Free The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

"Be men. I don't want no sissies on this team. Quit flapping your hands, Joe Bob, you look like a goddamn goose."
    Sonny slipped his shoes off and took some free-throw practice with the rest of the team. He expected the coach to ask about Mrs. Popper, but he just sat on the bridge chair, chewing tobacco and occasionally scratching his balls. When-he did ask, after practice, it was not exactly about Mrs. Popper—he wanted to know if the doctor had given her any prescription.
    "I don't think so," Sonny said. "We didn't get any filled."
    "Good," the coach said. "Damn doctors. Every time she goes over there they prescribe her ten dollars worth of pills and they don't do a fuckin' bit of good. I tell her to take aspirin, that's all I ever take. If she's got a sore place she can nab a little analgesic balm on it—that's the best thing for soreness there is."
    He didn't say so, but analgesic was also free. The school bought it by the case and the coach took what he needed.
    "She wasn't feeling too good when I left her," Sonny said, thinking the coach might be worried enough to hurry on home. Instead, the news seemed merely to disgust him.
    "Hell, women like to be sick," he said. He was on his way to the showers, but he stopped long enough to grab a cake of soap from a passing freshman. "Ruth had rather be sick than do anything. I could have bought a new deer rifle with what she's spent on pills just this last year, and I wish I had, by God. A good gun beats a woman any day:"

chapter seven
    "I guess she just couldn't get out of it," Sonny said, chalking his cue. It was Saturday night and Duane had just found out that Jacy wasn't going to be at the picture show that evening: she was going to a country club dance with Lester Marlow.
    "She wasn't sheddin' no tears over the telephone," Duane said bitterly. "She may be getting to like country club dances, that's what worries me."
    He was in such a terrible mood that the pool game wasn't much fun. Jerry Framingham, a friend of theirs who drove a cattle truck, was shooting with them; he had to truck a load of yearlings to Fort Worth that night and asked them to ride along with him, since neither of them had dates.
    "We might as well," Duane said. "Be better than loafin' around here."
    Sonny was agreeable. While Jerry went out in the country to pick up his load he and Duane walked over to the café to have supper. Sam the Lion was there, waiting for old Marston to bring out his nightly steak. Penny was still at work and Marston was hopping to get the orders out. Penny had taken to wearing orange lipstick.
    The boys sat down with Sam the Lion and ordered chicken-fried steaks. "Sam, how's the best way to get rich?" Duane asked.
    "To be born rich," Sam said. "That's much the best way. Why?„
    "I want to get that way. I want to get at least as rich a3 Lester Marlow."
    "Well, of course," Sam said, buttering a cracker. "You're really too young to know what's good for you, though. Once you got rich you'd have to spend all your time staying rich, and that's hard thankless work. I tried it a while and quit, myself. If I can keep ten dollars ahead of the bills I'll be doin' all right."
    "How much do you think Gene Farrow's worth?" Duane asked. "How rich would I have to get to be richer than .
    "How much cash you got?" Sam asked.
    "Fifty-two dollars right now. Fifty-one after we eat."
    "Then cashwise I imagine you're as rich as Gene," Sam said, looking suspiciously at his salad. Marston was always sneaking cucumbers into his salads, against strict orders. Sam the Lion regarded cucumbers as a species of gourd and would not eat them.
    "I doubt if Gene could lay his hands on fifty dollars tonight," he added.
    Both boys were stunned. Everyone thought Gene Farrow was the richest man in town.
    "Why Sam, he's bound to have lots of money," Duane said. "Mrs. Farrow's fur coat is supposed to be worth five thousand dollars."
    "Probably is," Sam said. "That's five thousand he don't have in cash, though. He's