The Vintage and the Gleaning Read Online Free PDF

rabbit with both hands.
    I just grabbed it, he says. I saw it sitting there and I just grabbed it.
    The dog is frantic, trying to break through the circle of kids, yelping and growling. They keep pushing it away. It goes from one side to the other, sniffing and pawing the ground, pushing its head against their legs.
    I look at the rabbit. It is shivering and its eyes are popping. It is breathing fast, its chest pumping in and out. It is only a little rabbit and it is scared half to death.
    Best put it out of its misery, I say.
    I take the rabbit by the hind legs and smash its head against a rail. The dog comes up sniffing and begins to lick the blood and brains off the metal and the stones and the sleepers.
    I see the girl watching with a frozen smile and she looks up at me and the smile breaks and tears well and flow. She wipes her face with the backs of her hands, trying to stop, but the tears keep coming, her face dirty where she has wiped it. She lets out a sob and the sob becomes a wail. Then she is running away from us bawling, running through the long grass and along the ditch, her dress billowing as she runs. She slips over in the ditch and gets up again and keeps on running. She keeps running and slipping and crying.
    I’ve upset her, I say, watching her go.
    It’s all right, says the boy who caught the rabbit. She’s just my sister. She cries about everything.
    I didn’t mean to upset her, I say.
    She’s just my sister, says the boy. She’s always crying.
    Blood is dripping from the ruined head of the rabbit and the dog comes over, sniffing and licking the blood on the ground. It sits down and looks up at the rabbit in my hand, pawing the grass and growling from its throat, trying to catch the drops of blood with its tongue, licking them out of the air as they fall. Blood drips onto the dog’s nose and face and into its eyes. It blinks and shakes its head and sniffs around for the blood.
    Get out of it, I say, kicking the dog away. The dog skitters backwards and then creeps towards us whining, watching the blood splatter.
    I take my knife from my belt and show the boys how to skin a rabbit.
    See how easy it comes off, I say, rolling away the pelt.
    I gut it and throw the pelt and the offal into the long grass. The dog goes after them.
    When I hand the carcass to the boy he steps away from it.
    Go on, I say.
    He takes it with one hand and holds it out at arm’s length, looking at it like he doesn’t know what to do with it.
    You take that home to your mum, I say. She can cook it up for your tea.
    The boy gives the carcass a funny sort of look.
    You mean eat it? he says.
    What else are you going to do with it? I say. That’s fresh meat. Better than anything you’ll get at the butcher’s. Just take it home to your mum. Give it to your mum.
    When I leave, the boy is still holding the carcass at arm’s length. Looking at it funny. Looking like he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Wednesday Spit doesn’t show.
    It is the day of George Alister’s funeral. Me and Wallace and the boys stand in our rows, watching the distant line of slow-moving cars going through the outskirts of town. They turn onto the highway and head towards the cemetery, taking George Alister’s body to put it in the ground.
    Once and for all, says Wallace. Once and for all.
    Far off the cars shimmer in the heat, the space of vision like liquid. There is the flash of chrome and glass, quick and gone and flashing again, the bursts of light moving along the motorcade as the motorcade moves.
    Can you see Roy’s car? Wallace asks the boys.
    Wallace has his glasses up on his forehead and he is squinting into the distance. His glasses keep slipping down onto his nose and he keeps pushing them back up again. Wallace’s glasses are as thick as the bottom of a bottle and behind them his eyes are huge and seem a long way off. Without his glasses, Wallace looks like a different man.
    Which