The Year of Ice: A Novel by Malloy Brian

Author:Malloy, Brian [Malloy, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

That night Floyd and I eat chocolate pudding. He’s reading The Second Ring of Power and I’m watching Donny and Marie, ’cause I think Donny’s kind of hot. Floyd only makes it through a page about once every fifteen minutes.

He says, “Those are them singing Mormons, eh? They wear the sacred underwear, ya know.”

Maybe Floyd’s senile. I laugh and say, “There’s no such thing as sacred underwear. Jeez, how dumb do you think I am?”

Floyd’s so sincere you almost wanna believe him. “Them Mormons believe in sacred underwear. They got to wear this special kind.”

“Yeah, right. Well, they mustn’t wear it much ’cause there’s about a million Osmonds running around.”

Floyd has to think about it for a minute, but then he laughs and says, “Ya, that’s a good one dare! If I could have a buncha wives, I wouldn’t be wearing no underwear either.”

I shake my head.

“Those two married then?” Floyd says as he points at the dusty screen.

“Nah, they’re brother and sister.”

Floyd says, “He looks like my boy.”

Floyd has a foxy son? How come I’ve never seen him? “Where’s he live?”

Floyd says, “Oh, we lost Stevie back in Korea.”

Somebody pounds on the door and before Floyd can even get up to answer it, I know it’s Aunt Nora. Beating her big man hands against the house.

I say, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

Floyd says, “Tell ’em to stop trying to break my door down!”

The second she sees me, Aunt Nora grabs me and hugs me real hard. I mean really, really hard. She could be one of those lady wrestlers. And here she is, the champ-eee-on, the killing machine from the Isle of Green, the bonnie lassie who’s plenty nasty, the pretty colleen who’ll make you scream, Noooooraaaaah!

“My darling boy,” she says. “My poor, poor darling boy! What’s that bastard done to you?”

I’m strong, which is good, ’cause you gotta be to get out of one of Aunt Nora’s hugs.

“I’m okay, it’s no big deal.”

Aunt Nora says really loud, even for her, “No big deal? No big deal! Mother of God! It most certainly is a big deal. He told me you left home! Pack your bag, you’re coming to stay with me.”

“It’s cool, Aunt Nora, I can stay here tonight.”

She gasps. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re coming home with” me.

I just look at her and she grunts. I’m at that awkward age where she thinks that she should still be able to order me around, but she gets that I’m too old for that. “Okay, you’re staying the night here. But I’ll be around tomorrow after work to collect you.”

I cave. “Cool.”

She looks around. “Is there somewhere private where we can have a chat?”

I take her into the dining room, which looks like it hasn’t been used in years. It’s very neat, except that there’s a coat of dust covering everything. Aunt Nora brushes off the tabletop with her hands and frowns.

“How did you end up here?” she wants to know.

Why lie? “Dad quit his job, got shit-faced, and kicked me out of the house.

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