The Unmaking of Rabbit Read Free Page A

at the table making up her shopping list. When she started out by saying she needed a loaf of bread and a pound of margarine, she usually ended by sending him for a load of stuff he had difficulty carrying home.
    â€œYou tell Mr. Barker I want the thin noodles,” she said. “If he doesn’t have the thin kind, I don’t want any. And if they’re more than thirty cents, don’t buy them. If he wasn’t so convenient, I wouldn’t set foot inside his place. That man would just as soon rob his own mother as look at her.”
    Paul took the list and tucked it into his pocket.
    â€œI like Mr. Barker,” he said.
    â€œI didn’t say you couldn’t like him,” Gran snapped. “I simply said he’s a robber, the prices he charges. And you tell him that last piece of round steak he gave me was tough as an old billy goat.” She handed Paul some money. “You tell him for me if that was round steak, I’m Marilyn Monroe.”
    Paul escaped into the half-dark day. Thunder grumbled in the distance like an empty stomach. He scuffed through the cast-off candy wrappers and bits and pieces of trash by the curb looking for money. Once he had found a dime, and it seemed to him that on that day his luck had changed for the better. He had passed an arithmetic test he had expected to fail, and a new kid down the street had asked him over to play checkers. He didn’t like the boy much, and he’d never been invited back, to play checkers or anything else, but finding the dime had been nothing but luck.
    Although he kept his head down the whole way, except when a car blew an angry horn at him and the driver leaned out the window and shouted, “Watch it, kid. You wanna get killed?” he didn’t find anything but a rusty beer-can opener.
    Boy Wanted , the sign in Mr. Barker’s window read. From 3-6 weekdays, Saturdays all day. Inquire within . Paul read the sign two or three times. He closed his eyes and made a wish. He hadn’t made too many wishes lately, so he figured his credit was good. He promised God that if he got the job, God could count on him for all kinds of things, like not forgetting to brush his teeth, which were usually fairly green around the gums, and also taking trouble with the margins on his homework papers.
    A bell tinkled as he opened the shop door. Two ladies with hats on were pinching the tomatoes, although there was a sign in front of them which clearly said: Please don’t pinch the tomatoes. They might pinch back .
    That was Mr. Barker for you. He had a really good sense of humor. When Paul told his grandmother that, she sniffed and answered, “If I had as much money in the bank as he does, I’d be laughing and joking too.” When Gran got down on somebody, she really went all the way.
    â€œHey, Paul, how’s the boy?” Mr. Barker’s long, droopy mustache lifted at either end as he smiled. That mustache made him look as if he’d lost his last friend. It wasn’t until you noticed how his eyes shone and sparkled that you knew that here was a man who took life in his stride, a man who bounced back when Fate dealt him a right to the jaw.
    Mr. Barker had confided to Paul that Fate had dealt him not only plenty of rights to the jaw, but also its share of lefts. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Barker, he never would have made it, he said. Mrs. Barker was a dried-up little raisin of a woman with a long, pointy nose which made her look like a witch. A good witch. She always had her head in the oven, bringing out trays of brownies, cookies, pies, and goodies of all sorts. The Barkers lived above the store and sometimes invited Paul up to share their plenty. It was a constant source of wonder to him that Mr. and Mrs. Barker weren’t both big and fat, with all the food they had to tempt them.
    â€œHow you doing, sir?” Paul said. He would wait until the ladies left before he asked Mr. Barker about the