The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair by Percival Everett Read Free Book Online Page B

the mantel and look at the moose’s head above. “Did your father really kill this animal?”
    “So I was told. A crying shame, if you ask me.” Virgil Boyd got his pipe going, puffing clouds of blue smoke. “I’m sure he didn’t eat any of the beast. Killed for so-called sport. I keep it around as a reminder of crying shames.”
    “Imagine the body that went with that head,” Morrison Long said.
    “Do you really have to go back to Chicago so soon?”
    “I’m afraid so. Unlike you, I still have work. Tell me, do you miss your practice?”
    Virgil Boyd chewed the end of his pipe and considered the question. “No. I don’t miss the patients. They never wanted to be there anyway and saw clear of their own negligence to blame me for their pain and expense. I don’t miss being on my feet all day. I’m thankful, however. Dentistry was a good profession and it gave me the skills and patience I need for my detailed work now.”
    “Well, it really is something,” Morrison Long’s eye followed the tracks which ran by his feet, across the hearth.
    Virgil Boyd walked to the corner of the room where sprawled a replica of a small town with a central square, storefronts and houses with shrubs, trees and lawns.
    “What town is that?” asked Morrison Long.
    “Ashland, Kentucky.” Virgil Boyd walked to the town. “See, the oil refinery.” Flames sat atop stacks and little lights glowed on the rigging. “Some of the houses on this hill are my finest work. Such detail inside.”
    “Let’s see.”
    Virgil Boyd shook his head. “We mustn’t disturb the model.”
    “Don’t you like to admire your work?”
    “I do, but I can’t go around taking the roofs off of people’s houses.”
    Morrison Long smiled. “Of course.”
    Virgil went back to his chair and sat, took a deep draw on his pipe.
    “Are you quite all right?” Morrison Long asked.
    “I’m fine.”
    “You were joking, weren’t you?”
    Virgil Boyd just looked at his friend. “What do you mean?”
    “I want to see in one of the houses.”
    “No, I said.”
    “Why not?”
    “Would you want somebody taking the roof off your house and looking in?”
    “I suppose not.”
    “No, of course you wouldn’t. The model is very delicate. Everything is just so.”
    Morrison Long looked at the sculpted hillsides in the corner beyond Ashland, at the tiny trees, at the gardens of the big house whose roof would not be removed.
    “What are you thinking?” Virgil Boyd asked.
    Morrison Long sat down. “Have you ever been to Ashland, Kentucky?”
    “Yes.”
    “The real one.”
    “Yes.”
    “I mean the one in Kentucky. The one the freeway goes through.”
    “There’s no freeway through Ashland.”
    Morrison Long’s left hand held his right in his lap. His fingers moved to his wrist and he toyed with his watchband. “Virgil,” he said, “do you know who lives in that big house?”
    “Yes, of course I do.” Virgil Boyd adjusted himself in his chair and looked his friend in the eye. “Why do you ask?”
    “Stop pulling my chain,” Morrison Long said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Just stop it. This isn’t funny. Well, maybe it’s funny, but it’s gone too far. So, cut the act.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Viigil Boyd said. “Perhaps you haven’t paid close enough attention to the model. Come back down into the basement with me.” He led the way from the study and down the stairs. “I realize that there is an awful lot to take in, but you really must try.”
    Morrison Long followed, saying nothing, looking again at the massive network of HO scale world around him. He looked at a town from America’s old West, a hog farm on its outskirts. He looked at glittering lights of modern Detroit in the far corner of the basement. “It’s more impressive each time I look at it.”
    “I feel the same way.” Virgil Boyd took his seat behind the screen of the control terminal. “All the commands come from here.”
    “The