Read Online The Car by Gary Paulsen - Free Book Online

need fixing.”
    â€œI don’t know what you mean.” Terry shrugged. “I think the Cat is all right—it runs good, doesn’t it?”
    â€œIt’s great. But it could use a little more . . . just a little more. That’s what Wayne does. Makes things work a little better.”
    â€œAnd you don’t seem broken. Those guys didn’t touch you, as far as I could see.”
    Waylon shook his head. “It’s not physical. I shouldn’t have done that to them. They were just a couple of good old boys getting drunk.”
    â€œThey threw a bottle at me.”
    â€œAt the car,” Waylon corrected. “Just being stupid. I . . . hit . . . them wrong. The wrong way. One of them won’t ever be right again.” He trailed off, grew quiet, then smiled sadly. “We’ll talk to Wayne a couple of days, work on the car, smooth the world out a little.”
    For a few minutes they moved in silence except for the wind coming over and around the windshield. Terry heard a meadowlark singing as they passed a fence post, a whip of sound, high and beautiful and gone before it really registered, and then Waylon was slowing.
    â€œAlong here, somewhere. Look for a metal sign cut in the shape of an artist’s palette. . . .”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA palette—what they mix paint on. . . . Ahh, there, see it?”
    Terry caught a glimpse of a funny oblong metal sign with dabs of color around the outside edge and the word
ART
directly in the center. It seemed to be faded a bit, but they were past it too fast for him to tell anything else about it.
    Waylon steered off the highway down a gravel road for a mile or so, then off that road onto a quarter-mile-long driveway, and as they came to the end of the driveway, around a bend and past some trees, Terry saw a large metal building. It was rusty and run down. Next to it stood an old trailer house, also run down and tired-looking, and everywhere else, or so it seemed, there were parts of cars and motorcycles rusting away.
    â€œIt’s a junkyard,” Terry said.
    Waylon shook his head. “No. It’s a place to create things. Come on.”
    The metal building had a large front door and a smaller door to the side. Waylon entered the side door without knocking and Terry followed, expecting it to be dark inside.
    Instead the walls and ceiling were painted flat white and large floodlights lit the center so brightly Terry squinted and had to close his eyes.
    He opened them to see a woman standing on a small platform, leaning against a tall stool with her arm across it, facing him full on.
    She was completely, absolutely stark naked.
    â€œUnnnhhh.” Terry stopped dead and thought he should turn, knew he should turn, at least close his eyes.
    He could do none of those things. He stood and stared. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, more beautiful than pictures in the magazines he had under his mattress at home. And there she stood. Wearing air.
    The woman ignored him, and Waylon. Did not move. To the side a man who looked like he was completely made of hair and wearing only a pair of impossibly torn Levi’s had an easel set up with a large canvas on it There was a painting of the woman on the canvas, and the man turned as Waylon came in.
    â€œWaaiiilll-on!” he yelled. He dropped the brush on a shelf on the easel and grabbed Waylon and hugged him. “How in hell
are
you? I heard you was dead. They said a train killed you, but I knew that was a lie. It would take more than a train. . . .”
    â€œIt was another guy. I was next to him when the train hit him and they thought it got us both. You know how rumors are.”
    â€œRight, right.” Wayne suddenly seemed to notice Terry. “Who’s your friend?”
    â€œA traveling companion, name of Terry. He picked me up two nights ago and we’ve had a little trouble and