Read Online Whipple's Castle by Thomas Williams - Free Book Online

isn’t guilty. It isn’t dirty. It isn’t anything but the symbolic value of what it can buy. It doesn’t breathe, think, eat, sleep or fart. Do you understand that?”
    Horace didn’t answer.
    â€œWell, where did you throw it?”
    â€œIn the woods.”
    â€œOh, great! Holy Jesus, that’s great! I still can’t figure out why you robbed the lockers in the first place, and now you throw twenty-five bucks away in the woods! And where in hell do you think you’re going to get twenty-five bucks to pay it back?”
    â€œI’ll get a job pretty soon,” Horace said in a low voice.
    â€œSure! In a glass factory, I suppose.”
    â€œHarvey,” Henrietta said.
    â€œWell, for God’s sake, what the hell am I supposed to say? Here I am, a goddam cripple, trying to make enough goddam money so I can support this goddam family, and they’re busy as squirrels, throwing it away in the woods!”
    Kate came in with a big bowl of popcorn and several smaller bowls. “Here,” she said. “Fill your own. It’s salted, buttered, and somewhat burned on the bottom. When are we going to get a decent stove?”
    â€œYou see what I mean? Three able-bodied boys and we can’t even ran a woodstove! First we had to have a refrigerator, because the ice was too heavy, or too cold or something, and now … ” It was as though he had stopped listening to his own voice, or he had moved away, out of himself—perhaps to the fake balcony above, where he looked down at the fat white king jawing, jawing, saying what was nasty and always expected. How could he always believe that one more phrase, one more sentence, might turn his argument sound, triumph over his tone of voice by some logical point that always hovered just out of the reach of his mind? One more sentence, one more point, could totally vindicate him, but never quite did.
    At last the voice that was not really his own subsided, and Wood was speaking.
    â€œThey were getting the money together so they could buy black-market gas coupons and liquor, and they were going to take her up to Donald Ramsey’s father’s camp, up on Back Lake, for a weekend. Seven of them. It was all over town.”
    â€œShe was nice to me!” Horace shouted.
    â€œShe’s too goddam nice to all the boys,” Harvey said.
    â€œIt’s just something you’ve heard,” Henrietta said sternly. “You don’t know.”
    â€œWell, I’m in no position to find out—dammit,” Harvey said, and David chuckled.
    â€œWhat’s so funny?” Wood said to David. “Do you think it’s funny to treat some poor girl that way?”
    â€˜That wasn’t what I was laughing about,” David said. “I kind of like Susie, myself…”
    â€œWell, you stay away from her,” Henrietta said, and David laughed.
    â€œListen,” David said. “I’m not laughing at poor Susie Davis. She’s a very kind person and all that. Next time I laugh, please believe that I’m not laughing at Susie. All right?”
    â€œDon’t be facetious,” Wood said.
    David turned, obviously trying to suppress more laughter, to Horace. He really seemed to be trying to be serious. “Look, Hoss, I mean it. I don’t blame you a bit. I just can’t help it!”
    â€œI presume,” Kate said, “that the reason I don’t understand any of this is because I’m a lady.”
    â€œYou’re all sick,” Wood said disgustedly.
    Harvey heard the words of these strangers who had once been his children. He had to face it: he was jealous of them all, and not just because they could all run and walk. He understood them and they didn’t care enough to know it. Or perhaps it was just more convenient for them to live with a monster than with a real person.
    They ate their popcorn and watched the fire ember down. Harvey was silent, and deep