The Danger of Being Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

my left, I managed to stand up.  My head felt full of molten lead, but I fought off a wave of vertigo.
    The four bulky soapstones stood twenty feet away.  I watched them, then looked to Phil.  "What happened?"  My own voice sounded hoarse and impossibly far away.
    Phil stared at me for a long moment, then turned to Ben, who still looked thunderstruck.  Ben just shook his head, and Phil turned back to me.  "You—" he said, and that wind gusted in my ears again.  "—lightning."
    "I got struck by fucking lightning?" I said.
    "Well," Ben said, "the stone got hit.  You weren't even touching it, but it threw you like a fucking shotput."
    Phil looked me over.  "We thought you were dead."
    Ben smirked.  "I didn't think you were dead."
    "Is that why you shrieked, 'We fucking killed him!'"
    "I have never shrieked in my life," Ben insisted.  "And certainly not over him."  He glanced to me.  "No offense."
    I shook my head, and then suddenly, for no real reason at all, I laughed.  That brought the vertigo back, and a fresh batch of dark sparkles.  Those raging hornets swarmed through my chest again, but I laughed once more in spite of the pain.  Ben and Phil watched me uneasily.
    So I looked at Ben, and laughed harder as I said: "This beats the hell out of your Outer Banks story."
     
     
    6.
     
    Phil pulled his rickety Chrysler Newport to the curb.
    I shoved the passenger's door open and climbed out when he asked me, "You sure you're okay, Mike?"
    I glanced back at him with a lopsided smirk.  He'd asked me the same question roughly two dozen times over the last six hours, and my answer hadn't changed.  After regaining my breath and my hearing out on Prophet's Point, the worst had been a grisly grinding in the right side of my chest as I'd hauled myself up the creek bank.
    A bruised rib, I'd told Phil and Ben and myself.  From getting thrown like a fucking shotput.  Nothing serious.  I hardly minded the dull ache across the right side of my back, and I barely noticed the swarm of raging hornets in my chest every time I tried to draw a deep breath.
    So I just smirked, and laughed lightly.  "Yeah, man," I repeated the line I'd told him all day.  "I'm good."
    Phil watched me, not believing me, letting me tell my lie.  I backed across the sidewalk in front of the rowhome at the corner of Perennial Drive as Ben emptied out of the back seat and climbed into the front.
    "You heard the kid, Phil!" he said, yanking the door shut with the sound of a shotgun blast.  He drummed his palms on the vinyl dashboard.  "He's good!  Let's ride!"
    Phil bent toward the steering wheel to look past Ben.  I laughed, ignoring the steel strap that tightened around my gut, and nodded to Phil.  "See you guys tomorrow."
    "Same bat-time," Ben said, grinning, "same bat-shit."
    Phil finally cracked a small smile.  I raised an arm in valediction as he dropped the Newport into gear, pulling away from the curb.  The car rolled away up the narrow street, and I turned to climb the stoop to my front door.
    A hideous little ceramic bowl stood on the small end table just inside the door with a paperclip and a blood-red six-sided die mixed into a handful of change.  I dropped my keys into the bowl and crossed toward the kitchen.
    "Regina?" I called out.  I got no answer.  I glanced up the stairs to the second floor, and saw the door standing closed.  I paused.  "You home?"  Still no answer.
    I crossed the kitchen and found a note stuck to the refrigerator door with a magnet.  My mother would be home late.  I smirked at the note and opened the fridge, digging out the pizza box and a half-empty liter-bottle of Jolt Cola and carrying them back to my bedroom.
    I glanced to the Seiko Chronograph on my right wrist.  The blank face stared back up at me.  I watched the empty display, then pulled off the band and dropped the dead watch on top of the bureau beyond the foot of my bed.
    I snapped on the television beneath the Infinite Regress poster