Free The Pigman by Paul Zindel Page B

the Cro-Magnon man.
    Norton actually did play with dolls when he was a kid. That was his mother’s fault, just like in that “Dear Alice” column. When he was old enough to know better, he didn’t play with dolls anymore. But the kids used to make cracks about him, so that made him go berserk around the age of ten. He was the only berserk ten-year-old in the neighborhood. From then on he turned tough guy all the way. He was always picking fights and throwing stones and beating up everybody. In fact, he got so tough he used to go around calling the other guys sissies.
    When I was a freshman going through my Bathroom-Bomber complex, Norton was a specialist in the five-finger discount. He used to shoplift everywhere he went. It used to be small-time stuff like costume jewelry for his mother and candy bars and newspapers. Then he got even worse, until now his eyes even drift out of focus when you’re talking to him. He’s the type of guy who could grow up to be a killer.
    Now you can understand why I was suspicious when Norton invited me to the cemetery to have a beer just before Thanksgiving. That was more than a month after Lorraine and I first met the Pigman.
    “How come you’re going over there all the time?” Norton finally blurted out as he opened up a bottle of a putrid brand of beer and made believe he was deeply interested in looking down into one of the glass domes on top of Masterson’s Tomb.
    “Where?”
    He looked me straight in the eye for a second, and then one of his eyes moved away. “You know where—that old guy’s house on Howard Avenue.”
    “Oh him.”
    “Is he queer or something?”
    “He’s just a nice guy.”
    “What’s his house like?”
    “Like?”
    “Has he got anything worth stealing?” Norton clarified, his eyes beginning to get mean and sneaky like an alley cat about to jump on a bird.
    “Naw,” I muttered, throwing a pebble down off the front of the tomb. “All he’s got are some tools and stuff—”
    “Tools?” Norton perked up. “What kind of tools?”
    “Just some electrical junk.”
    “DD’s been asking for a lot of that electric stuff. There’s a big market for electronics, you know.”
    As soon as he mentioned DD I felt like socking him right in the face. I mean, DD is this lunatic man on Richmond Avenue who makes believe he’s the leader of organized crime on Staten Island, but all he handles are the hubcaps and radios that kids steal. King of the kids.
    “Any TV’s or radios?”
    “No,” I said.
    Norton had reached a new peak of ugliness that day with the afternoon sun shining down on him. He paused a minute, then took a sip of his beer.
    “Well, what are you and that screech owl going over there for?”
    “I told you not to call Lorraine a screech owl!”
    “What if I feel like calling her a screech owl?”
    I took a sip of my beer, which was as warm as @#$%, and then looked him straight in the face. I wasn’t scared of him because we were sort of evenly matched.
    “I mean, what would you
do
about it?” Norton grinned.
    “Oh, probably nothing,” I said, smiling back at him. “Maybe I’d go buy some… marshmallows.”
    The grin on Norton’s face faded away so quickly you’d think I just stuck a knife into him. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could buy some… marshmallows, would you?” I said, smiling.
    “All right, I’m sorry I called her a screech owl,” Norton said, trying to avoid the unavoidable.
    “You got anything more to say to me?” I said, standing up.
    “Yeah.” Norton nodded slowly and with a return of courage said, “If you don’t give me a little more information about that old goat, maybe Dennis and me will pay a little visit over there ourselves.”
    I yawned and stretched my arms into the air. “Well, I can see this conference is over. Thanks for the beer.” Then I threw my empty bottle way in back of the tomb. I mean, I was really furious by this time, and I started walking down the path from the top