The Silver Bear Read Online Free PDF

to make a living.”
    “You got that right, buddy. You certainly got that right.”
    “So, why do it, then?”
    “I don’t know. I can tell you one thing, I’m rarely lucid enough to sit and think about it. You got any liquor in here?” She tries to swivel in her seat to look in the back, but when she reaches for my duffel, I grab her with my free hand and spin her around hard.
    “Owww. Shit, man! I’m just looking to see if you got anything to drink!”
    “I don’t.”
    “Well you don’t have to be a cocksucker about it.” She’s showing me the same mouth that can use words like “hovel” and “lucid” can spew vitriol as well. And she’s testing the envelope to see how far she can push it. Was the way I spun her around portentous of a beating to come? Did she get a rise out of me with the severity of the way she pronounced “cocksucker,” the way she paused right before the word, collecting her breath and then pounding that first syllable like she hit it with a hammer? COCKsucker! We drive on in silence. I can tell she’d rather pass the time talking than pouting, but she wants me to make the first move.
    After two minutes, she gives up. “I was just looking to see if you had something to drink.”
    “I don’t.”
    She decides to get off the subject. “You like music?” “I like silence.”
    This seems to do the trick, and for a few minutes more, the only sound in the car is her nasal breathing, in and out, in and out, like wind through a cracked window.
    “I need to pee,” she says suddenly, nodding at the approaching exit where a Texaco sign pokes just above the tree line.
    I throw up my blinker and guide the car toward the exit. As we approach, I can’t help but notice a farm road running directly behind the service station, leading off into obscurity. Maybe I can get away with it, with a little extra time. If I can find some soft earth, I can dig a little hole to hide her body, and it’ll be months, maybe years before anyone finds the remains. But it’s broad daylight and I don’t know this road and any dumb farmer could happen along at just the right time.
    By the time I’ve rejected the temptation, she’s opened the door. I watch her ask the attendant where the rest-rooms are and he hands her a giant block of wood with a key attached and points around to the back of the building. I watch him watch her all the way out the door, and when he catches me observing him, he quickly looks back down at the binder he had splayed on the counter.
    What am I doing here? I should just gun the car and forget I ever saw this girl, but for some reason, I’m paralyzed. What is it about those teeth and that mouth? What do I see in them?
    I turn off the ignition and head into the convenience store portion of the station where the clerk gives me a once-over and shuffles his binder down below the counter. I move to the drinks stacked like bricks up to the ceiling in the back of the store and withdraw a six-pack of Budweiser. For someone whose every move is performed to draw the least amount of attention—domestic over import in rural Pennsylvania—I realize I’ve already attracted notice just by parking the car and having this girl ask for the bathroom key. The clerk’s once-over wasn’t because he was worried I’d shoplift something from the store; he wanted to know what kind of man would pick up a girl like that. And he is going to remember who it was and what the man looked like when and if he is asked.
    This is how it happens. In the game I play, you cannot give in to temptation, even if temptation is merely to hold a conversation with someone, to connect with another human being on a superficial level. And once you give in to temptation, even if you only do it one time, then the dominos start to topple until the entire floor is covered with a dark blanket.
    I pay for the beer and the clerk only grunts at me without meeting my eyes when he hands over the change. Maybe this isn’t so bad.