The Third Hill North of Town Read Online Free PDF Page B

in a room was the rustle of a turning page, the only light a small circle around his chair as the rest of the town lay sleeping in darkness.
    Books were sacred artifacts to be studied with reverence and passion, and devoting his life to such a study seemed infinitely more worthwhile than any other occupation Jon could think of. Only when his eyes began to blur each night would he stop reading and go to the refrigerator for a beer; reading was far more enjoyable when his mind was clear. (Not yet of legal drinking age, he was forced to buy his alcohol with the aid of an older friend, who agreed to help him out in exchange for free pizza from Toby’s.) He’d be exhausted by this time, but his mind would be overstimulated by what he’d read; words and ideas scampered around in his skull like mice in an attic, keeping him awake for hours. He would return to his chair, turn off the light, and drink however much beer was required to subdue his brain and let him sleep. This always happened around dawn; there were usually five or six empty cans or bottles on the floor beside him when he abandoned the chair in favor of his bed. He’d sleep until early afternoon, work until late evening, and return home afterward to do it all again.
    He didn’t even own a car, because he didn’t want to work hard enough to pay for one. His friends assumed he was lonely, and invited him out often, but he seldom went with them. He enjoyed his friends, but not nearly as much as he enjoyed his books. He would also go out now and then for an evening with a girl, but only if he was particularly horny, and bored with masturbating. He liked sex, too, of course, but he found it far less fulfilling in the long run than a good novel or a witty essay. He knew this wasn’t the normal set of priorities for a nineteen-year-old male; he also knew his life was not exciting nor productive by anybody else’s standards but his own. But for him it was all the life he needed, or wanted, and he loved it dearly.
    Then two months ago he’d gotten the wrong girl pregnant.
    The girl’s name was Becky Westman, and Jon didn’t really even know her. She was pretty enough, with long red hair, a sweet smile, and a firm little gymnastic body. But from what little he could remember of their single encounter, he hadn’t much cared for her. She was dumb—for one thing, she seemed to think the Revolutionary War had been fought by cowboys and Indians in Wyoming—and she was childish, and she was a liar.
    She was also fourteen.
    The party that led to Jon’s downfall was given in honor of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, and so took place on April 18, in the neighboring town of Welford, about ten miles from Tipton. The host of this shindig was Tommy Somerset, a fellow worker at Toby’s Pizza Shack, who had a fondness for celebrating historical events that had, in his sober judgment, never received enough public acknowledgment. Recent galas at Tommy’s house had commemorated (with several kegs of Budweiser and a pantry full of Cheetos) the Battle of Fredericksburg, Sir Thomas More’s beheading, and the birth of Harriet Tubman.
    Jon, who knew almost nobody at the party and had only attended because he’d been promised access to Tommy’s large collection of books, helped himself to a great deal of beer, and then found himself with Becky in an otherwise deserted room, next to the bookcases. Their fellow party-goers had been drawn outside by then to watch a stirring reenactment of Revere’s ride, involving flashlights and bicycles in lieu of lanterns and horses.
    Jon had never met Becky Westman before, and she’d basically leapt into his lap the instant they were left alone together. Minutes later, as she rode and bucked on top of him on the floor behind the couch, he’d drunkenly joked that he was beginning to understand how Paul Revere’s horse must have felt. This had elicited her less-than-impressive “cowboys and Indians in Wyoming” remark, and the next thing he knew