Read Online The Evening Hour by A. Carter Sickels - Free Book Online Page B

fast, and he also sold a few tablets of the Adderall that his cousins had wanted. With his pockets stuffed with cash, his mind felt clearer. He considered bailing on Charlotte. It would be the easy thing to do.
    Instead he went back in. He maneuvered his way through the crowd, and then stopped at the edge of the dance floor. There was Charlotte, her arms around a tall hatchet-faced guy. He looked at least twenty years older than her, maybe more. A slow song came on the jukebox, and Charlotte’s eyes were half closed and the man had his hands on her hips. Just a few hours ago she’d been on her back on Cole’s sofa. He stood there and watched, then she opened her eyes and saw him. She looked sad and tired. She stopped dancing and stepped away from the man and stood with one hand on her hip, as if she was waiting for the music to change. He thought she would come to him. She would come to him and he would dance with her, he would dance and dance. He wanted her to know that he was a dreamer too, that he grew up in a house where dreams and prophecies were as real as the food on their table. But the man leaned over and said something to her, and she followed him up to the bar.
    The cigarette in his mouth burned down to nothing.
    â€œHey, Cole.”
    He turned and tried not to show his surprise. He guessed that he was going to have to get used to running into Terry Rose. This time he looked more like himself, or at least the way Cole remembered him, wearing jeans, T-shirt, and boots.
    â€œLet me get you a beer,” Terry offered.
    â€œNah, I’m heading out.”
    Terry saw where Cole was looking: Charlotte at the bar, leaning against a man old enough to be her father. “Oh, shit.”
    Cole started to go, but Terry asked him to wait. “You got an extra smoke?”
    â€œI thought you quit.”
    â€œOnly when my wife’s around.” He lit the cigarette with a match. “You and Charlotte broke up or something?”
    He sounded sincere and fake at the same time. Did he sound like that when he was getting high with Charlotte, talking to her about New York and big dreams and other stupid shit?
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” Cole snapped, but Terry was unfazed.
    â€œAin’t this the shit, bro? Running into each other again?”
    â€œIt’s not that big of a place.”
    â€œWe ought to get wasted together, like the old days.”
    â€œI gotta go.”
    â€œWait.” Terry leaned in close. “You got anything on you?”
    The goddamn question of the day. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œBut Charlotte—”
    â€œShe doesn’t know anything.”
    â€œI’ll take whatever. Even Xanax, I don’t care.” Terry grinned. “Come on, look who you’re talking to. I know you must get some good shit at that nursing home.”
    â€œMan, didn’t you hear what I said?”
    â€œWait. Wait, Cole.”
    But he walked out the back door, and Terry didn’t come after him. His pickup started on the first try, and he drove home in a drunken haze. His heart was pounding. He stood outside. Everything spinning. Several pieces of brick-size flyrock were scattered on his lawn, blasted down from the mountain, and he picked them up one at a time and hurled them into the road. “Fuck,” he yelled. “Fuck, fuck.”
    He went in and flung his jacket across the room. He paced the trailer and then sat down, holding his head. Everything was still spinning. He reached for the remote and turned on the TV, just to have something in the room with him. Only three stations came in, all fuzzy. A late-night talk show and a zombie movie and an Irish man talking about sheep shearing. He flipped back to the zombie movie and watched the dead dig themselves out of their graves. A Heritage commercial interrupted. The camera panned on happy miners and their wives and their kids wearing Heritage ball