Running Loose Read Online Free PDF

welt from his towel before they got out, in case they should get the idea that they were anywhere near his league. He included me in on that; by mistake, he said.
     
    Becky was waiting by the gym door when I came out. She walked up and said, “Nice game,” and slipped her arm inside mine. Right there in front of everybody. Made me feel like a star. Boomer saw it, and I knew that later I’d have to hear about the infinite number of times he’d screwed her; but even that couldn’t begin to spoil the moment.
    Carter went by and slapped me on the butt and said, “See you tomorrow,” and was gone. Usually I gave him a ride home, and I would have that day, too, if he’d wanted one; but he just wanted out of my way. Up until this last year I was pretty slow with the ladies, and that’s not the half of it, and he knew that. Hell, in a town of nine hundred people everyone knew it, but Carter was always real sensitive to it and never gave me a bad time unless we were alone. I appreciated that. But I still wouldn’t have minded giving him a ride home.
     
    So Becky said right off, “Listen, why don’t you call your mom and tell her you won’t be home for dinner? We’ll have a burger down at the Chief and then go up to the dance later. My treat.”
    “I’ve got money,” I said.
    “So what? This is my date. I ask you out, I pay. Then you feel guilty and ask me out. Then you can pay. That’s how budding romance blooms. Don’t worry, it’ll all work out.”
    I shrugged. “Okay, but do me a favor and don’t ever tell Boomer you paid.”
    She smiled. “I wouldn’t tell Boomer if his house were on fire.”
    I started to open the passenger door to the pickup, but she beat me to it.
    “Hungry?” she asked.
    It was only about five. “Not yet. Wanna go for a ride?”
    She did.
    I stopped at the only phone booth in town to call Brenda and say I wouldn’t make it for dinner.
    “But I already have your meat out of the freezer,” she said.
    “Well, can’t you put it back in?”
    “You can’t refreeze meat after it’s been thawed,” she said.
    “I read in the paper where you can,” I said. “Go ahead and put it back.”
    “So what’s so important you have to miss dinner?” she asked.
    I hadn’t been ready to tell her, but I guess I knew she’d ask. “I sort of have a date,” I said.
    “A date? With a girl?”
    “Yes, Brenda, with a girl.” I laughed. “Your one and only son and fifty-fifty bet to bring you healthy grandchildren and carry on the noble name of Banks is all right after all. Gave us quite a scare there, didn’t he?”
    “Never a doubt in my mind,” she said. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
    “Becky Sanders.”
    “Becky Sanders?”
    “Is there an echo in here? Yeah, Becky Sanders.”
    “Well,” she said, “you run along and have a good time. If I can’t refreeze the meat, I’ll cut it up for stew tomorrow.”
    “Brenda,” I said.
    “What?”
    “I have on new undershorts.”
    She hung up.
    We drove out of town about a mile to the reservoir. It was low, and the spillway at the dam was only open about a quarter, so only a little more than a trickle swept into the river below. It was still pretty warm out, and the trees were just beginning to turn. I tried to think of something semiromantic to say about that but caught myself. I’d long since used up my quota of dumb-butt things to say to Becky. I’d do one pretty much every time I ran into her.
    We stopped at the spillway for a while and dropped rocks and leaves and spit down into the water. I told Becky how Carter and I used to come up here during fishing season after we’d caught our limit, when the spillway was open full blast, and drop cardboard boxes of fish guts into the torrent below. When they reached the bottom of the spillway, they’d shoot up into the air like a ski jumper out of control and fly all over, showering the fishermen down there on the rocks with the entrails of the very prize they sought. Then we’d