Free Absolute Rage by Robert K. Tanenbaum

money. And if I’m not working, he’s going to want me to go back home. My father.” Dan looked blankly out at the Sound. “We all have to support the struggles of the working folks.”
    â€œYou sound doubtful.”
    â€œDo I? I was raised in the faith, but it’s hard to keep on believing in it nowadays. Or anything. I guess I still do. Have you ever been in southern West Virginia? The Kanawha? No, nobody has. Everyone uses the stuff they make there, plastics and chemicals, and all kinds of toxic shit, and we all use electricity from the coal, and we don’t think about the poor bastards who have to live there and make it and breathe it in and taste it in their water every day, and dig out the coal while their houses get slowly demolished around them from the blasting. It sucks, yeah, and we ought to do something to change it. But . . .”
    More interesting, she thought. The accent reverts to mid-American when he goes into speech mode, plus something else. A little roll in the r. Irish?
    They both listened to the wind for a long moment, and the calls of the children.
    â€œBut, what I like to do is to hang out with smart people in Boston, and do science.”
    â€œAnd feel guilty,” she said.
    He turned to look at her, frowning, and saw from her eyes that she was not needling him, or mocking him, but just reflecting what was in his own mind. It was faintly irritating nonetheless.
    â€œJesus, I don’t know why I’m talking like this. I just met you. You don’t need to hear all this crap.”
    â€œNo, we could talk about celebrities, instead.” She pitched her voice up and added a slight Valley drawl. “I think Jennifer Lopez is like totally cool. Or sports. How about those Sox!”
    He laughed and she joined him. She had a throaty, full-belly laugh that he found surprising in a skinny girl, but pleasant.
    â€œOkay, deep and serious—so what do you believe in?”
    Oh, well, Lucy thought, here it comes. All things must end.
    â€œI’m a Catholic.”
    He snorted. “Yeah, right. Luckily, I was spared all that crap. I think my mom is some kind of Episcopal, but of course Dad is a devout atheist. He used to sing ‘Pie in the Sky When You Die,’ whenever we drove past a church. That’s another thing that endeared our family to the McCullensburgians.”
    He would have chattered on in this vein, but it dawned on him that the social smile had quite faded from her face, which now bore a curious expression of resignation, a slight tightening of the jaw, as if anticipating some attack.
    â€œWait, you mean you’re actually Catholic?” A little frown creased his brow. “You believe all that God and the saints sh—business? And the pope?”
    â€œUh-huh. It’s a package.”
    â€œWow. Why?”
    She shrugged. “Why is the sky blue? I don’t know. I’m just a believer. Mom says I have the God gene.”
    â€œSo . . . by the whole package you mean, um, virgin birth, raising the dead? Abortion? Birth control? Lourdes?”
    â€œWell, it’s a very big package. I’m not sure the pope buys the whole package. But pretty much, yeah.”
    â€œBut you’re smart.”
    â€œAnd you’re insulting,” she snapped. She got to her feet, stuck two fingers into her mouth, and produced an amazingly loud whistle. The dog leaped from the shallows and started up the beach, followed by the twins and Lizzie.
    â€œI’m frying. I’m going to take the kids for a swim.” She turned and walked away.
    After a moment, he followed, attracted, as was his pattern, by rejection, although this was a new, and actually a more interesting, variety.
    *  *  *
    Karp did not have to go to jail anymore. Although it had never been a place he liked to visit in the days when he had to go a lot, he still went from time to time. Usually, he went because he thought it was