We the Animals by Justin Torres Read Free Book Online

lowered himself to his haunches. He frowned.
    "Well, at least you're only half as ugly looking as your Daddy is."
    We were half as ugly, half as dark, half as wild. Adults were always leaning in and explaining that we must have inherited this from Ma and that from Paps. We all three kept our eyes above the man, on Paps, who was still standing. He flashed us a look that was impossible to interpret, but serious, so serious.
    "What's all this?" the man asked, tugging at a corner of my sleeping bag.
    I looked at Joel standing next to me; Joel looked at Manny.
    "Listen, man," Paps said. "Let's you and I have a talk."
    "Your Daddy got you sleeping on the floor?"
    "I said let's you and I have a talk."
    The man rose up to his full height.
    "Talk?"
    Paps reached in his pocket, pulled out the car keys, and rested them on top of Manny's bundle. "Get your brothers settled in the car," he said quietly, "and don't drop anything."
    Turning back to the man, Paps said, "What? You can talk to my kids, but not to me?"
    In the car, we squished into the front, kneeling on the passenger seat, leaning our elbows on the dashboard, and cupping our faces in our hands. We peered out the windshield to the steps, where Paps and the other man smoked and gestured back and forth, Paps aiming a finger at the man, or at us in the car, or up at the sky, and the man mostly holding his hands, palms out, up by his chest and pushing the air away from him. Steam and smoke rose from their mouths, and the coffee cup sat untouched on the low wall.
    "How much you wanna bet Paps slugs him?" Manny asked.
    "Look at that man," Joel said. "That man don't want a fight."
    "He fell asleep," I said.
    "Who?"
    "Paps. He fell asleep."
    Joel and Manny quit jostling for the best position and studied Paps more closely.
    "So it's not our fault?" Joel asked.
    "Some," Manny said. "Some's always ours."
    Paps walked over to the man's coffee cup and smacked it, swinging wild, like he was trying to fly it out of the lot. We watched the brown liquid jump up in an arc and splatter on the pavement. The man narrowed his eyes at Paps, shook his head, and spat on the ground, walking away from him, into the building.
    By the time Paps opened the car door, Manny and Joel had already hustled into the back and buckled up, trying to shrink to invisible, but Paps turned in his seat, grabbed hold of Manny's hair, and said, "Keys!"
    Manny handed him the keys.
    "When I say move, you move, you understand me?"
    No one said anything.
    He let go of Manny and turned to me, gripping my chin and digging his fingers into my cheek. "Understand me?"
    "Yes, sir."
    We drove home in silence, each one of us sliding fingers into the condensation on our windows. Close to home, Manny had the nerve to ask, "You gonna get fired?"
    Paps laughed—one quick, nasty bark of a laugh.
    Manny tried again.
    "What'd that man say to you, anyway?"
    "What do you think?"
    Paps punched the ceiling. The noise jolted us to attention, and we braced ourselves for worse, but nothing followed.
    "Man, that's what he always says—'What do you think?'" Manny said in a too-loud mocking voice, but Paps didn't seem to hear; he just drove.
    "Yeah," I said. "That's what he said last night. About the light."
    "What light?"
    "The light in the cage outside the window. I asked if he could unlock it, and he said, 'What do you think?'"
    Joel considered this like a real thinker, one hand tucked up in his armpit and the other pinching his chin. "What do you think?" he asked.
    "That's not the point," Manny said.
    "I bet he could unlock it," Joel said to the two of us. Grabbing the back of his seat and leaning forward, he said to Paps, "I bet you could unlock that light. Couldn't you?"
    Paps cleared his throat and swallowed hard, but he didn't speak.
    "Sure he could," I said, leaning in with Joel. "Sure you could, Paps, couldn't you?"
    "Course he could," said Manny, joining us. "Nobody's saying you couldn't unlock it, Paps. Nobody's saying that. "
    Paps started