Homesick Read Online Free PDF

get awful carefree drinking coffee?
    I did my final buff and was off. Knocked on the door but the television was roaring so loud you couldn’t have heard cannonsfired off in the hallway. So I walked in. It’s not often you get treated to a scene like that, Pooch in her easy-chair, still in a housecoat in the middle of the afternoon, both of her big yellow feet resting on a hassock spread with newspapers and her three sheets to the wind. Giggling and holding a glass of liqueur with her pinky out. I suppose she thought the extended pinky made her look gracious and was the accepted way to sip Drambuie out of a Melmac mug that had been the bonus offer in a box of dish soap.
    “Don’t tickle! Don’t tickle!” I can hear her crying it now in her phoney girlish voice.
    The two boys on their knees around the hassock, snorting with laughter, painting Pooch’s toenails. Each with his tiny brush. Daniel doing the left foot in pink; Lyle the right in red. And Pooch so far gone she had no idea that with her legs drawn up like that on the hassock the boys could see clear up her housecoat. And her without panties on.
    “Don’t tickle! Don’t tickle!” It was enough to make your stomach turn. I’d never have believed it of Daniel, scooting a peek. I could hardly believe it of Lyle, who a moment before I’d have said couldn’t have fallen any lower in my estimation and now had. What boy with a shred of decency in him would laugh and think it funny to have his friend look at that?
    “What do they think of us?” I caught myself saying aloud. “It can’t be this, can it?”
    I better leave all that now. Dragging it up only makes my head hurt worse. Two aspirins every two hours for two days and not a bit of improvement. I swear these temples of mine are a pair of blacksmith’s anvils.
    Here comes the medical student up the aisle. Even doctors have to pee, although they never look it. No harm in a friendly smile to establish there’s another human on this godforsaken contraption.
    The young man returned Vera’s smile. He even hesitated by her seat. He looked as if he wished to begin a conversation but didn’t dare.
    Now that’s a nice smile. Not brassy. A nice smile like that comes from taking proper care of your teeth. But he’s shy. You can tell that.
    “Buses. What a way to fly,” Vera said.
    The young man kept smiling, picked at his tie clasp with the nail of his index finger. “You don’t like buses?” he asked diffidently.
    “Do I look like I’d like buses?”
    He did not reply. Only stood swaying in the aisle, watching her.
    Vera waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she finally inquired, “Going far?”
    “Oh, not very.”
    Another moment of silent awkwardness. “Well, I won’t keep you,” said Vera, a little disappointed. “Have a nice trip.”
    “Thank you. You, too.”
    Yet on the way back from his visit to the toilet the young man paused by her seat. He had steeled himself to speak. “Ma’am,” he began hesitantly. “Ma’am, I couldn’t help noticing when you spoke … well, I thought maybe you had a problem. I think I have something that might help.”
    “Why yes,” said Vera, surprised, “as a matter of fact I do. I have this terrible …” But already the young man was gone, headed back to his seat.
    Imagine him spotting that. That I had a headache. Of course, they’re trained to spot symptoms. Now he’s off to get some new painkiller out of his bag, a sample probably. The drug company salesmen are always pushing samples on them.
    He was back and clearly excited now, shyness evaporated. “I knew it. I had a feeling. I could tell.” He thrust something at Vera. A pamphlet. She took it. Stared at a bold type headline. TIRED ? SICK ? BROKE ? JESUS IS THE ONE FAIL-PROOF REMEDY .
    “You know,” said the young man eagerly, “I never thought the Lord would make use of me to proclaim Him so soon, this being my first field mission. But, ma’am, if you would allow me to sit beside