The Last Exit to Normal Read Online Free PDF Page B

stuff.”
    Dad shot Edward a glance. “Care to generalize about anything else, Edward? Not all
Pentecostals are that way.”
    “Maybe he thinks I’m a demon,” I said.
    Edward took a sip. “Whatever makes you think you aren’t?”
    I rolled my eyes. “So the good pastor must think all work and no play for his kid is
divine.”
    Dad, ever the optimist, nodded. “People do things differently, Ben, and as far as I’m
concerned, there’s nothing wrong with teaching your child a work ethic.”
    Edward laughed. “Come now, Paul, are you referring to your son? Why, if Ben were ever to
work a full day in his life, he’d need electroshock therapy to bring him out of it.”
    Dad shook his head. “I think Ben could use some work.”
    “Oh God.” I looked at Edward, who nodded agreement.
    Dad smiled. “Miss Mae insisted, and I agree. Go look on the refrigerator.”
    I walked inside. Miss Mae gave me the stinkeye, just on general principle, when I came into the kitchen.
She was so good at the stinkeye that even if you hadn’t done something wrong, you felt like you did. She had an
apron on and was preparing what looked like a big hunk of mushed guts on the counter. “Get that dish
down.”
    “Do you ever say ‘please’?”
    She wagged a finger above the sink, ignoring me. “The one with the blue on it.”
    I didn’t move. “Say ‘please.’ ”
    She stopped mushing the meat, then raised her eyes from the counter. “Come over here.”
    Even though she wasn’t holding a spoon, I knew she’d do just fine with her knuckles,
and I was sick of it. “No.”
    She took a step toward me, and we stared at each other. She set her jaw. “You’ve got
some things to learn, boy. Now get that dish and get it now, because you don’t want to make me
mad.”
    “You’re always mad.”
    “Woman my age has the right to be anything she wants.” She slid a stepstool to the
cupboard and got the dish herself. “Call your father in here.”
    “Why?”
    She turned on me, her eyes blazing. “If I had a mind I’d take a belt to your behind and
strap you until you bled.” She turned around, mumbling something about me not having a mother, then hollered
to my dad on the front porch.
    Dad came in, and of course was oblivious to the tension humming in the air like a bass speaker. He
looked at the food. “Mmm. Meat loaf, Miss Mae?”
    She nodded, then gestured to me. “He ain’t having any.”
    I looked at her. “I’m not?”
    She shook her head, her eyes meeting my dad’s. “I will not tolerate insolent children in
this house, and I will certainly not tolerate this boy sitting at my supper table eating food that he has no business
eating.” She turned on me. “If you expect to be treated with courtesy and respect in this house,
you’d best learn what it is to earn it.”
    I shook my head, smirking. She hadn’t been nice since the day I got here. This joke had gone on
long enough, and this was just another of her tantrums. “Okay, I’m sorry.”
    She ignored me, talking to Dad. “You tell your boy he’s welcome to live in the
woodshed until he knows what the word ‘respect’ means and I decide he can come back. Until then,
he’s not welcome in this house.”
    I gaped. “No way. You’ve got to be kidding. . . .”
    She stomped up to me, her eyes coming up to my chin. “You shut your mouth this instant. You
will speak when spoken to.”
    “Come on, I said I was sorry.”
    “I don’t take ‘sorries’ from the likes of you, and a decent man has no
reason to be sorry in the first place.” She looked at my piercings. “And you get those things out of your
face before you come back, too. Now get!”
    Dad sighed. “Miss Mae . . .”
    She squinted at him, her wrath close to the boiling point. “You have something to say about the
way I run my house, Mr. Paul?”
    He looked at her, then at me, then back at her and shook his head, the point taken. “Very well.
Ben?” He gestured to the