The Indestructible Man Read Online Free PDF

run, but his traitorous body would not permit it. “No,” he said. “I have to go.” He turned quickly and rolled to the exit. Once he reached the sidewalk he spun his wheels as hard as he could. Brooks trotted after him, but years of chain-smoking had dulled his wind and Bobby easily outdistanced him, rolling out of sight until he was far from the theater.
    He sulked in the shadow of a darkened bakery until his hands stopped trembling. In the parking garage Brooks was leaning against his back fender, finishing a cigarette. “Sorry, man,” he said, and helped Bobby up the ramp.
     
    After Brooks dropped him off, he took the phone off the hook on the slim chance Romulus and Abigail cared enough to look him up. He spent the rest of the night in his dirty bathroom, wheelchair pushed up against the cracked lime-green plaster, striking his forehead against the wall until it went numb. He shouldn’t have gone; he knew he would see her there. Romulus Wayne could not have hurt him more had he thrown him from his chair and twisted his legs like putty. He wanted to hurt Romulus back, badly, to hurl a grenade between his legs and blow him through the back wall of the auditorium. But it wouldn’t be enough; he would only pull himself from the rubble and take a bow, the crowd cheering as if it was part of the act. It was hopeless. Bobby leaned back in his wheelchair, prepared to spend the rest of the night staring up at the lighting fixture. But he leaned too far and tipped over, the back of his head striking the scuffed tile.
    Bobby had never experienced an epiphany, but he recognized one when it came. His cheek pressed to the linoleum, he suddenly understood how all those people could sit through the show when Romulus was never in any danger—they thought it was an elaborate illusion. It was the drama; they didn’t know the arrows could never pierce him, that he could step out of the fire without a blister, that the piano would disintegrate around him without puncturing his skin. They didn’t know it was real . But if they found out, they would lose interest and stop filling the auditoriums and theaters.
     
    After the vision ceased, Bobby stayed on the cold tile until dawn, considering his discovery. In the morning he struggled to pull himself back into his chair; then, sweaty and tired, he called Brooks to help him figure out how to do it.
     

     
    5
     

     
    Brooks was not surprised at the request. “I know where you’re coming from,” he said. “Sometimes a guy’s gotta do things so he can sleep at night. But you’d better be sure about this. We ain’t playing around.”
     
    “I can’t stand it anymore,” Bobby said. “I want to hurt him.”
     
    Bobby called in sick at the auto parts store, and half an hour later joined Brooks at Roscoe’s, where he bought pitcher after pitcher of the German stuff, Brooks’ fee for helping him.
     
    “As I see it, it isn’t attempted murder if you know you can’t hurt him. Public discharge of a firearm, maybe assault with a deadly weapon—you’re looking at a few months, maybe a year if you get the wrong judge.”
     
    “What do I do?”
     
    “You’ll want something public. Not at a show—people will think it’s staged. It has to be in a mall, a movie theater, anywhere there’s a lot of people.”
     
    Bobby poured him a refill. “Where, then?”
     
    Brooks downed half his beer in one gulp, fingered his stubbly chin, and looked off into nowhere. Bobby dared not interrupt; Brooks had bombed his high school principal’s car and (thus far) gotten away with it, so if he was thinking this long his solution was bound to be good. His attention drifted back to Bobby; his thin lips curled inward, eyes narrowed to squinty slits. “Has he got family?”
     
    Bobby was intrigued. “His dad still lives here. So do her folks.”
     
    “Hmmm.” Brooks scraped his knuckles against his stubble. “They still talk to each other?”
     
    “His dad was at the show last