Underdogs Read Free

that winter, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I failed in getting my old job back. My father gave me a chance. My elder brother Steve screwed up his ankle, insulted the hell out of me, and eventually came to realize something. My mother held a boxing exhibition in our school welfare office and went berserk one night, throwing the compost at my feet in the kitchen. My sister, Sarah, got jilted. Rube started growing a beard and eventually woke up to himself a bit. Greg, a guy who was once my best friend, asked me for three hundred bucks to save his life. I met a girl and fell in love with her (but then, I could fall in love with anything that showed an interest). I dreamed a whole lot of weird, sick, perverted, sometimes beautiful dreams. And I survived.
    thing much happened really.
    It was all pretty normal.
    First dream
:
    It’s late afternoon and I’m walking to the dental surgery when I see someone standing on the roof. As I move closer I realize it’s the dentist. I can tell from the white coat and the mustache. He’s right on the edge, looking prepared to throw himself off.
    I stop beneath him and yell, “Oil What the hell are you doing?”
    “What’s it look like?”
    At that, I’m speechless.
    All I can do now is run into the arcade building where the dental surgery is situated and go through and tell the beautiful dental nurse.
    “What!” is her reply.
    My God, she looks so great that I almost tell her, “To hell with Mister Dentist, let’s go down the beach or something.” I don’t say anything else, though. I just run to the end of a corridor, open the door, and take some stairs up to the roof.
    For some reason, when I make it to the edge, the dental nurse hasn’t come with me.
    When I stand next to the brooding, mustached dentist and look over the edge, she’s standing at the bottom, trying to tell him to come down.
    “What are you doing down there?” I call down to her.
    “I’m not going up there!” she shouts back up. “I’m scared of heights!”
    I accept her statement, because, quite frankly, I’m happy enough because I can see her legs and body, and my stomach tightens under my skin.
    “Come on, Tom!” She tries to negotiate with the dentist. “Come back down. Please!”
    “Say, what
are
you doin’ up here anyway?” I ask him. He turns to face me. Candid.
    Then he says, “It’s because of you.” “Me! What the hell did I do?” “I overcharged you.”
    “Geez, mate, that wasn’t very nice,” and suddenly, sadistically, I urge him on. “Go on, jump, then — you deserve it, you bloody cheat.”
    Even the beautiful dental nurse wants him to jump now. She calls out, “Come on, Tom — I’ll catch you!” It happens. Down. Down.
    He jumps and falls down, and the beautiful dental nurse catches him, kisses his mouth, and places him gently on the ground. She even holds him, touching bodies with him. Oh, that white uniform, rubbing on him. It drives me wild, and instantly, when she to jump as well, I do it and fall….
    In bed, waking up, I’m lying there with the taste of blood in my mouth, and with the memory of footpath and impact in my head.

CHAPTER 2
     
    Since the whole dentist incident drained my money situation, I pretty much went and begged for my old job back. The guy in the newsagent’s wasn’t impressed.
    He said, “Sorry, Mr. Wolfe. You’re just too much of a risk. You’re dangerous.”
    Have a listen to the bloke. You’d think I was walking around with a sawn-off shotgun or something. Bloody hell, I was just a paper boy.
    “C’mon, Max,” I pleaded with him. “I’m older now. More responsible.”
    “How old are y’ anyway?”
    “Fifteen.”
    “Well …” He thought hard. He stopped — drew the line. “No.” He shook his head. “No. No.” But I had him, surely. There was too much hesitation in him. He was thinking too hard. “Fifteen’s too old now, anyway.”
    Too old!
    Mate, it didn’t feel too good to be a washed-up, redundant paper