The Summer I Died: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

like he was embarrassed. It kind of made me uncomfortable, him looking at my sister that way. I cou ldn’t fault him for being human, I just hoped it wouldn’t come to something unpleasant.
    When the movie ended, it was nearly midnight. Tooth got up and said, “ I gotta piss. Why don’t you order some pizza or something? ” And drifted into the small bathroom that ran off the kitchen. He’d finished all his liquor and let out a grunt as he released the floodgates. He pissed so long I expected to be swimming in it soon.
    “ Hey, Roger? ” he yelled through the closed door. “ Got a question for ya. If you’re an American outside the bathroom — fuck, hold on, I just pissed on myself — if you’re an American outside the bathroom, what are you inside the bathroom? ”
    “ European, ” I answered, having heard the joke months ago.
    “ Shit, how’d you know that? You suck. ”
    Never let it be said that universities are not hubs of information . . . or at least disinformation.
    “ Are you gonna go home or do you want to crash here? ” I asked.
    Tooth returned and fell on the couch, lethargic from the chips and nips.
    “ Where’s the pizza? ”
    “ Pizza? I thought you said anal cavity search. Hang on, I gotta call and cancel your appointment at Jim’s House of Lube. ”
    “ Hey, have you declared a major yet? ” he said, blazing a dialogue trail of his own. “ You taking those art classes where you draw naked chicks? ”
    “ Not yet. I’m mostly taking business courses. ”
    “ Why are those models always so fat, anyway? ”
    “ Fills up the paper. ”
    “ Hey, don’t knock big girls. They know how to get wild in bed. Ain’t nothing like a monster booty to make your nuts do the mambo. ”
    “ It’s called standards, look it up. ”
    “ Why are you taking business classes? You ain’t gonna be no business man, you know it and I know it. ”
    “ I don’t know. I told my dad I wanted to be an artist and he said I need to take business classes because art isn’t a profitable profession. ”
    “ Obviously he hasn’t seen a life-size rendition of a large naked woman. I’d bu y one. Hell, I’d buy two, call ’em Lulu and Buffy, show ’ em what it means to be abstract art. ”
    “ You get any more worked up you’re gonna spunk in your shorts. ” I laughed.
    “ Don’t worry, I’ll use the chip bowl. Anyway, it’s not like you want to become one those snooty art dudes that hang out at Java Lava dissecting paintings that are nothing but big blue splotches, going, ‘The existential ramifications of this piece are subordinate at best. The artist refuses to acknowledge spatial dimensions and opts for subconscious palettes instead. Amazing, I love it, I’m going to go screw myself with a wine bottle.’ ”
    That got me rolling. Sometimes Tooth was a funny guy, and the truth was the people at Java Lava sounded a lot like that, which was why we avoided it like it was a chick movie.
    “ No, probably comics. You know, Spawn , Gen 13 , that stuff. ”
    “ Yeah, I remember you used to draw those comics of me in school. They were pretty good, especially the ones where I’d bang the female villain after I fought her. ”
    “ I never drew that. ”
    “ I know. Faggot. ”
    “ Why don’t you apply to city college or something? Get out of that hell you call a job. Then you can transfer to the university with me.
    “ City college my ass. ”
    “ You did graduate, and they do take pretty much anyone. ”
    “ Fuck, they’ll take a retarded hamster with a flatulence problem, so what’s that got to say about me. No way, school can blow me. Barely made it through high school as it was. Probably wouldn’t have even done that without you. Besides, what do you get when you graduate from college? A thirty-thousand-dollar I-O-U note that promises to get you into the most elite social clubs in the world but in fact gets you Jack, Shit, and their cousin Fuckall. ”
    “ I guess. ”
    “ You guess