Free The Sun Dog by Stephen King Page B

knew it. 'Ten per cent. That's what the interest was.'
    'That's not so m -'
    'Compounded weekly,' Mr Delevan added.
    Kevin sat struck dumb for a moment. Then: 'But that's not legal!'
    'How true,' Mr Delevan said dryly. He looked at the strained expression of incredulity on his son's face and his own strained look broke. He laughed and clapped his son on the shoulder. 'It's only the world, Kev,' he said. 'It kills us all in the end, anyhow.'
    'But -'
    'But nothing. That was the freight, and he knew I'd pay it. I knew they were hiring on the three-to-eleven shift at the mill over in Oxford. I told you I'd gotten myself ready to lose, and going to Pop wasn't the only thing I did. I'd talked to your mother, said I might take a shift over there for awhile. After all, she'd been wanting a newer car, and maybe to move to a better apartment, and get a little something into the bank in case we had some kind of financial setback.'
    file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20...ing%20-%20A%20note%20On%20The%20sun%20Dog.HTM (38 of 119)7/28/2005 9:22:38 PM
    The Sun Dog
    He laughed.
    'Well, the financial setback had happened, and she didn't know it, and I meant to do my damnedest to keep her from finding out. I didn't know if I could or not, but I meant to do my damnedest. She was dead set against it. She said I'd kill myself, working sixteen hours a day. She said those mills were dangerous, you were always reading about someone losing an arm or leg or even getting crushed to death under the rollers. I told her not to worry, I'd get a job in the sorting room, minimum wage but sit-down job, and if it really was too much, I'd give it up. She was still against it. She said she'd go to work herself, but I talked her out of that. That was the last thing I wanted, you know.'
    Kevin nodded.
    'I told her I'd quit in six months, eight at the outside, anyway. So I went up and they hired me on, but not in the sorting room. I got a job in the rolling shed, feeding raw stock into a machine that looked like the wringer on a giant's washing machine. It was dangerous work, all right; if you slipped or if your attention wandered - and it was hard to keep that from happening because it was so damned monotonous - you'd lose part of yourself or all of it. I saw a man lose his hand in a roller once and I never want to see anything like that again. It was like watching a charge of dynamite go off in a rubber glove stuffed with meat.'
    'God-damn,' Kevin said. He had rarely said that in his father's presence, but his father did not seem to notice.
    'Anyway, I got two dollars and eighty cents an hour, and after two months they bumped me to three ten,' he said.
    'It was hell. I'd work on the road project all day long - at least it was early spring and not hot - and then race off to the mill, pushing that Chevy for all it was worth to keep from being late. I'd take off my khakis and just about jump into a pair of blue-jeans and a tee-shirt and work the rollers from three until eleven. I'd get home around midnight and the worst part was the nights when your mother waited up - which she did two or three nights a week - and I'd have to act cheery and full of pep when I could hardly walk a straight line, I was so tired. But if she'd seen that -'
    'She would have made you stop.'
    'Yes. She would. So I'd act bright and chipper and tell her funny stories about the sorting room where I wasn't working and sometimes I'd wonder what would happen if she ever decided to drive up some night to give me a hot dinner, or something like that. I did a pretty good job, but some of it must have showed, because she kept telling me I was silly to be knocking myself out for so little - and it really did seem like chicken-feed once the government dipped their beak and Pop dipped his. It seemed like just about what a fellow working in the sorting room for minimum wage would clear. They paid Wednesday afternoons, and I always made sure to cash my check in the office before the girls went