Boulevard by Jim Grimsley Read Free Book Online Page A

started in three days, that he would have to get up very early every morning, even earlier than for the IGA; he would have to buy a cheap alarm clock—he couldn’t rely on his watch. But he could buy an alarm clock out of the forty some dollars he had left, a sum that appeared more substantial now that it only had to last a few days. He could buy something to eat besides soup, and starting on Tuesday, he could eat two meals a day for free at the restaurant.
    He could buy the magazine if he wanted it, he realized, he could buy
Brute Hombre
with the picture of Rod Hardigan on the cover. Twelve dollars to own it, and he could afford it if he found an alarm clock that was cheap enough. So he went to his room right away and got his money, leaving twenty and taking the rest, heading to the junk store downstairs, figuring it was smart to check with Miss Kimbro first. She struck him as a woman who understood a bargain.
    The junk store had a lot of traffic, this being a Saturday afternoon, but he explored the store till he found a row of clocks, still in their store boxes, marked for two dollars apiece. The clocks had alarms and lighted dials, and he figured he could plug one in by the refrigerator and set it on top, and if the dial was really lighted he could read the time from across the room. Two dollars was in his price range.
    It was sitting on a book, an old one with a cloth cover,
The Flavor of the French Quarter
. The book was fifty cents. Inside were pictures of the buildings he was seeing every day. He picked up the book, too.
    Miss Kimbro was working by herself this afternoon. With her reading glasses low on her nose, she wrote in her ledger, “General Electric alarm clock in original box and old book.”
    â€œSo, you’re doing all right up there?” she asked.
    â€œI sure am. I found a job today.”
    â€œYou don’t say.” She was frowning, but he could tell she was pleased. “Well, then, I guess you’re all right now, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes ma’am. I’m going to be a bus boy at a restaurant.”
    â€œWe all have to start somewhere,” she said, though he was not quite sure what she meant. “You can bring that clock back if it doesn’t work, and try another one. Keep it in the box.”
    â€œWhen I get the money, can I get a phone up there?”
    â€œOf course you can. Now run along, I’m by myself today.”
    He took the clock and the book upstairs, set the book on his bed, plugged in the clock. The second hand swept round and the face lit a soft amber color. He set the alarm for the next hour and waited to see if it would work. At 3 p.m. the alarm sounded, a nice loud buzz, and he figured it would be enough to wake him.
    He looked at the book for a while. Read a page that defined what a “walled city” was, what an “abat vent”was, each with illustrations. The book was stuffed with pictures and facts. There might even be something in it about this very building he was standing in. Newell felt pleased that he could spare fifty cents on his education; it made him feel as if he might come to understand this place. But he was too restless, now, to read.
    Outside, low, the sound of a ship’s horn, the ship passing upriver, he guessed, toward the container docks. From other directions the sound of traffic, from across the wall a television in the neighbor’s apartment. The low hum of the ceiling fan, a sound he hardly heard anymore. A drip in the bathroom sink. Here he was, he could stay here now, he could earn a living and keep his room, he could stay.
    By the time he reached St. Ann, he was already picturing the rows of magazines, the glossy cover, the pimply blond at the cash register. He crossed the street, dodging one of the metal horse heads, opened the door and stepped inside. He walked down the long row of shelves past the cash register, and yes, this time it was the blond kid on the cash register. He