“When I got wood.”
“And when you don’t?”
“I make do.”
“You freeze.”
“Hey, man, I’m not the only one.Lots of people around here don’t have heat.”
“Not if I can help it,” Eugene muttered.He tugged at a lamp chain.Nothing happened.“And you didn’t pay your bill.”
“Icouldn’tpay my bill.Besides, what do I need lights for?When it gets dark, I go to sleep.”
“So how do you read?”To Cutter’s chagrin, Eugene had spotted the books that were sticking out from under the clothes on the chair.“Did you steal them?”
“They’re from the library.”
“Did you steal them?”
“No.”
Eugene lifted one.“Catcher in the Rye.Any good?”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s it about?”
“Some kids.”He prayed Eugene wouldn’t ask more.He liked the book, felt a kind of affinity for the rebelliousness of Holden Caulfield, but he had a feeling he’d missed a lot of what the author was trying to say.That was what his teachers had always told him, that he was missing things.Personally, he didn’t care.He liked to read, but he didn’t want to be forever taking apart every line.So he missed some hidden meaning.So what?
When Eugene tossed the book back to the chair, he was relieved, but his relief was short-lived.Folding his arms over his chest, Eugene leaned back against the door.“Got anything clean and dry in this mess?”
Cutter knew he could find dry.Clean was another story.Sifting through a pile of clothes on the floor behind the ladder to the loft, he came up with the best of the lot, jeans and a shirt that would have to do.He looked up to find Eugene watching him.“I got some.”
“Put them on.”
“You just gonna stand there and watch?”
“Yup.”
“Look who’s talkin’ about manners.”
“The way I see it,” Eugene said, “if you were in jail, you’d be doing this and more in front of a dozen guys.Now speed it up.I’m not getting any warmer standing around this shitbox.”
Neither was Cutter.Peeling off his sodden jacket, then his shirt, he mopped mud spatters from his face and neck as best he could with the inside of the wet shirt, then put on the dry one.Without looking at Eugene, he went at his pants.When he had the dry jeans on, he found a pair of socks.But the wet work boots had to go back on.They were the only shoes he had.Grabbing a jacket that he’d snitched the month before from a hook in a soda shop two towns over, he approached Eugene.
“My place isn’t so bad, y’know.Some are worse.”
“Only if the people who live there are feeble-minded or infirm.So what’s your excuse?That your folks are gone?That you’re just a kid?That you don’t know what a laundromat is?That you don’t have time to go?Well, I say bullshit.You’re a lazy bum without a stitch of pride.”He pulled open the door and stomped out.
“I’m not lazy!”Cutter called after him.“And I got pride!”
“Get back in the car!”Eugene bellowed.
One part of Cutter was tempted to turn around and race into the woods.Given that he knew them like the back of his hand, he’d escape Eugene for sure.The otherpart, though, was thinking that Eugene had to be getting hungry.
He got back in the car.
Eugene started it up, and after some tricky maneuvering in the mud he had it turned around and bouncing back over the ruts toward the main road.Cutter stared out the windshield, wondering where they were going next, darting Eugene the occasional glance in hopes of finding out.But the man’s face told him nothing, and since Cutter wasn’t about to ask again, he stayed silent.He definitely had pride.
