Читать книгу Grievances - Mark Ethridge - Страница 12

It was the next week before shifts were rearranged and news stopped breaking out sufficiently so that Walker felt comfortable springing Bullock and me to go to Hirtsboro.

It took less time than that for us to butt heads.

“We’re taking my Dodge,” Bullock informed me as we planned over coffee in the newspaper cafeteria, a place that perpetually smelled of Lysol and green beans cooked to death. “That rice-burner you drive is an insult to the American working man and it sure as hell will look out of place in Hirtsboro, South Carolina. Besides, the Dodge has an engine. We might need it.”

Light from the window created a thin rainbow of film that floated on top of Bullock’s coffee, like gasoline on water. He stirred four heaping teaspoons of sugar and several ounces of milk into the Styrofoam cup. The coffee barely lightened. “God, this stuff is nasty,” he marveled. “I wonder how they make it so bad.”