Read Online The Bear in a Muddy Tutu by Cole Alpaugh - Free Book Online

the Expressway, crossing the long marshy flats into Atlantic City. T here was something magical about the place. Not so much the tenements and abandoned cars, but all the names were the same as on the Monopoly board in his bedroom back home. He sometimes played for hours against himself, since the game had too many small pieces for his mother’s sausage-like fingers to manipulate, and the game board didn’t fit right on her TV tray. Billy Wayne built houses and hotels, owned railroads , a nd forced himself to pay to get out of jail. He sometimes wondered if Betty Katz liked Monopoly a nd maybe would have played with him.
    Steering with his left knee, Billy Wayne reread the directions written in the squiggly, drunken script of the game warden, as he guided his Dart down busy Atlantic Avenue searching for the U Pawn-It Store sign . He certainly didn’t expect to see so many black people. Billy Wayne was nervous around black people, especially those who sounded like they might be from Haiti. There were more Haitians living near his mother’s house than all the other foreigners combined, and Billy Wayne didn’t trust them one bit. It was the tone of voice from the women who waited for their laundry to tumble dry. They sat with their hair wrapped in dingy cloth, smoking harsh - smelling, unfiltered cigarettes, and eyeing him like he was a suspicious piece of meat. Billy Wayne’s mother had told him about voodoo and how these women might decide to snatch some of your hair and make a little doll with it, if they caught you looking at them. Once the doll was made, they’d stick pins in your eyes and twist your legs all the way around — whatever they wanted. Billy Wayne walked pas t them as fast as he could, his hands cupping his eyes as if he were trying to see through a dark window. The women had laughed at him, but they’d never gotten any of his hair.
    He also didn’t expect all the Mexicans and circus people at the hotel he checked into —him and his shiny Smith & Wesson .38 Special , a box of bullets stuffed inside his Samsonite. The Lucky Dollar Casino had a weekly room rate of $125, which gave Billy Wayne plenty of time to unearth some disciples and begin his new life.
    Now he was packing heat and feeling wonderfully safe, a swagger in his step for the first time. No more panicky fast walking for Billy Wayne Hooduk. The feelings associated with becoming a gun owner were both surprising and edifying. Billy Wayne feared nothing, despite the exotic salsa music and strange c ooking smells seeping out from behind t he doors as he hunted for ro om 1 427. Having such stored power at his finger tips — should he unlatch his suitcase and load his gun — heightened his senses, lengthened his stride. He was James Bond. He was Superman.
    The carpet underfoot was so worn it had no real color remaining, and half the lights in the hallway were dark. The gold - and - white - flowered wallpaper was frayed and peeling near the sconces, giving Billy Wayne the impression of an old wild west saloon, upstairs where the loose women serviced cowboys, like in the movies. All the muffled Spanish swearing gave it a Tex-Mex aura, like a saloon at the Alamo, Billy Wayne fancied. He was Davy Crockett, or maybe Sam Bowie … no, he was Billy the Kid!
    Texas or Atlantic City, this was the f a rthest Billy Wayne had ever been from home. The f a rthest he’d been from his mother. And as he turned the room key and stepped inside, some of Billy Wayne’s exaltation shrank a little, drained away by the sight of the small, boxy , steaming - hot room .
    He unpacked his Samsonite — filling one drawer with his four good shirts and two pairs of slacks — and cranked the dial on the air conditioner to high. He wrapped his new gun and bullets in a towel from the bathroom, then tucked them back into the suitcase. Then, worried the maid would hunt for the missing towel, he unwrapped the gun and bullets and stood at the foot of the bed, turning in a slow