After the Plague by T. C. Boyle Read Free Book Online Page A

mind tended to fixate on ice-cream cones and those pathetic sidecar bikes they pedalled up and down the street like the true guppies they were. He’d even called Little Drake in to help out for a couple of hours there. Drake didn’t mind. He’d grown up rich in Montecito and gone white-haired at twenty-seven, and now he lived with his even whiter-haired oldparents and managed their two rental properties downtown—which meant he had nothing much to do except prop up the bar at Clubber’s or haunt the shop like the thinnest ghost of a customer. So why not put him to work?
    â€œNothing to shout about,” Jason told him, over the faint hum of the oldies channel. He leaned back against the wall on his high stool and cracked the first beer of the day. “Little stuff, but a lot of it. I almost had that one dude sold on the Al Merrick board—I could taste it—but something scared him off. Maybe mommy took away his Visa card, I don’t know.”
    Drake pulled contemplatively at his beer and looked out the window on the parade of tourists marching up and down State Street. He didn’t respond. It was that crucial hour of the day, the hour known as cocktail hour, two for one, the light stuck on the underside of the palms, everything soft and pretty and winding down toward dinner and evening, the whole night held out before them like a promise. “What time’s the Dodger game?” Drake said finally.
    Jason looked at his watch. It was a reflex. The Dodgers were playing the Mets at five-thirty, Astacio against the Doc, and he knew the time and channel as well as he knew his A.T.M. number. The Angels were on Prime Ticket, seven-thirty, at home against the Orioles. And Paula—Paula was at home too, focussing (do not disturb, thank you very much) for the big one with the Amazing Bone Woman the next morning. “Five-thirty,” he said, after a long pause.
    Drake said nothing. His beer was gone, and he shuffled behind the counter to the little reefer for another. When he’d cracked it, sipped, belched, scratched himself thoroughly, and commented on the physique of an overweight Mexican chick in a red bikini making her way up from the beach, he ventured an opinion on the topic under consideration: “Time to close up?”
    All things being equal, Jason would have stayed open till six, or near six anyway, on a Saturday in August. The summer months accounted for the lion’s share of his business—it was like the Christmas season for everybody else—and he tried to maximize it, hereally did, but he knew what Drake was saying. Twenty to five now, and they had to count the receipts, lock up, stop by the night deposit at the B. of A., and then settle in at Clubber’s for the game. It would be nice to be there, maybe with a tall tequila tonic and the sports section spread out on the bar, before the game got under way. Just to settle in and enjoy the fruits of their labor. He gave a sigh, for form’s sake, and said, “Yeah, why not?”
    And then there was cocktail hour and he had a couple of tall tequila tonics before switching to beer, and the Dodgers looked good, real good, red hot, and somebody bought him a shot. Drake was carrying on about something—his girlfriend’s cat, the calluses on his mother’s feet—and Jason tuned him out, ordered two soft chicken tacos, and watched the sun do all sorts of amazing pink and salmon things to the storefronts across the street before the gray finally settled in. He was thinking he should have gone surfing today, thinking he’d maybe go out in the morning, and then he was thinking of Paula. He should wish her luck or something, give her a phone call at least. But the more he thought about it, the more he pictured her alone in her apartment, power-drinking her fluids, sunk into the shell of her focus like some Chinese Zen master, and the more he wanted to see her.
    They hadn’t had sex in a