The Grievers Read Online Free PDF Page A

wielding bats and broomsticks and anything else they could get a hold of, and it wasn’t long before everyone’s efforts at horning in on the proceedings erupted into full-blown mayhem.
    As the bus shook and swayed with the swell of angry bodies, Neil shot me a glance, and I shrugged. Though a police officer had lectured the freshman class on keeping our wallets out of sight and avoiding dark alleys, he failed to mention what to do in the unlikely event that a riot should break out during the evening commute.
    “I’m guessing it’s like rock-paper-scissors,” Neil said as a woman in a dirty apron cut a path through the fray with a soup ladle. “What do you think? Ladle scoops broomstick?”
    “Right,” I said. “Ladle scoops broomstick, and broomstick sweeps pool cue.”
    “Nice,” Neil said. “But what does the pool cue do?”
    “You don’t want to know,” I said, adopting the broken accent he’d used earlier.
    Emerging from the knot of bodies, a man with a gash in his forehead pounded a fist against the front door of the bus. Without so much as turning his head, the driver opened the door while the passengers held their collective breath. When the man climbed aboard, he asked the driver if the bus went as far as the nearest hospital, and the driver said it stopped a block east of Saint Joseph’s.
    The man with the gash paused for a moment, then reached into his pocket for bus-fare. As he made his way toward the back of the bus, I glanced at the empty seat across the aisle from me, then glanced at the man, whose gaze met mine long enough for both of us to guess what would happen next.
    The man took the seat.
    I pursed my lips and nodded.
    The man nodded back.
    Red and blue police lights swept the darkening street. As the crowd dispersed and the bus started moving again, Neil pulled a white handkerchief from the inside pocket of his gray overcoat and passed it wordlessly to the bleeding man.

    “I’ M STILL not entirely clear on why you took this job,” Neil said, squishing across the bank’s muddy lawn to help me get back on my feet.
    “Why does anyone take a job?” I asked, lying on my back. “I needed the money.”
    “But that’s not the question,” Neil said. “The question is why did you take this job?”
    When he wasn’t busy rescuing his friends from the consequences of their own foolish endeavors, Neil handled contracts for the Quartermaster Corps in their office just outside of Philadelphia. His wife Madeline, meanwhile, was finishing her doctorate in developmental psychology somewhere in Maryland. For the sake of fairness, at least in terms of the commute, they split the difference by living in Delaware, so I understood why the charm of my current job might have been lost on him.
    “Flexibility?” I said.
    “Try again.”
    “Potential for advancement?”
    Not sure where Neil was standing, I reached out and groped blindly at the air in front of me, imagining that I looked like a turtle or an overturned insect from above.
    “Sorry,” he said. “Not until I get an honest answer.”
    “I told you before,” I said. “I need time to work on my dissertation.”
    “Right,” Neil said. “The dissertation.”
    “Ask your wife. It’s a very complicated process.”
    “I know it is,” Neil said. “I still don’t believe you.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I thought the job would be fun. Are you happy now?”
    “Not yet,” Neil said, but he took my hand anyway.
    “What do you want to hear?”
    “Fun’s only half of it.” He pulled on my arm, and I rose from the ground at an awkward angle. “And I’m not sure how much I buy that one either.”
    “Would you believe funny , then?”
    “You took the job because you thought it would be funny?”
    “Probably,” I said. “Maybe. I guess.”
    “Hell of a reason to take a job.”
    “Look who you’re talking to.”
    Finally standing on my own two feet, I pulled my arms back inside the dollar sign and lifted the boxy costume up and