Read Online Make Me Work by Ralph Lombreglia - Free Book Online

Muddy Waters band.
    â€œYou could have one of your very own,” Rebecca says.
    â€œI don’t know. It seems like an awfully big decision.”
    â€œOr none at all,” Anita says.
    Diagonally across the room, beneath one of the big industrial windows overlooking Route 93, Tempesto has set up his lasers on the camera tripods. “Streetlamp shooting gallery!” he calls out now over the music. “Three shots for a buck!” he adds, and we join the crowd in front of the window to see his demonstration. It’s that sublime moment in a cloudless day when the smoggy yellow horizon dissolves slowly upward through values of blue into an indigo chamber containing Venus and a few airplanes. Most cars aren’t using their headlights yet, but the mercury-vapor lamps have begun to glow like giant luminous insects flying in formation over the lanes of 93. The traffic north is moving, but south to the Cape it seems to be backed up for miles. Tempesto trains one of his lasers on the highway and presses the button to shoot. He misses a few times, then hits the photoelectric cell controlling a street-lamp on the northbound side. It goes black, to the amazement and cheers of the flock around him. Dwight pays Tempesto a dollar and aims the other beam. He’s done this before; on his third shot he gets a lamp.
    â€œI’m next!” the carpenters shout, waving their dollar bills. “Let me try!” they cry, pushing one another out of the way.
    After a few minutes a knocked-out lamp wakes up again, so the underlying game is to see how many you can zap before they come back on. Little by little, patches of Route 93 go dark.
    â€œDo men ever grow up?” Rebecca asks Anita.
    â€œNo,” Anita says.
    Meanwhile, Dwight has led Benny across the room to the racetrack behind us, where he stands looking down at the long enclosure on the floor and shaking his head. Dwight moves him toward the drinks. I drift over there around the dancers, and when I arrive at the plywood bar Benny is sipping a gin and tonic while Dwight drizzles hoisin sauce into a plastic cup. “This is the flakiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Benny says as Dwight pours tomato juice and vodka in on top of the hoisin.
    â€œThey don’t have any Worcestershire,” he explains, and then he takes a sip. “Delicious. Walter, help me out. Benny thinks belt-sander races are a stupid idea.”
    â€œNo,” I say. “Really? Ever seen one?”
    â€œI didn’t even know there was any such thing.”
    â€œWell, don’t judge a book by its cover, Benny. Try to imagine yourself as early man. All around early man are sticks and stones. One day it hits him: tie a stone to a stick. What’s he got?”
    â€œA hammer!” Benny says.
    â€œRight. And then?”
    â€œCivilization!”
    â€œNow you’re getting it,” says Dwight. He fetches his plastic garbage bag from beneath the bar, and extracts the modified Makita.
    â€œWell, get a load of this!” Benny says, turning it over in his hands, looking at the name of his new product emblazoned on its sides, the fresh belt of Veritas Grit installed on the machine. “We’ve got a nag running in this race?”
    â€œTell Benny our idea, Walter,” says Dwight.
    â€œIt’s simple,” I say. “Winners use Veritas Grit.”
    Benny’s smile opens up like a streetlamp coming on in the darkness. “They can’t argue with that, can they?” He sips his gin and tonic and thinks. “They just might go for this back at the ranch! They just might! But you gotta show us. We’re from Missouri.”
    â€œI’m from the Bronx,” says Dwight. “Follow me.”
    At the far end of the room, the contestants have gathered with their precious horses in their hands—Makitas and Milwaukees, Black & Deckers, Skils. The races are held in heats, two sanders at a time, until two finalists remain