Melt Read Online Free PDF

them iron gates.
    Them gates
    they were made for locking
    people like you
    out.
    Them gates are there to keep Doll
    safe
    from
    you.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Yeah.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â It’s like Pop says.
    He says people like
    me
    if we make it past twenty
    we wind up with steel bars of our own. There just ain’t no mansions behind them.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â It’s us that’s behind them locked up nice and
    snug.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Actually, I’m ahead of schedule. Call me precocious.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â I already got a little taste of the future,
    courtesy
    of
    Pop.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â I get the picture in my
    head
    so fast
    before I can even tell myself
    not
    to go
    there.
    Don’t matter.
    This memory ain’t
    nothing compared to
    some.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â There we are in
    court.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Again.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â â€˜Cept this time it’s not family court.
    This
    time on account of my
    age and the
    severity
    of my
    crime
    this time this
    time
    this time
    I made the major league. The criminal courthouse in Mineola.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â The routine in courthouses is everyone stands ‘round the halls and waiting rooms making deals and whatnot to save the court’s time.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â That’s what we always did before but
    not
    this
    time.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â This time they keep me
    separate.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â This time they haul my ass down the hall in cuffs like I’m some
    big
    shot
    criminal. There’s no one else around. Get this: they cleared the area first. Apparently I’m some
    maniac
    they gotta protect the world from.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Suddenly I’m the bogeyman.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â They lead me right through
    no
    man’s
    hall
    my hands are pulled behind my back
    steel’s snapped ‘round my wrists.
    I’m so used to the position it’s kind of comforting. I got my fingers linked together it’s like I’m
    holding
    my own hand.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â The two court officers they walk me one on each arm into some
    puke
    green conference room then they
    uncuff me and I sit in a
    hard metal chair by a rectangle metal table just what I needed
    more steel.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â In follows Mom and my
    lawyer
    chairs scrape back
    they
    sit
    at the table where I
    am. They sit
    by
    me but they don’t
    face
    me. Mom I guess she’s ashamed
    of me
    of her.
    My lawyer
    who the hell knows what his
    problem
    is. He’s sitting there all smug in his camel hair coat or some
    shit
    too good for his client I guess. Then
    Pop
    marches in all stiff and coply like a pole’s up his butt he comes in he stands next to the flag.
    I look past him out the window but all I can see from my poor angle is
    gray
    sky
    and the top of this sad tree its gnarly twiggy branches are all naked. Old Mother Nature that bitch she stripped its leaves right
    off
    it.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â The Assistant DA rolls in he’s this
    puny
    guy trying to be
    big
    in a navy pinstripe suit. He
    thunks
    his broad briefcase
    down on the table
    click
    click
    unsnaps it open
    hauls out my record.
    I got a sheet of priors that just keeps on
    giving. There’s
    fights there’s drunk and
    disorderly there’s smoking
    bud on school
    grounds and wait
    there’s
    more.
    It’s all petty b.s. I never hurt no one that bad at least
    up
    â€˜til
    now.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â I didn’t even mean to hurt no one
    this
    time
    not like this
    not to put the dude in no coma.
    He just got in
    my face
    he wouldn’t go away. Who told that
    prick
    to get in my face
    like
    that?
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Pop’s
    standing tall
    by the stars and stripes
    he’s in his
    neat
    blue
    uniform
    shiny badge attached. He don’t look at me
    neither
    not that I want him to.
    Suddenly the sun casts through the window look at that it
    broke
    through the gray
    it lands a ray right