Read Online The Glass Harmonica by Russell Wangersky - Free Book Online Page A

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    Vincent didn’t say anything, knew better than to say anything, but he picked up his bookbag quickly, accepting a kiss on the cheek from his mother as he turned for the door.
    â€œThe three men, all heading out together for their shifts, hey, Vincy?” Glenn said, laughing.
    Glenn was always laughing, Vincent thought, even when there wasn’t anything funny to be laughing about. Vincent swung his school bag up over his shoulder, walking between the two men as they crossed the street. Vincent looked both ways, just the way he had been told, before he stepped off the curb. He noticed that Glenn didn’t bother, as if a car hadn’t been made yet that would dare to hit him.
    On the other side of the truck, Vincent’s father held the passenger door open, stood there as if trying to make up his mind, and then climbed into the cab of the truck himself, sliding into the middle of the bench seat next to Coughlin.
    â€œYou take the outside, Vincent. You’re going to be getting out first anyway.”
    â€œFirst in, last out, just like the contract says, hey, Keith?” Glenn said, slipping the truck into gear and pulling it away from the curb. As they drove, Vincent looked out the window and into the side mirror. It was starred and broken, several shards simply gone, as if someone had driven a fist into it as Glenn had pulled away. The truck mirror had always been like that. Vincent liked looking in it, liked looking at the way the different pieces broke up the view behind the truck, so that every single shard showed the world in a slightly different way, each one highlighting its own particular facet of the things they passed. His father noticed him staring at the mirror.
    â€œWhy don’t you get that damned thing fixed, Glenn? Been broken forever,” Keith said. “Don’t know how this thing passes inspection anyway.”
    â€œDon’t need it, do I? Besides, a new one’s close on sixty dollars,” Glenn said. Then he laughed again, a dry little shallow laugh, like he was making a point. “Some people can get around just fine without it, and without hitting stuff.”
    Vincent’s father crossed his arms stiffly across his chest at that, glowered, and didn’t say anything else.
    â€œLighten up, would ya?” Glenn said.
    They drove in silence for a few minutes down the snow tunnel that was McKay Street. The city plows had been out overnight, turning big curved berms of slush and snow up against the sides of the parked cars on the road, the corridor so precise that it seemed like they were on a private road, a road built just for them. Vincent was watching the sun play off the rounded slush, the backwards curve made by the plow’s blade now hardening into ice. He watched the way one line of bright sun seemed to run along ahead of the truck on the freezing bank, the reflection never getting any closer to them nor any farther away, the way the light made longer points on the top and bottom, so it was like they were following some simple, always-moving schoolbook drawing of the Star of Bethlehem.
    â€œForeman said we can work inside on the trawler if we want, or we can go back to the paint crew in the tanker. It’s our pick,” Keith said. There were only two vessels in the yard, nothing else waiting or even scheduled to come in, and most of the short-timers had already been put on layoff for the rest of the winter. Keith had been complaining for a week about the two ships, wishing the yard was empty and that the whole crew could be on layoff for a little while. “Hate winter,” he’d mutter.
    â€œWe can be freezing cold outside, or inside in the warm and the whole day stinkin’ of paint. That’s pretty slim pickings,” Glenn said.
    Vincent thought that the pair of words sounded just the way Glenn always talked—“slim pickings”—just a couple of sudden words that didn’t seem to mean anything at