Killing Time in Crystal City Read Online Free PDF

moment.
    â€œI’m going to look forward to that, Uncle.”
    â€œI like your style, boy.”
    â€œI’m glad. And right now, my style says ‘done’ means ‘done.’”
    â€œDone.”
    I run to the bathroom before “done” can try to mean anything else.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Uncle Sydney’s house is very small, and the second bedroom is his office. But it’s a nice little spot with a window overlooking a dusty Little League baseball field, a chain-link cage of an asphalt tennis/basketball court beyond it, and a section of slow narrow waterway beyond that. The couch, being covered in some kind of vinyl leatherette material like practically everything else in the place, needs a lot of sheet, pillow, and blanket help to achieve true comfortability, but we do eventually get it there.
    And once I lay my head down, I crash, plummeting through all layers of consciousness and unconsciousness to the point where my uncle’s knocking on my forehead like a door thirteen hours later still sounds like he’s eight feet away and rapping on the actual door.
    â€œWow,” I say, lying flat and staring up at him as he continues knocking just for kicks.
    â€œYeah, wow. Guess you needed a little nap there.”
    â€œIt was great. Could you stop the knocking now?”
    â€œSure,” he says, straightening up and walking away. “Meet me in the kitchen, breakfast is ready.”
    â€œOh, that’s really thoughtful, but I usually don’t eat till—”
    â€œMost important meal of the day, Kev. So get your ass out here, unless you want to look like that for the rest of your life.”
    He shuts the door behind him with a pop.
    Thanks for that, Syd. I must be clashing with his décor.
    The breakfast that awaits me is a steak so big it has to have been made from more than one cow. It’s covered in sautéed onions and mushrooms and sitting on a bed of raw spinach, with an honor guard of bright red plum tomatoes all around the periphery. Just breathing the air of this kitchen makes me satisfied and stronger.
    â€œWell, you’re not gonna get the color back in your face just by looking at it, Kevin. Sit, boy, eat.”
    â€œThis is a color,” I say, pointing at my face, “and it is my color.” I sit.
    â€œYeah, well there is a cure for it, and this is it,” he says, taking a seat across from me with an identical plate of abundance. “And never mind the color, what’s with the texture? Looks like you had skin grafts or something.”
    â€œJesus, you’re a kind uncle. I had some acne a while back, okay? Doctor said stress probably had a lot to do with it.”
    â€œI don’t doubt it. But what did he treat it with, paint stripper?”
    I feel like the muscles at the back of my neck have just given up entirely. My head falls forward, I am staring at the edge of the table right in front of me, and I have no desire to ever look anywhere else again.
    How is a guy supposed to outrun everything, including his own face?
    Next thing I sense is that my stealthy uncle—he is quiet like a cat burglar when he wants to be—has come around the table, circled behind me, and has his cheek pressed alongside my cheek.
    â€œI’m sorry, Kevin. I was just playing with you. I never had any kids or zits. So I’m kind of an oaf with some things. I’ll get better.”
    His kindness helps, and I feel like raising my head. But I don’t, not until he pulls away from me and I am left with the sensation on my skin, the scent in my nostrils.
    My dad. Every element of that moment for me was crawling with his brother, my father, right down to the opening “I’m sorry, Kevin,” which prefaced so many repairs, so many recoveries.
    He retakes his seat across from me, points his steak knife at my steak, and I think I get his point.
    I start eating, though I cannot envision ever