This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff

Author:Tobias Wolff [Wolff, Tobias]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

KENNETH PULLED UP the next afternoon and by dinner-time we all hated him. He knew it, and relished it, even sought it out. As soon as he stepped out of his Austin Healey, he started complaining about the remoteness of the camp and the discomfort of the drive and the imprecision of the directions Norma had left behind for him. He had a fussy, aggrieved voice and thin disappointed lips. He wore a golf cap and perforated leather gloves that snapped across the wrist. He removed one of his gloves as he complained, tugging delicately at each finger, then going on to the next until the glove came free. He took off the other just as slowly and carefully, then turned to Norma. “Don’t I get a kiss?”

She bent forward to peck him on the cheek but he seized her face between his hands and kissed her long and full on the lips. It was obvious that he was French-kissing her. We stood watching this and smiling the same foolish smiles we had brought outside to welcome him with.

After Kenneth had wolfed down a sandwich, Dwight made the mistake of offering him a drink. “Oh, boy,” Kenneth said. “I guess you don’t know much about me.” He said that he believed he had a duty to lay his cards on the table, and so he did.

“I don’t know,” Dwight said. “I don’t see the harm in a drink now and then.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” Kenneth said. “I’m sure the drug fiend doesn’t see the harm in a needle now and then.”

This led to an exchange of words. My mother stepped in and acted jolly and moved us from the kitchen into the living room, where she must have hoped that the presence of the tree and the gifts would remind us why we were together, and call us to our better selves. But Kenneth started laying more cards on the table. There truly was no end of them. Skipper finally said, “Look, Kenneth ... why don’t you lay off?”

“What are you afraid of, Skipper?”

“Afraid?” Skipper’s eyelids fluttered as if he were trying to confirm some improbable image.

“I only tell you this because I love you,” Kenneth said, “but you are very frightened people. Very frightened. But hey, there’s no need to be—the news is good!”

“Just who the hell do you think you are?” Dwight said.

Kenneth smiled. “Go on. I can take it.”

Norma tried to change the subject but Kenneth could take any comment and find something in it to deplore. Argument was the only kind of sound he knew how to make. And if you didn’t give in to him he smirked and offered you his pity for being so ignorant and missed. He wasn’t reluctant to get personal. Soon enough Dwight and Skipper got personal back, and then Pearl and I put our oars in. Insulting this man was a profound pleasure, and a pleasure not only for us; a flush of excitement came into his pallid face as the words got meaner and harder to take back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.