The Gum Thief Read Online Free PDF

him run for public office?
    The car crash. Okay. It was the early eighties and we were in two cars; Jeff was ahead of me driving his ex-stepfather's hotwired Cutlass. He was with Corrine, Laszlo and Heather. I was following in my Monza 2+2.
    Jeff was this low-life I met during my one month in community college. He may have been a low-life, but he was an amusing low-life and you could always count on him to do something, anything, to enliven a day, even if it meant throwing a milk bottle out his fifth-flam-apartment window while seated in a beanbag chair by the TV, not having a clue what the bottle would hit. He could shock you. We got high on mushrooms and walked through Stanley Park one summer, and he began breaking the flowers off roses and evergreen magnolias and used the petals to write the word E-N-E-M-A in six-foot-high script outside the park's central cafeteria windows, where all these families with their kids were staring at him. Then he had a screaming contest with a peacock. Ever heard the lungs on those things?
    That night we were all baked on weed and we'd been having a group hug in the parking lot of the Fraser Arms when I suggested that Laszlo drive, not Jeff. That was all it took to set Jeff off. Suddenly, I was a jerk and a bring down, and then I was in my Monza by myself, gunning the engine to keep up with the others-no one had told me the address of the next party. It was raining, and they went off a bridge into the river between the airport and Richmond. The last thing I saw was the car going down quick, Corrine banging the rear passenger window, looking me in the eye. The interior lights were on. And then the car was too deep to be seen. And then there was just water, like the dawn of time.
    That's how quickly things happen in cars. They shatter time. They destroy it. The car sinking took fifteen seconds, but it's stretched for nearly twenty-five years.
    The fortune-telling lady was right: I did change my ways for a little while after the accident. But I got lazy, and also, other things changed. I'll leave it at that for now.

Glove Pond

    Steve decided to take an interest in dusting. To this end, he pulled a cut-up pair of Y-front underwear from the rag drawer and a can of lemon Pledge from under the sink. He went into the living room on his quest, and he was richly rewarded.
    "Jesus, Gloria, have you looked on top of the piano lately? You could shoot pool here. There's so much dust it's like a goddam billiard felt."
    "People are starving in Africa and you fret about dust?" Gloria said. "I hate dusting. Worrying about dust is so middle class."
    "I saw a show on TV." Steve was inspecting the piano's top at eye level. "It was all about dust. A layer of dust is like an ecosystem. It has burrowing creatures and organisms that live on top of it. It decomposes and mulches itself, and that attracts more organisms. Dust is ninety percent dead skin."
    "Steve, you're making me sick. Put that rag away. Don't upset the dust. It's happy the way it is."
    "This place is a dump, Gloria."
"Steve, we used to be able to afford a maid."
"Yeah, well, we used to own tech stock."
"We've been through this a thousand times. I'm not going to become a parlour maid because Pets.com went south. One needs to have standards. First I'm dusting and before you know it, I'm out selling matches on street corners. Sit down and have a drink."
"I think I will."
    Steve and Gloria drank in silence-silence that Steve shortly broke. "Let's have a few of those cheese and crackers. I'm hungry."
    "Me too."
"But only a few. We have to save some for the guests."
    "Right."
    Within minutes, all the cheese and crackers were gone, and Gloria had eaten the two pickles. Now what would they feed their guests? Steve remembered some pancake mix at the rear of the cupboard. Was the mix beweeviled? That's okay. Heat will kill them.

Roger

    Some basic info: My name is Roger Thorpe, and I'm the oldest Staples inmate employee by a fair margin. I'd divide the staff