Milosz by Cordelia Strube Read Free Book Online Page B

headlights like yours,’ he replies. Milo turns off the television and listens for noises next door. Nothing. The panties, bunched in his grip, have lost their grace. He hangs them over the arm of the couch.
    â€˜Do you believe in reincarnation, Milo?’
    â€˜You’re supposed to be sleeping.’
    â€˜I believe in energy impressions,’ Pablo continues. ‘All our life we put out energy and it leaves impressions.’
    Milo dreads going upstairs where he will be surrounded by Wallace and Vera. This house, Gus’s house, has always seemed cavernous. Now it feels like a crowded subway car moving in the wrong direction. If he didn’t need the cash, he’d evict the lot of them.
    â€˜We leave energy impressions on each other,’ Pablo explains. ‘All over our hearts and minds and souls. That is why it is so important to forgive. You don’t want to leave negative impressions for all time. Think about that, Milo, negative energy impressions for always.’
    Is that what Gus left? Negative energy impressions for always all over? The fucker has dented Milo’s molecules.


    He arrives early, knowing that teacher supervision doesn’t begin until eight-thirty, and pretends to be waiting for a bus, keeping his hand on the Spider-Man hood in his pocket. Vera’s bacon butties congeal in his gut. At breakfast Wallace was wearing a blazer a size too small and a tie. He left for ‘the office’ in the Friendly Junk Removal truck. ‘Where’s your motor?’ Vera asked.
    â€˜It’s in the shop,’ Wallace lied. ‘A buddy’s lending this to me.’ He pressed a fifty into Milo’s palm before leaving. ‘More later,’ he said. ‘You know what to do.’
    Billy the Bully slouches a hundred metres up the street. Milo feels a fury tunnelling through him. He looks around for possible witnesses: only a few stragglers in the yard. If he intercepts the little fucker and drags him behind the dumpster in the parking lot, no one will know. He pulls the Spider-Man hood over his head and strides towards the boy, who is fiddling with his personal listening device, and grabs him by the hoodie.
    â€˜What the fuck?’ the boy gasps, swatting at Milo’s hands as he hauls him off the sidewalk.
    â€˜You harass Robertson one more time and I’ll cut your balls off and sling them over the hoop, got it?’
    â€˜Who the fuck are you?’
    â€˜That includes notes, online or off. You slander him again and you will enter a world of pain.’
    Billy’s squirming forces Milo to grab his orange hair. ‘Tell me you understand, you little shit,’ he says. ‘Understand? Hands off Robertson.’
    â€˜I understand.’
    Milo releases his grip, and Billy crumples to the tarmac. Fleeing, Milo feels euphoric, energized, like he did as a child after beating up smaller boys: like he can fly – up, up and away. Who says violence doesn’t pay?
    â€˜We need you to take your shirt off,’ the casting director says. His hair is swept up as though he has been licked by a large cow.
    â€˜Do you have a problem with that?’ a short woman with sharply cornered glasses demands. ‘We need to see you with your shirt off. If you have a problem with that, you can go.’
    â€˜I’m no James Bond,’ Milo says.
    â€˜We don’t want James Bond,’ the woman quips.
    Milo starts to remove his shirt, surprised by his bashfulness – he who stands naked in front of strangers. Cool air presses against his nipples.
    â€˜Good,’ the woman says. ‘Now run around, please.’ She makes a circular motion with her hand, flashing scarlet fingernails.
    â€˜Run around?’ Milo asks.
    â€˜Do you have a problem with that?’
    â€˜The room is small.’
    â€˜You can’t run around in a small room?’
    â€˜Just run around,’ the casting director urges, making shooing