The Natural Order of Things Read Online Free PDF

parts—a jumble of arms and legs, elbows and knees. In a gesture meant to show his disgust and impatience with his sorry crew of drivers, he wipes the corners of his mouth with thumb and forefinger, flicking a pasty glob into the wind where it seems to freeze in midair before falling to earth and shattering like a delicate crystal of exceptional beauty.
    “Here’s a little surprise, boys.” He drops the box on the platform. “New marketing strategy.”
    With a wave of his hand and the word “Abracadabra!” he makes a life-sized cardboard cheerleader appear from out of the box. At six feet tall, she towers above these dwarfish men like some colossus of coitus, her long legs and smooth bronze thighs spread in a deliberately provocative pose, her tight tummy and delectable navel partially concealed by a pair of shimmering pompoms. Her bright eyes burn with uninhibited and exuberant lust. Her lascivious and dazzling smile encourage all present to come hither and pay homage to her unique majesty.
    The men whistle, ogle, adjust themselves with frostbitten fingers; they discuss esoteric and vulgar sexual techniques, a Kama Sutra for the workingman—the Cleveland Steamer, the Tennessee Snow Plow, the Dirty Sanchez. Here is a clever decoy guaranteedto lure men by the thousands out of their comfortable recliners and into stores to purchase inordinate amounts of ale and to drink as much of it as their diseased livers will allow. Even McSweeney, the most reserved of the bunch, can’t help but grin. It’s a cruel deception, yes, but one that doesn’t deter his cock—that vindictive prick—from briefly nodding its otherwise somnolent head in the pathetic void of his trousers.
    “Get these out pronto!” Cloggy shouts. “Put ’em on top of every display. And try not to feel any of ’em up. We don’t want no damaged goods. Now move it, all of yous.”
    But before distributing the models to the drivers, Cloggy slides his rough hands around a narrow waist and brushes his bristly, tobacco-speckled chin against the airbrushed cleavage. His eyes grow bleary and distant. The wrinkles in his face deepen. When he speaks, it is as though he is in the midst of a drug-induced trance.
    “This is what we all dream about at night, eh? This is what we deserve as men, as American men. Yessir, this is what it’s finally all about. What else is there? A winning team and a hot piece of ass to cheer on the players …”
    With forced smiles, the drivers collect their share of cardboard women and jump down from the dock, but as they slog through the leaves that pile up in the weedy lot and make their way to the trucks, they are forced to endure the familiar gales of half-mad laughter that erupt from the gaping maw of Cloggy Collins.
II
    Malachy McSweeney’s first stop is the Jesuit high school.
    With their astonishing ability to discriminate between various types of rich, dried, delicate malts, the priests are acclaimed as connoisseurs of beer, and each week they request (some would say require) a delivery of lagers and stouts and fancy raspberry lambics from the local brewery. Under normal circumstances, they are so delighted to see Malachy McSweeney, their prompt and dependable deliveryman, and are so concerned for his safe passage through the dangerous streets of this once grand city, that they lay their hands on his head and say a quick prayer to Saint Fiacre—he’s the patron saint of cab drivers, true, but because the Vatican has yet to canonize a beer truck driver, it’s the best they can do.
    McSweeney, ever grateful for these humble petitions to heaven, looks forward to his regular stop at the school, but lately he has noticed a change among the priests. They seem irritable and cast accusatory glances in his direction. Some openly stare at him and scowl. At the start of the football season, the Jesuits, who initially had so much to celebrate, doubled their consumption from the usual six kegs to twelve, but in recent days their