Chapter 36

"We can't have this, Bud," Ray Ryan said having once more separated the men fighting in his shop. "You've gone too damn far."

"I'm sorry, boss. I didn' see the blasted thing."

"You might have if you were sober."

"I ain' drunk," Bud said. "I only had a couple a'beers at lunch. They jumped me."

"You brushed that new side window right off the bench, cracked the corner. You know what that thing cost?"

Bud shook his head. He was not feeling very well and his nose was bleeding. He wiped it on his sleeve.

"This is the last straw. Get your stuff together, and I'll figure out what I owe you. I'm going to take what that piece of glass out of your pay."

"That ain't fair, Ray," Bud said loudly, grabbing the man by his arm.

Ray Ryan shrugged him off and marched to this small office, leaving Bud Williams standing in the middle of the shop shaking his head. Bud picked up the damaged piece of safety glass and laid it on the workbench. He smoothed its surface with his fingers and looked around. Everybody else was very busy and ignoring him. The young man that had started the trouble with his wisecracks was nowhere to be seen.

"Bunch a'fucking shitheads," Bud yelled. "Pussies!"

Ray Ryan came back with a small brown envelope in his hand. "Six bucks, that's two days' pay less the glass."

Bud squinted his eyes, took the pay envelope and tore it in half, threw the pieces of money and paper up in the air and took a half-hearted swing as his former employer.

Ryan caught his fist, twisted his arm up behind his back and walked him to the open doorway. "Go on home, Bud. Try to stay out of trouble."

"To hell with you," Bud said to him. "To hell with all of you," he yelled into the body shop. "Bunch a'fairies."

Bud hiked down to the Dew Drop Inn, stumbling twice and tearing open the knee of his trousers on the way. He drank until his money was gone, had another draft on the house, and then headed home. He stood on the side of Rockville Pike with his thumb stuck out, feeling the damp chill of the early evening. A car he seemed to recognize stopped for him and when he opened the door and looked in, there was Ray Ryan, a cigarette in his lips.

Bud slammed the door closed, spat on it and waved the man away. Ryan screeched his tires and threw gravel on Bud's shins as he pulled back onto the highway. Bud stopped thumbing and started walking toward Bethesda, which, he knew, lay four or five miles distant over a series of hills and shallow valleys. When he reached the outskirts of Rockville and the site of the new high school that replaced the one that burned, he stopped, feeling very tired. One light glowed above the parking lot.

Bud left the road and walked about the low, brick building. In the back he found an alcove and a stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs he tried the door, found it locked, sat with his back to it, wrapped his arms about himself and went to sleep.