Callisto Read Free Page A

Dean.”
    When you use someone’s name for the first time it changes things between you, breaks the ice. Frankly, I wanted him to like me enough to let me stay overnight. There was nowhere else for me to go with a dead car anyway. We both looked at the Monte Carlo, him with contempt, me with something like shame, both of us wondering where to steer the relationship next. Finally he says, “Nothing more we can do here. Come on in the house. Did you eat today?”
    â€œPancakes for breakfast at Denny’s.”
    â€œI hate to cook, but you can help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen.”
    â€œI’ll do that, thank you.”
    â€œBetter bring your stuff inside, you aren’t going nowhere else today.”
    A little later I’m breaking eggs and chopping ham with Dean sitting backwards in a chair watching me. “You want some of this?” I offered. “I make a pretty good omelet.”
    â€œI don’t eat pigmeat. I quit that.”
    â€œJust plain then.”
    He shook his head and put a cigarette in his mouth. “These are the next things to go, and beer. There’s a sixpack in the fridge if you want it.”
    â€œYou on a health diet?”
    â€œYou might say that.” He flicked a lighter and squinted at me through blown smoke. I concentrated on the pan, flipping the eggs around and feeling hunger clutch at my guts when the smell got to me. When it was done I dished up and satopposite him at the kitchen table to eat. He watched me wolf it down like I’m a starving man.
    â€œSomeone your size, you must need a big food intake.”
    â€œJust average.” I munched and swallowed and felt bliss rush through me. There is nothing like hunger to make you appreciate being alive to satisfy it. All of a sudden I liked Dean more than before, even if I didn’t appreciate him blowing smoke across the table. Me, I have never smoked, never wanted to.
    â€œYou live here alone?”
    â€œYeah, except for my aunt. This is her place.”
    â€œShe’s not around today?”
    â€œNope, she went visiting.”
    â€œCallisto?”
    â€œFlorida. She’ll be there awhile.”
    Florida is where
The Yearling
is set, back in the swamp and piney woods. I felt a little bit envious. “Is she taking in the wild woods while she’s there?”
    â€œShe’d only get her ass bit by gators. She likes the beach when she visits. Fort Lauderdale, Miami, places like that with airconditioning, that’s what she likes.”
    I finished the omelet and wished I’d made a bigger one. The beer sounded good. “Okay for a brew?”
    â€œHelp yourself.”
    I got one out of the fridge and sat down again. He watched me pop the cap and start drinking, then he got up and fetched one himself. So much for the health diet.
    â€œI’ll quit tomorrow,” he said, winking. I laughed at that. He wasn’t such a bad guy. We could get along until I was out of his hair and signed up for the Army. He blew a crooked smoke ring and admired it. “So,” he says, “you want to go kill Muslims.”
    â€œI just want a steady job. They’re not so easy to come by without a graduation certificate.”
    â€œYou’ve got to have one of those to get in the Army.”
    â€œNo, they’re desperate for enlistees, so you just have to sit for a simple test, I heard, to show you’re not a moron.”
    â€œWell, you look the part anyway. They’ll make you a recruiter maybe.”
    â€œThat’d suit me fine.”
    â€œSo you don’t care about the Muslims and all that shit over there?”
    â€œWe started it, so now we have to finish the job, that’s how I see it.”
    â€œBut you know we never should’ve started it.”
    â€œEveryone knows that.”
    â€œExcept Bush.”
    â€œI bet he knows it, only he can’t say so out loud.”
    â€œSomebody should kill that