Miles Read Online Free PDF Page A

everybody around us was suspicious of something.
    "I
would have thought commuting to school five days a week would be quite enough
for anyone.  Do not tell me you wanted to see the Dracula film that
badly!"  Nicolasha stayed close at my side as we walked to the
stoplight together while my eyes stared at the train station across the street,
as if its terminus were Treblinka.  
    Nicolasha
patted my shoulder, drawing me back to him.  "So?  How did you
like the film?"  
    "I
love all those Hammer Films!  That wasn't a very good one,
though."  His nose and ears were red from the chill, and his hair was
its usual mess.  His face looked so kind and happy, sticking out from the
plump woolen scarf wrapped around his neck.  "I'm glad I saw it, all
the same."   
    "So
am I.  At University, we all used to stay up to watch them on late-night
TV.  I like the Frankenstein movies best."
    I
laughed.  "Besides, stuff like that never plays out where I live, and
I wanted to get out of the house."  My teacher noticed the slight
change of tone and expression as I mentioned home.  His eyes looked sadly
into mine.  I think he understood...  something.
    "Are
you enjoying this very Russian weather?"
    "It's
OK."  I looked at my Dad's hand-me-down Omega watch, a neat golden
job with a worn but elegant brown leather band that was a souvenir from my
rather quiet fourteenth birthday.  The boxcars would be arriving in a few
minutes.  I avoided Nicolasha's baby-blue eyes, but not the feel of his
hands on my shoulders.  
    "I
can tell something is bothering you, little friend."  Friend. 
Damn.  I had never thought of Nicolasha as a friend.  I guess my only
other friends were the guys I played baseball with during the summer.  We
hung out after our games, and I got invited to all their houses for barbecues
and sleepovers and birthdays, but when we finished playing, I mostly just went
home.  Damn.  "Would you like to go someplace and talk about
it?  The lake is just there.  Or perhaps over some warm
tea?" 
    Two
pedestrians hustled past us into the street, cutting off a station wagon in the
middle of a turn.  I shook my head and glared at the pavement. 
"I don't usually talk about stuff like that, with anybody."  I
suddenly felt very empty again.  It never occurred to me to talk to anyone
about how I felt.  It always seemed safer to keep it in and wait for my
thoughts to go away.
    "I
know what you mean.  That is why I listen to so much music." 
Nicolasha sighed.  "It is much easier than trying to say all the
things I want to say, and the music never talks back or argues.  It just
listens to my heart, and makes me feel better.  After all, it is hard to
find somebody who you want to talk to, and wants to listen, at the same
time."
    "No
shit."  I watched my train roll to a halt on the platform up ahead,
looking packed, as usual.  Oh, well, I mused, there would always be the
next one.  "I guess that's what parents are supposed to be
for."  Or the next one after that.
    "And
yours are not?"  
    "I
don't know.  I've never tried to find out."  Well, you know,
booking months in advance for a heart-to-heart can really be hard for a
sixteen-year-old, even an intelligent one like I used to think I was. 
What would I have said, anyway?  Ask my Dad what he thought a good dad
was?  Or why I didn't think he was a very good one, nowadays?  Ask my
Mom how to love people?  Or why I wasn't sure she could answer that
question anymore?  To hell with that.  I'd rather have just gone to
bed, maybe cried a little bit, and hoped I forget everything by the next
morning.  I felt like I wanted to cry right then, too, damn it.
    Nicolasha
wrapped an arm inside of mine and turned us around, heading back toward the
city dusk.  The creepy orange street lights had switched on.  I
missed the plain white ones the city used to have.  He pointed to a small
storefront a block down from the movie theater.  "They have an
excellent used record