Gentlemen Read Online Free PDF Page A

punishment restores that balance. It is yin and yang or action and reaction, but is it true? Isn’t it all just an idea? Couldn’t you look at it differently? The crime changes things—a house that was standing is now burned down—and the punishment changes things more—a man that was free is now in jail. Excuse me, a man who was free. Is that more in balance or more out of balance? A case could be made either way. Ideas can be linked to one another, and they can also be at odds with one another. To an extent, everyone must be their own judge, their own jury. Think about that as you read this book. How does it apply to Raskolnikov? What is his conception of crime? Does it change over the course of the book?”
    I was thinking, How does it apply to who? I looked at the clock and it was a little more than ten minutes to go before lunch, and that ten minutes went pretty much the same way. Haberman did the talking, and now he was talking about this dude Raskolnikov. It made me think of rascal, a word my gramps used to use. A minute or so to go and a few people actually raised their hands. Again, it wasn’t something that happened much in here. Haberman picked Max, and Max goes, “So what’s in the barrel anyway?”
    Haberman curled his mouth up into half a smile, spread his hands, and said, “Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you think is in there, well, then that is what’s in there. Inevery way that matters, the contents are in your mind, not in the barrel.”
    Which is the same crap he’d been saying all class and not an answer. One more example of why we didn’t raise our hands much.
    When the bell finally went off, he gave us our homework, adding another twenty-five pages to the twenty-five none of us had read the night before. We figured we’d find a one-page wrap-up of the book on the Internet before the test. Bones found a pretty good site for those last time. I didn’t need it for that one, because I’d seen the movie, but I figured I’d check it out for this one. I didn’t think there was a movie of Crime and Punishment. I hadn’t heard of one, anyway. Maybe there was an old one, but I didn’t watch any of that black-and-white crap.

2
    We grabbed our stuff quick. Haberman’s class was a haul from the cafeteria, and you didn’t want to be at the end of the line and have to stand there forever like a tool. We’d sort of formed up around my desk, you know, assembling Strike Force Delta, but just as we were heading out, Haberman was like, “You three, Benton, Bonouil, and Malloy, a moment, please.”
    That’s me, Bones, and Mixer, and we gave each other a quick look. We hadn’t done squat and had no idea what this was about. It turned out he wanted help getting the stupid barrel out to his car. That still didn’t answer the question of why us, and as the others pushed past you could see they were looking at us and thinking the same thing. He shouldn’t have been allowed to just jack our lunch like that, but if we walked out, we’d be the ones in trouble.
    Haberman was either lucky or good, because if he’d askedjust me, I’d just as likely’ve said no thanks and taken my chances. If I end up in detention with Tommy, then I end up in detention with Tommy. I knew the way. If Tommy was suspended already, well, then I’d be a full step up the ladder from him. Mixer probably would’ve done the same thing. Bones might or might not’ve. He was on the brink of failing in here. English is a core class and no one wanted to do tenth again, especially Bones. He’d already failed a grade once. The first time we met him was his second try at fourth grade.
    He was pretty different back then. He was still called Gerard, for one, and he wasn’t so angry. I mean, he was ten, and there’s only so angry a ten-year-old is going to be. He was just hyper and a year older than