Trailerpark Read Online Free PDF Page B

day-to-day realities they were forced to struggle against. A fool surrounded by sensible poor people remains a fool and is therefore seldom troublesome. But when it starts to occur to you that some of the poor people are not so sensible—which is what occurred to Marcelle when she peered into the dingy, dim clutter of the trailer and saw Terry sprawled out on a mattress on the floor with Flora Pease clumped next to him, both with marijuana cigarettes dangling from their lips—that’s when you start to view the fool as troublesome.
    â€œListen, Bruce,” she said, wagging a finger at the boy, “I don’t give a damn about you wearing all them signs about legalizing pot and plastering bumper stickers against nuclear energy and so on all over your trailer, just so long as you take ’em down and clean the place up the way you found it when you leave here, and I don’t mind you putting that kind of stuff on your clothes,” she said, pointing with her forefinger at the image of a cannabis plant on the chest of Bruce’s tie-dyed tee shirt. “Because what you do behind your own closed door and how you decorate your trailer or your van or your clothes is all your own private business. But when you start mixing all this stuff up together like this,” she said, waving a hand contemptuously in the direction of Terry and Flora, “well, that’s a little different.”
    â€œLike what, man?” Bruce asked. “C’mon in, will you, and hey, calm down a little, man. No big thing. We’re just havin’ us a little morning toke, then I’m headin’ out of here. No big thing.”
    â€œYeah, it’s cool,” Terry said lightly from the corner.
    Marcelle shot a scowl in his direction. “I don’t want no dope dens in this park. I got my job to look out for, and you do anything to make my job risky for me, I’ll come down on you,” she said to Terry. “And you, too,” she said to Bruce. “And you, too, sister,” she said to Flora. “Like a goddamned ton of bricks!”
    â€œNo big thing, man,” Bruce said, closing the door behind her, wrapping them all in the gray light of the room. Now Marcelle noticed the sharp, acidic smell of animal life, not human animals, but small, furred animals—urine and fecal matter and straw and warm fur. It was the smell of a nest. It was both irritating and at the same time comforting, that smell, because she was both unused to the smell and immediately familiar with it. Then she heard it, a chattering, sometimes clucking noise that rose and ran off to a purr, then rose again like a shudder, diminishing after a few seconds to a quiet, sustained hum. She looked closely at what she had thought at first were counters and saw that they were cages, large, waist-high cages, a half-dozen of them, placed in no clear order around the shabby furniture of the room, a mattress on the floor, a rocker, a pole lamp, a Formica-topped kitchen table and, without the easy chair, a hassock. Beyond the living room, she could make out the kitchen area, where she could see two more of the large cages.
    â€œYou want a hit, man?” Terry asked, holding his breath as he talked so that his words came out in high-pitched, breathless clicks. He extended the joint toward her, a relaxed smile on his thick lips. Next to him, Flora, who lay slumped against his muscular frame like a sack of grain dropped from several feet above, seemed to be dozing.
    â€œA hit. That’s what she looks like, like she got hit.”
    â€œAh, no, Flora’s happy. Ain’t you, Flora honey?” Terry asked, chucking her under the chin.
    She rolled her head and came gradually to attention, saw Marcelle and grinned. “Hi, Mrs. Chagnon!” she cried, just this side of panic. “Have you ever smoked marijuana?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, I have. I love to smoke marijuana!”
    â€œThat