Things Go Flying Read Online Free PDF Page A

roughly, not looking up. “Go back to bed.”
    Of course Dylan came down the stairs, his curiosity being stronger than his fear of authority.
    Audrey looked up at Dylan and said, “Your brother isn’t feeling well.”
    Dylan came over in his pajamas, took one look and snorted. “He’s pissed.”
    â€œWatch your language,” Audrey said crossly.
    John groaned and opened his eyes. All three of them looked down at him. Audrey grabbed a pillow off the nearby couch and propped his head up with it.
    John had never seen his father from this perspective before—the scowling face bending over him was familiar, but the naked, hairy chest, the belly hanging over the polka-dot boxers, this was new and unpleasant and indicated that all was not as it should be. A bout of nausea swept over him, along with a near total recall of the night’s earlier events. The sickening impact as he barged into the back of the taxi. The momentary disbelief, sitting in his dad’s car wishing it wasn’t true, while the cab driver got out and came at him swearing and waving his arms at him through the window. John had been afraid to get out of the car. That’s when Roy had swooped up in his shiny black tow-truck and taken charge. Told the cab driver to settle down, and just like that, he’d backed off. John hadn’t got out of the car until the police arrived, and then he hadn’t understood why the cab driver was making such a big deal—his taxi was totally fine. The police had charged him. It was horrible; he’d felt like a criminal. He knew his dad would kill him.
    John turned his head pathetically to the side, toward his mother, and closed his eyes again.
    â€œWhere’s my car?” Harold demanded.
    â€œYou weren’t driving like this?” Audrey gasped, horrified.
    John, through the nausea, sensed an opportunity. He opened his eyes a little—just enough to gauge her reaction. “Mom, I would never drink and drive,” he slurred virtuously.
    â€œThank God,” Audrey said.
    John figured groggily that no matter what he told her now, it would be all right.
    â€œWe’ll talk about this in the morning,” Audrey said.
    â€œThe hell we will—he’s not getting off that easy!” Harold snorted. “I want to know what the hell he’s been up to—and what happened to my car!”
    â€œThis is going to be good,” Dylan said.
    â€œDon’t be a smartass,” Audrey snapped.
    â€œGive me a hand dragging him into the kitchen,” Harold said to Dylan. “Make yourself useful.”
    They each grabbed an arm and dragged John, unresisting—while Audrey hovered, as if directing traffic—across the hardwood floor through the dining room to the kitchen at the back of the house, where they heaved him into a chair at the kitchen table, and then stood back looking at him. Harold was breathing heavily from the exertion.
    John slumped in the chair and felt sorry for himself. It was hard to defend yourself when you were piss drunk and about to puke. He tried to concentrate on not throwing up, sitting on the kitchen chair with his head supported in his hands, his elbows on the table, while his mother bustled around making coffee, his dad and his younger brother stared at him, and an ominous familial silence built to a crescendo.
    John watched through half-closed eyes as his mother put out coffee in mugs—for everyone but Dylan—and the four of them sat in various postures around the kitchen table. Only Dylan was relaxed, lounging in his chair in his pajamas in his usual pose, one arm hooked around the back of the chair. His mother looked small and worried and birdlike in her blue nightie, her hands curved around her smiley-face coffee mug as if holding on for dear life. His dad sat rigid with anger—somehow this was still possible in spite of the soft, embarrassing, exposed flab. At least the polka-dot boxers were