Road To Nowhere Read Online Free PDF

to score more points. John saw all of life that way. That he had to score, to get ahead while the getting was good. Candy was the opposite. She let things happen, and if nothing happened, so much the better. She could bury her head in a book and know the world would keep turning.
    “Afterwards, though, John felt bad for giving Candy such a hard time. He wanted to see more of her stuff, but she wouldn’t show it to him. She took all her sketches and hid them at a girlfriend’s house. From then on John never knew what she was drawing. It bugged him. He cared about Candy. He wanted to be involved in all parts of her life. But she wouldn’t let him in and that was too bad for her because John could have helped her get ahead, pushed her in the right direction. John could see already that Candy wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. She didn’t have the discipline. He tried explaining that to her parents, but then they didn’t want him coming over so he backed off. John was pragmatic. He wasn’t about to give up his girl just to save her vocation.
    “The year went on. John got great grades and Candy did well, mainly because John passed her the answers on every test they took. They had arranged their schedules so that they spent almost the entire day sitting beside each other. John and Candy mastered the art of cheating with mirrors, flying spit balls, invisible ink, Morse code and even telepathy. Yeah, they were so close it was like John just had to look over at Candy and she would know what he was thinking. If the answer to question twenty was C, he would say, ‘I can always C you Ms C. Wherever you go, my eyes can C you.’
    “John was possessive of Candy. If she so much as spoke to another guy, she got chewed out. And the other guy would end up with a bloody nose. John had a temper, there was no arguing that. His temper got the worse of him near the end of the school year. At the beginning of June, Candy and John were just a few days shy of graduating. They had one last test to take – chemistry. It was John’s strongest subject and Candy’s worst. She couldn’t pick up a test-tube without thinking she was taking an early pregnancy test. She thought the periodic table of elements wasn’t square enough. This was the girl who wanted to be a doctor!
    “But she was on her way. She had got accepted at Berkeley, the same school as John. They had it all planned. They were going to live together in an inexpensive bungalow, get night jobs at a movie theatre, and make love at least twice a day. The only reason she got accepted at Berkeley, though, was because John had helped her raise her grades so much her junior and senior years. She was going to a school where she probably didn't belong and John knew it. But he figured he’d be able to pull her through.
    “Anyway, they had this one last test to take in chemistry. John was prepared. Between lube jobs at the gas station he had studied his brains out. Candy had spent the same amount of time drawing pictures of God knew what. She walked into the test barely knowing that the formula for water was H 2 O. They planned how John would get her the answers before the test began, but they didn’t plan enough. By this time they were both cocky, and thought that all teachers were fools. They never thought they’d get caught.
    “Their teacher’s name was Mr. Sims. He had the habit, during tests, of leaving the classroom to do odd jobs in the storage area. He had done this all year, and John used that time to slip Candy answers. The storage area was directly connected with the classroom, Sims could always pop in at any moment. But John could hear him coming. Near the end of the test, Mr. Sims disappeared into the storage area. Candy was really sweating by then and looking over at John with pleading eyes. She hadn’t got past the third problem – there were twenty on the test. John pulled out a piece of scrap paper and jotted down his answers. He was already done with the test. He was