Losing Graceland Read Online Free PDF

more like a customized Hyundai, if Hyundais had any sort of edgy appeal.
    Passing headlights lit the old man’s eyes. “Where are we?” he asked.
    “Near Ashland,” Ben said.
    “Where’s Ashland?”
    “Ohio.”
    “You been driving long?”
    “Four hours.”
    “I had a dream.” The old man rubbed his face. “Saw myself lying in my grave and the preacher was laughing.”
    Ben thought about Jessica. Two months before the end. Before she left for college and made him regret every moment he’d spent with her, cursed every time he’d deluded himself into believing they’d be together forever like some ridiculous young couple in a fifties movie. For fuck’s sake, she was a virgin before they met—did he seriously think she’d stay with him? That they’d get
married
?
    Yes. And he knew it made him sound like a douche bag, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never had a girlfriend that hot. He considered himself average in every respect. Average height, average looks, average straight brown hair. With Jessica he felt like the star of his own movie. Like everyone was watching. Watching her sleep in his bed when the lights were low, candle reflection glowing softly on the baby fat of her cheeks.
    It had been a big deal the first time Jessica spent the night at his apartment. She’d lied to her parents and told them she was going camping with her best friend, Mindy. Ben bought candles and put on some Miles Davis, bought a framed Brando poster forthe living room and a Klimt poster for his room, bought goat cheese, and crackers made from organic wheat, dusted with French sea salt.
    She arrived with an overnight bag. Frayed cutoff shorts, tight plum-colored tank, blond hair in a ponytail. Lips glistening, eyes bright and wet. Patrick flirted with her a little, and she flirted back in the way all high school girls flirt with college guys. Ben finally corralled her into his room. She ate some cheese and told him she hated jazz. They talked for hours. He couldn’t remember what they talked about. Any discussion of high school was taboo. They ran out of things to say, then fucked, and when they finished Ben sat up and stared at her. She told him to stop staring. He asked why and she said, Because it’s weird.
    Jessica woke around seven A.M . She kept asking if he thought her mom knew she’d lied. She complained she didn’t smell like a campfire because everyone smells like a campfire after a night of camping. She fell into an immature bad mood, the high-schoolgirl pout, the unwillingness to relax and take a few puffs or fuck until you felt better. Her childish anger seemed to Ben a vestigial limb.
    He dropped her off at Mindy’s. A peck on the lips, then Ben shuddered as he watched Jessica sprint up Mindy’s driveway. He drove back and crashed on the couch, waking up to Patrick taking hits from his three-liter Coke bong. They ate lunch in their grungy kitchen, sitting at a table covered in dirty dishes and pizza boxes.
    Patrick cracked the end of a chicken wing and munched on the charred marrow. He smiled at Ben.
    You two had fun last night?
    We did, Ben said. Many times.
    A blonde with small feet and big tits, Patrick said. How did you ever land someone like her?
    Ben glared, and Patrick laughed.
    Are you
angry
? For real?
    Ben said nothing.
    Bet you she can suck her own nipples. Does she suck her own nipples?
    He shoved Patrick. The box of wings toppled, bones spilling. Patrick shoved Ben back, half smiling. They grappled and rolled into the living room, and it ended when Ben punched Patrick in the mouth, his lip parting like a wet paper towel. Blood poured down the front of Patrick’s shirt, onto his jeans, onto the brown carpet.
    What the uck?
Patrick had screamed.
Asshole. Ucking asshole
.
    “Stop at the first bar you see,” the old man said. “I’m in the mood for something fried.”
    Ben had called Jessica from the hospital. She was taking a day trip to Toronto because she’d applied to college at UT.
    Why