Different Seasons - Stephen King [176]
'Yes, sir. But Denny, he -'
'Yeah, I know. That's a sad thing, kid. The Bible says: "In the midst of life, we are in death." Did you know that Yuh. I lost a brother in Korea. You look just like Denny, people ever tell you that? Yuh. Spitting image.'
'Yes, sir, sometimes,' I said glumly.
'I remember the year he was All Conference. Halfback, he played. Yuh. Could he run? Father God and Sonny Jesus! You're probably too young to remember.' He was looking over my head, out through the screen door and into the blasting heat, as if he were having a beautiful vision of my brother.
'I remember. Uh, Mr. Dusset?'
'What, kid?' His eyes were still misty with memory; the toothpick trembled a little between his lips.
'Your thumb is on that scales.'
'What?' He looked down, astounded, to where the ball of his thumb was pressed firmly on the white enamel. If I hadn't moved away from him a little bit when he started talking about Dennis, the ground meat would have hidden it. 'Why, so it is. Yuh. I guess I just got thinkin' about your brother, God love him.' George Dusset signed a cross on himself.
When he took his thumb off the scales, the needle sprang back six ounces. He patted a little more meat on top and then did the package up with white butcher's paper.
'Okay,' he said past the toothpick. 'Let's see what we got here. Three pounds of hamburg, that's a dollar forty-four. Hamburg rolls, that's twenty-seven. Four tonics, forty cents. One churchkey, two pence. Come to ' He added it up on the bag he was going to put the stuff in. 'Two-twenty-nine.'
'Thirteen,' I said.
He looked up at me very slowly, frowning. 'Huh?'
'Two-thirteen. You added it wrong.'
'Kid, are you-'
'You added it wrong,' I said. 'First you put your thumb on the scales and then you overcharged on the groceries, Mr Dusset I was gonna throw some Hostess Twinkies on top of that order but now I guess I won't.' I spanged two dollars and thirteen cents down on the Schlitz placemat in front of him.
He looked at the money, then at me. The frown was now tremendous, the lines on his face as deep as fissures. 'What are you, kid?' He said in a low voice that was ominously confidential. 'Are you some kind of smartass?'
'No, sir,' I said. 'But you ain't gonna jap me and get away with it. What would your mother say if she knew you was japping little kids?'
He thrust our stuff into the paper bag with quick stiff movements, making the Coke bottles clink together. He thrust the bag at me roughly, not caring if I dropped it and broke the tonics or not. His swarthy face was flushed and dull, the frown now frozen in place. 'Okay, kid. Here you go. Now what you do is you get the Christ out of my store. I see you in here again and I going to throw you out, me. Yuh. Smartass little sonofawhore.'
'I won't come in again,' I said, walking over to the screen door and pushing it open. The hot afternoon buzzed somnolently along its appointed course outside, sounding green and brown and full of silent light. 'Neither will none of my friends. I guess I got fifty or so.'
'Your brother wasn't no smartass!' George Dusset yelled.
'Fuck you!' I yelled, and ran like hell down the road.
I heard the screen door bang open like a gunshot and his bull roar came after me: 'If you ever come in here again I'll fat your lip for you, you little punk!' I ran until I was over the first hill, scared and laughing to myself, my heart beating out a triphammer pulse in my chest. Then I slowed to a fast walk, looking back over my shoulder every now and then to make sure he wasn't going to take after me in his car, or anything.
He didn't, and pretty soon I got to the dump gate. I put the bag inside my shirt, climbed the gate, and monkeyed down the other side. I was halfway across the dump area when I saw something I didn't like-Milo Pressman's portholed '56 Buick was parked behind his tarpaper shack. If Milo saw me, I was going to be in a world of hurt. As yet there was no sign of either him or the infamous Chopper, but all at once the chain-link fence at the back of the dump seemed very far