Sheep and Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

way I used to laugh before my VW became a cage.
    “Do you ever get the feeling that a storm is coming, a bad one, and you hope to God you’re wrong, and then you are wrong and you’re disappointed?” This is sort of what I want to say, except I want to scream it without any words. Gutturally. Instead, we talk about her job as a manicurist, or stuntwoman, or whatever it is she’s saying.
    *
    If you heard the crying I’m listening to, you’d get a portable hacksaw from your basement too. You’d cut a hole in the side of the Bus so that you could insert a bottle.
    An hour ago, I was in the bathroom, minding my own perverted business, and it started.
    Actually, I’m guessing it began a while ago, before I heard any of the sobs. It’s one of those cries that starts out silent and then bursts. The buildup has been going on for months. Maybe even years.
    After my hard-on melted away, I tried burying my head in a pillow. I tried earplugs. I tried television, ice cream, a good book, a bad book. I tried cleaning and remembering my childhood and burning some old photographs. I tried driving around in my new BMW and keeping an eye out for the homeless.
    I even tried not giving a shit.
    Nothing works.
    So I’m here, with this bottle and formula and cold sweat.
    My head is killing me. I feel like fighting back.
    “Just drink the damn milk,” I say.
    The crying stops.
    I hear sucking.
    The relief you expect me to feel is really nausea and a trick-fart that turns out to be quite a bit of diarrhea.
    Good thing I’m not wearing my good pajamas.
    *
    The secret to a man’s heart isn’t food or sex. Annabelle and I have already shared those together, but they’re not what keeps me from running away.
    That’s what I do, by the way. I run and I hide, the way I did when I was a kid, except it’s not a game anymore. At least not a fun one.
    I used to drive, searching for a place where I could be, for lack of a less cheesy sentiment, happy. A place where I could smell my lyrics in the air, and other such nonsense. I searched for a magical place. But I ended up here, of course, because real magic doesn’t exist.
    Enough of my bitching.
    “How did you lose your leg?” I say.
    “Trampoline accident.” She pauses. “Sorry, that’s a stupid joke.”
    “No it’s not. I didn’t know you were joking, so I didn’t laugh.”
    “How could I lose my leg on a trampoline?”
    “I don’t know. It could get caught on the side.”
    “And then what? The force of the jump rips me in two?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She laughs. Maybe the way I used to before I started taking drugs. The legal kind, anyway.
    “It was a car accident,” she says.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “You probably don’t know this, but as soon as I said car accident, your face released a lot of tension.”
    “It did?”
    “I used to be offended when I saw that in people. But instead of getting pissed off all the time, I decided to try to understand what was going on. I may be wrong, but my theory is that people don’t like unexpected tragedy. Car accidents cause over a million deaths every year, and it doesn’t matter, because it’s normal. Like war is normal. Like malnutrition in Africa. Like…is that a dying animal outside?”
    No. “I’ll go check.”
    *
    I present the food on my flattened palm, the way I did at the petting zoo when I was a kid. The first time I ever fed a goat, I was terrified that he’d chomp off my fingers, and I’d never be able to play piano again.
    A similar terror molests my neck, my back, my stomach.
    Ed won’t drink milk anymore.
    “Just eat the damn cereal,” I say.
    The difference between this feeding and the one at the petting zoo is that this time my fears are justified. Tiny sharp teeth rip open my flesh and clamp down on my bone. I scream and yank as hard as I can, but only manage to further mangle my index finger.
    Ed yanks back, and pulls my arm deeper into the hole I cut in the side of the Bus. We play tug-of-war for a