OCR Text |
Show when you get to the other side. I'll show you. It'll save you four cents a day." So Jame wasn't joking. Karl felt a chill pinch his stomach. "But I already have the four cents, Jame. My mom gave it to me." "So, why waste the money? Hey, it ain't that scary. Nothing to it, once you get used to it." Karl wanted to holler that he'd rather pay the toll, that the Monongehela River was close to an eighth of a mile wide and God-only-knew how deep, but he didn't want to sound like a pantywaist in front of Jame. His steps slowed as they came close to the bridge. "Jame," he said, "won't we need both hands to hang on? How can we cross underneath the bridge if we're carrying dinner pails?" "Easy. Just unbuckle your belt, stick the belt through the handle of the pail, and buckle it up again. Only buckle it tight, so your pants won't fall down. You wouldn't want your pants hanging down around your knees when you're forty feet above the river." Mentally whispering "God have mercy on me," Karl slid his belt through the dinner pail's handle, rebuckling it on the tightest hole. Then, with the pail banging against his crotch, he crawled backward, following Jame down the first angled beam descending to the bridge's steel-truss understructure. They were still above dry land, above the railroad tracks on the west side of the river; Karl had awful visions of his fallen body mangled by a locomotive, but he would already be dead from the fall and wouldn't feel the train's wheels, which was no consolation. |