Read Online Vision Quest by Terry Davis - Free Book Online

flopped. Her breasts, which had become amazingly smaller, bobbed in her tank top. After turning off the lights, she walked along above me, singing a little song called “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” I yearned for a peek at her pussy. I squinted through the night-light dark. It’s not true that seeing a girl naked a few times makes you lose interest in her body.
    â€œLet’s be friends,” I offered before losing consciousness.
    â€œYou hardly ever talk to me,” Carla replied. “What do you expect? I thought you were just a dumb jock. I couldn’t understand how you could have such a nice father.”
    â€œI am just a dumb jock,” I said. “But I have a nice father. I’m a little shy,” I explained more seriously. “You never talk to me, either.”
    We had nearly formulated a friendship pact when I changed the subject to Grand Coulee Dam and lost consciousness in the middle of invective.
    Carla avoided me for a couple weeks after that. She was convinced I was just a dumb jock.

VIII
    In a way it was the Columbia that finally got Carla and me together, and in a way it was Dad. Dad read in the New Kettle Falls newspaper that Lake Roosevelt was being lowered because of some work on the dam, and he told Carla and me that if we drove up there we might get to see the river and the falls. Carla was fired up to go, even if it was with me. I traded my days off to match hers and we were set.
    Carla wanted to get an early start. I heard the basement door open and close and then footsteps across the patio. I opened one eye for a second and saw Carla’s boots at the edge of my cot. It was still dark. She nudged my shoulder through the sleeping bag. “Louden,” she said. “Louden. Time to get up.” Her voice was soft. I kept my eyes closed and thought of waking up beside her. “Louden.”
    â€œGood morning,” I said, opening my eyes. “Thanks for waking me.”
    â€œYou’re sure you’re awake?”
    â€œI’m awake. I’ll be in in just a sec.” Carla went back in and I sat up and rubbed my eyes and peered at my watch. I had to cup my hand around it to read the dim luminous dial. It was four thirty. I checked around to see if she was lookingout the door, then jumped up, grabbed my jeans, and ran to the grass behind the house. I had my shorts on, but I didn’t want her to see me. My cock stuck out straight as a tentpole.
    We still had our ’51 Ford half-ton pickup then, so we set the tent and sleeping bags and mason jars that we had to take back to Aunt Lola and ax and shovel and tarp and first-aid kit in the back since it wasn’t going to rain.
    It was an incredibly beautiful morning, which is the way most summer mornings are around Spokane. There wasn’t a sound and the only smell was freshness. The streetlights were still on and the sky was graying into blue. I was stretching and yawning and growling and about fixing to give the neighborhood my Mountain Man good-morning yell when eleven-year-old Dwight Thuringer came whistling down the sidewalk with his newspapers. My hiding was totally unpremeditated. I just whipped into the big shrubs before he saw me. I didn’t decide to scare him until he got right to the porch and banged his paper off the screen door. I leaped out and threw my arms in the air and bellowed like a Sasquatch. Little Thuringer screamed and fell back on the lawn in a storm of neatly folded newspapers. He twitched a little and gurgled in his throat. I was rolling on the lawn, laughing out of control.
    Dwight was throwing papers at me as hard as he could when Carla came out. I was still laughing, rolling around, but I was trying to cover up my tender spots. Those square-folded papers hurt. When he got me right at the base of theskull, it sobered me up and I got to my feet and ran around behind the house. I heard Carla ask Dwight what happened. “Goddamn Louden jumped out and