Charlie's Lucky Charm

4: Reading

Charlie comes over the next day at 11 A.M. even though I told him not to come by until the evening. He walks into my apartment, still managing to get in even though it's locked and calls out "yooo! I'm here! Where the boxes be?"

"Charlie, it's not even noon. You're too early." I say to him, rolling my eyes as I stand from my desk to go see him.

I catch him as he shrugs "the earlier I start the sooner I get to learn to do the the reading."

I shake my head, pulling my hair int a messy bun "right but I have a ton of boxes coming in still and I'll need to open them and clean them out before I can have you get started. Just come back later." I wave my hand at him.

"What? No. I'm already here. I'll just hang out until you need me." He offers, going over to my fridge "for any beer?"

"Bottom drawer!" I call to him, moving to go back to work. I try and get things done, but he easily distracts me with one of his stories and the two of us end up on my couch talking and laughing. We keep this going until the buzzer to my apartment rings. "Shit, that's the mail. Can ya help me bring this shit up? Usually takes me three to four trips." I ask.

"We'll do it in one!" He assures, standing up to head to the door. The two of us actually do manage to get the boxes in trip, even though I insisted we take a second trip.

We place everything down in the spare room and I ask "you're actually pretty strong, maybe I'll have ya come around when the boxes come in. Save me my strength." I half joke with him.

"As long as you're teachin' me, I'll even snake the drain!" He comments back loudly.

I give him a strange glare, not sure if he meant that in a sexual way or more literally. He just looks at me with doe eyes and I nod "awesome, well let me get to unboxing everything and then we'll work on your reading. Sound good?" I ask and stand at the same time.

"Good!" He assures and I walk off to work.

Two hours later I call Charlie into my work room and he looks around in shock "wow!! You work with video games! Sick!" He rushes over to a wall with a shelf full of vintage games "ahh, shit! You have this?" He holds up megaman and turns to me.

"I told you I worked with games." I say to him nonchalantly.

He shakes his head "no, I thought you meant bored games. This is so cool!" He puts the game back and looks around some more.

"Alright, alright. You ready to learn?" I walk over to him, holding up a piece of paper.

He drops his eyes but only for a moment before pulling them back up to mine and saying firmly "let's do this!"

"Alright, what does this say?" I ask him as we take a seat on the floor.

We both lay down on our stomachs next to one another and he puts his finger under the first word "the dog dishes a foot."

I smile but tell him "good, you got the dog but it doesn't say dishes a foot. Also, does that make sense. To say the dog dish foots?"

He shrugs "doesn't have to make sense. I know dogs dish feet all the time."

"What are you talking about?" I laugh from my stomach "dogs dish foot? That's not even a thing."

"What do you mean it's not a thing, it says it right here!" He almost yells, pointing to the paper.

I explain "no, it says the dog digs holes."

"Digs holes? No, it clearly doesn't say that." His she's fall back to the paper "the dog dish foots. That's what it says."

"Alright, alright. What does the next one say?" I ask, moving right along.

He sighs heavily but looks to the paper and says "frog Jewish leaps down."

I smirk again but say "no, it's says Frogs jump on lillypads."

"Lillypads! That's crazy!" He pushes the paper away "this is stupid, I—I— I'm just gonna go see the waitress now. She'll wanna see me."

"Charlie, stop." I grab his arm when he tries to get up. "You can do this, I'm going to help you. I'm just trying to see how your brain works."

"It doesn't, that's why I can't read. My brain just doesn't do the letters thing." He argues back "and that's fine, I can do other things. I'm really good st cleaning, I'm king of the rats and I can—"

"Charlie, stop. You can read. You're probably just dyslexic and never got the help you needed in order to read properly."

"Dickslexic? What the fuck is that!?" He quickly jolts up to his knees and starts to unbutton his jeans.

"No, no, no! I put my hand on his, stopping him from pulling his dick out in front of me "dyslexic, it means you have trouble reading. Relating the words and understanding the sounds or some shit."

"So, my dicks okay?" He looks down to his and back to me a couple of times, waiting for my answer.

"I mean, I don't know. You would know that but dyslexia has nothing to do with your penis. I promise." I tell him, slowly removing my hand from his.

He then lowers his hand. Sitting back on his feet and breathes out heavily "oh, thank God. Alright well, how can we fix this shit?"

"Well, you just have to work at it. Can you do that, do you wanna do that?" I ask him

He thinks about it for a moment but then nods and says "yeah, help me read this sentence so I can see it says the dog fucking digs holes." I smile and the two of us lay back onto the floor and I continue working with him