Resurrection Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

dressed. So she drove to the full service area and shut off the engine.
    Melvin hobbled over to her window, peered in, and tipped his head to one side. His lower eye narrowed. Up close, his face looked heavier than she remembered. Uglier, too. His eyes seemed bigger and farther apart, his black eyebrows bushier, his lips thicker. His long hair was combed straight back over the top of his head, and slicked down.
    “I know you,” he said.
    “Vicki Chandler. How are you doing, Melvin?”
    He leaned closer. He’d been eating garlic. “Vicki. Gosh.” His head bobbed and he smiled. “Last time I saw you, you was standing on a chair looking green.” He chuckled, puffing his garlic breath into her face.
    She wondered if it was a good sign that he could talk about that day, laugh about it.
    “Well,” she said, “I was a little shocked.”
    “I guess you wasn’t the only one.” He winked. “That was the whole point, you know.”
    “The whole point?”
    “Giving Darlene a jump-start like that. Shoot, you don’t think I thought it’d work, do you? No way. Only a crazy person’d think it’d work. Dead’s dead, know what I mean?”
    “Sure looked like you were trying,” Vicki said, astonished that he was discussing this with her, explaining himself.
    “Put on a good show, didn’t I?”
    “Why’d you do it?”
    “Got tired of being pestered. You remember how the kids used to pester me. You was always nice. You was about the only one didn’t used to talk mean or knock me around. I figured it this way. I figured they was always after me on account of me being kind of different, so what I’d do, I’d shock their pants off and they’d be so scared of me they’d leave off.” He sniffed, and rubbed his nose. “Course, I learned my lesson. I shouldn’t of done it. Made me look like a crazy person.”
    You are a crazy person, Vicki thought. Or at least you were.
    “I’m sorry about your parents,” Vicki said.
    “Thank you. They was pig vomit.”
    “I could use a fill-up, Melvin. Unleaded.”
    “They left me sitting pretty, that’s about all the good I can say for them. Want me to check under the hood?”
    “No, that’s all right.”
    He left the window, and Vicki took a deep breath.
    Whatever they did to him in the institution, she thought, it sure hadn’t changed him much.
    In the side mirror, she saw him remove the gas cap and insert the nozzle of the pump. Then he came back to her window.
    “You here for a visit, or what?” he asked.
    She was surprised he didn’t know. On the other hand, people probably didn’t spend a lot of time chatting with him. “I’ll be working at Dr. Gaines’s office.”
    “What’ll you do there?”
    “I’m a physician now.”
    “A doctor?”
    “Yeah.”
    “No fooling. I got no use for doctors. Messing with people, you know?”
    “I guess you’ve seen your share of them.”
    “None as pretty as you, that’s a fact.”
    “Thanks,” she muttered.
    “You married?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Saving yourself for me?” He laughed and rubbed his nose. “Just a joke. I like to make jokes, sometimes. I used to have the orderlies and nurses cracking up. The patients didn’t laugh much, they was too doped up. They didn’t do much but drool.” He laughed at that one.
    Vicki heard the gas pump click off.
    “That be cash or charge?” he asked.
    “Cash.”
    He went away. While he was gone, Vicki lifted her handbag off the passenger seat and took out two twenties. Her hand was shaking badly, and the bills fluttered when she held them out the window to Melvin. He wandered off to get change.
    Almost over, she thought. It wasn’t so bad.
    Wasn’t so good, either.
    When he returned, Vicki rested her wrist on the window sill to keep her hand from trembling. He counted the coins and bills into her palm.
    “I’m real glad you’re back,” he said.
    “Thanks.” She tucked the money into the pocket of her blouse, and saw Melvin watch her do it.
    “Hope you’ll come