Now Is the Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

moved the mirror just right so I could see forever, something looked differnt. I was probably as ugly as ever, but for some reason, after all that’s happened over the past two years, and because I was leaving this fucking place, it was amazing.
    Not just differnt. I looked
good.
    Tilted my hat, gave myself in the mirror a big Jimmy Durante smile.
    Things looked differnt if you were never going to see them again.
    I was never going to see myself in that mirror again.
    Or see the window shade I used to pull down so there was just enough space to look in under from outside.
    Sis flushing her Kotex.
    Sis’s hair down there.
    Dad kneeling down at the toilet to pee. Kneeling.
    Dad’s dick.
    Mom putting Johnson and Johnson baby powder under her breasts.
    Mom’s breasts.
    The time I put Mercurochrome in the toilet water and told Mom I’d peed blood because Scardino was going to get me at school.
    All those Saturday night baths we shared the same bath water.
    Never again.
    Never.
    I shut the bathroom light off, opened the door. The way the door sticks.
    Then in the kitchen. Fuck. I couldn’t believe what was in the kitchen. Sitting at the kitchen table.
    I’m sorry it’s too hard. I can’t talk about that right now.
    I’ll have to tell you later.
    I won’t forget. I promise.
    Tramp jumped in the back of the pickup when I started it up.
    My dog, Tramp. Believe me, he was the last thing I wanted to deal with right then. Mostly what I wanted to do was give Tramp a big kick and tell him to get the fuck out of there. But there he sat, his long black hair, smiling, his tongue hanging out. Above each eye was a line of orange hair, and down his nose there was another line of orange, then a patch of red-orange on his chin, and his whiskers were red-orange too. Red-orange hair just on the tips of his ears. Looked like he had a red-orange face on top of his black face.
    His right front paw was red-orange too. That right paw of Tramp’s was really something. He always poked it in the air when you sat down close to him and you cleared your throat and you lowered your voice and you started talking about life, trying to make sense out of it.
    His tongue hung out, he held his lips so you could see his teeth, and that red-orange paw started going to town with the poking, poking. Sometimes I thought I ought to stick a pen between his toes and hold up a piece of cardboard so he could write down in dog language what his paw was trying to say.
    Or stick a baton between his toes and put on some John Philip Sousa so he could poke to beat the band.
    Of course, then there was his tail. Another piece of red-orange.
    When his right paw started poking away, never failed, that tail of his started up too, flip flop flip flop, back and forth, just banging away.
    An endless source of amusement, Tramp and his paw and his tail.
    Can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat myself down next to Tramp,cleared my throat, lowered my voice, and said something like: Tramp, do you think God is dead? Or: Tramp, do you think communism is a threat to the American way of life?
    Sure as hell, Tramp got that look on his face, his tongue came out and he held his mouth so you could see his teeth, and then up went the red-orange paw, poking the air, then his tail, bam bam bam.
    Tramp was just a pup when I found him up at the feedlot. All feet and head and hair. I knew Dad would shoot him so I threw a bunch of gravel at him and called him a son of a bitch, threw more gravel, yelled louder.
    Tramp put his tail between his legs and took off running and yelping.
    I thought for sure he was gone, the way he ran.
    But the next day when I went up to the feedlot, Tramp’s red-orange face over his black face poked out from around the corner of a haystack.
    That’s the first time I sat Tramp down and tried to warn him about Dad. Said: Tramp, it’s probably best for you to get your ass out of Dodge.
    That’s the first time I saw