Joe Read Online Free PDF Page B

see if you wanted to eat some lunch. Thought you might want to go out to the Beacon or somewhere.”
     
    “I don’t think there’s any need in that. Do you?”
     
    “It wouldn’t hurt. I’d just like to buy you some lunch.”
     
    She pulled a pencil from beside her ear and opened a drawer at her waist. But she closed the drawer and laid down the pencil.
     
    “I’m not going out with you if that’s what you want.”
     
    “I ain’t said that. Why you want to do me like this?”
     
    “Like what?”
     
    “Won’t talk to me. Won’t even see me.”
     
    “This is not the place to talk about it. You’re not gonna come in here like you did that other time. Mr. Harper’11 call the police if you ever do that again.” She leaned toward him and whispered: “How do you think that made me feel? Everybody in here saw you. I’ve got a good job here.”
     
    “I know you do. I’m proud you do.”
     
    “Then let me do it.”
     
    He raised his hands a little. “Hell, calm down. I just wanted to see you a minute.”
     
    “Well, this is not the place to see me. I’ve got to work.”
     
    “Where is?”
     
    “I don’t know. You want to buy something?”
     
    “Yeah. Gimme a book of stamps.”
     
    She shook her head and reached under the counter.
     
    “You use more stamps than anybody I know.”
     
    “I got me some pen pals now,” he said.
     
    She rolled her eyes and smiled a little. “Sure.”
     
    He pulled out his billfold. “How much is that?”
     
    “Two-fifty for ten or five dollars for twenty.”
     
    “Give me twenty. You need any money?”
     
    “Nope.”
     
    “I can let you have some if you need it.”
     
    “I’m doing fine. I got a promotion and a raise last week.”
     
    “Oh yeah?”
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    “You been out with anybody?”
     
    “None of your business. I wouldn’t tell you if I had. There you are.” She put the little booklet on the counter. He gave her a five dollar bill.
     
    “Let me give you some money,” he said. He had three fifties folded between his fingers and he put them on the counter.
     
    She looked around to see who was watching.
     
    “I’m not taking that. You’d think I owed you something then.”
     
    “You don’t owe me nothin, Charlotte. I’d rather you have it as me. I won’t do nothin but blow it. You don’t want to go eat lunch?”
     
    He had drawn his hands back and the money lay between them. He went ahead and lit a cigarette, turned his head and coughed.
     
    “I can’t right now,” she said. Somebody had moved up behind him. An old woman, he saw, smiling and digging in her purse, shaking her head.
     
    “I been doin real good,” he said. “I ain’t been out in about two weeks.”
     
    “That’s good, Joe. But you can do whatever you want to now.”
     
    “Only thing I want is to see you.”
     
    “I’ve got to get to work now. Take this money,” she said, and she held it out to him.
     
    “I’ll see you,” he said, and he turned and walked out.
     
    On the couch he turned his face to one side and saw the things happening on the television screen without seeing them and heard the words the actors were saying without hearing them. They were like dreams, real but not real. He closed his eyes and it all passed away.
     

They entered over a rotting threshold, their steps soft on the dry dusty boards, their voices loud in the hushed ruins. The floor was carpeted beautifully with vines, thick creepers with red stalks matted and green leaves flourishing up through the cracks. An ancient tricycle sat before the dead ashes of a fireplace whose old rough bricks, ill spaced and losing their homemade mortar, chip by sandy chip, seemed bonded only by the dirt dauber nests that lined the inside. “Looky yonder,” the old woman said, pointing to the tricycle. “Reckon how old that is.”
    In the vault of rafters overhead a screech owl swiveled its head downward like something on greased bearings to better see his