Read Angela Sloan for Free Online Page B

our left, across three lanes of traffic. Remembering principle two, I got us into the liquor store parking lot by a series of seven right turns.
    â€œLeave it running,” Ray said.
    My hands and armpits were sweating. Wouldn’t some country lane be a better place for my first driving lesson? But I decided to trust Ray on it, and when he came back, I drove again. He set two fifths in the floor and opened a pint to hold in his lap. “You are doing just fine with your driving,” he said.

17
    W e took a two-room apartment at the Fletcher Hotel on St. Paul and Madison. The front room contained one olive-colored sofa, one folding chair, and a card table with a hot plate on it. The black grime on the hot plate was hard like a casing. There was a bedroom and a minuscule bathroom. On the floor beside the toilet, someone had left behind a Donald Duck orange juice lid.
    Ray settled in on the sofa with his two bottles of bourbon and three packs of Raleighs. The pint was gone. “I need a favor,” he said.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    He held out one of the bottles. “Hide this somewhere.”
    â€œThis place is kind of small for hiding things,” I said.
    He closed his eyes.
    I hid the bottle in my knapsack. Then I rinsed out the sink and brushed my teeth with a lot of toothpaste. I got in the bed.
    I had brought the shortwave radio, and I managed to pull in a few minutes of the Voice of America. Americans are not meant to hear it, since the government is not supposed to propagandize its own citizens, but sometimes you can hear it anyway, depending on the sunspots. The program I heard was a course in English. A woman and man were demonstrating how to have a conversation about the contents of the newspaper. For example,
    MAN: Did you see today’s headlines?
    WOMAN: Yes, I saw today’s headlines.
    MAN: Tomorrow is Election Day. Have you chosen your candidate?
    WOMAN: I will vote for the candidate from the Blue Party.
    MAN: Beef is on sale at the Robinson Market.
    WOMAN: The Robinson Market has good beef.
    It was a modest sort of propaganda. Pro-voting, pro-beef. The voices were furred over with soft static. Sometimes a long whistle echoed up from the bottom of a well.
    Later I woke to footsteps. The bedroom door was open, though I thought I remembered closing it.
    An egg of light moved low against the baseboard and onto the pocked gray linoleum. It shot up to the ceiling and stopped there, jumping in place just slightly.
    â€œRay?”
    He stepped in. I couldn’t see him well behind the flashlight he carried, but I knew his sigh.
    He moved the light down the wall to the foot of the bed. The batteries were getting low. He ran the light over the bedspread until it glowed in my face.
    â€œThe bottle is in my knapsack,” I said.
    He didn’t respond to that. With a flick he made the egg of light snap across the ceiling.
    â€œLike that,” he said.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œThat is how they moved,” he said.
    He did it again, snapping it from one end of the ceiling to the other. The egg halted weightlessly against one wall then the other. Ray seemed to study it in a purposeful way.
    Then he turned the light onto himself. He was holding the blade of his sodbuster pocketknife alongside his throat. “Don’t let me do it,” he said.
    I jumped out of bed and grabbed his arm. I managed to pry a couple fingers open and shook the knife to the floor. “Wake up,” I said.
    He shook his head at me.
    â€œYou’re asleep!” I said. “Wake up!” I steered him to the sofa and sat him down. “You were walking in your sleep, Ray!”
    I sat with him and he closed his eyes. He was quiet. Then he got up and ran into the bathroom. An awful croaking noise came out. He was throwing up.
    â€œYou need to drink some water,” I said through the door.
    â€œGo to bed,” he slurred back at me.
    We didn’t have even a paper cup to