Slicky Boys Read Online Free PDF

head and wiped drool from the corner of my mouth.
    'Yeah. I guess I did.”
    “Better get your ass washed up. The First Sergeant’s on the way in and you know he won’t tolerate a sloppy troop.”
    “Yeah. Okay.”
    I stood up. Riley pulled a disposable razor out of his desk drawer and tossed it to me.
    “Here. Use this.”
    I caught it and grunted. “Thanks.”
    Down in the latrine I washed up and managed to shave without cutting myself. After I finished, I dried my face with towels of coarse brown pulp. By the time I walked back into the Admin Office, Riley had a pot of coffee brewing. He handed me a cup. I thanked him and sipped on it gratefully.
    “Better prepare for heavy swells,” he said. “The First Sergeant had one hellacious case of the ass last night.”
    My head hurt so I said it softly. “Fuck the First Sergeant.”
    “I wouldn’t,” Riley said. “Not even with your dick.”
    The door slammed, heavy footsteps pounded, and a low growl reverberated down the hallway.
    “Sueño! You in here?”
    I didn’t answer. I guess he took that for a yes.
    “Get your ass in my office!”
    I finished drinking my coffee, set the cup down, and grinned at Riley.
    “I hate to see the old boy so worked up before breakfast.”
    “That son of a bitch doesn’t eat breakfast. He gets all his nourishment by chewing ass.”
    I walked down the hallway, concentrating on keeping my chest thrust out and my shoulders back. I knew I put up a good front. I’d been working on my technique for years. But inside I felt completely alone.

4

    I T WAS A DARK ROOM . W ITH SOMBER RED CURLICUES in the wallpaper and a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, her halo radiant behind a shawl of purple silk. A tall priest dressed in black gazed down at me, warning me with his eyes to keep quiet. The room smelled of must and baby powder. Old women cried and twisted lace handkerchiefs with crablike fingers.
    My mother didn’t look like herself. No flushed complexion, no smile ready to break out beneath laughing eyes, no movement in her arms or legs. She lay still on the bed and for a moment I thought she was a stranger, a stranger made of wax.
    The priest pointed and nodded his head. I leaned across the damp sheets of the bed and kissed my mother’s face. The flesh was cold. I pulled away quickly. Her eyes remained tightly shut but her lips fluttered, like the wings of a dying butterfly.
    “jorge,” she said. “jorge mío.”
    They took me out of the room.
    A few hours later the priest woke me and told me my mother was dead.
    I cried for three days. The First Sergeant and I sat in uncomfortable silence. He puttered with paperwork and occasionally walked up and down the hallway to see if the secretary was in yet. I remained immobile on the hard wooden chair. His little coffeemaker gurgled in the corner and I was tempted to walk over and pour myself a cup, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.
    We were waiting for Ernie.
    The First Sergeant didn’t want to waste his breath on just one maggot, he wanted to have us both here for the ass chewing. I knew his game. Keep me here, callousing my butt, so I’d get the message: You can’t be trusted to be let out of my sight or you’ll wander off and get lost again.
    It was a game a lot of sergeants and officers play. Somehow it makes them feel good. Maybe their parents played it on them, I don’t know. And feeling good is more important to them than productivity. I was dying to get on with the investigation; time could be everything. The people I needed to talk to could disappear in a few hours like the morning mist. But I wasn’t going to beg.
    Besides, it wouldn’t do any good. He was looking forward to this—in fact he had to wipe his mouth occasionally with the back of his hand because saliva was dripping out— and a First Sergeant with a case of the ass cannot be denied. Not in the army I know.
    It was about one minute to eight when Ernie popped through the door.
    “About