I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb

Author:Wally Lamb
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780060391621
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1998-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

I Know[340-525] 7/24/02 12:56 PM Page 458

458

WALLY LAMB

I checked the clock again. Did some calculating. If that insurance idiot showed up in the next fifteen or twenty minutes, I could probably still salvage an hour or so over at the Roods’. Pull those shutters off, minimum, so I could take them back to my place and prep them. It’d be awkward with my hand bandaged up like this, but I could do it. . . . Except how was I going to get the damn things home with no truck? Shit.

“But don’t worry, Dominick,” Leo was saying. “The old man and I’ll take good care of you. Put you in a Dodge or an Isuzu five-speed, no problemo. That Isuzu’s a good little truck, actually. You wanna have a look-see while you’re waiting?”

I said I doubted they’d total the pickup. We both looked out at it and Leo shook his head. “That truck is gone, my man,” he said.

“That ve-hicle is DOA.”

11:12. My hand was starting to hurt like it meant it. If I moved my head to the right, pain shot up my neck. Okay, here’s what I’d do, I thought: I’d take another one of those painkillers right after I was through with the insurance guy, go over to Roods’ and pull the shutters—see if Ray could borrow Eddie Banas’s truck. Then I’d go home and get a couple hours’ sleep. Set the alarm—give myself an hour to clean up and go over my notes. If my hand hurt this bad by afternoon, I’d just have to tough it out until after the hearing. Be great, otherwise: me standing before that Security Board, zoned out on narcotics.

I asked Leo if I could use his phone again. “Dial nine first,” he said.

“Mutual of America. How may I direct your call?”

It was the same woman I’d talked to the other three times. She was getting a little less polite with each call. “Look, lady,” I told her.

“I spent half the night in the hospital, I got about a thousand things I’ve got to take care of today, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend my whole day waiting for your representative to show.” She told me there wasn’t really anything else she could do, but that she sympathized with me. “Yeah, well, your sympathy isn’t doing me a I Know[340-525] 7/24/02 12:56 PM Page 459

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goddamn bit of good, is it?” I snapped back. Banged the phone down louder than I’d meant to. Every God Bless America! cap at the dealership turned its bill in my direction.

“Hey, Birdsey, chill out a little,” Leo said. “No shit, you’re stressing me out, man.”

I got up. Walked to the other end of the showroom and back.

Sat back down. “What time does the old man usually get here?” I said.

“Gene? What is it—Wednesday? Any time now.”

“Great,” I said. “Just what I need: seeing Daddy Dearest.”

“Yeah, the guy’s got a hell of a nerve showing up at his own place of business, don’t he?” He threw up his hands.

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