The Badger Riot Read Online Free PDF

they grew up. Both families were Catholic and the parents were friends. But Ralph thought that Jennie deserved a manlier fellow than Vern.
    Not long after the party, Vern came across some comic books. He and Ralph went up back of the big hill to have a read. There was this great one called Wonder Woman and her friend Marya, an eight-foot-tall Mexican mountain girl whom Wonder Woman called little Marya. They were from a tribe of women known as the Amazons. Ralph liked the shape of the comic book women. They had nice rounded thighs and great breasts. He told Vern that Wonder Woman and Marya reminded him of Jennie.
    Vern looked at Ralph as if he were crazy. “Ya think so? Jennie’s awful fat, ya know.” Vern obviously didn’t see Jennie as Ralph saw her. She wasn’t fat; she was an Amazon, his Amazon Beothuk Woman.
    As they grew into teenagers Ralph gradually noticed himself thinking of Jennie more and more, especially when he was up on the hill, lying back, puffing on a cigarette and gazing at the clouds. Or down by the River watching the cable boat spinning across, or in bed, before he went to sleep and, then, in his dreams. Everywhere. But Jennie never knew. And Ralph never wanted her to know.
    Vern and Jennie went out together every now and then. There would sometimes be a dance in the town hall for the young people. At the dance, the guys would stand around the sides watching the girls, trying to get up nerve enough to ask for a dance. Ralph would not let his eyes drift too often to Jennie. He thought she looked some nice. Her dress was green, again, but more grown-up now. It was straight and tight, showing the shape of her. The wide collar went right over her shoulders.
    The gramophone was playing a song by Hank Snow, Vern’s favourite singer. Vern asked Jennie to dance. They looked somewhat odd together, with Vern barely coming up to her shoulder. Ralph stood on the sidelines watching them, listening to Hank Snow singing through his nose,
“Now and then there’s a fool such as I am over you,”
wishing it was he holding Jennie in his arms, thinking that the song suited him perfectly and that he really was a fool for loving this young white woman.
    Suddenly, Jennie hauled off and gave Vern a big smack in the side of his head and stalked away.
    Vern made for the door. Ralph looked back to check on Jennie but a gaggle of girls had encircled her. He followed after Vern and found him outside leaning against the side of the building. In the cool night air he lit up a cigarette. Ralph did too. He’d been smoking since he was ten; Vern always bragged that he’d smoked at five.
    â€œLord Jesus Christ! What’d she do that for? I was being as nice as I could be to her!” He nursed the side of his face.
    â€œC’mon, Vern, you had to say something she didn’t like.” Ralph flicked the ash off his cigarette as he saw the men do. He thought he was getting pretty good at doing it too. At sixteen, with his hair slicked back with the Brylcreem and a cigarette in his lips, Ralph thought himself pretty cool.
    â€œWell, I was trying to help her, see.”
    â€œHelp Jennie? Vern, b’y, if there was ever a girl that didn’t need any help, it’s Jennie.”
    â€œYes she do. She’s too big. I couldn’t get my arms around her. I told her that she should go on a diet.”
    His words made Ralph suck in a lungful of smoke the wrong way and he started to cough. Before he could recover some more boys piled out of the hall. They spied him and Vern. Walt Hatcher, loudest mouth in town, jeered, “Haw haw, Vernie got smacked by a gir-ril. Haw haw, Vernie.”
    That was the breaking point for Vern. He rammed into Walt, knocking him down. Walt was bigger and stronger and he quickly took control by flipping Vern onto his back in the mud and straddling him. He pinned his two arms up over his head. “Whassamatter, Vernie? Trying to fight a man and you