Last Summer of the Death Warriors Read Free Page B

no expert on pretty,” he remarked.
    She giggled. “Oh, Pancho.” She leaned back, slumped in the chair, yawned. “I’m sleepy,” she said.
    “Don’t fall asleep in the chair,” he told her.
    “Oh, Pancho.” She pushed herself slowly up. She was halfway to her room when he saw her turn around. She took the ten-dollar bill from her purse and waved it and grinned at him all at the same time. Then she pried open the lid of the can marked sugar and dropped the bill in there.
    It felt as if he had been asleep all of ten minutes when someone poked his ribs. He willed his eyelids to open. Slowly, the gaunt face of D.Q. came into focus. I don’t need to see that first thing, he thought.
    “Wake up, Mr. Pancho. It’s time to greet the new day.”
    “Shit.” He fished around for the sheet, but there was no sheet to be found. “What time is it?”
    “It’s eight thirty. You got to sleep late today. Everyone is already up and about doing God’s work.”
    This can’t be happening to me, he said to himself. He shook his head the way a wet dog dries himself, and then, in one forceful movement, he sat bolt upright on the bed. He blinked three times and then tried to swing his legs off the bed, but the wheelchair was in the way. “You mind moving?” he asked.
    D.Q. wheeled himself backward. “Hey, look. I got you a pair of regulation St. Tony’s shorts and two T-shirts. It’s going to be hot working in that room.” D.Q. was holding up a pair of gray shorts. On one of the legs, a silver circle with the words “St. Anthony’s” curved around a man in a robe, holding a shepherd’s staff. “I also found you a toothbrush and a bar of soap. Not that I’m trying to tell you anything.”
    Pancho stood up and quickly slipped into the shorts. Then he grabbed one of the blue T-shirts and put that on as well.
    “Come on,” said D.Q., “I’ll show you where the dining room is.”
    “I have to take a leak first,” he said.
    “It’s on the way.”
    “You gonna watch me do that too?”
    D.Q. was moving on ahead. “Nah, you can handle that on your own.”
    The dining room had five round tables with eight plastic chairs each. A skinny white vase with a fake carnation sat in the middle of each table. There was a serving counter in one wall through which you could see the kitchen. The counter held eight boxes of different cereals as well as two one-gallon jugs of milk, a tin bowl with bananas, oranges, and green apples, and a glass pitcher half filled with powdery orange juice.
    Three boys sat at one of the middle tables, talking loudly. Theylooked up when D.Q. and Pancho entered the room but then went back to their conversation. “You never even came close to making it, you liar,” Pancho heard one of them say.
    “There’s breakfast,” D.Q. said, pointing at the cereal. “I already ate, but I’ll keep you company.”
    Pancho grabbed a white bowl and filled it with the first box of cereal. He poured milk into the bowl, grabbed a banana and a spoon, and went to sit down at the table where D.Q. had stationed himself. He put a spoonful of the cereal in his mouth and chewed slowly, not lifting his eyes from the bowl. He wished he had a cereal box in front of him so he could fix his eyes somewhere.
    “Want me to introduce you to people?” D.Q. motioned with his head to the table with the boys.
    “Nope,” he said.
    “That’s all right. There’s no pressure here to be social.” D.Q. was wearing a long-sleeve cowboy shirt. It was brown with white designs around the pockets and those pearl-lacquered buttons. His blue jeans looked three sizes too big for him.
    “You and me gonna tag along all day?” Pancho asked. He wiped off the milk that was running down the side of his mouth.
    “Not all day. I usually take a nap, sometimes two. You’ll be on your own then.”
    After Pancho finished the cereal, he peeled the banana and ate it in two bites. He dropped the peel in the cereal bowl. “You never said what’s