Read Online Short Cuts by Raymond Carver - Free Book Online Page A

man said to the dealer.
    “Three dollars,” the dealer said.
    “In,” Ralph said. “I’m in.” He put three chips into the pot.
    The dealer looked up and then back at his cards. “You really want some action, we can go to my place when we finish here,” the dealer said.
    “No, that’s all right,” Ralph said. “Enough action tonight. I just found out tonight. My wife played around with another guy two years ago. I found out tonight.” He cleared his throat.
    One man laid down his cards and lit his cigar. He stared at Ralph as he puffed, then shook out the match and picked up his cards again. The dealer looked up, resting his open hands on the table, the black hair very crisp on his dark hands.
    “You work here in town?” he said to Ralph.
    “I live here,” Ralph said. He felt drained, splendidly empty.
    “We playing or not?” a man said. “Clyde?”
    “Hold your water,” the dealer said.
    “For Christ’s sake,” the man said quietly.
    “What did you find out tonight?” the dealer said.
    “My wife,” Ralph said. “I found out.”
    In the alley, he took out his wallet again, let his fingers number the bills he had left: two dollars – and he thought there was some change in his pocket. Enough for something to eat. But he was not hungry, and he sagged against the building trying to think. A car turned into the alley, stopped, backed out again. He started walking. He went the way he’d come. He stayed close to the buildings, out of the path of the loud groups of men and women streaming up and down the sidewalk. He heard a woman in a long coat say to theman she was with, “It isn’t that way at all, Bruce. You don’t understand.”
    He stopped when he came to the liquor store. Inside he moved up to the counter and studied the long orderly rows of bottles. He bought a half pint of rum and some more cigarettes. The palm trees on the label of the bottle, the large drooping fronds with the lagoon in the background, had caught his eye, and then he realized
rum!
And he thought he would faint. The clerk, a thin bald man wearing suspenders, put the bottle in a paper sack and rang up the sale and winked. “Got you a little something tonight?” he said.
    Outside, Ralph started toward the pier; he thought he’d like to see the water with the lights reflected on it. He thought how Dr. Maxwell would handle a thing like this, and he reached into the sack as he walked, broke the seal on the little bottle and stopped in a doorway to take a long drink and thought Dr. Maxwell would sit handsomely at the water’s edge. He crossed some old streetcar tracks and turned onto another, darker street. He could already hear the waves splashing under the pier, and then he heard someone move up behind him. A small Negro in a leather jacket stepped out in front of him and said, “Just a minute there, man.” Ralph tried to move around. The man said, “Christ, baby, that’s my feet you’re steppin on!” Before Ralph could run the Negro hit him hard in the stomach, and when Ralph groaned and tried to fall, the man hit him in the nose with his open hand, knocking him back against the wall, where he sat down with one leg turned under him and was learning how to raise himself up when the Negro slapped him on the cheek and knocked him sprawling onto the pavement.
III
    He kept his eyes fixed in one place and saw them, dozens of them, wheeling and darting just under the overcast, seabirds, birds that came in off the ocean this time of morning. The street was black with the mist that was still falling, and he had to be careful not to step on the snails that trailed across the wet sidewalk. A car with its lights on slowed as it went past. Another car passed. Then another. He looked: mill workers, he whispered to himself. It was Monday morning. He turned a corner, walked past Blake’s: blinds pulled, empty bottles standing like sentinels beside the door. It was cold. He walked as fast as he could, crossing his arms now and