Bad Haircut by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online Page A

me.”
    Caravello pushed me hard into the passenger door.
    “Don't be stupid, Buddy. They all say no, but they don't mean it. It's just something they have to say, so you don't think they're sluts.”
    “They must mean it sometimes,” I said.
    Caravello shook his head.
    “You better grow up,” he told me.
    I stared out the window for a while. We drove past Echo Lake. Even at night, you could see that the water was brown and shiny.
    McDonald's was on Grand Avenue across from the paper mill. It felt good pulling into the parking lot in the Camaro. Usually I just sat inside the restaurant with friends, sharing fries and writing my name in salt on the tabletop, dreaming of the day when I would have a car.
    “Wait for me,” I told Caravello. “I gotta take a whizz.”
    Although the parking lot was packed with cars and kids, the restaurant was nearly empty. My Uncle Ralph was the only customer inside. He sat with his back to me at a table near the window The dwarf we called Kareem was mopping the floor around my uncle's feet.
    The restroom was disgusting. It smelled like somebody had just puked in there. I held my breath and pissed as fast as I could. I flushed the urinal as a favor to Kareem, then went to say hi to my uncle. When I came up behind him he was grinding a cigarette into the overflowing ashtrayas though he held a grudge against it. I touched his shoulder.
    “Uncle Ralph.”
    “Buddy, how's it going?” The
National Enquirer
was spread out in front of him like a tablecloth.
    “Fine,” I said. “What's in the news?”
    “Look at this.” He pointed with his yellowed fingertip to a headline that read, “Biggest Public Toilet in the Universe!”
    “It says here that the Russian astronauts are dumping their excrement directly into outer space. Can you believe it? All these turds just floating around up there?”
    “Don't our guys do it too?” I asked.
    “No sir. We cart ours home.”
    “It's really cold up there,” I pointed out. “It probably just freezes right up.”
    “That's not the point,” he said.
    Kareem looked up suddenly from the floor and fixed the paper cap on his big head.
    “The point is to have some respect,” he said. His voice was surprisingly deep.
    “Amen,” said Uncle Ralph.
    “Well,” I said. “I better get going.”
    “You sure?” Uncle Ralph asked. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee or something?”
    “No thanks. Gotta run.”
    When I got outside, the car was gone. I figured Caravello had ditched me, and I couldn't reallyblame him. What could he possibly get out of hanging out with someone who had to be home by nine-thirty? But then the horn honked and I saw him waiting for me on the exit side of the lot, grinning with his metallic teeth. I jogged over to the car feeling like a celebrity.
    I opened the passenger door. Tina was in my seat.
    “Look who I found,” said Caravello.
    I started to squeeze into the back seat but Caravello said, “No way. Nobody rides nigger in my car. Tina can sit on your lap.”
    She sat all the way up by my knees and held onto the dashboard. She waved out the window as we started moving. I turned my head and saw Jane and Donna leaning against a car talking to three blond guys I didn't recognize.
    “Those guys are dickheads,” Caravello said.
    Tina lit a cigarette as we accelerated on Grand. The breeze blew wisps of her hair into my face. I wanted to touch her, but I didn't know where we stood.
    “How was the shore?” I asked.
    She blew smoke out the window. “Great. Like my tan?” She pulled her shirt away from her shoulder to reveal a tan line as thin and pale as a piece of spaghetti, then twisted her head to look at me. “You know that old guy in McDonald's?”
    “Yeah. He's my uncle.”
    “It's kinda creepy,” she said. “It's like he lives in there.”
    “You have to know him,” I said. “His wife died of cancer.”
    In my mind, I saw Uncle Ralph at the funeral, kissing the flower he dropped in Aunt Dot's grave, my father