Limitations by Scott Turow Read Free Book Online Page B

trousers and boxer shorts bunched at the ankles. The boy was on his toes while the box lurched minutely with his efforts.
    At least two dozen men were lined up on either side of the hallway to witness this, all with their ties loosened and drinks in hand. They jolted in laughter and slapped one another’s shoulders, shouting out lewd one-liners. But none of them, no matter what, took his eyes off the box. It was as if it contained the secret of fire. Every now and then, one or two would break away to peer into the open end of the carton and shout obscene encouragement to the fellow inside.
    George crept closer until he realized that he’d chosen the side of the hall where the line had formed. The nearer he came to the front, the more he felt the frantic charge that seemed to grip all of the spectators. A dull knocking sounded from the box, and at one point as George waited, a boy inside suddenly screamed ‘Score!’ The men in the corridor erupted in laughter that seemed wild enough to loosen the bricks of the building.
    In front of him in line was Tom McMillan, another first-year. ‘I’m going again,’ he told George. The girl, McMillan explained, had appeared at the football game alone, apparently ditched by her date. She had started talking to Brierly and Goren, two boys from the dorm, both dateless too, and returned here with them. The three drank for hours, until they were all witless from the favored libation of the weekend, a cocktail of grain alcohol and fruit punch consumed directly from a Hi-C can. At some point, the girl had said that she’d be everybody’s date, and that had become a motif for their increasingly lewd conversation, until the boys began to press the idea that she could not disappoint them. Brierly had found this refrigerator box, and the girl had supposedly climbed in with him, laughing.
    As George neared the head of the line, a first-year named Rogers Peterson came charging down the hall toward Brierly.
    ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Jesus. Some of us have our dates up here. We can’t have this going on. What’s wrong with all of you? What should we tell our girls?’
    ‘Tell them not to look,’ Brierly said, and the mob howled, jeering Peterson as he retreated.
    The throng of onlookers was growing fast. Word was spreading. Fellows in ties and blazers had actually stepped out on their dates for a few minutes and come running. George could feel his anxieties wearing through the effects of the Scotch, and he noticed that there were far more men watching than awaiting a turn. But the line was growing behind him fast enough that he knew there was no time for indecision.
    When McMillan reached the head, Brierly waved him away.
    ‘No seconds, not yet.’
    McMillan was still protesting when a short, obese fellow George did not know backed out of the box, refastening his trousers.
    ‘What a swamp!’ he said, and the hallway again rocked with laughter.
    Brierly pointed at George. ‘Next,’ he said, ‘in the tunnel of love.’ Only then did George see that Hugh was collecting money, ‘Rent,’ Brierly said. ‘It’s my box.’
    George dumbly picked ten dollars, a week’s spending money, out of his wallet.
    ‘You have five minutes, Mason. Do your best.’
    He did not even touch his belt to lower his trousers until he had crept inside, where he was overwhelmed by the intense odor. Someone, probably the girl, had vomited, and the smell was heavy in the close air, which was sodden with overheated breaths and perspiration. The box was so low he could not really kneel over her and had to support himself with one hand to pull down his pants. The girl was talking to herself, half sentences, song lyrics, he thought, a high-pitched mumbo jumbo. He made out one phrase she sang: ‘I want to hold your hand.’
    She addressed him when he touched her. ‘Hey, honey,’ she said in a lyrical, drunken, carefree voice, seeming to relish this fleeting moment of anesthesia.
    He wanted to make the most of his