The Summer That Melted Everything Read Online Free Page B

called. “I won’t bite.”
    I smelled a whiff of urine as the boy took a small step, still holding tight to the trunk of the tree.
    â€œCan’t see ya.” Elohim wiped his mouth with his napkin.
    After a deep breath, the boy stepped out from the trunk completely, though he had stuck his arms inside his overalls and seemed to lose his neck as his chin stayed pressed to his chest. It was as if he were trying to retreat into the overalls, which were wet between the legs.
    Elohim gasped the Lord’s name as the napkin fell, landing flat from the wadded ball it’d been in his hand. It was then I saw the still-fresh reddish brown stains on its white fabric.
    I looked up and into Elohim’s gaping mouth, his particularly sharp canine teeth showing like icicles below a roofline. “You okay, Mr. Elohim?”
    â€œI don’t know yet,” he whispered. On his way to the porch steps, he walked on the napkin, picking up some of the red-brown stains on his bare foot. “Who did you say this was?”
    I cleared my throat and introduced the boy by naming him the devil.
    â€œFielding, I didn’t quite hear ya correctly.”
    â€œI said devil, all right.” I shifted the bag of groceries to my other arm as Elohim drew down the porch steps, slow and at a slant like he was walking in a large gown he had to be careful not to step on the edge of lest he fall.
    I turned and watched a stray dog sniff its way into Elohim’s open garage, where it peed on the tire of his white convertible, an Eldorado from 1956. When I turned back, Elohim was in reach and the boy was so close to my side, our arms were touching. He pointed toward a rusty can, which was out of place by Elohim’s clean porch, asking me in a whisper what it was.
    â€œMr. Elohim’s can of pop, mashed potato chips, and some sort of poison. What type of poison you say you use again, Mr. Elohim?”
    â€œPoison.” He grunted, his eyes hard for the boy.
    â€œPoison for what?” the boy asked.
    Another grunt from Elohim. “Coons.”
    A squirrel leaped over to the can. I quickly hissed to scatter it away.
    â€œWrong animals gonna eat the poison, Mr. Elohim.”
    He ignored me and instead jutted his sagging chin toward the boy. “Well?”
    â€œWell, what?” The boy had taken his arms out from his overalls as he stood a little taller.
    â€œYou’ve nothin’ to say?”
    â€œWhat would he have to say?” I shrugged. “Before I forget, Mr. Elohim, I won’t be able to help ya build that chimney this Thursday. My brother’s got a baseball game.”
    Elohim chewed the air in his mouth, the gray in his eyes filling out to the corners like smoke.
    â€œYou all right, Mr. Elohim?” I watched the sweat get low on his lumped face.
    â€œMind your own damn business, Fielding.” Realizing his sudden anger, he apologized as he rubbed his eyes. “It’s just too hot. Shouldn’t be this way yet.” In a milder tone, he asked, “You get a chance to read those pamphlets I gave ya, Fielding?”
    Elohim’s pamphlets were notebook papers full of his vegetarian thoughts. Things like, animals live a horizontal life while we live a vertical one. According to him, this means when we eat something horizontal, we risk falling down:
    It’s like putting a river in a skyscraper. The river is horizontal while the skyscraper is vertical. They are two forces working toward opposite goals. Nothing good will be accomplished. Eventually the skyscraper will shift ever so slightly and start to lean and all because it feels the river pushing at its sides. If the river is not drained, it will keep pushing and pushing against the sides of the skyscraper until one day the skyscraper leans so far, it falls and becomes what it was never meant to be. You can never succeed in what you were never meant to be.
    These were the curious ideas of a man that spoke more to