The Driver's Guide to Hitting Pedestrians by Andersen Prunty Read Free Book Online Page A

all the time. I didn’t see how anyone so thin and old could eat so much but it was like he was trying to pack it all in before he died which, from the look of him, could be any day. I began thinking about how much a funeral would cost and whether or not I would have to pay for it. Already, I had resolved to purchase a wheelchair—soon I would have to go back to work and I couldn’t just tell him to hold it all day. He was probably incontinent, anyway.
    By the end of the first week, I didn’t know why I had purchased him in the first place. Honestly, what did I expect to do with an author? I didn’t even read very much. Maybe I thought he would be the stuff of drama—more thrilling than television. But thrilling he most certainly was not. He didn’t talk in anything other than monosyllabic answers to my questions so there wasn’t even any type of intellectual discussion to engage in.
    Careful that I was out of Manko’s earshot, I called the bookstore.
    “ Do you take returns?” I asked.
    “ Depends,” a girl said in a bored voice. I wondered if it was the same girl who had sold Manko to me. I listened for the fluttering sound of magazine pages flipping but I couldn’t hear anything over the din in the background. They’d either gotten more authors in or they had livened up a bit since I was there.
    “ Depends on what?”
    “ Lots of things, really.”
    I gritted my teeth. I most certainly would not be purchasing any more authors from this bookstore.
    “ Would you like to know what it is I want to return?” I helped her along.
    “ Not really but I imagine you’re going to tell me anyway.”
    “ Last week, I purchased Gregory Manko from your store and I’d like to return him.”
    “ Why?” she asked. “Already have one?” At this, she chuckled.
    “ No, I ... I don’t already have one. I just didn’t ... I guess I just didn’t realize how expensive it would be. And physically taxing.”
    “ It’s not his fault he has a handicap.”
    “ I know . I’m not blaming anyone for anything. I just don’t think I’ll be able to take care of him.”
    “ As I recall, he was a sale item.”
    “ Yes.”
    “ We don’t take returns on sale items.”
    “ What am I supposed to do with him?”
    “ That’s your problem.”
    “ But surely this isn’t the first time you’ve had this problem.”
    “ I don’t have the problem. I guess you could try donating him to the thrift store. Or selling him to the used bookstore if you need the cash although, quite frankly, I don’t think they’ll pay you very much for him.”
    “ Thanks. Maybe I’ll try that.” She had already hung up. I pressed the OFF button and walked into the living room. Manko sat on the couch, his hands resting on those withered legs, watching television. He hadn’t picked up a book since coming here. I thought that was odd. Shouldn’t an author read a lot? It seemed like I had read somewhere that an author was supposed to read twice as much as he wrote. For that matter, he hadn’t requested a single piece of paper or pen or typewriter or laptop or anything. Didn’t he write anymore? Sitting down next to him, I noticed his bottom lip was trembling. He blinked back tears.
    “ Say, you want to go for a drive?” I asked.
    “ Getting rid of me?” he said.
    “ This just isn’t what I expected,” I said.
    “ Not what you wanted, you mean?” He wiped a tear away with a knobby knuckle.
    “ Yeah. I guess you could say that.”
    “ You people don’t know what you want.”
    “ You people?”
    “ Readers.”
    “ I liked that book of short stories you did.”
    “ And you wanted something like that?”
    “ I guess.”
    “ And you got real life instead.”
    A heavy silence hung between us. He sniffled. A phlegmy, wet-sounding thing. Then he spoke again. “People say they want to read about life but that’s not what they want at all. They want a version of life. Don’t you realize, someone else’s version of someone else’s