The Evening Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

than for a quick thrill. But now it was a part of him. Who he’d become, or who’d he’d always been.
    â€œGod bless the pillheads,” Reese said.
    â€œAmen,” Cole echoed.
    He paid Reese more than he did the old people, but this was fair since it was Reese who had actually pointed out what a gold mine Cole was working in. Reese used to deal coke, but now was too scared of getting sent back to the pen; he said he did not care about the money anymore, as long as could keep Ruthie medicated and himself well stoned. He taught Cole how much the pills went for on the street, told him who was looking to buy.
    â€œYou look like you haven’t slept in days.”
    â€œIt’s been a while.” Reese yawned. “You ought to think about changing your line of products. You’d make a hell of a lot more with meth.”
    â€œI only sell what’s doctor-prescribed and FDA-approved.”
    â€œFor fuck’s sake,” Reese said, rolling his eyes.
    Cole did not try to explain that he actually liked the old people, and that he did not want to be mixing up chemicals and dealing with paranoid tweakers. Explaining all of that was like explaining why he didn’t use drugs in the first place. “You’re about the only dealer I know who doesn’t use,” Reese had pointed out before. “I find that strange, son.” Cole had tried just about everything, but he liked reading about the drugs more than he liked taking them. Learning about their components, side effects, dosages. His mind retained the information easily, the way it did with scripture.
    They cracked open beers and clinked the cans together, though they did not say what they were toasting to. Reese turned on the stereo and Johnny Cash confessed that he had fallen into a burning ring of fire. They talked about people they knew, who’d been busted and who was getting divorced and who’d been laid off.
    Reese asked after Charlotte.
    â€œShe’s all right.”
    â€œBetter keep an eye on that one. I expect she’s got a little taste for her own kind.”
    Cole had heard it before. When Charlotte returned to Dove Creek, a swarm of rumors followed her, including that she’d been a stripper at a lesbian club up in Cleveland. Cole didn’t pry. Charlotte said what she liked best about him was that he knew how to keep his trap shut. She told him that she had worked in a tattoo shop and played drums in a band, and he didn’t ask questions.
    â€œShe ain’t no bulldyke.”
    Reese looked at him like he was slow in the head. “There’s more than one kind.”
    â€œShe likes what I give her,” Cole said testily. It was like this every time. He didn’t know what he was doing here, drinking beer with an ex-con faggot, who as sure as they were sitting here would one day fall into his own burning ring of fire.
    â€œAll right, simmer down.” Reese lit another cigarette. “What else is going on? Your granddaddy still living at home?”
    â€œFor now. The family is itching to put him in the nursing home. I don’t think my grandma wants to, but she won’t stand up to them.” He hesitated. “I wonder if I’m doing him wrong, if I should move in and take care of him all the time, like you do Ruthie.”
    â€œThat’s a bad idea.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œRuthie ain’t a mean old preacher. Anyway, you better be moving them out of there instead of you moving in.”
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œBefore that coal company blasts y’all out.”
    â€œHell, you’d think nobody ever mined coal before in West Virginia, the way everybody’s carrying on.”
    â€œWell, from what they say … You better go ’fore you catch cancer or something.”
    â€œI think this’ll do me in first,” Cole said, indicating the cigarette.
    â€œLet me tell you something. I see the way Ruthie’s doing, and I