Original Sins Read Online Free PDF Page A

Raymond sneaked off. The others saw him by the magazine rack, and with a smirk he gestured to Donny and Jed. Soon all three were pointing and giggling. Emily and Sally wandered over. Raymond flipped the magazine shut in their faces. But not before Emily and Sally caught a glimpse of some naked ladies.
    They walked out of the newsstand and across the green in front of the red-brick courthouse. On the wall of the courthouse were bronze plaques bearing the names of all the men from Cherokee County who had died in the two world wars. And outside the doorway was a statue of a Confederate soldier holding a bayoneted rifle, which had been sold to the county right after Reconstruction by a salesman from a Vermont granite company. Traditionally, The Five saluted as they passed. This day Donny kept his hands in his shorts pockets.
    â€œYou forgot to salute,” Jed told him.
    â€œDon’t feel like it.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œJust don’t.”
    The five had worked all morning collecting soft drink bottles in the mill village and hauling them to the store in a wagon. They gave a penny of the refund per bottle to the person who donated it and kept a penny for themselves, trying to amass entrance fees to the Majestic Theatre matinee Thing from Another Planet. At one house, a peeling wooden box on cinder blocks, a woman in a torn housedress came to the door with a squalling baby on her hip. She asked Raymond, “Is these here the Prince gals?” He nodded. She yelled at them, “No, I ain’t got no bottles for you! You go tell that daddy of yours to give his gals some of the money he stole from Mrs. Harmon’s husband! You tell him that!”
    The Five ran down her sidewalk, dragging their red wagon.
    â€œWhat’s she talking about?” Emily demanded. “Our father would never steal.”
    â€œAh, old lady Harmon, she just crazy,” Jed assured her.
    As they hauled the wagon to the store, Jed picked up a Coke bottle and said, amazed, “Look, this here bottle’s from over at Egypt.” He pointed to the “Cairo” embossed on the bottom.
    Raymond snatched it, looked at it, and tossed it into the wagon. “Cairo, Illinois, dummy.”
    â€œIt is not,” Jed insisted. “How do you know? You think you’re so smart just because you’re in the seventh grade.”
    â€œI sure know more than a dumb fifth-grader. Egypt! Boy, are you dumb!”
    Leaving behind the Confederate soldier, Donny began balancing along the curb, Yo-Yoing. The others balanced and Yo-Yoed along behind him.
    â€œI ain’t never been to no downtown theater,” Donny remarked over his shoulder.
    â€œYou ain’t?” Jed asked. “How come?”
    â€œGrandmaw, she say stay where the white folks wants you at. Anyhow, most ever movie here comes out to Pine Woods.”
    They ducked into Woolworth’s, packed themselves into the photo booth, closed the curtain, and inserted a quarter. The pictures that emerged showed five faces in snarls and grimaces, some with tongues sticking out, or thumbs in ears and fingers waggling. In one, Raymond was holding up his middle finger. They cut the strip apart, each taking one picture.
    The posters outside the Majestic announced that the Thing in person would be sneaking through the downstairs handing out rewards to anyone brave enough to sit through the movie. They studied the titillating pictures in the glass cases—of terrified men throwing themselves against slowly opening doors, while buxom blonde women shrieked in the background.
    When The Five bought tickets and started for the doors, the bouffanted, gum-chewing woman in the booth yelled, “Hey, colored boy! Yes, you. You know you can’t go in that there door. Get up them steps to the balcony, hear? Don’t you go getting smart on me.”
    â€œHe’s with us,” Raymond assured her.
    â€œHoney, I wouldn’t care if he was with Jesus