Page 164 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

Harry didn’t like this game. He was feeling the way he did
when standing at the edge of a precipice: an all too real feeling
of losing his balance and tumbling over and over to his death.

“What is it?” Harry asked, as if identifying the goods would
lessen the evil.

“A .38,” Ed said, still standing.

“Where’d you get it?” Harry asked.

“In this state, no problem,” Ed said. “Apparently, just about
everyone has a gun here. It’s a right, you know.”

“Why did you buy that thing?” Harry asked, ignoring Ed’s
death threat.

“I told you, I bought it to kill myself,” Ed said, reminding
him of the unspeakable yet again. He was beginning to sound
annoyed with Harry.
“Aren’t you afraid it will go off or something?” Harry asked,
moving his chair back a few steps.

“Don’t worry. It has this safety thing,” he said, demonstrat-
ing the workings of a pistol to Harry for the first time.

Many years ago, Harry worked for two weeks at his fa-
ther-in-law’s pawn shop in Charleston, South Carolina. His
father-in-law was in the hospital at the time and begged Harry
to come down and cover the shop for him, just for the two
weeks. He was afraid if he closed the shop it would be the end
of the business since he had only opened a month before. Har-
ry would never have agreed to work in the store because they
sold pistols, except that his wife really needed him to do this.

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