Going Native Read Online Free PDF

cement, an apparently well-used painter's drop cloth. Under the cloth -- the itch the close semicircle of eyes can't stop scratching -- rests the body, its presence confirmed by the protruding pair of scuffed Nikes, toes pointing pathetically earthward, the thick green laces dangling loose and untied, particles of gray gravel worked into the tread of the soles, detail magnified into a revelation of intimacy Tommy is suddenly quite uncomfortable with. His feelings at the moment too tangled for endurance or examination. All he is sure of is that he must look incredibly stupid trapped in the midst of this crowd, gawking like a tourist fresh off a bus. He moves up nearer to Wylie. "Is that blood?" he whispers.
    "Where?"
    "By his head."
    A cop who appeared at least a decade younger than Tommy and who was sporting sideburns he hadn't seen on a living person in twenty years catches his eyes and looks right inside easy as checking the contents of a boiling pot; he turns away, obviously amused by what he found there. Tommy is flushed with shame.
    Inside the store uniformed police and homicide detectives in designer suits are engaged in solemn conversation with an acne-ridden boy in a red apron and a paper hat. His face exhibits the otherworldly features of someone who's just been unexpectedly photographed with a mighty large flash.
    "What happened?" Tommy asks loudly.
    "I don't know," replies a straw-haired woman in a Metallica T-shirt, clutching two small children. She doesn't bother turning around. "Somebody got shot."
    Tommy leans in on Wylie's ear. "Do you think he's black?" There are no visible skin parts sticking out from under the sheet.
    Wylie simply shrugs his shoulders.
    The air registers an eerie afterodor. . . as of ozone? It can't be healthy lingering out in this lot, absorbing the distinctly unwholesome vibes of a live unprogrammed event. He nudges Wylie's elbow. "Ready?"
    Wylie doesn't respond.
    "No one's getting in. Whaddya wanna do? Wait 'til the meat wagon gets here?"
    Wylie turns to look him full in the face. "Sure."
    Inside the store a cop holding his hat in his hand says something to the others and laughs, displaying a mouthful of astonishingly white teeth. One detective is chugging a pint of chocolate milk, another is munching from a.ripped bag of Eagle potato chips. "Catch this," mutters a voice in the crowd. "They're having a goddamn party." Someone else says, "He got what was coming to him." "Wish I'd a been here," answers another, "woulda helped blow him away." Someone asks the cop with the sideburns to lift the sheet so he can see the "perp's" face. "Move along," says the cop.
    Tommy and Wylie drive over to the 7-Eleven on Melodic Boulevard, where you don't have to step over a corpse to pick up your charcoal. On the way home Wylie is silent. Tommy chatters nervously about how this convenience store calamity parallels events on TV last night except that on the show the grotesque public murders of unrelated strangers turn out to be the nefarious work of a crew of renegade aliens.
    Wylie missed it, he doesn't see the connection anyway. Swinging onto Sunset, he almost clips a paperboy on a bike and blames Tommy for distracting him. As they pull into the driveway, the women whoop and wave like crazy people from their elevated deck seats, delirious as bleacher fans late in the second game of a long doubleheader. Tommy scrambles to get out of the car. "Guess what we saw?" he yells. Behind him Wylie's broad back disappears into the garage.
    Oh, a quiz. The women sit up, assume exaggerated contestant poses.
    "A parade," Gerri guesses.
    "A bad accident," cries Rho.
    Tommy is waggling his head.
    "Naked people!"
    "Clowns! Insane clowns!"
    "A dead body," he intones.
    "No," says Gerri.
    "Yes."
    "No," says Rho.
    "Right in front of the goddamn Feed 'n' Fuel. You should have seen it. We were almost killed, weren't we Wylie?"
    Wylie is rounding the corner, dragging the rusty one-wheeled grill onto the lawn. "Yeah," he agrees.