top and jeans. No
more buses , she thought joyfully. She’d get her
Civic out of the shop at four and be on her well-deserved, lone
girl’s night out by 4:15. She waded through the harried clumps
of downtowners and the annoying holographic salespeople floating in
storefronts offering her perfume samples and free makeovers. Rounding
the corner of another building, she collided with an adolescent
powerboarder blatantly ignoring the powerboard prohibition signs
posted every other block. The boy glided off and left her with no
more of an acknowledgment than a heartfelt “whoops” and a
squished loaf of raisin bread. As she picked herself up, she glimpsed
an apartment window across from her, its curtain seeming to whip
closed almost defensively. Not that she could be certain of what she
was seeing from that distance