Hard Play Read Online Free PDF Page A

grimace. It was worse than the grimy hobo scarfing down snack food like it was his last meal. Next in the row was a more-than-skinny girl covered in tattoos fidgeting with her short curls as she stared out the window. Her neck looked too thin beneath her thick hair and her head swayed back and forth as though it were trying to redistribute the weight. If you saw that skinny stick of a girl sitting where she was, next to that lard-ass, you couldn’t help but wonder why they weren’t sharing trade secrets on their awful lifestyles. But they didn’t talk to one another; she sat silently and he couldn’t stop chewing.
    As the fat man dropped the last of his crumbs into his mouth, he stood and turned, his eyes on the table of food. He moved to the back of the room and Frank grabbed another doughnut before it could disappear down the fat man’s throat. Frank was right, the man grabbed a paper plate, shoved a doughnut in his mouth and piled his plate high with the last of them. No one else was getting any doughnuts.
    He turned to Frank with a mouthful and said, “New?”
    Frank nodded and tipped his paper cup of coffee. It took a bit of restraint to keep from ripping the man apart for being such a slob. Sloppiness was just one of those things that rubbed Frank the wrong way.
    The man shrugged, smiled from behind the doughnut pinched in his lips and returned to his seat.
    Finishing his coffee, Frank looked at the clock. Whoever was supposed to be running this meeting was already fifteen minutes late. First time I show and this is what I get. He decided to give them a few more minutes and moved to the coffee pot for a refill. Just as his cup had filled to the brim, the door beside him burst open and the man in corduroy, the drunk from the lot, spilled into the room. He knocked into Frank with a belch and sent the lukewarm coffee spraying up Frank’s shirt with a splash.
    “Sorry,” he breathed into Frank’s face. His breath was ripe and stank with the scent of cheap vodka. “You here for the meeting?”
    Frank stared down on the man, his eyes narrowing as he threw his doughnut in the trash and wiped lazily at his shirt. The drunk tried to help. He swatted at Frank’s chest and hands, mostly just getting in the way.
    “Mm-hmm,” Frank said with a scowl. With one final swat at the man’s hands Frank asked, “You?”
    “Yeah, just give me a minute,” the guy said through a burp. “I’ll get started. Let me just get some of this.”
    He pushed through Frank to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup, spilling most of it on the beige tile below. Shakily, the drunk brought the cup to his lips and took a careful sip. Frank glared and ripped a handful of napkins from the table and dabbed at his chest with a bit more force than needed.
    “Ever one,” the drunk blurted, raising his voice above the murmur of chitchat. “Seas, pleats.”
    Frank’s jaw practically fell as he realized this drunk, this reeking excuse for a man, this bum that still had dirt on his slacks from the startle he got while sneaking a drink out front, who could barely get the proper words out of his stinking mouth—this was the man planning to help these people. What did he think? That somehow, through that haze of vodka, he could persuade these folks into steering clear of the very spirits he couldn’t avoid himself? Frank scoffed out loud and lit one of his Pall Malls. At first, only the fat man noticed, turning his nose up at the sudden burst of burning tobacco in the back of the room.
    Then the skinny girl turned. She was pretty enough. Too skinny beneath all that white make-up and her short hair only drew more attention to her sharp features and downturned nose. She saw Frank’s cigarette smoldering and followed suit. She brought an extra-long and extra-thin Virginia Slims to her lips and, with the flick of a match, she was smoking too. The room was quickly filling with a thin haze that reminded Frank of the pre-1995 California smoking ban. He