The Boiling Season Read Online Free PDF

it was a suit that demanded respect. And he was also responsible for seeing to it that the manager’s orders were carried out.
    My admiration for M. Guinee was understandable enough, but I never knew what he saw in me, a young man who had experienced so little of the world. I thought perhaps that I reminded him of his son, who had been killed when he was my age, under circumstances M. Guinee refused to discuss. I did not press. My mother’s passing was something I rarely wished to revisit. Everyone lost someone, and the details were often best forgotten.
    In addition to lunch, meetings also sometimes brought Senator Marcus to the Erdrich. Often the meetings took place during the day, but on more than one occasion I can remember him waking me softly in the middle of the night, telling me only that there was someone he needed to see. Although I never saw this “someone” myself, I always recognized his two enormous companions, wearing their identical mirrored sunglasses in the dark.
    When he could, M. Guinee kept me company. If it was particularly late, he let me sleep on a pallet on his floor, with orders to the porter to wake me when I was needed. And so it was, one evening I was with M. Guinee in his quarters. It was late, but neither of us was tired. We were playing dominoes, as we sometimes did when M. Guinee’s shift was over. For a change, I was winning. When M. Guinee suddenly asked, apropos of nothing, if I would be interested in going on a trip with him, I suspected he was simply trying to throw me off my game.
    â€œA trip?”
    â€œOn Sunday,” he said. “I assume you don’t work?”
    â€œThat’s true,” I said, laying out my domino. “But I have other obligations.”
    â€œ ‘Obligations?’ ”
    I told him about my father. I had spent every Sunday with him since I was a child, attending church and neighborhood gatherings.
    â€œI see,” he said.
    I asked him where he was going.
    â€œIt’s not important,” he said, “if you have ‘obligations.’ ”
    â€œJust tell me where,” I said.
    He tapped one of his dominoes on the table, uncertain whether it was the one he should play. He said, “I was only thinking it would be good for you to get away.”
    I sighed. “Just give me a hint.”
    With exaggerated ponderousness he stroked his chin. “I wouldn’t know how. There’s nothing I could say to describe it. You wouldn’t believe me if I tried. . . . But if you’re busy . . .”
    â€œYou’re toying with me.”
    â€œThat’s true,” he said. “But I’m also being honest.” And then he laid a double five on the table. I had just one bone left, but now I had to pick six new ones before I came up with a five of my own. After two more turns, he played his last domino. As always, I was left with a losing pile.
    â€œI’ll pick you up at eight,” he said, pouring himself a celebratory rum.
    All day Saturday I wondered what kind of trip M. Guinee had in mind. He was not the sort of man to play a joke, but neither could I comprehend his need for such secrecy.
    Early Sunday morning I waited outside the gate. I already regretted having sent word to my father that I was sick. Lying was bad enough; how much worse was it to be both lying and skipping church? And rather than asking for forgiveness, here I was getting picked up in a car in front of Senator Marcus’s house, as if I were a man of leisure.
    At eight exactly, M. Guinee pulled up in a sleek, dark sedan.
    â€œOne of the chauffeurs owed me a favor,” he said with a grin as I got in.
    In silence we wound down through the hills of Lyonville. I found it surprisingly disorienting, having so recently learned to drive, to ride for the first time in the passenger’s seat, compelled to watch the road and yet powerless to affect our course. I did not distrust M. Guinee’s