God's Pocket - Pete Dexter by Pete Dexter Read Free Book Online Page B

a
hook.
    They went back and looked into the truck again. Bird
couldn't stand it. "Fuck it," he said, “we'll leave it in
the truck."
    "We ain't going to take the truck to Delaware?"
Mickey said. They always took the empties to a shopping center in
Delaware. "These people are going to want their truck back,
Bird."
    "Fuck them," he said. He seemed healthier,
now he was pissed. “Let's get some of this shit in your truck,
Mick."
    Mickey said, "I can't use it like this. I got
nowhere to cut it up." He saw Bird wasn't listening. "Bird?"
    Bird jerked a side of beef down and Mickey helped him
get it out and carry it to his truck, and helped him put it in. They
stacked eight sides of beef, four on the left, four on the right,
putting most of the weight over the axle. Bird was out of breath when
they finished. "You sure you don't want a couple more?" he
said.
    "This is enough,” Mickey said. "It only
keeps a week in there anyway." Bird went back over to the truck
and closed the door on the meat. It seemed to make him feel better,
not to be looking at it.
    "Look," he said,
"we'll get the electric back on. Come back tomorrow and I'll get
somebody to cut it up for you." He put a long, thin arm around
Mickey's shoulders and walked him to his truck. He couldn't get him
out of there soon enough. Bird pulled the garage door up and waved as
Mickey backed out. Then he pulled on the rope to get the door started
back down again. The door was weighted, and hit bottom hard. It shut
while Bird was still looking out, before he expected it. It closed
down like bad weather.
    * * *
    It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Mickey got
home.
    He put his truck in the garage, plugged in the
cooling unit, and checked his load. It was still where he'd put it.
Twelve hundred pounds of beef he couldn't sell to anybody. For
transporting a stolen truck across state lines. For getting the piss
scared out of him, for watching the kid with the Cleveland Indians
baseball hat turn inside out when the man with Bird hit him.
Business.
    He'd sweated all the way from the truck stop, right
from what had happened with the kid. Then he'd lifted the eight sides
of beef—it would of been easier without Bird helping, but how do
you say that?—and that was a different kind of sweat, but he could
still smell the nervous kind in his shirt. He thought about having a
beer down at the Hollywood before he went in the house. He didn't
want to talk about Leon now. He did want to wash off the scared
smell, though.
    The front door was unlocked, but he didn't hear the
radio. Jeanie listened to call-in shows all afternoon. He walked in,
and something was different. The house seemed still. "Jeanie?"
    Nothing. "Jeanie, you here?"
    He found her upstairs, lying on the bed, holding a
pale blue Princess telephone against her stomach. Her eyes followed
him, across the room and then as he sat down next to her on the bed.
    "What is it?" he said. He didn't try to
touch her.
    "Leon's dead,"
she said.
    * * *
    All morning long, the kid had been crazy. Crazy even
for him. One minute he was working nice as could be, keeping Old Lucy
in blocks and mortar, the next minute he was putting everything on
the wrong side, and a minute after that he was screaming about
working for a nigger. Threatening to file a complaint with the union.
    Old Lucy never paid him any notice.
    Peets thought for a while that Leon would quit. The
first time he screamed about doing yard work for the nigger, that
looked promising, but after that he picked up the blocks he'd dropped
to make the announcement, and then he took them to Old Lucy and put
them down on the right side. He said something to him too, like it
wasn't nothing personal, and he'd smiled.
    Old Lucy acted like he didn't hear, and for fifteen,
twenty minutes the kid kept with him. By eleven o'clock he'd walked
by Peets ten times, carrying blocks or mortar, and every time there
was something different in his eyes. One minute they were laughing,
the next minute they