The Man in My Basement Read Online Free PDF Page A

had sat in the same corner for more than thirty years. The book hitting the can set off a burble of beer bottles jostling together.
    There were five empties in the can under a holey T-shirt and a few wads of paper. I found four more under the bed. On the outside of the windowsill, there was one dead soldier, as Clarance called them. That started my journey back through the house. There were bottles everywhere. Some were only half empty. One or two almost full. There were bottles on the front porch, in the backyard, on the patio chairs. On the roof there were a few left over from friendly spring nights when Laura and I made love in my sleeping bag up under the stars.
    They were behind the couch and on the inside ledge of the fireplace. By the time I finished, there were fifty-one bottles on the old dining-room table. Those empties would make me two paper dollars. And with them I could keep my pride.
    I remembered what I was doing and who I was with for almost every bottle found. The ones in the backyard were from a party the summer before last. It was Ricky and Clarance with some other guys and girls. The police had to come over to tell us to turn the music down.
    It was the only time in my life that I had sex with two women in one night. The first was my girlfriend at that time, China Browne. We’d been dancing and got to get kind of amorous. I took her up to my mother’s old room. It was over pretty quickly because I was so excited. China fell asleep and I went back downstairs. There were lots of people there dancing and talking loud. I felt a sweet sense of calm and started putting beer bottles back in a wooden crate. China’s friend Jane Sadler started picking up with me.
    We were just talking and laughing about what a good time everybody was having. We filled two crates and were carrying them out to the backyard. Then we heard this noise, a moaning out behind the garage. I winked at Jane and we snuck around the corner.
    It was Clarance and this white girl who had come with somebody, I didn’t know who. But she was with Clarance right then. They were kissing furiously in the faint light that shone over the back of the garage. He was moaning in a deep bass and she squealed between their soul kisses.
    Jane put her hand on my forearm. At first I thought that she wanted to give the newfound lovers some privacy, but when I looked I could see that she was just steadying herself. Jane had skin my color and bright eyes and long curly hair.
    Suddenly Clarance spun the white girl around. She lifted her miniskirt while he pulled down her panties. Jane’s grip on my forearm tightened. Clarance started fumbling with his zipper then. The white girl was waving her butt around and moaning. Clarance kept fumbling.
    “Hurry up!” The white girl’s hushed cry was exactly what I wanted to shout.
    “I got it now,” Clarance said, throwing down something. The next morning I realized that it was the wrapper from a condom.
    He bent his knees and took a long slow slide into his new friend. Her welcoming moan made my heart skip so hard that I thought I might be having a seizure.
    Clarance started slamming hard against her backside. The smacking flesh and high-pitched barks from the girl made me sweat.
    “I cain’t hold it, baby,” Clarance barked. “I cain’t hold it.”
    “Come come come come come,” she answered.
    And then they were both silent and rigid. After a moment Clarance made a grunting sound that was no more than the crack of a dry leaf and the girl exhaled through her open mouth.
    Jane pulled me by the arm. When we got around to the other side, she kissed me. I led her straight to the basement.
    There was no inside connection from the house. You had to go outside and through a heavy trapdoor to get down there. I suppose that it was called a basement because it was under the house, but it was more like a crypt.
    I snapped on the light and Jane kissed me again.
    “Don’t say a word,” she told me as she lifted her skirt