tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35169718241063446852024-03-13T17:08:31.737-04:00Fried Chicken and Coffee"<i>It's keeping me mean</i>."<br><br>
a blogazine of rural literature, Appalachian literature, and off-on commentary, reviews, rantsRustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.comBlogger94125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-68217423145024749542009-12-28T16:04:00.001-05:002009-12-28T16:12:15.800-05:00Cartin's Brick, fiction by Jarrid Deaton<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 11" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 11" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CRusty%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><o:smarttagtype name="PostalCode" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="State" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="City" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype name="place" namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"></o:smarttagtype><style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My daughter, Laney, she got pregnant not long after her sixteenth birthday. Me <o:p></o:p>and Nora were disappointed, sure, but we didn’t come down on her with lectures or anger. We just told her that we’d help out as much as needed, but she had a whole new world of responsibilities getting ready to crack open on her way before she was old enough. Cartin’s <o:p></o:p>father bolted a week before Laney went into labor. The first two years he mailed Christmas<o:p></o:p> cards with fifty bucks in them, but then he was all the way gone. Cartin was born premature,<o:p></o:p> all shriveled and tiny. He made it through the close calls with beeping machines sending nurses back and forth at all hours of the day. We thought Laney would do okay when we first <o:p></o:p>saw her with him. That didn’t last long at all.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By the time he turned one, Cartin was, for the most part, Nora's and mine. We allowed for it because Laney made promises to go to the local community college and get a part-time job. She kept her word on the job, holding down a waitressing gig at <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Reno</st1:place></st1:city>’s Roadhouse. Some nights she wouldn’t come by to pick Cartin up. Some nights she would come by to get him staggering drunk with some guy I never got to see close up at the wheel of a truck that, by the sound of it, didn’t have a muffler. If Cartin was sleeping, the roar of truck would send him bawling loud and red-faced out of whatever dream he was caught in and it would take half an hour to calm him down. <o:p></o:p><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Laney eventually stopped coming to get Cartin altogether. It worried me and Nora, but we were more than happy to have him around. I’d watch him play in the backyard and smile when I’d catch him staring up at the hills behind the house. I knew he probably heard a squirrel heading for one of the tall trees, or maybe a rabbit getting brave and<o:p></o:p> making its way closer to the yard.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Papaw,” he said to me one day. “What’s alive up there?”<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Just about everything, buddy,” I told him.<o:p></o:p><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The summer he turned ten, I started letting him wander around up in the hills. I always kept a close eye on him. I’d been all over the area looking for mushrooms and ginseng, so I<o:p></o:p> knew it was safe. He’d spend an hour at a time roaming around before he’d make his way back to the house, dirty with scrapes from briars up and down his arms and burrs sticking all over<o:p></o:p> his back and in his wild brown hair.<o:p></o:p><br />
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The next spring, I took out a loan and built us a new house the land where my<o:p></o:p> father used to have a farm. It gave Nora plenty of room to plant her little garden and I’d<o:p></o:p> always wanted more dirt to call my own. It was mine after my father died, but it didn’t feel like it belonged to me until I had a house on it. We deeded the old house over to<o:p></o:p> Laney and her live-in boyfriend, Amos, that I’d only met twice. Nora told me he had a good job with the railroad, but, since Laney always borrowed money off of us, I doubt it<o:p></o:p> was that good.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Not long after we moved in the new house, Amos drove over with a dog box in<o:p></o:p> the back of his truck. I walked out to see what was going on. Amos went around to the back.<o:p></o:p><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Come on over here, Olin,” he said. “Look what I picked up for Cartin. Got him a pal to play with.”<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Amos let the truck gate down and opened the dog box. A big mutt slinked out and<o:p></o:p> took a nervous jump to the ground. It looked like a cross between a collie and a hunting dog. It sniffed at the ground and made a few circles around the truck.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Name’s Winston,” Amos said. “Got him from a guy in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lexington</st1:place></st1:city> pretty cheap,<o:p></o:p> all things considered. Promised to do a little roofing work for him, but I don’t plan on it.”<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Amos laughed and squatted down to pet the dog. It took a couple of steps back and stared at him.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Hell with you, then,” Amos said. “Tell Cartin me and his mama will come back<o:p></o:p> over this weekend and see how him and Winston’s getting along. We got some business to attend to down around <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Frankfort</st1:place></st1:city> tomorrow. Take it easy, old man.” <o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">They always had some kind of business to take care of in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Frankfort</st1:place></st1:city>. I never<o:p></o:p> nosed around enough to find out what it was, but I can imagine it would have pissed me off enough to have whipped Amos’ ass, so I just let it go. I didn’t want to strain things between Laney and us anymore than she already had.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It was three days later when I drove up the dusty one-lane road leading to my house<o:p></o:p> and saw Cartin with a wash rag held against his nose as he walked fast in the opposite<o:p></o:p> direction.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Cartin, what are you doing?" I asked. "Where's your grandma?"<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Damn dog bit me so I killed it," he said. "I was looking for you. I ain't sorry. It bit<o:p></o:p> me."<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The dog wasn't dead, but it was hurt. Cartin had cracked its head with one of the bricks laying in the yard, left over from the expansion of the house.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I looked at his nose, the bridge covered in dried blood. The dog had closed its jaws <o:p></o:p> right between Cartin's eyes.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"I just tried to pet him," he said. "He growled and I tried to back up but he jumped on me."<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"It's okay," I said. "Go in the house and get your grandma. You need to head down to the clinic and get that looked at.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When Nora left with Cartin, I went inside at took my .38 from the top shelf of the<o:p> </o:p>closet. I walked back outside and found the dog hunched up against the back of the garage. One eye was closed and it growled at me and bared its fangs.<o:p></o:p><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"Winston," I said. "Laney.<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> Amos."</span><o:p style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></o:p><br />
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I pulled the trigger and turned the crack made by Cartin's brick into a cave of blood, hair and bone. The dog was in the ground before he got back from the clinic.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwY11jFX0JAhPosD0zkg4E6RGylw9O5_JRTvK5YylsscH5qzhr1XQOcL1zchVzRlqa1-GDg74WSVlZYxa-LN04_W4Uv9ZsgO5fRtFReMPpbB5pMQV-3p0RWmPUM27wovATAttjot2_j3as/s1600-h/deaton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwY11jFX0JAhPosD0zkg4E6RGylw9O5_JRTvK5YylsscH5qzhr1XQOcL1zchVzRlqa1-GDg74WSVlZYxa-LN04_W4Uv9ZsgO5fRtFReMPpbB5pMQV-3p0RWmPUM27wovATAttjot2_j3as/s320/deaton.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><pre style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" wrap=""><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Jarrid Deaton</b></span> lives in eastern Kentucky. He received his MFA in writing from Spalding University. His work has appeared in <i>Underground Voices</i>, <i>Thieves Jargon</i>, <i>Pear Noir</i>, <i>decomP</i>, <i>Zygote in My Coffee</i>, and elsewhere.</pre><br />
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Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-23192395204940492812009-12-21T14:09:00.001-05:002009-12-21T14:10:16.566-05:00Happy Holidays!More content in the new year. I'm going to be busy until then, though, turning 40 and reevaluating, uh, very important things, because I'm, uh, officially at what I used to consider middle age.<br />
<br />
Here's a song a dear, dear, friend of mine sent me today (thanks <a href="http://www.zzinnia.com/">Sue</a>!). To say I love it would be an understatement.<br />
<br />
I hope you all are well and have family around you, if you want them there. Right now, I'm going out back of the house to piss my name in the snow. Because I can.<br />
<br />
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P37xPiRz1sg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P37xPiRz1sg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-67660705809737794652009-12-13T15:15:00.000-05:002009-12-13T15:15:25.441-05:00That's Right--Drug the Little Fuckers!<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Who diagnosed this three-year-old kid (referenced in the last graph) with bipolar disorder?? Can someone in the medical professions please tell me a way in which this makes sense? Three-year olds are all over the place mentally because they're, um, three-year-olds.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>And it only makes the cake taste better to know poor kids get drugged at twice the rate of their richer counterparts. I imagine that happens with adults, too, but I've not seen any research to that effect. Read for yourself, in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html?pagewanted=1&em">NY Times</a>.</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about Medicaid.">Medicaid</a> are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?</span> <br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
<span></span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-51017769462579306792009-12-10T13:58:00.000-05:002009-12-10T13:58:51.156-05:00Cow-Tipping, fiction by Mark Staniforth<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>The sight of all those schoolgirls’ legs unfolding off the buses at just past four o’clock every afternoon is almost enough to shut anybody up, except for Roscoe Williams when he’s got another one of them stupid ideas of his rattling around in his thick old head.<br />
<br />
Squinting up at all that bare chicken-flesh parading right past you, it’s all you can do just to think straight, let alone talk. But Roscoe Williams, he’s so screwed-up with thinking where his next drink’s going to come from he could talk his way through a sixth-form orgy just so long as there was a bottle of Super waiting on the other side of it.<br />
<br />
Maybe it’s because he’s so blurry-focused on the booze and his next means of getting it that the sight of all them shiny fawn thighs doesn’t seem so much of a big deal to him as it does to me. Me, I reckon I’d happily trade in swigging Super all day long on the bus-stop bench if it meant even the smallest improvement of getting any pair of them educated limbs of theirs lolled around my neck.<br />
<br />
This time I’m trying my best to focus on the long curve of Kelly O’Mara’s calves, smooth and sleek as a sports car bonnet and guaranteed to top-speed her out of this place just as soon as she’s old enough to get behind a wheel. Only Roscoe’s blabbing in my left lughole about this weekend being a right ripe time to pull another of his ‘famous’ cow-tip scams.<br />
<br />
Thing is, what gets me most isn’t so much Roscoe’s blabbing as me knowing how it’s going to turn out, no matter how much I try and stop it. Ever since my dinner-time drinking got me fired from the animal feeds, I’ve been desperate enough that there isn’t a whole lot left I wouldn’t do for money. Even most of those things would be tempting if you waved a bottle of Super under my nose.<br />
<br />
Me and Roscoe go back a long way. We met when his mother threw a party when we were ten years old, snuck under the kitchen table and drank ourselves as good as unconscious on her cooking brandy. Sometimes it seems the screwcap hasn’t been back on since. Through it all, I’ve learned the hard way that Roscoe is exactly the kind of greasy-arsed bastard I oughtn’t to be listening to when it comes to the question of making up the next bunch of beer money.<br />
<br />
So when he starts up with the famous cow-tip shit, I blink my eyes off all those perfect bodies and dribble a spit on the concrete and say, convincing as I can, ‘bullshit, Roscoe.’<br />
<br />
‘Wayne-oh,’ sighs Roscoe. I hate it when he sighs my name that way, like he’s some kind of big-shot who can hardly lower himself to shape the words. The sun turns to shadow and there’s no need to look up to know it’s Patty Jenkins who’s blocking it out. She’s already replaced her school jumper with a tee-shirt saying ‘Frankie Says Relax’. It pegs the end of her balloon boobs then drops straight off, makes her look like some sort of slutty sandwich-board evangelist. She’s got tight scraped-back foster-home hair and smells of wet towels and cheese and onion crisps. She sags down between us and pokes a Benson in her cake-hole. She eyes up the bottle of Super and Roscoe hands it over sweet as if he was giving Kelly O’Mara a box of Black Magics on Valentines’ Day.<br />
<br />
‘All right?’ I say, but it’s Roscoe who’s got her attention on account of the free slurp of Super and the always-likely offer of some more fat cash.<br />
<br />
‘You fixed for tonight?’ says Roscoe. Patty shrugs. She slurps and bends forward to itch an inner-thigh. She passes me the Super. I take one look at the fuzzed-up rim and pass it right back. She takes another slurp, passes it to Roscoe who drains the last two inches.<br />
<br />
‘Have faith in the cow-tip!’ he proclaims, standing and tossing the empty bottle of Super towards the village green bin and stomping across the street towards the public lavs.<br />
<br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span>***</span><br />
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Later, we’re in the Fox and Roscoe’s tipping the shots down Patty Jenkins’s neck, wrapping her round his little finger with what’s left of his charm and his cash. Strikes me there’s no need for Roscoe to be so generous with the doubles, since Patty would good as guarantee herself to anyone for keeps once she’s dosed up on Pernod and Blacks.<br />
<br />
Patty’s swapped her Frankie tee-shirt for her best blow-job clothes, a cheap black bra just about big enough to hold them in under a two-sizes-too-small crop-top that shows off her folds. The way she’s rubbing up against Roscoe looking up at him with those big trusting eyes of hers, it almost makes me feel sorry for her. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s coming but I swallow my morals for the thought of a pocket-full of dough.<br />
<br />
</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span> ***</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span><br />
The tap-room’s full of boys with bare arms swigging pints like they know where the next one’s coming from. They’re here to give Jackie Bell a quaint old rural send-off. Jackie Bell’s hauled them up here supposedly on some outward-bound weekend but truth is he’s been after the chance to rub our noses in it ever since he swanned off to that college of his. He’s throwing twenties at Old Roy and Old Roy’s flapping about after them like a zoo-pond penguin at feeding time. It’s just as well we’re so practised in making our own pints last all night or we’d be detoxed by the time we managed to catch Old Roy’s eye.<br />
<br />
Roscoe’s got his eye on a couple of likely lads. Reckons he’s like a lion picking out the weakest wildebeest from the herd. Calls it his sixth sense and I have to hand it to him, it hasn’t done us too far wrong in the past, save the time he didn’t account for a scrawny-arsed runt being a champion flyweight. They’re well-dressed townie types and it’s easy to see who shits it the most when the pissed-up farm boys barge past on their way to the lavs. Roscoe flicks his head and heads off, pulls up a stool. I follow him. Patty stays back by the jukebox, swivels her clack-shoes so her tits are spilling in their direction.<br />
<br />
Roscoe nods at a pair of lads and asks if they can spare him a fag. The fatter one offers up a pack of poncey menthols and I know that at that moment Roscoe’s gone and struck gold again. Roscoe leans in for a light. He nods his head at Jackie Bell lording it up at the end of the bar and says, ‘known him for years. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.’<br />
<br />
You can tell the pair’s nervous what with the proximity of Roscoe’s fucked-up face. Roscoe lifts his dregs and makes them clink glasses. He clocks one of them’s wearing a United pin-badge. When it comes to clocking stuff like that, Roscoe never misses a trick. A few minutes later, we’ve got fresh pints lined up courtesy of the townies, and they’re embroiled in a red-faced three-way over who’s better down the Old Trafford wing, Jesper Olsen or some other cunt I’ve never heard of. I’m looking over at Patty waiting for the signal, and I’ve half a mind to pull Roscoe aside and tell him a night on the beer’s enough for me without having to go through with all the famous cow-tip crap.<br />
<br />
Roscoe flashes me the wink which says I’ll never see the end of it. He nods over at Patty and draws their heads in and says, ‘see that bird over there with the tits? Best blow-jobs north of Watford.’ He reaches for another menthol, sparks up. ‘Fact.’<br />
<br />
They’re looking over giving her the ogle. She gives them the cutesy wave. ‘You’re in there.’ Roscoe says it so they both them he means them. Truth be told, they’re not the types it looks like pussy comes easy for. The fat one looks down, embarrassed. The other meets her stare.<br />
<br />
Just then, Jackie Bell flits past and Roscoe pulls him over and steers his pint to the table and says, ‘good on you, Jacko!’<br />
<br />
‘Hey-hey!’ says Jackie Bell, slaps Roscoe’s back. Roscoe used to be Jackie’s pussy-catching mate till too many nights on the glue turned him into an ugly sniff-faced bastard. Used to bore me senseless with stories of double-teaming sluts behind the Kwik Save. Now Jackie just treats him like another piece of shit ought to be stuck down the bottom of a brown paper bag.<br />
<br />
Jackie says, ‘you’ve found yourself a right fucking pair here, lads,’ and I can’t work out who it is he’s talking to, us or the stag-do dickheads, but either way knowing we know Jackie seems to put the two stag-do dickheads at ease.<br />
<br />
Jackie gone, Roscoe’s back to drawling on like a Match Of The Day pundit. Out of the corner of his eye he tips Patty the wink and she wobbles over.<br />
<br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><span> ***</span><br />
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Long past closing time we’re out in a field in the middle of nowhere and I hate to admit it but Roscoe’s plan has worked like a charm. Getting the pair of them out of the pub didn’t present much of a problem once Roscoe started gabbing on about quaint local activities, and Patty piped up about the cow-tipping right on cue.<br />
<br />
It’s fair to say the fat one was a bit more reluctant to give up his seat in the thick warm pub for a spot of gallivanting round pitch-black fields getting his box-fresh Filas all fucked up with animal shit, but it’s nothing a well-placed hand on a thigh from Patty couldn’t sort out quick-sharp. We pile in the back of Roscoe’s Cortina Estate. It’s had the back down so long now the seats wouldn’t sit up if you tried. Roscoe uses it as a mobile bed most nights given as he’s pretty much permanent estranged from his folks these days. Colder it gets, the more litres he gets through for insulation. It smells of old fags and stale piss and the bearings squeal like a yard of pigs as Roscoe bathes the pub car park in full beam. ‘Jesper fucking Olsen,’ he says as he backs out, shakes his head in the best fake awe you’ve ever seen.<br />
<br />
Soon we’re bouncing up the pitch-black back-tracks so much it’s giving me a stiffy and I’m hating myself for it taking just a few stupid pot-holes to get me horny about Patty Jenkins of all people again. She’s squeezed in between the college cunts in the back and if everything’s going according to Roscoe’s well-laid plans she’ll have each of her hands down their respective boxers by now and be twiddling their no-doubt tiny nobs towards the point of splurge.<br />
<br />
After more bumping and grinding than you get on the dancefloor of the Pickering Ritzy on your average Friday night, Roscoe pulls up and half-turns and his teethy smirk is lit up by moonlight.<br />
<br />
‘Cow-tip time!’ Roscoe says, and we all lamp out the car and feel our feet sink in pools of warm shit. The fat lad stops to light up another menthol and by the look of his face in the match-glow he’s not all that thrilled with where we’ve took him. The other one’s more perving at the gigantic bouncing balls Patty’s got stuffed up her tee-shirt and they’re looking even bigger in the moonlight glow. Patty’s looped an arm round both the boys and she’s steering them off to the darkness as planned.<br />
<br />
Roscoe hisses open a couple of cans of Special and we clank them together and glug them down. After giving them ten minutes we creak out after catching one or both of them in the act. Sure enough there’s the flabby lad silhouetted in the open field with his arms sticking out like a scarecrow and he’s mumbling to no-one in particular: ‘I knew it. I fucking knew it.’<br />
<br />
There’s a slurpy sound coming from a block of black on our right which we take correctly to be a hedge, and closer inspection reveals Patty Jenkins down in her most convenient pose gobbling the other lad’s sweaty knob with his boxers tangling his knees. Patty’s still got her mega-baps well strapped in which I can’t help feeling is a mighty waste on the lad’s part, though they do say some are inclined to save a little mystery for their lovemaking.<br />
<br />
The routine is for Roscoe to step out out and politely inform the chap that in order to keep such a sorry and perhaps illegal activity under wraps there may have to be a small session of financial transacting. But somehow the sight of Patty summoning up such enthusiasm for the one-thousand-and-forty-third nob she’s ever had in her gob seems to rub Roscoe up the wrong way. So while the flabby lad’s still stomping around the field moaning about fucking knowing it, Roscoe bellyflops over the top of the hedge and slaps the lad out of his fantasy and calls him a paedo.<br />
<br />
Patty slops his nob out of her gob and wipes herself on the hem of her upturned top and gets to her feet and giggles at her mucky whore knees.<br />
<br />
The lad’s staring big-eyed at Roscoe going, ‘I don’t want no trouble, like,’ but Roscoe slaps him round the chops and sinks him in the mud. He goes, ‘she might be a dirty slut but she’s only fifteen, like.’<br />
<br />
The lad’s got his arms in the air and he’s starting to panic. He starts to yammer about not knowing, and it would look well funny if it wasn’t so serious because he’s plain forgot he’s still got his boxers round his knees and his danglies dangling. Then while he tries to get up Roscoe slaps him back in the mud and he plants his bare arse in the soil with a slop.<br />
<br />
The fat lad comes over with all the commotion and Roscoe calms a little and gives it the, ‘your mate’s been knobbing my sister and she’s only fifteen,’ bit, and for good measure, ‘what with her mental what-nots, I’m afraid it don’t look good.’<br />
<br />
The fat lad squints through the gloom at Patty like he’s checking if she’s dribbling enough to pass for a spaccer. Patty leers right back at him and licks her lips.<br />
<br />
The fat lad starts cursing under his breath again and he reaches out his wallet and Roscoe’s most peturbed when he finds the two lads between them can only summon the paltry sum of thirty-five quid between them and their cash cards are stuffed safe behind Old Roy’s bar running up a fine tab.<br />
<br />
Faced with the prospect of having a pocket-full of short change once he’s deducted travelling expenses and the cost of a couple of four-packs of Special Brew and Patty’s considerable pre-event bar bill, it doesn’t take Roscoe too long to get his radge back on. First he orders the thin one to kick off his air-bubble Nikes and the Levis from round his ankles and the boxers from his knees, then he’s after his dress-shirt and the lad’s left clasping himself white and blubbery in the nude. The fat lad’s got wind of what’s happening and he’s legging it away over the field stumbling as he goes, happy to spend the night tramping out on the moors if he means he’ll avoid having to get his own pair of floppy norps out in front of a lass. Roscoe gives the thin lad a boot in the ribs and the lad’s proper crying now. ‘Fucking hell Roscoe,’ I say, thinking the lad’ll most likely freeze to death just lying like that, and on second thoughts Roscoe chucks him his shirt back, and I might say it’s one of the touching things I’ve seen him do, only he spoils the effect by pulling out his car keys and chucking them and his trainers into the blackness for the spite of it.<br />
<br />
Roscoe’s fair raging and we sit in the car in silence and neither me nor Patty has the courage to ask Roscoe for our cut. The car stinks of mud-shit and Roscoe’s got the Stone Roses on blasting which is totally wrong for the mood we’re in.<br />
<br />
Roscoe swigs another Special while his lights search the road and I feel Patty sobbing in my armpit and I say, ‘you didn’t need to call her no dirty slut.’<br />
<br />
Roscoe slams on his brakes and almost sends us arrowing through the windscreen. He turns and slurs, ‘get the fuck out of my car.’<br />
<br />
Well the mood he’s in we don’t need no second invite, and I help Patty out and he zooms off with the door still flapping, and Patty sobs more till his red back-lights turn out of sight.<br />
<br />
It takes us a fair few hours to make it back and those hours present plenty of time for thinking. Instead of risking waking her old man at her place we head in the site static with the broken window catch that those of us of a certain age been using for extra curricular activities for years. Patty sprawls out over the stinky couch and starts talking her fanciful notions about getting a one-way ticket out of here. They’re tempting enough notions all right and what with all that thinking time I find myself swept up with thought that it’s not too late to make a go of it somewhere else. Then I look into those eager-to-please blowjob eyes of hers and suddenly I hate myself even more. Truth is I know how tonight’s going to end up, just like I know how things’ll end up next time Roscoe cools off and comes back round spouting another of them stupid ideas of his.</span><br />
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</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b>Mark Staniforth</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> lives in a small village in North Yorkshire, England. His fiction has been published in </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Night Train</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Eclectica</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Dublin Quarterly</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Suss</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">, among others. He has a blog at markstaniforth.blogspot.com</span><span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">.</span><br />
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</span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-66464719374169253622009-12-08T15:55:00.002-05:002009-12-08T15:56:31.002-05:00New Content Coming SoonJust letting you all know.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUDzTK0hkyaXTrZdkDv7rNGCvrAP1YyA6fwyiGJhSez4jWr8CGNsjqj4PXD1jevk60lmeG3mUm2lZjUQIzEy86Uubb-nQdpjOgdbaqR7PlDxsZJAvZhYR2vrHe7p1GQ42hyphenhyphenMUmT4CZ1iQ_/s1600-h/whitetail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUDzTK0hkyaXTrZdkDv7rNGCvrAP1YyA6fwyiGJhSez4jWr8CGNsjqj4PXD1jevk60lmeG3mUm2lZjUQIzEy86Uubb-nQdpjOgdbaqR7PlDxsZJAvZhYR2vrHe7p1GQ42hyphenhyphenMUmT4CZ1iQ_/s320/whitetail.jpg" /></a>I think it's a sign my family's getting older and older, or just not hunting, or something. No one got a deer on the first or second day, or at all that I've heard of. And I know the PA deer population is <a href="http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/lib/pgc/deer/pdf/Management__Plan6-03.pdf">exploding</a> and has been for some time. I never got one. I had a chance a couple times. My brother and I were right down behind the house at joining of our feeder crick with Seeley Creek. I didn't have my mind in the hunt--I often didn't--so my brother tapped me on the shoulder and pointed across the water to the steep sidehill covered in pine. A buck was skittering his way down among the pine needles and rocks, a couple doe close behind. I can't remember what I was hunting with--probably my brother's 12-gauge-- but I remember drawing the bead down behind the front leg and waiting for the buck to stop at the bottom before he took off again. I waited and waited, in the way time turns like molasses before the shot, and realized I couldn't do it. I didn't want to do it. I liked venison, a great deal, but not enough to shoot and kill to get it. So I didn't shoot. My brother winked at me when I brought the barrel down, but didn't say anything. He didn't shoot either, but he has his own reasons for that. I don't know them.<br />
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<br />
As penance of a sort, I haven't eaten venison much since then. Though I do love the memory of seeing the deer hang from the apple tree overnight, and then butchering the cold carcass on the metal dining room table, seeing my dad or my mother slide the knife into the meat on either side of the spine, and how the backstrap would go straight into the frying pan with some butter, maybe some flour--I don't remember exactly--and then out on a communal plate, even while our hands were still bloody, and even though the carcass wasn't nearly done.<br />
<br />
I have bad memories too, like trying to force the shot-meat and the gristle into something identifiable as hamburger, which meant through the hand-grinder attached temporarily to the kitchen counter,and often coming close to breaking the thing. That was my job, to grind.And grind. And grind some more.Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-91462085653155960742009-11-20T19:20:00.001-05:002009-11-20T19:21:19.003-05:00Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj72KU8eFiqdHT6ZtwOgiMc61paaAXTSSlRhz2Y6Vuq-YzgEz-SD53y4HxRxAXif8RhCXudiYGDj-Lf8c8OnnXwMoW-WV9jpJchbL5tY6YP5dXjm6YRFJu_kdeB5zL1b6shxVox1A91owR/s1600/books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj72KU8eFiqdHT6ZtwOgiMc61paaAXTSSlRhz2Y6Vuq-YzgEz-SD53y4HxRxAXif8RhCXudiYGDj-Lf8c8OnnXwMoW-WV9jpJchbL5tY6YP5dXjm6YRFJu_kdeB5zL1b6shxVox1A91owR/s320/books.jpg" /></a><br />
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I owe a whole shit-ton of you (meaning contribs) books. I've been so busy for the last two months I'd forgotten about that, uh, very important part of the deal for publishing here. Please remind me in comments if I haven't sent you a book and indicate your preference for fiction or poetry. Also send your snail-mail address to rusty.barnes@gmail.com.Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-47663460082903352632009-11-17T22:01:00.000-05:002009-11-17T22:01:20.690-05:00Dark Hole, fiction by Rosanne Griffeth<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you misstep just six inches to your right, you will fall right into it. It swirls brightly and is fit only for trout to live in. If you do misstep, you will plunge up to your neck in the freezing water. Of all the swimming holes along Big Creek, those deep pockets of cold water children play in all summer; the Dark Hole is the loneliest one. No one wants to swim there.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She was pretty and delicate in a Melungeon way, lighter of skin than most of her relatives and shy like a white calf. Her eyes were large and sloe and dark. The light would glint off them in the darkness of the forest like the flick of a trout tail in the deepness of the creek.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her black hair was long, wavy and hung down her back, when he first saw her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When she first saw him.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her Pa had beaten her that day, as he was wont to do. Her Ma died from the fever six months ago and there no longer was the comforting buffer of another woman in the house. Ferby sure did miss her Ma. Mostly, she missed her just being there.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She had risen before the men to fetch wood, stoke the stove and complete the rest of her chores she was expected to do before the farm stirred to life. Before heading to the barn with the milk bucket, she ran down to the springhouse for water, milk and butter. She put the water to boil on the stove then headed out to the milk parlor.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tulla, the jersey cow, greeted her with her usual vacant stare. She already stood at the stanchion, waiting. Ferby hunkered down on the milk stool; her head leaning against Tulla's warm flank as she rhythmically pulled the milk down. Tulla's tail would whack her on the back of the head every so often. Ferby would slap Tulla's flank in response and both cow and girl breathed out clouds of mist. Milking time was a quiet time, a right nice time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby poured Tulla's offering into the churn and placed it behind the stove to clabber just as the men stirred around upstairs.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She made a pan of cathead biscuits and put the coffee on. Sure and swift, her hands flew as she checked the pot of hominy and sizzling ham in the skillet. She put some boiled eggs in a bowl and opened one of her Ma's cans of pickled beets from last summer.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shade, her oldest brother, came up behind her. He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"What'cher got there, lil' Ferby?" he said, breathing into her ear.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She stiffened and shrugged his hand from her shoulder. "Get!" she hissed at him between clenched teeth. "I'm busy."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shade was tall and squint-eyed. He snaked his brown, calloused hand down to her waist. Ferby turned and poked him with a hot spatula.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shade drew back and shook his hand out where a droplet of boiling hominy had fallen. He sucked on the burnt spot and shook it out again.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Get! I said!" She slapped him away and he grinned, but his squinty eyes were cold.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her Pa came in with her other three brothers and stared at them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The mountains themselves had carved Ransom Gorvins into a dark, hard man. Brown like gnarled walnut wood; Gorvins' eyes were dead black. He was a man of few words and he did not speak now.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He stepped forward, backhanded Ferby against the hot stove then calmly sat down at the table.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">That was the day they met.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When the men went off to the fields and forests after breakfast, Ferby finally had a bit of time to herself. She ran, barelegged and barefoot, through the woods like a young doe to her special spot, the place where the rhododendron bushes bent, gnarled and twisted, down to the swirling water.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There she could be herself, a child—a wild mountain child. She lay on her stomach on a big slab of rock and trailed her fingers into the coldness. Sometimes if you looked at the water long enough, you could forget yourself and all your troubles. Sometimes, if you listened closely, God whispered. This was why she came here and how she remembered her mother.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He came through the forest trail on a snow-white mule. A mule as white as he was black and when Ferby looked up and saw him, she was afraid. Afraid, but fascinated at the same time. She had never seen such a man though she had heard of them talked about in angry tones by the men.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She stayed still like a fawn in tall grass, frozen on the rock, her hand in the water. She watched him loosen the reins to allow the mule to drink. When he saw her he startled.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Oh—Hello," he said. "I didn't see you there."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">His kind eyes belonged with his kind voice. Ferby pulled herself up from the rock to look at him. He was tall and spare. His chin was covered with a close-cropped beard. She looked curiously at his full lips and nose, so different from hers. The darkness of his complexion was different from the darkness of hers, and different again from any of the people she knew. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He dismounted and dropped to his haunches to fill his canteen up.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Reginald Hooper, Miss," he said. "I'm in these parts doing a survey for Black's Mining. I'd appreciate it if you let your folks know I'm not going to be here long and should be moving through right soon. Don't mean no harm, just be taking some samples."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I'm Ferby. Samples?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I'm with a mining company. I'm just going through taking rock samples."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Oh." She understood about mines but was not sure what taking samples were.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He cut his eyes at her, warily. "I must be the first colored person you ever saw, the way you are looking at me."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Yes," she whispered.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Well, Miss Ferby, I'll just be getting some water here and be movin' on."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He fastened the water to the mule's pack and started to mount.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Wait!" <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He paused and turned, leaving a hand on the pommel of his saddle.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Where did you come from? I want to know about where you come from." <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He adjusted the stirrup leather on the mule's saddle and said, "I come from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Kingsport</st1:city></st1:place>, Miss."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Where is that?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Oh, about sixty miles north of here. It's a city."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"A city? Do they have tall buildings and all?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Yes, Miss. It's a fair sized city."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Do you live there?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He pulled himself up on his mule. "Yes, Miss, I do."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He reached back into one of his packs, pulled something out of it and reached down to hand it to her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Here you go. Here's something from the big city for you to keep."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby took the object from his hand and stepped back as though his touch might burn her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She looked at what he had given her. It was a cylinder about the size of a can of peas, covered in paper with a picture of a cow.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She frowned at it and asked, "What is it?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The edges of his eyes crinkled. "Turn it over."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby upended the little round box and almost dropped it when it made a sound like a cow mooing. She laughed up at him.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"It sounds just like Tulla when I'm late for milking!" <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Been nice talkin' to you. I'll be going along now."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He wheeled the white mule and headed off through the forest trail, like a ghost into the woods.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby stumbled after him and as he faded into the deep cover of the forest, she called, "Mayhap I'll see you again!"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her voice faded into the cricket song, floating off like a thistle seed in the wind.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby took the little moocow box home, wrapped it securely and hid it under her pillow. This was her secret and she did not want to share the wonderful meeting with the strange city man with anyone. One day, mayhap, she would go to the big city. Mayhap, one day, she would see the strange man again and be able to ask him more about the world outside the mountain.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She hardly noticed the burn on her shoulder where she hit the stove that morning. No, hardly at all.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">For the next few weeks, after the men left, she darted through the woods like a wild thing on bare feet as tough as wolf pads over the rocks and shale. She searched out the dark man on the white mule, and when she found him, she sat quietly watching from the cover of the rhododendrons. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">He drilled into the rock and pulled plugs of stone and soil, then placed them in tubes, carefully labeling them before putting them in his pack. Ferby guessed this was "taking samples".<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After a while, he would stand up, stretch, take some sandwiches out of his pack and sit on a rock, and say, "I wish I had somebody to eat these sandwiches with."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby would giggle, shyly emerging from the mountain laurel and he would share his lunch with her. Mr. Hooper's life in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kingsport</st1:place></st1:city> sounded exotic and exciting. A brassy photograph of his sweetheart, smiling with Reginald in a photo booth, entranced Ferby. She held it carefully from the edges and looked from it to Mr. Hooper, comparing him now and then. They looked happy in a way Ferby could not relate to--in a way foreign to the hardscrabble life on the mountain.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"What's her name?" <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Reginald took the photo from Ferby and tucked it back in his wallet. "Her name is Evaline, but I call her Evy. We get married as soon as I have money for a house saved up."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So much of what Mr. Hooper described to Ferby about the city made her want to leave the mountain and experience this life for herself. He told the stories so well that she could see herself walking down the wide paved streets wearing a store-bought dress and white gloves. Her hands were smooth, white and soft, and a man brought milk to her back door in the mornings. Ferby imagined having a job where she worked indoors and had her own money to spend at the movies or to go to restaurants. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"When I come there I'll wear a hat all covered in lace and we'll go eat at one of them eating places."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hooper looked down. "That's not likely to happen, Ferby."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Why not? Don't you want to go to a fancy restaurant with me?" Ferby dug a bare toe into the dirt, flicking it up.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"No, Miss—that's not it at all. They don't let people like me in the front door of such places. We have to go to the back door. To tell the truth, you might have a hard time getting in yourself. You are a bit darker than most white folks, you know."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby frowned. This hadn't occurred to her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She broke off a leaf-covered twig of a sassafras tree, stuck it in her hair and twirled around, laughing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"See my hat?" <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hooper laughed, then stood and dusted the seat of his pants off, putting his hat on. "Well, Ferby—you know I have to leave tomorrow. I'll be riding out early to catch the train back to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Kingsport</st1:city></st1:place>."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby just stared at him for a moment.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Will you be back?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I don't know." <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby didn't know what to say. And since she didn't know what to say, she ripped off her crown of sassafras and threw it on the ground. Then she just ran away, disappearing into the rhododendron grove. She ran all the way to her special spot and once she was there, she felt the tears on her cheeks.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby washed her face, staring into the swirling water. Her reflection showed her face and wavy black hair in refractions of light and dark. Then she shouldered her sadness like a yoke and went back home.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The cook stove fire smoldered when Ferby popped open the firebox so she raked the coals from the ash and placed another log on the fire. She knew it was time to get supper started, but first she wanted to go up to her room and look at the moocow box, her one treasure and keepsake from her time with her friend, the mineral surveyor. As she climbed the narrow stair, she thought, mayhap she would go to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kingsport</st1:place></st1:city> herself. She would leave this place and find a better life, an easier life. She felt, for the first time in her life, that her life could be her own one day.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shade was sitting on her bed holding the moocow box when she pushed the door open. He squinted narrowly at her, and then turned the moocow box over so it made the mwah-ah-ah noise that sounded just like a cow. The cow cry hung in the silence of the room like the dust motes drifting in the sunlight.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"What th' hell is this, Ferby?" <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her hands clenched the flour sackcloth of her dress.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Give me that. It's mine."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Who gave you such a thing, Ferby?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The little box sat precariously in Shade's big dirty hands. Ferby didn't say anything. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shade stood up and held the moocow box out to her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Here—you want it—take it." <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby reached for the box, stepping forward. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Just as her fingertips brushed it, Shade dropped it and crushed the fragile cardboard under his heel. It made a forlorn broken noise.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby flew at him in a rage, screaming and crying. Shade grabbed her by the forearms and held her there.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"You know what I heared, Ferby?" he said. "I heared you was seen with that nigger prospector. I think he gave you that there trinket. That's what I think."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby struggled, spat and pounded Shade. The loss of her mother, the loss of her friend, her loneliness and all her longings, dreams and rage came shattering home with the little sound the box made. Something in her soul was lost and broken with that little noise. When Shade raped her on the hard plank boards of her bedroom, she took her mind to her special place, where the dark waters swirled and God spoke softly—where the dappled light burst through the rhododendrons and splattered the water with shadows.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After that day, nothing would be the same, and Ferby would understand what it was like to be broken beyond repair.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The days went by much as they had before. Ferby milked the cow, fed the chickens, fixed meals for her father and brothers and escaped to the place she always had run to on the creek. When she stared into the swirling water of the creek, her heart no longer heard God whispering to her. She strained to hear Him but her soul was frayed and ripped now. It was as if someone had fired a shotgun next to her soul's ear, deafening it. She went about her life, content to fade into the background like a moth on a wormy chestnut barn.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">No one noticed when she started to look pale and tired. No one took into account the drab shapeless garments she wore. Ferby became a shade, hiding in the shadows of the wood and skulking behind the trees like a doe that had tasted lead yet had not died.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In truth, Ferby was not aware herself of what was happening to her. She went through the motions of life without thought. In her mind were happier memories and, occasionally, she found herself there and remembered God's whisperings. She played the happy meetings with her prospector friend in her mind, hiding from reality.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She became ill and lost her appetite. No one noticed when she would quietly slip out the back door and retch. When they did notice she was well into her eighth month.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ransom Gorvins stood like a monument, unmoving on the back porch that morning. He had noted breakfast was late getting on the table and was impatient to get out to the fields. Spreading fertilizer was on his schedule and his brow knitted in vexation he would be late getting started. The days were still too short to cover the time he would have to spend to finish in one day. He had decided to give the daughter a talking-to since she seemed not able to shoulder her share of the farm duties.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby struggled up the path from the barn with a milk pail. She would lug it a few steps, then would have to put it down and rest a moment.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ransom watched her progress, but did not try to help. He had seen her make this walk before without such dallying.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She saw him and redoubled her efforts, but the task was too much for her. She stumbled, fell and spilled the milk all over herself. The milk drenched her baggy garments, making them cling to her body, now visibly pregnant. She struggled to her feet, darting eyes at her father.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ransom Gorvins showed an uncharacteristic wave of emotion. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and his dark skin flushed bronze and angry. He strode over to Ferby with violence in his cold dead eyes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She was terrified. She was sorry she had spilt the milk but she just did not seem to be able to handle it today.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"You little whore!" Gorvins' words snaked out like knives.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" Ferby said. "I'm sorry ‘bout the milk—I'll get more this evening. I won't spill it again an' we still have some from yesterday. . ."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins hauled back and landed a blow with his closed fist to Ferby's cheek. She fell back, hard, and sat there holding her face and screaming in pain. The boys came out on the porch to see what the ruckus was about.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I'm not talkin' about the milk. How dare you bring shame on this family."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins continued to darken with rage. Ferby still gasped in pain from the punch and her eye was swelling shut, making it difficult to see. She barely processed what Gorvins said.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Who's the father, you little whore? Who you been steppin' out with?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"N-n-nobody! What are you talkin' about?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Don't pretend you didn't know you was expectin'!" Gorvins stalked towards her. "Who—is—he?"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby sobbed, her breath hiccupping. She felt the sticky wetness of the milk all over her body and she started to rock.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"I-I-I don't know. I don't know, Daddy, I swear I don't know! Please don't hit me again. I don't know!" A string of blood and spit dribbled from the side of her mouth.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins stood there looking at his daughter, his body trembling with rage.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shade stepped down from the porch, keeping out of reach of his father.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Well, I heard she was 'round that darkie, Daddy." He said. "I bet she let him have a poke at her."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins turned slowly and looked at Shade, his eyes basilisk-like, and Shade thought maybe he'd gone too far. Maybe he should have kept quiet, since the old man was just as likely to go off on him.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby howled from the ground where she sat rocking, "No! No! That ain't true! H'aint true! He never touched me!"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins turned back to her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Shut up, you little slut! Shut your lyin' mouth! Time will tell if that be the truth. When you squirt your little bastard out into the world, time will tell."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">With that, he stomped back into the house, leaving Ferby in a puddle of milk and shame.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins kept her locked in her room for the remainder of her lying in. Ferby sat in a straight-back chair looking out the small window, her gaze vacant and empty. Her mind focused not on the woods outside her window, but on the swirling pool where she had spent so much time. Her other brothers tried to intervene and get her to the local midwife, but to no avail. She heard their angry voices from below.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Daddy, you gots to get her to Granny Wilson. We can't handle this ourselves!"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins stony voice answered back, "She brought shame down on us and I'll not have anyone else involved."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Daddy, she ain't a cow! She don't know what to do, she ain't had a baby before."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"No. That's my last word on it."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby spent those last weeks in her room. When her water broke, she barely knew what was happening. She looked beneath her chair at the spreading pool of fluid with surprise. The first contractions she had passed off as a stomachache.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As the contractions grew stronger, she paced the floor, breathing heavily and feeling the sweat bead on her forehead. Eventually the pain became so severe she began beating the door.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Let me out! Let me out! I'm dreadful sick—let me out—please!" She screamed but no one came.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She wanted to bolt off running like a bloated sheep into the woods—run and leave the dreadful agony behind her. She beat on the door until her knuckles bled and after her pain was so great she could not form words, she screamed. She was not sure how long this went on. Time seemed to slow down and what took hours seemed to Ferby like years.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Finally, she collapsed on the floor, panting. When the baby came out, Ferby looked at it, small and still on the floor with its cord connecting it to her. It jerked to life with a puling wail when she picked it up and Ferby brought the little creature to her breast and sat there with it, nursing.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her father and brothers found her in the middle of a pool of afterbirth, blood and fluid. The infant was latched onto her like a hungry leech. Gorvins came forward and tore the umbilical cord apart.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Get some strong iodine."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The men cleaned the dreadful mess, working much as they would if a cow had calved in the barn in their absence. They took care of Ferby as best they could. She let them, and said nothing. She stared at the baby wailing on her bed where the men left it, like a growth they had removed.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Go clean yourself up," Gorvins said.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby hobbled to the door and looked back at the men cleaning off the baby. She did as she was told and went out to the springhouse and cleaned all the blood and birth fluids off. She was sick tired and hurting to the point nothing seemed to make sense.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When she made her way back to the house, Gorvins and her brothers were in the kitchen with the baby wrapped in a towel.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Guess we know who the father is, now," Shade said.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby examined the baby. He was an angry red, like most newborns and had a fuzz of coal black hair. His eyes slanted and a port wine birthmark spread over half his face and down his neck.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Her brothers were silent and grim looking.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Look Daddy, it's the mark of Cain. That baby done been marked, it has." Shade looked from Ferby to Gorvins, his squinty eyes like a crow's.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins took the infant and pressed him into Ferby's arms. "I reckon your brother has the right of it," he said.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby looked down at the baby and held him close to her. She looked at his little face and touched the mark.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"No—no—it's a stain. It's just a stain. Give me a cloth, I'll get it off." She wet her finger with saliva and started to rub the birthmark. She smiled shakily, "See, h'its coming off. Really it is!"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Two of her brothers turned away. As she continued to rub the baby's face, the infant started howling.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Gorvins reached a weathered hand over, grasped hers and drew it away from the child.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"Stop it. You can't rub that mark off. It's God's mark of your sin."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She teared up as she searched her brothers' and father's faces. She shook her head and grasped the infant tighter. She backed away from them, shaking her head.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"No. No-no-no-no-no." <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She kept backing up until she was pressed against the door. The baby wailed as she held him too closely.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"You're wrong! It's just a stain. It'll wash off. God didn't mark my baby! It's not the mark of Cain! It's not."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby pulled the door open and bolted with the infant out of the house. She ran blindly, ignoring her pain and tiredness. She ran with her baby as fast as she could, away from there.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She heard her father holler out the door, "Ferby! You get back here, now!"<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby ignored him. She ran through the woods with the child until she came to her special spot—the spot where she lost herself in the glinting water. The spot where you had to be careful not to step those six inches to the right, or you would plunge to your neck in the frigid, dark water.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby took her baby and misstepped, entirely on purpose. The swirling waters where God whispered would remove the stain. For she was sure, it was a stain and not a mark. Mr. Hooper hadn't touched her, but Shade surely had. So the birthmark had to be a stain that God would remove it in this holy place.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She plunged to her neck with the babe and held him under the water, rubbing the stain, trying to erase the mark. She was not sure when the baby stopped breathing, but when she knew he was not drawing breath, she held him close, rocked his lifeless little body and sang, tunelessly, to him.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"It were just a stain. Just a little stain. God will make it right. You'll see." She kissed his tiny forehead and laid him on the big rock in the middle of the creek, like an offering.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ferby wandered off, disappearing into the wood like a wild thing. Like the child she once was and was no longer. She faded into the mountain laurel like a ghost, humming a mournful lullaby. No one ever saw her on the mountain after that.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">They say the Gorvins' buried that baby under the threshold of a cabin they built. They say, at night when the wind howls through the hollers like a red-tailed hawk stalking a rabbit, you can hear a baby crying.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">No one swims at that spot on the creek. They say that deep, cold spot will suck the life from you and darkness lurks there like a panther in the woods. They say under the sound of the rushing waters you can just hear a lullaby being softly sung. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Courier;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">That's why they call it the Dark Hole.</span></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgum0BnjL9Bp7Xg9FIWeeqoq756QVL8JGOnNGprqtkk5A9dBVgXiS_AswNYwNIHlg41wLs9k19XIQv0msTyhP0csURxTMuWdX4irC59-XC-FDzsoEm0Kslzf7RrGPSDkyhuE8ErDKb8vFs/s1600/griffeth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgum0BnjL9Bp7Xg9FIWeeqoq756QVL8JGOnNGprqtkk5A9dBVgXiS_AswNYwNIHlg41wLs9k19XIQv0msTyhP0csURxTMuWdX4irC59-XC-FDzsoEm0Kslzf7RrGPSDkyhuE8ErDKb8vFs/s320/griffeth.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Rosanne Griffeth</b></span> lives on the verge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and spends her time writing, documenting Appalachian culture and raising goats. Her work has been published by <i>Mslexia</i>, <i>Plain Spoke</i>, <i>Now and Then</i>, <i>Pank</i>, <i>Night Train</i>, <i>Keyhole Magazine</i> and <i>Smokelong Quarterly</i> among other places. She is the blogger behind </span><a href="http://smokeymountainbreakdown.blogspot.com/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Smokey Mountain Breakdown</a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">.</span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-78081073173354149342009-11-09T21:29:00.001-05:002009-11-09T21:29:40.178-05:00William Gay Interviewed at the Oxford American<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.oxfordamerican.org/media/uploads/articles/interview_images/GAY-0034-590w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.oxfordamerican.org/media/uploads/articles/interview_images/GAY-0034-590w.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1257819846393">William Gay has carved for himself an enduring position in the modern Southern literary landscape, and the echoes of his work have reverberated far beyond the red clay hills surrounding his home in Hohenwald, Tennessee. The South of his books is often dark and violent, yet thankful for such simple sights as a hayfield at dusk filled with fireflies, or a demure feminine smile. In a 2000 NEW YORK TIMES book review, fellow Southerner Tony Earley wrote, “At his best, Gay writes with the wisdom and patience of a man who has witnessed hard times and learned that panic or hedging won’t make better times come any sooner; he looks upon beauty and violence with equal measure and makes an accurate accounting of how much of each the human heart contains.”</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1257819846393"> Gay has published three novels: THE LONG HOME, PROVINCES OF NIGHT, and TWILIGHT, as well as a collection of short stories called I HATE TO SEE THAT EVENING SUN GO DOWN, with a new novel, THE LOST COUNTRY, forthcoming. Recently, we traveled to Hohenwald to interview the author in the rural area of Tennessee that forms the backdrop of his stories. We found him there, tucked away in the misty hills where many of his characters have been lost and never heard from again, in his hopelessly idyllic log home. Inside, we sipped coffee and listened as he spoke candidly of his life and his work on a drizzly, cold day that lent itself to the unwinding of old Tennessee mysteries.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1257819846393"> THE OXFORD AMERICAN: You’ve got a novel coming out soon. Can you tell us a little about it?</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1257819846393">WILLIAM GAY: Yeah. It’s called THE LOST COUNTRY. It’s sort of a road novel, about a guy named Dewey Edgewater who’s just been discharged from the Navy and he’s hitchhiking back from California to Tennessee. The idea is like a place you can’t get back to, like youth or innocence, and Edgewater’s trying to get back to his life before he lost his innocence and became more worldly. And it’s about a one-armed con man—there used to be these con men that went around the South. They had these ways of ripping people off. When I was a kid this guy came through, and he was spraying barn roofs. And my grandfather’s barn leaked real bad, so he hired this guy. He told him that it was guaranteed to stop all leaks. So my grandfather came up with the money and paid the guy to spray the roof, but it was just like a mixture of black oil and diesel fuel or something. He just sprayed it and got the money and split, and then when it rained, it rained inside as well as outside, just like it did before. But that’s what the guy did for a living. There were people who sold Bibles. They had your name printed in a Bible and would tell you that two or three payments had been paid on it, you know, but they read the obituary notices in the paper, they knew when somebody had died. And then if it was a middle-class person, somebody with a little money, they would show up with a Bible that had their name stamped in it from the deceased person. And that person would want to own that Bible, you know, because her husband or whoever had already paid some on it for her. But it was just a cheap Bible.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.oxfordamerican.org/interviews/2009/nov/04/featured-writer-month/"> The con man [in THE LOST COUNTRY], Roosterfish, is a guy like that.</a>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-20082847728561074932009-11-09T15:18:00.000-05:002009-11-09T15:18:39.505-05:00A Writer’s Apprenticeship: Larry Brown – Part II of VIII<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYHSijj2DK6OFW5Rdm3yZPG5W5h6gKi41mzbJ7KAiDpDPgP4L5ancbGN8ZtmQc9843KUNrLwbVEZ55Hh3VsFQBp4CKk1QHcp3INT_HgSoj74hlaSYaSbVb-7sr0UC9Mus04pmRzuLwn3GH/s1600-h/larryb3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYHSijj2DK6OFW5Rdm3yZPG5W5h6gKi41mzbJ7KAiDpDPgP4L5ancbGN8ZtmQc9843KUNrLwbVEZ55Hh3VsFQBp4CKk1QHcp3INT_HgSoj74hlaSYaSbVb-7sr0UC9Mus04pmRzuLwn3GH/s640/larryb3.jpg" /></a><br />
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<span>Hi--here's a quick link to the next <a href="http://darnellarnoult.com/wp/?p=73">Larry Brown post</a> on Darnell Arnoult's blog.</span><br />
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<span>More from Fried Chicken later on this week. We're digging out from book boxes right now.<br />
</span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-55980845451879409772009-11-04T00:08:00.000-05:002009-11-04T00:08:51.288-05:00Larry Brown News<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7sPSkgcSq4IGFoxQTXs8hCVd-XUimC2aItKl-ieRhvyoyt7qXzhUuCchmbBl3Gt7PHlE-r-aXWxFDMjNt_cjZG5HtDULD7zPEAykU5vcIi_Nolym7w-DirZRNsTb8u5p_tAAiPLfW15u/s1600-h/brown2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7sPSkgcSq4IGFoxQTXs8hCVd-XUimC2aItKl-ieRhvyoyt7qXzhUuCchmbBl3Gt7PHlE-r-aXWxFDMjNt_cjZG5HtDULD7zPEAykU5vcIi_Nolym7w-DirZRNsTb8u5p_tAAiPLfW15u/s320/brown2.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><span>I post it when I have it, folks. And as I'm right in the middle of moving sixty-five cases of books, along with the unimportant stuff, this is likely all you'll get out of me this week, so pay attention to Darnell Arnoult at <a href="http://darnellarnoult.com/">Dancing with the Gorilla</a>.<br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<blockquote><strong>Larry Brown</strong> (July 9, 1951 – November 24, 2001) is one of the most important contemporary Southern writers, and he is also one of the most important American writers. Brown’s work often focuses on the rural and small-town working class and those members of society who haven’t quite got their toe hold, or they’ve had it and lost it. He writes about men, women, and children struggling toward something better than what they have. His stories are real, they are gritty, and some would say they are gothic. I say they’re damn good, and through his work, Larry Brown has become one of my best teachers. You’ll hear more about Brown’s work in each installment this month.<br />
<br />
Brown left this world with a lot of stories unwritten, but he also left a legacy of instruction any writer would be smart to study. Larry Brown has said a writer signs on for an apprenticeship, and no one knows how long his or her apprenticeship will last. Brown also once said he shot and burned an early novel and would have hung it if he could <span id="more-65"></span>have figured out how to do it. Yet he learned enough from the writing of that novel to do a better job writing the next novel. Barry Hannah says in the introduction to Brown’s last novel, <em>Miracle of Catfish</em>, that when Brown showed him the short story “Facing the Music” Hannah was foolish enough to think Brown had peaked. Larry Brown was just getting his <a href="http://darnellarnoult.com/wp/?p=65">engine warm</a>.<br />
</blockquote><br />
It strikes me that people may be interested, too, in an introductory essay to Night Train I wrote some years ago, an essay that concerns <a href="http://www.nighttrainmagazine.com/pdfs/larrybrown.pdf">Larry Brown</a>.<br />
<br />
More next week, people, when I come up for air.<br />
<span> </span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-50714223696704200912009-10-26T13:27:00.000-04:002009-10-26T13:27:37.935-04:00Norma White Dead<span>Sad news. Thanks to <a href="http://community.berea.edu/appalachianheritage/issues/fall2007/silenced.pdf">Kevin Stewart</a> off Facebook for the link. Her husband of course, was <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101655/plotsummary">The Dancing Outlaw</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesco_White">Jesco White</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote>CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In a West Virginia-produced film about them, Jesco "The Dancing Outlaw" White and his wife Norma J. White gave the world a glimpse into their unusual lives. Norma White, 70, died in Charleston Thursday after suffering from a terminal illness.<br />
<br />
<br />
Filmmaker Jacob Young helped bring Jesco to the attention of a national audience when Young created his "Different Drummer" series for Public Television.<br />
<br />
In the film, the couple compared themselves to Elvis and Priscilla Presley. They said their relationship had its rough patches, but Norma White was always in love with the man who became a <a href="http://wvgazette.com/News/200910240572">cult phenomenon</a>.<br />
</blockquote><br />
Some videos, in case you don't know of Jesco and Norma White.<br />
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</span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-80163683923510468442009-10-23T12:49:00.002-04:002009-10-23T12:49:47.134-04:00Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mothers<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YcBOcwgb4OA&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YcBOcwgb4OA&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-73344777323782442742009-10-20T10:41:00.000-04:002009-10-20T10:41:40.290-04:00Still: Literature of the Mountain South<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.stilljournal.net/resources/header2.jpg.cropped978x263o-143%2C-260s1275x1650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="107" src="http://www.stilljournal.net/resources/header2.jpg.cropped978x263o-143%2C-260s1275x1650.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span>Here's a magazine and a notion that's sure to become a favorite. Celebrate the inaugural issue of <i>Still</i>, edited by <a href="http://www.silashouse.net/">Silas House</a> (fiction) <a href="http://www.ucumberlands.edu/academics/communications/faculty/worthington/">Marianne Worthington</a> (poetry) and <a href="http://www.jason-howard.com/">Jason Howard</a> (nonfiction). From their 'about the name' page:</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span><br />
</span><br />
</div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">About our name . . .</span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span> <br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">To be a writer is to learn how to be </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">still</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The moonshine </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">still</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> is one of the stereotypical images of Appalachia.</span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As a culture, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Appalachia has been told for decades that it is disappearing. We are </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">still</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> here, proud and strong as ever.</span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">James </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Stil</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">l</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, author of </span></span><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780813113722"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><em>River of Earth</em></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, </span></span><a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780813121994"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><em>The Wolfpen Poems</em></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, and many other great works, is the grandfather of modern Appalachian literature and has inspired us all.</span></span><br />
</div></blockquote><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Just at a glance, this one's going to require your attention with every new issue</span>. <br />
<span> </span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-47082511407833373322009-10-18T11:56:00.003-04:002009-10-18T12:00:32.642-04:00Leveling Appalachia<img align="center" src="http://www.rustybarnes.com/images/mountaintopremoval.jpg" /><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="border-collapse: separate; color: black; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Link courtesy of <a href="http://courtmerrigan.wordpress.com/">Endless Emendation</a>. <br />
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</div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><a href="http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198">During the last two decades, mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia has destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of forest and buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams. Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining, a video report produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm, focuses on the environmental and social impacts of this practice and examines the long-term effects on the region’s forests and waterways. </a></i><br />
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</div><blockquote style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><a href="http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198">At a time when the Obama administration is reviewing mining permit applications throughout West Virginia and three other states, this video offers a first-hand look at mountaintop removal and what is at stake for Appalachia’s environment and its people.</a></i><br />
</blockquote>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-82290880141778406112009-10-09T15:12:00.000-04:002009-10-09T15:12:20.479-04:00Rosanne Griffeth's Errid and Delilah, fiction<span>Some nights, running his rig down Highway 25 through Hot Springs, Errid would go past the brown brick building. He'd glance to see if any lights glowed in the three trailers out back, like maybe she still worked there. Maybe she worked there right now, her black nylon slip sticking to her belly and her bra digging a rash into her flesh in the summer heat. Maybe she turned her back to some stranger, tucked a strand of limp blond hair behind her ear and said over her shoulder, "Hey Mister, can you give me a hand and unzip me?"</span><br />
<span><br />
She'd done that the night he met her, stepping out of the pool of her dress and kicking it away from the tangle of their feet. She stroked his sideburns, mussed his hair and when she touched the hump on his back, he'd flinched. He could still hear her crooning, "Shhhh, shhhh," low and smiling, like she comforted a hurt child. Sometimes he'd think of that and have to pull over.</span><br />
<span> <br />
She'd told him they called her Delilah, a biblical name, when she sidled up to him that night. His truck had blown a gasket and he pulled over at the little juke joint. Back in the fifties, it had been a beauty spot, one of those one-level riverside motels. The strip of rooms burnt down long ago and they'd replaced them with trailers.</span><br />
<span> <br />
Errid placed a hundred-dollar bill down on the bar and asked the bartender, "Can you break this for me?"<br />
</span><br />
<span>She knocked her drink back, slapped the lipstick-jeweled glass down and said, "Honey, he can't, but I probably got change back in my room if you want to follow me." <br />
</span><br />
<span>He trailed after the sway of her hips, the soft groove in the small of her back. He left that hundred-dollar bill behind in the beat up trailer and something else, something he couldn't lay a finger on it was so sweet and heartachey.<br />
</span><br />
<span>That's why he went back. He thought maybe he'd find that thing he left there. The thing that kept him up at night thinking about her and how she smelled like cigarettes and Jean Nate. He took another hundred-dollar bill, crumpled in his big hand.</span><br />
<span><br />
Errid blinked into the fluorescent light. Change had come to the little brown house. Folding chairs now lined up facing the bar where a flame-eyed preacher man stood, screaming the word of God. She sat in the second row. He could tell it was her by round slope of her shoulders and the line of her spine.</span><br />
<span><br />
"Welcome, Brother, welcome!" The preacher man's gaze cut through Errid and people turned to stare. She looked at him, cutting her eyes over her shoulder. He imagined she whispered, "Hey Mister. . ."</span><br />
<span> <br />
The hundred-dollar bill was hot, wet and small in his fist. He took a seat and when the service went on and everyone's eyes faced forward, she continued to look at him. "I've come back for you," he thought to her, like she could pick the notion from the dust in his eyes.</span><br />
<span><br />
Her lips pursed and she gave a little shake of her head, settling back in her seat. Errid reached to touch her, but pulled back, figuring he had her answer.<br />
</span><br />
<span>The preacher passed a chipped dinner plate around and Errid dropped the soggy bill onto it. He slipped out of the place, unseen, unheard and drove off into the night where the road still murmured her name.</span><br />
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</span>Rosanne Griffeth lives on the verge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and spends her time writing, documenting Appalachian culture and raising goats. Her work has been published by <i>Mslexia</i>, <i>Plain Spoke</i>, <i>Now and Then</i>,<i> Pank</i>, <i>Night Train</i>, <i>Keyhole Magazine</i> and <i>Smokelong Quarterly</i> among other places. She is the blogger behind <a href="http://smokeymountainbreakdown.blogspot.com/">The Smokey Mountain Breakdown</a>.Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-66109971482400315802009-10-05T12:33:00.002-04:002009-10-05T12:35:08.134-04:00Karl Koweski's Holly Go Darkly, fictionWhen I cup my palm against my mouth I can smell her on me. A not unpleasant odor that instills a desire for more. I stand in the bathroom of an almost expensive hotel. There’s enough light bulbs above the mirror to illuminate a Hollywood movie. I can feel my self-esteem puddling at my toes, seeing the bathroom spotlights emblazon my scalp through the sparsity of mousy brown hair.<br />
<br />
The water continues to gush and swirl down the drain. The toiletries loosely gathered around the sink belong solely to Holly. A bottle of eyeliner represents her make-up. There’s a lone white tooth brush, bristles like an unmown lawn. I scrub my face with her bar of pink soap, it’s brand name worn away with use.<br />
<br />
I have to go home soon. Never have I been more aware of time than during the last month. The warm taffy expansion of days leading to last night. The quick rubberband snap of our night together.<br />
<br />
I have to go soon. And I can’t kiss my wife smelling like Holly. Returning home freshly showered won’t alleviate suspicion, either. Sera likely already suspects. I probably gave myself away the moment I took the collection of Leonard Cohen poetry off my book shelf.<br />
<br />
Holly enters, except that’s not quite the right way to describe what she does or how she does it. Holly doesn’t enter a room; she expands into it, fills the room from wall to wall like a burst of light irradiating the corners and making one uncomfortably aware of one’s flaws.<br />
<br />
I could have written this paragraph before I met her in the flesh, though, so badly did I want to believe she was more than just a woman, no less clueless than I. Don’t make me out to be more than I am, she warned early on, when the extent of our affair was the exchange of instant messages. I can never be what you want.<br />
<br />
She trails her finger across my sweat damp back as she passes; her unpainted fingernails softly carves along the curvature of my spine. I watch her through the mirror. Her nudity such a novelty to me. I want it always to be this way. I want to memorize every inch of her pale skin. I want to map her every anatomical angle, every landmark blemish. I want to still know surprise every time I unwrap her.<br />
<br />
I want the ability to express these thoughts without coming across like an utter fool.<br />
<br />
Holly sits down and begins pissing.<br />
<br />
“You don’t mind, do you?”<br />
<br />
“Of course not.” Eight years of marriage, I’ve always managed to avoid seeing Sera on the toilet.<br />
<br />
“In Japan the women are very self conscious about pissing within earshot of anyone else. A lot of restrooms have speaker boxes where you push the button and it makes a flushing sound so you can piss, covertly. I never used it. I think it’s kinda erotic, the sound of urine hitting water. Especially if it makes someone else uncomfortable.”<br />
<br />
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.”<br />
<br />
She wipes and flushes. “I was talking people in general, Vic.” She kisses me on the corner of my mouth as she leaves. Her exit contracts the room. Her absence threatens an implosion.<br />
<br />
“You still smell like me,” she calls from the bed.<br />
<br />
Though Tennessee born of German/Irish ancestry, six years of living in Fukuoka, Japan has given her English an odd, slightly slurred accent that makes me want to embrace her every time she speaks.<br />
<br />
I dry off my face with the anonymous white towel. I lift the toilet seat, flush, and begin pissing.<br />
<br />
Holly lies on the bed, arms stretched out, breasts lolling, legs slightly open, left leg bent at the knee. She said she’s gained weight since she arrived Stateside, but I don’t see it. If I had a canvas and oils and even a modicum of talent and training I could paint a masterpiece of her. As it is, the last thing I painted, a wolf in water colors, garnered a C+ from my eighth grade art teacher.<br />
<br />
My clothes are draped over the unassuming chair. She catches my glance.<br />
<br />
“You have to go already?” Her voice is alarmingly devoid of emotion.<br />
<br />
I don’t look at the clock. “No. I have time.”<br />
<br />
“Lay down with me.”<br />
<br />
I slide into bed beside her. The sheets, moist from our recent love-making clings to my skin as we reposition ourselves. I lay on my back, Holly’s head resting on my shoulder, my hand dipping right into her black, shoulder-length hair, brushing the thick strands back from her temple. I’m aware of her pubic hair stubble sandpapering my hip, her erect nipples brushing my skin with every slight movement.<br />
<br />
Her heart beats against my ribcage. When was the last time I felt Sera’s heart beat? When was the last time I did anything other than monitor the regularity of her breathing, ensuring her sleep was deep enough for me to escape our bed into the false life provided by my computer?<br />
<br />
Holly, my melancholy angel, her life underscored with disillusionment and advanced disappointment. In my eyes, she wears this sadness, beautifully. I’ve always believed a tight smile and downcast eyes held more radiance than the bleached smiles and sparkling eyes of run-of-the-mill glamour queens.<br />
<br />
The guttering candle light provided by the Home Interior candles Holly brought casts miniature St. Elmo's fires across the ceiling and walls. Maybe she’s wondering what I’m thinking. And if she asks I’ll say I’m not thinking of anything at all, just basking in the moment. But she’s never shown an interest in my thoughts.<br />
<br />
"How much longer can you stay?” She asks.<br />
<br />
"Until the hour and minute hand meet.”<br />
<br />
Her lips draw into a smile against my chest. It’s an inside joke involving Edgar Allan Poe’s story “A Predicament”. We discovered early on in our get-to-know-you phase a mutual love of literature and a mutual admiration for Poe’s canon. We’d occasionally read each other passages on voice chat.<br />
<br />
Holly’s favorite paragraph involved the female protagonist from the Poe story, her head caught between the hour and minute hand of a clock tower. The vise-like pressure increases minutely until, first, on eyeball pops out of its socket. Its ocular brother in the body politic watches the dislodged orb roll into the gutter before swiftly joining it.<br />
<br />
First hearing Poe’s words from Holly’s lips, I entertained the possibility I could become more emotionally invested in her than we agreed at the outset to allow ourselves. We even scoffed at the notion of an internet love affair. <br />
<br />
There’s no computers, no distances of DSL cable, separating us, now. Why should the old rules apply?<br />
<br />
I kiss the top of her head and play with the ends of her hair. From those dark follicles, my fingers trace along her collarbone up the hollow of her throat. I draw her chin up until our lips brush. My eyes adjust to the darkness in her eyes.<br />
<br />
And I know that I’m a liar. I don’t want her to remain emotionally aloof. I want her to love me. I want the victory such emotional attachment entails. I want to wear her love like a shiny medal on the lapel of my bad ass leather jacket. I want the entire world (excluding my wife and everyone associated with my wife) to know Holly belongs to me. Her love for me validating my love for her.<br />
<br />
But she doesn’t love me. My thoughts turn to her more than her thoughts include me.<br />
<br />
“You’re so tense,” she whispers, her hands in motion, fingers roaming my chest and abdomen, searching for weak points in the armor of my flesh. I’m weak all over.<br />
<br />
“Lot on my mind, I guess.”<br />
<br />
“Guilt?”<br />
<br />
“I don’t feel guilt.”<br />
<br />
“Why not? It’s an interesting sensation. Kinda like anticipation without all the giddiness.”<br />
<br />
My thumb presses against the divot in her chin that she hates but I love.<br />
<br />
“Holly, I love you.”<br />
<br />
The words escape. Immediately, I want to apologize. My little ineffectual defense mechanism. She hates those two meaningless bullshit words. I’m sorry.<br />
<br />
When she answers, her voice continues its trend of emotional vacuity. “We agreed from the beginning this wasn’t going to be a ‘love’ thing.”<br />
<br />
“I’m sorry.” The words hang there. Holly draws away from me. “No, wait, Holly. I’m not sorry.”<br />
<br />
“You can’t love me. I don’t love you.”<br />
<br />
“Don’t you feel anything about me?”<br />
<br />
She crouches on the edge of the bed, cat-like. Her eyes. I stare into her eyes, hoping for a flash of emotion, anything. Her dark eyes like vortexes suck the light from the room.<br />
<br />
I can’t hold her gaze. My eyes drop down to her lips. So long I’ve fantasized kissing those lips. The reality of her lips pressed against mine is worth this. Her mouth that I’ve claimed is not given to smiles. I’m such a liar. She smiles all the time. She’s quick to laugh. She’s not my melancholy angel. Strange I should fictionalize her in such a way.<br />
<br />
She’s not smiling at the moment.<br />
<br />
“What do you want me to say, Vic?”<br />
<br />
“Nothing. Never mind.”<br />
<br />
“No, nothing, never mind. What do you want me to fucking say? That you’re my number one man?”<br />
<br />
“I don’t categorize people numerically. Guess again.”<br />
<br />
“Oh, listen to you. How do you categorize people? By whether I fuck them or not? You’re the one always asking who I’m talking to. Always afraid you’re gonna get knocked out of the saddle.”<br />
<br />
She’s off the bed and gathering her clothes. The boring white panties. The boring white bra. The jeans she has such a difficult time finding at the stores because her legs are so stubby and her ass is so wide. The shapeless blouse with the dollar store floral print she claims is of African design.<br />
<br />
“I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m happy. I’m happy with you. So I tell you I love you. So what? I know you don’t love me. I know I like you more than you like me. You remind me this every fucking day. Or at least every day you’re gracious enough to make time in your busy schedule to speak to me.”<br />
<br />
I keep talking as she keeps getting dressed. If there’s a combination of words that will make her stop, get undressed, lay back in this rented bed and forgive me; I’d spit in my mother’s face for a hint at the sequence of words.<br />
<br />
Holly grabs her purse and the hotel key.<br />
<br />
“How dare you ask me if I feel anything for you? I’m here, aren’t I?”<br />
<br />
“I’m sorry, Holly. I didn’t mean...”<br />
<br />
“Go home to your wife, Vic. Tell her you love her.”<br />
<br />
She leaves the room the way she entered--furtively, like a thief.<br />
<br />
It’s all I can do to keep myself from stepping, naked, into the hotel corridor and calling her name. I stare at the phone like an anchor dropped on the table. I could call her cell phone. It’d be long distance. What could I say?<br />
<br />
I lay back down on the bed. Her smells are everywhere. I close my eyes and inhale.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img align="center" src="http://www.rustybarnes.com/images/FCAC/koweski.jpg" /><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br><br>Karl Koweski</span></b> is a displaced Chicagoan now living on top of a mountain in Alabama. His chapbook of smut, <i>Low Life</i>, will be available within the month from <a href="http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/">www.zygoteinmycoffee.com</a>. His poetry chap, <i>Diminishing Return</i>s, is available at <a href="http://www.sunnyoutside.com/">www.sunnyoutside.com</a>. He writes the monthly column, "Observations of a Dumb Polack", at Zygote.Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-33790032880266322892009-09-28T14:22:00.000-04:002009-09-28T14:22:02.626-04:00Trailer Park Fragments by David Ensminger<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://magichelicopterpress.com/trailer/trailer%204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://magichelicopterpress.com/trailer/trailer%204.jpg" width="420" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://mikeayoung.blogspot.com/">Mike Young</a> published this e-book, <i>Trailer Park Fragments: A Place called Whispering Lanes</i>, through his <a href="http://magichelicopterpress.com/">Magic Helicopter Press</a>. I urge you to check it out. I was going to say it gives you a perspective on trailer parks you maybe haven't seen before but that's <a href="http://buelahman.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/horseshit.jpg">horseshit</a>. It just <i>affects</i> me, who has never lived in a trailer park but has known a few. It's an impressionistic set of pieces I think you'll enjoy-- proems, not prose poems--because if anything's linear here, it seems accidental. Great stuff at <a href="http://htmlgiant.com/?p=15732">HTMLGIANT</a>. Here's a taste:</span><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the longness of summers</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">in the pool with the fake green glow,</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the sloughed off burnt skin,</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">and the tinge of chlorine ...</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">on the surprisingly smooth body</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">flying down the slide, and the under-</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">sized buoys bobbing like plastic eggs...</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">in the fence pressed together like uneasy</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">fabric, in the fresh face free of makeup,</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">in the swim cap and lone tree...</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I dramatized a struggle</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">for human definition, a medicine show</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">of the mind ...</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I used to sleep in the hallway</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">with the light on. Or in my sister's</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">pink bedroom, next to the drawer</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">with marijuana and Playgirls, between</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the David Bowie poster and the</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">six inch harlequin doll from JCPenney.</span></span><br />
</span></span><span> </span><br />
</blockquote>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-65325202440046793432009-09-24T20:06:00.003-04:002009-09-24T20:15:02.226-04:00Rural Brain Drain<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_1827_landscape_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="http://chronicle.com/img/photos/biz/photo_1827_landscape_large.jpg" width="420" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I left, too. They're talking about people like me, in the </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Chronicle of Higher Education</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><blockquote><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What is going on in small-town America? The nation's mythology of small towns comes to us straight from the <i>The Music Man's</i> set designers. Many Americans think about flyover country or Red America only during the culture war's skirmishes or campaign season. Most of the time, the rural crisis takes a back seat to more visible big-city troubles. So while there is a veritable academic industry devoted to chronicling urban decline, small towns' struggles are off the grid.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And yet, upon close inspection, the rural and urban downturns have much in common, even though conventional wisdom casts the small town as embodiment of all that is right with America and the inner city as all that is wrong with it.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Harvard University sociologist William Julius Wilson famously describes how deindustrialization, joblessness, middle-class flight, depopulation, and global market shifts gave rise to the urban hyper-ghettos of the 1970s, and the same forces are now afflicting the nation's countryside. The differences are just in the details. In urban centers, young men with NBA jerseys sling dime bags from vacant buildings, while in small towns, drug dealers wearing Nascar T-shirts, living in trailer parks, sell and use meth. Young girls in the countryside who become mothers before finishing high school share stories of lost adolescence and despair that differ little from the ones their urban sisters might tell.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In both settings, there is no shortage of guns, although in North Philadelphia's Badlands or Chicago's South Side those guns might be concealed and illegal, while in small towns guns hang on display in polished oak cabinets in the sitting room. Residents of rural America are more likely to be poor and uninsured than their counterparts in metropolitan areas, typically earning 80 percent what suburban and urban workers do.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The most dramatic evidence of the rural meltdown has been the hollowing out—that is, losing the most talented young people at precisely the same time that changes in farming and industry have transformed the landscape for those who stay. This so-called rural "brain drain" isn't a new phenomenon, but by the 21st century the shortage of young people has reached a tipping point, and its consequences are more severe now than ever before. Simply put, many small towns are mere years away from extinction, while others limp along in a weakened and disabled state.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In just over two decades, more than 700 rural counties, from the Plains to the Texas Panhandle through to Appalachia, lost 10 percent or more of their population. Nationally, there are more deaths than births in one of two rural counties. Though the hollowing-out process feeds off the recession, the problem predates, and indeed, presaged many of the nation's current economic woes. But despite the seriousness of the hollowing-out process, we believe that, with a plan and a vision, many small towns can play a key role in the <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Rural-Brain-Drain/48425/">nation's recovery</a>.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /></blockquote>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-24845735442569548072009-09-23T14:47:00.000-04:002009-09-23T14:47:39.777-04:00Silas House and Ben Sollee Read and Sing<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rMsAnyxrQJs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rMsAnyxrQJs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-17021637711519851582009-09-21T14:23:00.002-04:002009-09-21T14:25:44.250-04:00Two Poems by D. E. Oprava<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>DEEP VIDALIA DIRT</b><br />
<br />
Tomorrow he’ll be back at work cleaning rigs<br />
on a truck-stop tarmac off highway forty-one, sucking<br />
up diesel and putting more sweat, less love<br />
in the hub caps that need to gleam brighter<br />
than a southern sun. He’s had his eye on a girl<br />
working in the diner, Melissa smiles out through<br />
the plate-glass window as he hums a tune every<br />
man here seems to know and at night<br />
he’ll be on the porch playing guitar listening<br />
to cicadas ring as others inside sing, music<br />
seems to come from the very air in this place,<br />
and he grins.<br />
<br />
Getting off the blacktop for a break she winks<br />
at him, her smile sweet as a Vidalia you can<br />
eat raw like an apple, he grabs the nearest table<br />
and ponders the peach or pecan pie with a glass<br />
of orange coke to wash the choke of dust and exhaust<br />
from his mind sometimes lost to the heat and the fierce<br />
reverie he feels for home.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>GOD'S DINER</b><br />
<br />
Leaving a home<br />
where she knows everyone<br />
and they know her, it's the last<br />
day the daughter<br />
of the restaurant owner<br />
has to mop the floor,<br />
the place downtown,<br />
service with a smile is always required<br />
over ice cream sundaes<br />
or thick cheeseburgers,<br />
he’s a slick man<br />
who built his business round<br />
the Sunday morning church-going<br />
crowd, come eleven o’clock every-<br />
thing’s clean and right for the biblical<br />
flood of hungry and pious ready<br />
with conscience-clean-slates<br />
to dig in to sin all over again,<br />
a couple in the corner eye food<br />
just landed on their tabletop,<br />
they stop, clasp hands close over<br />
the chili-cheese dogs, and pray.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXPVPRZkai9-B40EWyOOnxZYdxXpn2TQXCridcZwMf-YuW4O17CawcHEw06hfOgW-Mhq46YdYjLZ4iWMdW8sVLiUpt7dqoKf0kJI7dsJQVYGrHMU43pZblmv9hUpfjRQZ4vFAmYHiuL-i/s1600-h/oprava.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXPVPRZkai9-B40EWyOOnxZYdxXpn2TQXCridcZwMf-YuW4O17CawcHEw06hfOgW-Mhq46YdYjLZ4iWMdW8sVLiUpt7dqoKf0kJI7dsJQVYGrHMU43pZblmv9hUpfjRQZ4vFAmYHiuL-i/s320/oprava.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: large;"><b>D.E. Oprava</b></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> writes, because he has to. He is terrified of what will happen otherwise. It makes him prolific. He has been in over eighty journals online and in print and his first full-length book of poems </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">VS.</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> was released in October 2008 by Erbacce Press. He is also the founding editor of the small poetry and prose press, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Grievous Jones</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">. When he isn’t writing he is battling against his raging sobriety and trying to live up to the high moral expectations of husbandhood, fatherhood, and humanhood. Not necessarily in that order and not necessarily succeeding.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">You can find him at </span><a href="http://www.deoprava.com/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">www.deoprava.com</a>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-15284051848386412982009-09-16T16:40:00.002-04:002009-09-16T16:42:12.825-04:00Down by the Creek, fiction by M.E. Parker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHuT4yPr_ztUp8X1zvnygl-TT0RZ4Zd7fJpzTWDeRTUUBXT2uYstW-bX1frH04UbrzPxCvF2OXKc5obxOfaVOINY-UMwfTme-tN6gbmuGiZqnT36_1rRijjLJ-F6xhpeVIfm9_95WoR6d0/s1600-h/dogporch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHuT4yPr_ztUp8X1zvnygl-TT0RZ4Zd7fJpzTWDeRTUUBXT2uYstW-bX1frH04UbrzPxCvF2OXKc5obxOfaVOINY-UMwfTme-tN6gbmuGiZqnT36_1rRijjLJ-F6xhpeVIfm9_95WoR6d0/s400/dogporch.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Stove up from working the harvest, Jessie hobbled up the porch steps holding his hand out for Chester. “Ches,” he called. The old bloodhound, “nothing but ears and ribs” snoozing in the shape of a question mark, usually stumbled up from his spot on a mildewed tarp behind a short-block motor when he heard Jessie coming. “Where are you boy?” <br />
<br />
At fourteen, Chester wasn’t chasing rabbits anymore, but he still enjoyed a scratch behind the ears every evening. When Chester didn’t stir, Jessie gave him a soft kick to the ribs. A jolt that should have sent the dog scrambling to his feet with a snort did nothing more than scatter a family of flies making a meal out of his left ear. “Ches,” Jessie called, giving him a swat across the hindquarters without even a twitch from Chester. <br />
<br />
Jessie shook his head and thumped a smoldering cigarette butt into the yard. “Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later,” he said with a misty eye toward the south field, bending down to give Chester a scratch on the belly. “Come on, Boy. Let’s go.” <br />
<br />
Jessie slipped his hand through Chester’s collar and hoisted him into his arms, planting a foot in Chester’s water bowl as they tumbled down the steps together into a heap at the bottom, Chester, Jessie, and the smell of a wet sack of potatoes left out in the sun. “God, you stink, Chester.” And as he had done his entire life, Chester simply listened to Jessie. He didn’t fire back with an insult or scream at him to fix the roof.<br />
<br />
Jessie reached for a leash on the clothesline post, a symbolic gesture of one last walk, something they hadn’t done in years, and hooked it to the clasp on Chester’s collar. Then he made right the bloodhound’s ears that had turned inside out, straightened his tail, and stepped off onto the grass.<br />
<br />
Along a worn patch of earth from the porch to the gate, what Jessie’s dad referred to as “a po’ man’s sidewalk,” Jessie tugged Chester over to Jessie Jr.’s faded red wagon, across an ant bed, and through a picket gate that clung to the fence by a lone pair of screws on a single hinge. <br />
<br />
“Where you going? It’s almost time for supper.” Martha yelled from the porch.<br />
<br />
“Me and Chester was going down to the creek.” Jessie hoisted the dog into the wagon.<br />
<br />
“What’s wrong with that dog?”<br />
<br />
After a moment, Jessie replied with a quiver in his voice. “Well, he’s dead, I reckon.”<br />
<br />
“You mean to tell me you have a dead dog in Jessie Jr.’s wagon?”<br />
<br />
“Jessie Jr.’s don’t use this old thing no more. Besides, Chester always liked ridin’ around in it.”<br />
<br />
Jessie looked at the ground and gave the wagon a tug, his wife a distant memory on the porch as the two old friends entered the dirt path by the gate. <br />
<br />
The wagon wheels slid across a muddy rut left by the pickup Jessie Jr. was using to learn how to drive. Jessie pulled the wagon up to the passenger side door and jerked it open the in search of something he could use to dig a hole. “Where’s that shovel?” He groped under the seat, but, instead of the spade, his hands landed on a half-full bottle of Old Granddad Kentucky Bourbon sandwiched between Jessie Jr.’s .22-caliber rifle and a pair of old gym shorts. <br />
<br />
“What’s that boy been up to, Ches?” <br />
<br />
Jessie held the bottle up to have a better look. The cap twisted off with a snap. He passed the open bottle under his nose for a whiff of whatever it was his son had put in that empty whiskey bottle, kerosene maybe, or extra gas in case of an emergency, but as Jessie’s lungs filled with the sweet, familiar aroma of Old Granddad Bourbon, he closed his eyes. <br />
<br />
More than five years ago, the last time the sheriff’s department came to break up a fight between Jessie and his wife, he had sworn off Old Granddad for good. Not because he wanted to, or even because his wife wanted him to, but because Sheriff Boyles, an old high school friend who leaned on Old Granddad as much as Jessie, had a long “come to Jesus” with him before he threw Jessie in jail to sober up.<br />
<br />
“Well, if you really do love her,” Sheriff Boyles had said, “do her a favor and lighten up on her a bit. That woman ain’t five feet tall. I enjoy a drink as much as the next man, but you got to control yourself, Jessie. You almost killed her this time.”<br />
<br />
Jessie had only responded with a nod through half-open eyes.<br />
<br />
“Martha’s a good woman. She’s a good wife and mom. You did all right with her. And if I get another call out to your place for anything other than a cookout, you’re going away for a long time.” Sheriff Boyles had given Jessie the last warning he would need before his long road to recovery began. <br />
<br />
Jessie sniffed the open bottle again. Then he eyed his only friend, Chester, slung out on that wagon in a less than dignified manner and took a swig from the bottle. The cool burn of Old Granddad stung his throat. The bottle popped off his lips. He looked over his shoulder toward the house to make sure no one had seen him. His neighbor, Johnny, was plowing across the pasture, but unless he had a pair of binoculars handy, he wouldn’t have seen anything. Jessie put the bottle to his mouth a second time. <br />
<br />
The wagon wheels slid in and out of plowed furrows along the fence as they made their way to the creek. Jessie glanced at Chester, then at the bottle hanging in his other hand, and took a drink. The fire returned to Jessie’s eyes before he reached the Johnson place, adjacent to his south field. Since he had given up Old Granddad and straightened out his life, Jessie had made a habit out of attending church with Martha nearly every Sunday. He recalled the pastor telling him one time, a joke he presumed, though Pastor’s jokes were anything but funny. “Dog’s don’t go to heaven,” he had said. “They don’t have to. A dog’s life is heaven.” Jessie could relate with that. He wouldn’t have minded living Chester’s life. With the exception of a stray bullet from Johnny’s rifle on a hunting trip, Chester had it pretty good. <br />
<br />
The heel of Jessie’s boot twisted his cigarette butt into the soil by a fence post as he pulled Chester down the draw to the creek bank. He tipped up the bottle again for another quick visit with Old Granddad and stumbled over a driftwood log. A gust of wind plucked the green ball cap from his head, and the wagon wheel left a streak of mud over the faded feed logo above the bill. <br />
<br />
With his shovel in one hand and bottle in the other, Jessie stood by the creek for nearly ten minutes, staring at the muddy, almost stagnant, water, before he turned back around to Chester and flipped the dog onto the mud by a crooked oak tree.<br />
<br />
Two red dice popped off Chester’s collar when the dog’s body hit the ground. “I guess you’re not feelin’ too lucky today, Boy?” On the same day he found Chester, Jessie had the luckiest run he ever had at a craps table, the reason he outfitted Chester’s collar with a pair of dice to commemorate the occasion. He stumbled back to pick up the dice from the ground but fell flat on his face into a puddle of red mud, the bottle raised high in his free hand to keep it from spilling.<br />
<br />
After staggering to his feet, Jessie swatted the mud off his cap and held it to his chest to offer Chester a proper eulogy. “You was always a pretty good dog. I’m sure gonna miss ya, Boy.” <br />
<br />
Jessie knocked back another swig. “I think this might be your fault, Chester. Last five years I’ve been a sober, God-fearing man--a pillar in the community.” He glared at his dog, halfway expecting him to laugh. <br />
<br />
“You go an’ die--and now look at me.” He leaned up against the tree, grinning the trademark Jessie Standman thin grin as he stroked his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. A cigarette dangled by half a lip as began to dig. <br />
<br />
“I don’t know if the pastor’s right about dog’s not needin’ to go to heaven, but if there ever was one that should, it’s you, Chester.” The dog’s body, now caked with mud, rolled into the hole with a plop. <br />
<br />
“I almost wish I was in that hole instead of you.” He bowed his head in remembrance of his old friend, and for the life he lead before he made his changes. He had kept so many secrets, lies that add a little extra weight every year until they become too heavy to carry alone. They were the kind of things that some men might brag about, others would pray about, and some might decide to cash in their chips and let the hereafter sort it out. In that regard, Chester had served him well--a sounding board for all of Jessie’s indiscretions. He had been Jessie’s confessionary priest, and on some occasions, his accomplice. <br />
<br />
“Sleep with a woman,” Jessie’s daddy once advised him after a long spell of drinking. “Hell, maybe even marry one, but don’t trust one. Put your faith in your dog. It don’t never matter what you tell your dog, he’ll take it with him to his grave.” Jessie had taken his dad’s advice to heart. Marrying Martha had given him three children and a hot meal every evening around six. Trusting Chester had enabled him to sleep at night with the knowledge that his secrets were safe. His dad’s dog, Leftie, lived to be nearly fifteen. Jessie could only imagine what Lefty lugged to his grave. Lefty was a one-eyed Border collie with no depth perception herding livestock “in a damn circle, a good for nothing pain in the ass,” Jessie’s dad liked to say, but when no one else was around, Jessie remembered seeing his pop dote over that dog, baby-talking him and such like a little girl with a doll. A couple of days before Jessie’s tenth birthday, his pop grabbed the rifle and tugged Lefty around to the back of the barn to end his suffering. “Damn dog can’t even find his food bowl no more,” his dad had said. That was the only time Jessie could remember ever seeing his dad cry, and it still surprised him to see it even once. <br />
<br />
Jessie never had it in him to end it for Chester the way his dad did for Leftie, no more than he could’ve have turned a gun on himself. Jesse looked down to his friend caked in mud hoping for a snort, anything, but Chester’s days of hearing Jessie cry into an empty bottle and granting absolution were finally over.<br />
<br />
Chester knew everything about Jessie Standman. Jessie petted the fourteen-year-old bloodhound lying in the hole and sighed. “You ‘member them thangs I told you when you was a pup?” Jessie paused for a moment of reflection. “Well, that was between you an’ me. No need to go tellin’ nobody,” he looked up and pointed to the sky, “up there.” <br />
<br />
With Chester gone, bringing back memories his pop and Lefty, Jessie thought about his own son. Jessie Jr. was almost fourteen, a lazy kid who, despite the fact that Jessie hadn’t spared him the belt, still spent most of his time lying on the couch watching TV. But he would soon be a man whether he was ready or not. And Jessie figured every man needed a good dog, a way sound off all those things men do without having them slapped back in the face, a dog to absorb those things that shouldn’t be out there for public consumption, and when the time comes, it all goes in the hole together.<br />
<br />
The bottle of Old Granddad only had a couple of swigs left. Jessie dropped his cigarette butt into the hole and filled it with dirt. He tilted the bottle against his lips and let out a satisfied smack when he pulled it down again.<br />
<br />
Jessie’s dad never threw him a ball or took him fishing or hunting much, but Jessie learned a lot by watching him. He wondered if Jessie Jr. had soaked up anything from him about what it means to be a man. Maybe a rottweiler, Jessie thought. No, too much dog for Jessie Jr. He needed a slacker, just like him, a Basset hound, or a shelter mutt. <br />
<br />
By the time Jessie got back home, the house was dark except for the gray flicker of the television in the back room. Jessie plopped into the porch swing to sober up. If Martha was still awake, she’d stir up a hornet’s nest if she smelled Old Granddad. Hell, a man can’t even have a sip when his dog dies, Jessie thought. Alone on the porch, except for a cricket chirping under the tarp, Chester’s tarp, Jessie hoped Jessie Jr. would put less weight on his dog than what Lefty and Chester had to carry, but at least the new pup would have a good tarp to nap on.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><br><br><br><br><br><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">M.E. Parker</span></b> is a writer, a reader, web designer, a software enigeer and a carpenter who imagines a world of wooden computers with leather bound keyboards. His short fiction has recently surfaced or is scheduled to see daylight in numerous print publications and Internet haunts including <i>42opus</i>, <i>Alimentum</i>, T<i>he Briar Cliff Review</i>, <i>Electric Velocipede</i>, <i>Flint Hills Review</i>, <i>The MacGuffin</i>, <i>Night Train</i>, <i>Quercus Review</i>, <i>Smokelong Quarterly</i> and numerous others. Find him at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.meparker.com/">http://www.meparker.com</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-92167471968702014802009-09-15T12:08:00.003-04:002009-09-15T12:15:21.350-04:00Rural Medical Camp Tackles Health Care Gaps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/multimedia/2009/07/ram/dental_wide.jpg?t=1248711962&s=4" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/multimedia/2009/07/ram/dental_wide.jpg?t=1248711962&s=4" width="420" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Betty Lettenberger/NPR </div><br />
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Link gakked from <a href="http://appy-love.blogspot.com/2009/09/appalachian-medicine.html">AppyLove</a>, story from NPR.<br />
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Think about this story for a moment. Or two. We need new, better, options for health care, and we need them yesterday. And that's probably as political a post as I'll ever consciously make.<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>It was a Third World scene with an American setting. Hundreds of tired and desperate people crowded around an aid worker with a bullhorn, straining to hear the instructions and worried they might be left out.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1253031032479"><br />
</a>Some had arrived at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, Va., two days before. They slept in cars, tents and the beds of pickup trucks, hoping to be among the first in line when the gate opened Friday before dawn. They drove in from 16 states, anxious to relieve pain, diagnose aches and see and hear better.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1253031032479"><br />
</a><br />
"I came here because of health care — being able to get things that we can't afford to have ordinarily," explained 52-year-old Otis Reece of Gate City, Va., as he waited in a wheelchair beside his red F-150 pickup. "Being on a fixed income, this is a fantastic situation to have things done we ordinarily would put off."<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1253031032479"><br />
</a><br />
For the past 10 years, during late weekends in July, the fairgrounds in Wise have been transformed into a mobile and makeshift field hospital providing free care for those in need. Sanitized horse stalls become draped examination rooms. A poultry barn is fixed with optometry equipment. And a vast, open-air pavilion is crammed with dozens of portable dental chairs and lamps.<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1253031032479"><br />
</a><br />
A converted 18-wheeler with a mobile X-ray room makes chest X-rays possible. Technicians grind hundreds of lenses for new eyeglasses in two massive trailers. At a concession stand, dentures are molded and sculpted.</blockquote><blockquote> <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111066576">More</a>.</blockquote>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-81712629560290291942009-09-13T23:34:00.000-04:002009-09-13T23:34:36.408-04:00Wine and Cheese with Alexi and NatashaLast night in my apartment, I heard Natasha through the thin walls, “<i>Nyet!</i> <i>Nyet!</i>” Today I stare at her black eye when we have wine, whiskey and cheese as we do every month.<br />
<br />
"You like my wife?" Alexi asks.<br />
<br />
Natasha was wet-eyed like a puppy behind the glass of a pet store and he was the first man that wanted to take her home after high school. A month later they were in Florida, a place where the screen door blew off after each storm. Twenty years of fighting later she works an old drill and a can of putty, rigging the damned thing back into place until next time. Her life is the surrendering sunset, sinking and falling into the ocean.<br />
<br />
I pretend I didn’t hear Alexi. “Bring me more wine,” he barks to Natasha. As he waits he stuffs two cubes of cheese into his mouth. I decide I’m not going to stand completely still. Her lip begins to quiver the same way it does when she comes against my mouth. Alexi breaks his wine glass against the counter. He charges and my feet stay planted.<br />
<br />
<br />
<img src="http://www.rustybarnes.com/images/FCAC/gager.jpg" align="center"><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Timothy Gager</b></span> is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry. He lives on <a href="http://www.timothygager.com/">www.timothygager.com</a>.Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-35599540756711728842009-09-07T14:22:00.000-04:002009-09-07T14:22:01.356-04:00Aphelia and Leigh, fiction by Kyle Hemmings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span>We were listening to Doodles Weaver crack jokes on Rudy Vallee’s radio show when it happened. We were <span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">catching dust from the open car windows, the dry wind from the Black Mesa. Maybe if Aphelia hadn’t driven her father’s rickety box-of-metal-on-wheels so hard, so reckless, the one she stole, along with his police revolver, it wouldn’t have broken down. Maybe if she didn’t hold up the pimple-faced kid shakin' in his knickers at the grocery store back in Reynes for a bag of god-darn breadsticks, we wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of Cimarron County. The throb of nowhere. The black heart of everywhere. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">And what the hell do I know about cars, clutch parts, seal or something bearings? I ain’t a boy. Whoever designed this motorcar is a man with a well-greased heart and a pair of tin hands that leaves his wife longing for flesh and flowers. I know a man didn’t design a woman. She came from dust. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Fiddlesticks,” says Aphelia, kicking some stones off the dirt road. Under her cloche hat her green eyes are the same ones that sting me at night. They belong to a beautiful feline living at the bottom of a well that is me. Every law-abidin’ girl has within her a secret feline squatter. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Aphelia is twenty-five. She once worked as a punch press operator before the plant closed. I’m seventeen, used to sling hash part time with my mother. The diner is where I met Aphelia, one morning, wearing a large floppy hat, a distracted glow to her face, grease smudges on her flower-print dress. She said she had been helping her father fix the car and asked me if I knew anything about repairing one. I said I'm not a boy and we both got giddy.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She had been talking about stealing a bag of breadsticks for days. Half this country is waiting in soup lines and the other half is digging ditches in the rain. And Aphelia and me are rich on bread sticks and queer sunsets. But I don’t think this is about the breadsticks, or about how I feel, or what I want. It’s more about the distance from here to the New Mexico border, or from here to Colorado, and how I’ll never come back to Oklahoma. In some strange town, I’ll find another earth mother with salt-lick wounds, a queen of rain whose flesh, whose breasts, the Black Mesa wind cannot erode. I will call my new earth mother, Aphelia.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Hey, Leigh,” says Aphelia, turning, wearing one of her love-is-free smiles, “you wanna play Flip the Frog?” It’s something she always says before we fall into each other's pond and believe our shuddering reflections. Aphelia says that I make love like a Bolshevik. I’m not sure what she means. Do Bolsheviks shudder? Do they call each other in the heat of lovemaking--my crazy sweet-grass strumpet? </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In the distance, I can make out the serpentine roads that appear, vanish behind hills, the wail of police sirens that will soon blot my thoughts. The cars are tiny misshapen dots growing larger. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I ask her the same question that I asked back in Reynes. “How many bullets you got in that gun?” I didn’t like the answer I got in Reynes. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“I already told you, darlin'. Just one.”</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Well, that's just swell. You really plan ahead, don’t you?” </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">She takes two small steps towards me. It feels like she’s at the other side of the world. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Like I said, the one is for me. I know where I’m goin’. But you’re gonna run. Run until you can’t run no more. If they catch you, lie about your age and tell them you’re fifteen. Make like you're mindless--a witless girl who could only make a living capping mayonnaise jars. Tell them I took you as hostage. Tell them you didn’t know nothin’."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If she had one more bullet, I’d follow her off the edge of the Black Mesa. But all I have to offer is a dustbowl of girlish brown-eyed love. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Slowly, I walk up to her. She’s smiling and I’m drowning. I kiss her, our tongues swirling, the dance of two water snakes in love with the other’s slither. She gently pushes me away.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The sirens blare louder. Closer.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Someday you’ll get back on the main road. You’ll have a husband who’ll stand by you, work sixteen hours a day. You’ll have children who’ll obey, do chores for you. And when they grow bigger, when they grow wayward, tempted by something they can’t define, you’ll see me in their eyes. There's no future for us, honey.” </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I reach to grab the gun tucked in her pleated skirt. She wrestles my hand away, has a grip like a man's. Her eyes are wild, her voice, firm, edgy. We are both breathless--the possessor and the possessed. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“I’ll stall ‘em, put the gun to my head. They’ll negotiate. It’ll give you enough time. When you hear the sound, it means I love you a thousand times.” </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“No,” I say, shaking my head of sunshine ringlets.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">"They’re not takin’ me alive. No callused fingers in my pond and the dirt from this dry country."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I study my own fingers. So small. Fat twitching worms.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Here,” she says, “take one of these. You‘ll need the energy.” She holds out the bag of breadsticks. I imagine how one will crack, like those tiny smiles in top soil, ones I will fall through. I close my eyes and hear the shot in the distance. I’ll never make New Mexico. I’ll drop from exhaustion and wake up with a different name. But the sound. The sound will stay with me for years, a reminder that I was once stranded in the heart of Black Mesa country.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Take one,” she says, "don't be shy."</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">One for you. And one for me.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><img align="left'><br style=" font-family:="" georgia,"times="" new="" roman",serif;="" src="http://www.rustybarnes.com/images/FCAC/hemmings.jpg" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Kyle Hemmings</span></b> lives and works in New Jersey, where he skateboards, falls, and sometimes doesn't get up. He has work pubbed in <i>Why Vandalism</i>, <i>Zygote in My Coffee</i>, <i>Up the Staircase</i>, and others.</span><br />
</span>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3516971824106344685.post-63009202670989786402009-09-04T02:27:00.001-04:002009-09-04T02:40:30.210-04:00High Cotton, by Barrett Hathcock<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">When they cotton dive, the boys become serious. They coil into themselves, squatting on the lip of the metal cotton bins, and they thrust their bodies into the air. The boys go for distance, they go for height, but their main concern is arc. They’re trying to pierce the cotton deeply and completely. So, against the sunset, they curve together like dolphins into the ocean, and the cotton catches and folds around them as they disappear beneath, swimming into the soft waves, bits of husk floating by their bodies like shells. They do this over and over, pulling themselves back up to the lip of the bins and then hurling themselves off again. The bins grunt under the pressure. The boys dive until their arms and legs ache. In midair, wisps of cotton flutter from their hair and fall behind them like bits of sea foam.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">When they were 16, this was their routine. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>###</b></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Though the boys were physically distinguishable—Jeremy, tall and dusky; Peter, dirty-blond—together they acted like a mechanically simple but efficient machine, first the tall body, then the short, moving together through their high school lives, chewing through each new day, benefiting from the technological advantage of two heads, four feet, four hands, four eyes. They had been friends since the fourth grade, though they never considered how or when the friendship started. It simply existed. They might have well have been fraternal twins for the way they finished each other’s sentences, inhabited and discarded each other’s clothes, were fed and parented in each other’s houses. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The diving always made them late. For Peter, dinner was at six, precisely. His grandfather, bitter and enfeebled, had always had his dinner straight up at six, and he wasn’t going to change just because he was forced to live with his goddamned daughter, Peter’s mother. As part of the family agreement, the old man had given up his car—a mid-80s Lincoln Town Car, a midnight blue monster that Peter did his best to rag out. Jeremy, whose mother was still litigating the proper amount of alimony out of his own father, was without a car and rode with Peter everywhere.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Peter always knew they had to get home, but he was loathe to leave the cotton bins, which they had found one afternoon while riding around the farmland north of Niskayuna High. The bins were huddled together in the corner of a cotton field, metal boxes of bleached orange peeling to rust. After diving, Peter liked to smoke while reclining, delicately flicking his ashes out through the finger-thick holes of the wire mesh, intent on not staining the cotton with his ash. Jeremy, on the other hand, was an incorrigible napper and liked to be submerged, the cotton tucked up to his chin. At an impossibly long distance away, his bare toes protruded.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At school, cotton had become a code word. Whenever they saw girls walking by, girls they knew or wanted to know, girls in boot cuts and belts, sweaters and pullovers, fleeces with and without hoods, the girls became “like cotton.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Just like cotton,” Jeremy would say with a contained smile. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Fresh warm cotton at two o’clock,” Peter would say. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Very uncotton,” Peter would sometimes say.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">No matter the time, Peter would drive home slow and take the back roads into Jackson and roll down the windows and sometimes Jeremy would dial the soul station run out of Gluckstadt and they would listen to Al Green and smell the farmers grilling out behind their houses.</span></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">If, looking back, Peter had had to trace the beginning of Jeremy and Lina’s relationship, he would have said it began at a party at Robert Birch’s house in the winter of their sophomore year, not too long after that first cotton-diving season had ended. She was sitting on a couch in the living room, her legs folded under her Indian-style. A half-finished can of Beast rested between her legs. Peter noticed how the sweat of the can left damp marks on the inside thigh of her jeans. They had a button fly, shiny like new nickels. Lina was short with long black hair that mysteriously contained surprising strands of brown, and sometimes red, depending on the light. She was dark, even in the winter, and when the couples walked among each other at basketball games in February, it was obvious she wasn’t from around there. All the Mississippi girls had lost their brown, gone back to pearly white skin, tan lines gone for a few more months. Lina was from down further south, though the boys did not know where. She was telling some story, surrounded by other girls, gesturing with her one free hand, using the other to hold the beer steady between her legs.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“So like ro I am so not kidding that boy was fucking wasted,” Lina said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
She was famous around the school, although no one discussed why. All the boys who had been there at Niskayuna since seventh grade knew who she was, and remembered the day they first noticed her, the day she was pulled out of the junior high tableaux. Lina was the girl who had her first period publicly, during the morning break, as she ate an apple on one of the picnic tables out in front of the quad. Nobody remembers the actual scene when it happened. They only remember the small spot of blood that stained the picnic table bench. Lina went home early. Nobody ever questioned her about the incident or gave her a hard time. Nobody said anything. Though the junior high boys would never confess to this, most of them stopped by the table at some point during the day. They approached slowly, with the rolling crunch of gravel under their feet, and they stretched their necks out and looked down at the spot of blood, making sure not to bend over, not to get too close. They stood there looking at it for a minute and let out a breath, recognizing that what they had heard was true. They then turned around and crunched back to their class, or their friends, or their mothers waiting for them in their cars.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What the hell does ‘ro’ mean?” asked Peter, later that night back in the car. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I think it might be short for ‘bro,’” said Jeremy. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“That’s stupid,” said Peter. “Is that some sort of Florida thing?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Lighten up, Pete.” Jeremy lit another cigarette and spent the rest of the evening looking out the window, finally asking around midnight to be taken home, even though his mom was out of town, and he could have done anything, and could have done it all night. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">###</span><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Peter’s full name was Peter Allen Traxler. He called the car the Traxler Town Tank—“a couch on wheels handed down through generations.” When he drove people home from parties—he was always looking for an excuse to drive—he’d throw his arm up on the seat and crane his head backward and say, “Welcome to the finest automotive contraption in Northeast Jackson. Don’t worry about your safety”—and at this point he’d let go of the wheel and completely turn to the backseat passengers, Jeremy manning the steering—“if we hit anything, we’ll probably come out all right.” </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On some weekend nights, months into their relationship, depending on the schedule of the evening, Jeremy and Lina would make-out in the Tank. If there was a party, Jeremy would snatch away Peter’s keys as he stood pumping up the keg, or if they went to a movie, Lina and Jeremy would take a long trip for snacks. Since both houses were on “permanent lockdown,” Jeremy claimed, they made time where they could. Once, when Lina’s father had to make an emergency business trip in the middle of a week, Jeremy begged Peter into driving him over to Lina’s house. Peter did his homework out in the car, hunkered beside the window to get the good streetlight, pre-calc notes spread across the dash.<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In their second year of diving, junior year, their technique became more intricate, involving flips and twists and convoluted and ultimately foiled landings. Daylight Savings Time was about to end, and the specter of a 5:20 sunset haunted Peter. He whined about it at school so much Jeremy had to tell him to shut up before someone got curious.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
The boys also became self-aware of their diving. They became finicky and pedantic about the details of the dive. They were harsh in their critiques of each other’s performance. They developed rules: you must always cotton dive shirtless. You must wait at least 48 hours after a rain. Sunset is the optimal time to dive, but full-on darkness is too dangerous. You should never cotton dive alone. Each person should act as the other’s lifeguard. You must check in with your diving partner after every dive to ensure he has not smothered. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Then, one day, while standing one the edge of a bin, psyching up for a backflip, Peter took off his shorts. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">After landing, he began victoriously swishing his arms and legs in that way people do when they’re making angels in the snow. </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What in the hell are you doing?” asked Jeremy, who had turned around to Peter’s bin.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t know,” said Peter. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“You don’t have any clothes on.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Yeah, but—”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Put your fucking shorts on.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Yeah, but Jeremy, it feels—”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t fucking care. <i>Put</i> your shorts on.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Why?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Because it’s against the rules, that’s why.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Peter glared at him for a moment. Then Peter leaned up and reached for his shorts and grunted out a <i>Fine</i>. </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Oh, shit—Goddamn it. Put your pants on.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“That’s what I’m doing. Jesus,” said Peter. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“No!” screamed Jeremy, his voice cracking. He was diving for his shirt and shoes.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
On the horizon, a tornado of dust funneled behind a pick-up truck. It was speeding along the road next to the strip of thorny trees that led to the bins. “Maybe he isn’t coming—” began Peter. The furious cloud of dust only grew. The truck was coming right for them. The boys busted it. Peter had never dressed so fast. The boxers and shorts went on as one. Belts and buttons and zippers were left undone. Feet were stuffed into untied shoes. Shirts were on inside-out. Socks were crammed into pockets. And everything was accompanied by Jeremy’s wail: “Get in the car hurry up I can’t believe we’re gonna get busted for this shit I hope he didn’t see your naked ass we are so dead oh my God would you just hurry the fuck <i>up</i>.” The Tank tore away. The pick-up was about fifty yards behind them. You could have seen the dust for miles. They drove so fast that the speedometer—a bright orange toothpick—peaked out at 80 and stuck there vibrating. The car shook, and the wind gushed through the open windows and pummeled them. Three minutes later when they swerved through the gate at the school and parked behind the observatory, Jeremy pronounced the coast clear. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Peter heard his mother come into his bedroom early to put away clean clothes, the socks and boxer shorts and generic white undershirts. She did not do this quietly, the warped dresser drawers needing two hands, their metal pulls clinking when slammed shut. Peter pretended to sleep. She let out a heavy sigh, a sigh that Peter recognized as his mother’s trademark, a theatrical expression of her martyrdom. He wasn’t sure—lying there encased in the down comforter—if she were sighing because of him, or his father, or his Grandpa. Same difference, he thought.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“What’s this?” she said. “What’s this?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter feigned sleep. She had picked up Peter’s dirty clothes that had been shed in a wad next to his bed, peeling undershirts out of knit shirts, boxers out of khaki pants. Peter mentally inventoried all the contraband he could remember. Cigarettes and lighter? Wedged underneath his car seat. Plastic traveler-sized bottle of Southern Comfort? Wrapped in a Piggly Wiggly bag and bundled with the spare-tire gear in his trunk. The half-smoked dimebag of pot bought from Binc Manchester? Was in car, now given to Jeremy to hide at his house once he heard rumor of drug dogs patrolling the Upper School lot. String of six condoms acquired two years ago at camp? In the Lincoln’s glove compartment, hidden inside the owner’s manual. Three consecutive issues of early ’93 <i>Penthouse</i>? Accidentally thrown out the fall before, still sad about it. Peter could think of nothing else.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Peter, what’s this?” his mother said, her sad presence now sitting on his bed, impossible to ignore. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Mom?” he said, emerging, playing his best. “That you? What’s up?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Peter, what’s this? It fell out of your clothes.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
She held a tuft of raw cotton in her hand. Peter, dramatically groggy, worked at the wicks of his eyes with his fingers until they squeaked, and leaned over her hand, breathing hard. He tried somehow to reverse the blushing; he could feel the heat rush up his throat and over his cheeks. His lips felt chapped. He tasted the rusty morning taste in his mouth. Fabulous excuses began developing in his mind, intricate plots involving car wrecks and hospitals and emergencies and trauma. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I dunno. Is it lint or something?” he said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“It’s not lint, honey. This is cotton. Like the kind you pick off a bush.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter just kept staring at her hand, its fine wrinkles like the depthless cracks seen on old paintings. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I dunno, Mom. Where did you get it?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“It was in your clothes—where did you and Jeremy go last night?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Just the game. Like we always do.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
The hand retracted. The lint clutched tight, her face a blank hardness.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Did we win?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“No. Of course not,” Peter said, coughing up a laugh. “They beat us like a drum.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Wonderful,” his mother said. She got up, leaving the rest of the clean clothes stacked next to Peter in a neatly squared pile, the lock of cotton caught tight in her hand. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
That next week, without explanation, Peter inherited his father’s cell phone. “Just in case something comes up,” his mother said. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“I had a strange afternoon,” Jeremy said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">He looked off to the horizon, the way Peter had seen people in movies do when they are about to expel a great secret. They were on their way to a Halloween party. </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“It was different. Like nothing else. Ever.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Jeremy was very solemn when he spoke. He was dressed as Ricky Martin, with squeaky leather pants that Peter insisted were too shiny and radiant to be merely leather, that the pants were either pleather or vinyl. Vinyl, pleather, whatever, Jeremy had said. It ain’t cotton. He wore a cream-colored, tight shirt. Neither tried to identify its material. It was collarless but had a diagonal slit at the throat-line that flapped open at will in a way that Peter said was either distinctly Ricky Martin or distinctly Vulcan. </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“<i>What </i>is so different?” asked Peter.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Can you keep a secret?” asked Jeremy. Peter nodded automatically. “I was there when you came by this afternoon.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“So why didn’t you come to the door?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well, Lina was there, too. But no one else was around. So, you know, we started to make-out.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Yeah?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“And well, we went . . . further.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“You did it? Oh.” Peter was at a total loss. He was dressed in his normal clothes. He didn’t have a costume but an injury; a fake, rubber screw was glued onto his forehead with trickles of blood dried down his face and throat. His grandfather had said it was so lifelike that he wanted to vomit. Peter was proud and asked for pictures. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“No no no. We didn’t do it. I told you that we are not going to do it for a while. Not until we’ve been going out for at least a year. We just said we loved each other like a month ago.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“But—”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“We didn’t. We just. Well . . .”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well, what?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t want to say it.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Why not?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well, it sounds so cheap when you just blurt it out.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Aw, J come <i>on</i>.” They were quiet. Peter checked his screw. It still looked perfect—blood spreading like branches across his face. It had tickled horribly when his mother squeezed the fake blood out of the dropper. But it had tasted oddly sweet, as if sugared. He glanced over at Jeremy, whose hair was a caramel bouffant. Peter wondered if he would try to carry the impersonation completely through the party that night. He had been practicing. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What she going as?” Peter asked.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Huh?” And then after a moment, he said, “Oh, yeah. She’s going to be a geisha girl.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“A geesha girl? What’s that?” asked Peter. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t really know. Some oriental thing.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“So are you going to tell me?” Peter asked, sounding more eager than he had intended. They were almost at the house. He could see the cars half-parked on the lawn.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Listen, just.” Jeremy crossed his arms. Peter pulled up and killed the engine. The house thumped with faint music. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Jeremy stuck his right hand into Peter’s face. “Sniff,” he said. Peter knitted his brows. “Do it. Sniff.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter inhaled. Jeremy’s index and middle fingers floated under his nose for a brief moment. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">They were both quiet. And then Peter said: “That’s way better than cotton.”</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">###</span></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The party was lame. The boys mulled around on the back porch. Their breath was the same white cloud as their cigarette smoke. Lina and Marianne, Peter’s date, were somewhere inside. Around eleven it started to sleet.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“Do you think she wants to?” Peter asked. They were standing under the overhang of the roof. Peter’s sneakers were slowly soaking. The bottoms of their jeans were damp, as if they had been running through tall, wet grass.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“I don’t know. Probably. Maybe,” Jeremy said.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">“How can you tell?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t know. Maybe she’ll say something.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“You could say something.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Oh, yeah.” And when he noticed that Peter wasn’t kidding, he said: “But how?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What do you mean ‘how’? You must have talked about this some.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“No, I mean where? As you well know, I have no car.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Your house?” Peter said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“With my parents? Are you kidding? My mom hears it when the dog farts. She’s up checking to see if it’s a burglar. We can’t get halfway through a movie, for chrissakes.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Hers?” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“No. Her father dates.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I think I’ve seen him. Homecoming?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Yeah. He was her escort.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“How did someone so tall have someone that short?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Lay off.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just saying that if you ever had kids, they might be tiny.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Pete.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Okay, sorry.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Let’s not even go there.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well, have you thought about that?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Yes. <i>Duh</i>.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“So?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“So . . . I got some condoms.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Good. What kind?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I can’t remember.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What do you mean you can’t remember? It’s not that hard. They’re either—”<br />
<br />
“I haven’t actually gotten them yet.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well, you need to.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I know,” said Jeremy. “I am. I will.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter caught himself glaring at Jeremy, as if he was squeezing the agreement out of him. His bouffant had lost its shape and it was just regular Jeremy hair now, except lit with the glittery hair-paint Lina had bought him. The sleet was coming down heavier. It sounded like bits of plastic falling. The blood on his face had begun to itch. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Is she on the pill?” asked Peter.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Has been since she was fourteen.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Fourteen? What for?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t know. It like helps them with their thing. You know.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“It does? How?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t know—I heard it somewhere.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter, after smirking disbelief for a moment, said, “Has she been screwing around since she was fourteen?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Peter. Goddamn it. Why do you say shit like that?” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
There was a knock on the sliding glass door behind them. It was Lina—her face ghostly white in the makeup. Her hair had come down too. It had been up, intricately braided and folded, and Peter had told her she looked like origami. Her small smudge of lipstick and the white paint around her mouth had faded from the drinking, so she looked like she was in reverse black face. <i>Let’s go</i>, she mouthed to Jeremy. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Now?” he asked. She nodded and mouthed, <i>please?</i> He said okay and held up his cigarette, only burned a fourth of the way down. She mouthed <i>okay</i> and her floating ghost-face disappeared back into the house. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“She’s been on the pill since—” said Peter.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Shut up,” Jeremy whispered. “It’s a fucking miracle I don’t kick your ass.” Peter started stamping his feet. His legs felt numb from the calves down. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“You couldn’t even try, Ricky,” he said back. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“How would you like it if I said something like that?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“All I’m saying,” Peter said, still stomping, “is that you should ask how many partners she’s had.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Why?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Because it’s important.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter was now bent over rubbing his shins. The rhythmic sound of his hands on his jeans. He couldn’t help but think of what this weather was doing to the cotton. It was probably turning into oatmeal and would take days to dry enough for another jump. And before they knew it, it would be Thanksgiving. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What in the hell are you doing, Peter?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“My feet are practically frozen solid,” he said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well why didn’t you say something?” said Jeremy. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Because you said you wanted to stay out here.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“But not if you are freezing to death,” said Jeremy. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Are you pissed at me?” asked Peter.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“<i>No</i>,” said Jeremy. “It’s just this night has so completely <i>sucked</i>.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Well, maybe we could—” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
There was another knock on glass, much harder. They both turned around. <i>Now</i>, she mouthed. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Okay,” Jeremy said back. Peter heard him curse under his breath and saw him drop his cigarette into his beer can and swish it around, like Peter’d seen cousins do. It was nearly finished anyway. But Jeremy didn’t move, only stood there looking at the glass door. He was probably watching Lina walk, Peter thought. She had been wearing a kimono but ended up borrowing someone’s sweat pants after about 20 minutes. At school, she had a way of positioning herself at the front of whatever group of girls she was walking with so that you could always see her, despite her shortness. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter remembered how she squatted down, like a catcher, to get her books for each class. She didn’t carry her backpack compulsively like the other students. She carried only the books she needed for the next class, propping them on her hip. (Because of some unspoken tradition, the lockers at Niskayuna High were mostly decorative.) When she squatted down, her shirt would sometimes separate from the waistline of her pants, so that there was a band of flesh uncovered, the amount depending on the type of shirt and pants. Peter had seen her shrink down to replace a binder, a highlighter, a copy of <i>Othello</i>, and when the portion of her lower back had appeared, he had once seen, just above the waistline, a glitter of metal. At first he didn’t know what it was and he tried to stare inconspicuously, while fiddling with his locker. But as she moved, the belly-chain moved, and the light reflected off it again, as if the metal were jeweled. Peter stepped closer, to peer down at what he thought looked like a necklace. He was almost over her, trying to decipher exactly what was tied around her waist, exactly what it was composed of. Then she stood up. Peter straightened and stepped back, suddenly self-aware. Lina walked off to her class without turning around. All Peter could now see were jeans and a sweater.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Jeremy,” Peter said. “Come on. Let’s go.” He stood behind Jeremy, waiting for him to slide open the door. Jeremy was still looking into the glass, into his reflection. Peter gave him a little push, very soft, just under his right shoulder blade. After a second push, Peter felt him un-tense, and he finally slid the door open and the boys walked into the warm, dry party together.<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After daylight savings passed, their trips to the cotton bins became short and intense. They had seen the pickup once more, pulling up a dust storm on the horizon as they’d pulled off the road, and it had turned toward them, so Peter gunned it back onto the road. But they still returned, only once or twice a week, one of them standing on the edge of a bin, fully clothed, the car keys held tight, keeping watch, while the other jumped and whooped and flipped and cursed the farmer, wherever he was. Peter typically took the first lookout. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now that it was getting dark early, Peter’s mom wanted him home first thing after school. He needed to bring his grades up, she’d said. He had come home the week before with a scratch on his nose he couldn’t explain. He had scratched himself on a cotton bulb husk, but he was sure she thought it was drugs.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Jeremy was out sick, and Peter had been driving around Niskayuna after school, thinking about going diving solo but always deciding it was too risky. He would get home by four and his mother would ask where he’d been, and he couldn’t even come up with a good lie. She knew Jeremy was sick and trusted him even less alone.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">After three days of his mumbled evasions, she said, “What part of come home right after school don’t you understand? Either get home or give me the keys.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
The next day after school, walking out to his car, Peter saw Lina waiting at the curb, amidst the backpacks and the baseball hats. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Need a ride?” asked Peter. She shook her head. She was in a black skirt that touched the tops of her knees. A black sweater buttoned twice over a sky blue stretchy shirt. Her hair blew in the wind and a strand stuck to her lip. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“My dad’s coming. He’s bringing me my car.” And then as an explanation: “It’s my birthday tomorrow.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“<i>Oh</i>. Happy birthday. Jeremy hadn’t told me. You’re getting a car?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Mhmm. A Forerunner.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Sweet,” said Peter. “You talk to Jeremy?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Still sick.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Bummer. I haven’t seen him in like a week.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“How do you go on?” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Nothing.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Why do you hate me so much?” he asked.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t hate you at all.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Right.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
The flow of cars kept running through the carpool line with a stuttery consistency, like the time-lapsed photography of blood circulation he’d seen in biology earlier that day. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What’s he getting you?” Peter said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hope he just gets well enough to go out. His mom keeps saying he’s got mono.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Really?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Ro, I totally did not give him mono. Don’t even joke.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I didn’t say that. I wasn’t even gonna.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
A hunter green Forerunner was making its way around the curve of the entrance road. Lina’s hair swirled around her face in the wind. It looked almond-colored in the bright November sun, Peter thought. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“So that it?” Peter asked. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
She nodded, her excitement undisguised. “That’s really nice,” Peter said.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Thanks. Maybe when J gets better, we can all go out. I’ll drive.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“That would be nice,” Peter said. “Is it four-wheel drive?”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I have no idea. You could ask my dad.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Nah. Just curious. If it was we could take it mudding.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I don’t think so,” she said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
The truck pulled up in front of them and Lina put her stuff in the backseat, and then did a sort of hop to get into the front passenger’s seat. She made some indecipherable, excited noise to her father. She gave a quick wave before closing the door, and Peter waved back, but by then the door was closed, the glass tinted, the truck pulling away, and Peter was left alone in the carpool line, another car pulling up and jolting to a stop and another person jumping in and leaving. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">###</span><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The next day, a Friday afternoon, was perfect for cotton diving. The air was crisp; the sky was cloudless, a deep, blinding blue. Peter sat out on his back porch, smoking a cigarette. His mother was happy. He’d finally come home straight from school. She gave him an exaggerated thank you before leaving for the store. Said she’d make him one of his favorites—chicken and dumplings—for finally listening.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Jeremy was still out of school. Peter had tried to find Lina, to see what the gameplan was for the weekend, but no luck. It was getting close to five, and he was growing desperate from the lack of communication and the vision of Friday night at home with the family, watching Grandpa’s mouth work on the dumplings at dinner, Dad turning up <i>Nash Bridges</i> too loud. He started another cigarette and called Jeremy. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Jeremy’s mother was startled to hear from him. “Yes, Peter. He’s doing much better. Doctor gave him a shot yesterday. Turned out not to be mono—just a bad cold, I guess. Anyway, he told me he was with you,” she said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter tried to cover, but his voice went shaky, and he could tell from the way hers became thin and angular that she did not believe anything he said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
He called Lina’s house. He felt odd doing this. He had seen Jeremy do it so many times. The number-pattern was not familiar but the sound of their touch-tone keys was comforting. The voice of a very large man answered. She was out, for her birthday. She would not be in until late. Peter beeped off the portable phone and began to pace. It was almost five. Three cigarette butts lay crushed in black, ashy smudges at his feet on the back porch. His mother would be home soon with with the dumpling mix. Birds chirped. Everything outside turned a shade darker, as if the world had just slightly condensed. The old man was out with her, riding shotgun, guarding all the coupons, reading the obituaries, telling her to slow down. Leaves were turning orange, a purplish-brown. It was four forty-five. Thanksgiving was two weeks away. He dialed Jeremy’s cell phone. It rang and rang, went to voicemail. He imagined it bleating next to him, sitting on the seat against his thigh, wherever he was. He re-dialed. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">###</span><br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">They measured the circumference of the four bins with their feet, one placed carefully in front of the other. Jeremy took off his shirt, his watch, his shoes, his socks, his belt, his jeans, his boxers, one leg at a time so as not to fall. Lina began undressing as well, sandals flipped over the side, T-shirt on the edge of the bin, bra thrown back toward the truck, jeans unbuttoned one at the time—the delicate tambourine jingle of the button fly—sliding off the left leg, then the right, holding her hand out to Jeremy for balance. She tossed the jeans over the edge. She wore no underwear. A thin wire sparkled around her waist. She pranced away from Jeremy on the balls of her feet. The bin whined underneath, and Jeremy followed her out to the center, to the cross created by the conjoined bins. They embraced, their two vague shadows momentarily congealing. Holding hands, standing side-by-side, they turned to face one of the bins. After glancing at each other, they leaned back, together, falling backwards into the cotton, swimming in back strokes. Again, over and over, together or on their own, they dove with a deep arc into the cotton and pulled themselves towards the bottom and found the metal mesh that now covered urine-colored dead grass, and then they turned around, pushing upwards, towards the orange light, towards the air.<br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Peter saw it all. He was squatting behind a row of trees, delicately holding back a ring of thorns. It was almost dark, and the world had blurred. He couldn’t control his breathing; his undershirt was stuck to his chest; the thorns were pricking into his palms, into his fingers; one scratched his neck like a broken fingernail. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
He saw the pick-up truck, almost gray and invisible in the dusk, slowly creeping down the dirty road towards the bins. It was already almost a hundred yards away. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter had summoned it. He had seen the Forerunner on his initial drive by the field, and in silence, with no thinking, no pause to consider what he was doing, he drove around the circumference of the field, looking for the nearest one-story farmer’s house, trying to find the one with that truck. It didn’t take long. The truck was innocently parked in a carport, and Peter idled in front of the house, leaning on the horn, until a curtain twitched in one of the windows, and he was sure he had been seen. He then stomped on the accelerator and sped back to the cotton bins.<br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Lina’s dark green SUV floated next to the bins like a fat shadow. They continued to dive—an awkward and sincere motion. Peter heard Lina giggle. A cell phone chirped from inside the Forerunner, but it was ignored. Their clothing lay strewn on the lip of the bin. A couple of articles rested on the top of the Forerunner. Jeremy was a pale shadow, with dirty shadings where his hair was supposed to be. Lina was compact and dark. The belly-necklace sparkled.<br />
<br />
The sky behind the bins had turned a navy blue. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Peter heard a twig snap under the tire of the approaching truck. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
He thrashed, twisting his body. A thorn traced across his forearm, and he felt a sizzling sting. It left a thin, red scratch—the kind that never bleeds but always appears to be on the cusp of bleeding. Lina and Jeremy continued to dive. He saw them perform a flip into a bin together, hollering as they dove. Peter could almost see the fluff and recoil of the cotton as it caught them. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
The truck was fifty feet away. Peter saw the vague outline of a driver bent over the wheel.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Peter sucked his scratch, hoping to make the sting go away. Lina and Jeremy did not come up from the cotton. He knew they were under its covers. He fought the urge to run for the bins and fling himself into the cotton. Instead, he turned around and walked back to his car, sloppily parked in the soybean field behind the trees. He left the couple naked in the cotton, floating together in the twilight with the pick-up truck approaching—he left them to go home, back to his mother who would be waiting at the dinner table with her old man. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Peter did not hear from Jeremy for another week. Both he and Lina were at school but neither approached him. He didn’t even see them together. All he got as he walked down the hall was a fake, partial smile, or a slight head nod. After a week, Jeremy finally approached Peter after school. “Hey, man.” Peter was leaning over his backpack, trying to force the zipper to close. “Ya think we could start carpooling again?” Without looking up Peter said sure. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">They walked out to the parking lot. The dark blue Lincoln sat alone. Frost had hit and they moved slowly in their thick jackets and under their bulging backpacks. When they had almost reached the car, Jeremy said, “Hey, Peter. I’m sorry about the last week. About not talking.”<br />
<br />
Peter nodded. “I’ve been in some serious shit.” Peter said, yeah, he’d heard things. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
They crawled into the car. The doors whined. Peter put the heater on high but the air was cold at first. The seats and steering wheel felt stale. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Once they were situated—the backpacks put away, the wipers massaging the blurry windshield, the boys buckled in and rubbing their hands together—Jeremy looked over at Peter and with a frightened but elated smile said: “Pete. Man, I have had the weirdest fucking week. You wouldn’t believe it. You wouldn’t beleeeve what happened to Lina and me. We—”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Get out,” Peter said, his hands now stuffed into his coat pockets. The smile on Jeremy’s face made Peter want to pummel him.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“What—”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Get the fuck out.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Pete—I”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I said: get the fuck out of my car.”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Man, I’m sor—”</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“Jeremy Moultas, if you don’t get out of my car right now, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Peter was now shaking, and his fists coiled around Jeremy’s undershirt, just below the soft, hollow indention of his throat. He yanked him close enough to see the darkness of his mouth, to feel his breath, the only warm substance in the car. In his grip there was a tear—perhaps only a stitch—that sounded to Peter like a distant explosion from somewhere deep inside Jeremy. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
“I’m so not kidding, J.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
Jeremy grabbed his things and fled the car, and Peter sped away. </div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
###<br />
</div><div align="CENTER" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">With no explanation to his mother, Peter insisted shortly thereafter that the family sell the Lincoln Town Car. His parents were flabbergasted, but Peter staunchly refused to drive it ever again, and after two weeks of acquiescing to his mother’s pleading (“I just don’t have time to take you to school every morning”), he dropped the keys on the kitchen counter and did not come near the car for the six more weeks it took them to sell it. Everyone tried to talk sense into him, even his grandfather. That’s a perfectly good car, he had said. It was good enough for <i>me</i>. (Everyone thought that Peter was embarrassed about the car’s model, its angular shape, its bruised color.) Listen to me, son, he continued, keep driving that car. I’ll buy you a new one as soon as you get into college. Grandpa pushed his glasses up on top of his bald head, a gesture known throughout the family as one of concrete sincerity. Son, he finished, it ain’t a bad car. I know it ain’t <i>cool</i>. And then, pulling Peter closer, he said: Son, listen, I promise you that car’ll get you pussy just as fast as anything else.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrfWBDm9fRgJroGrFNDCgrbQD4xjy1SH4xYQYB_dGIQUWafVb5v7s9s5zxPAaMSJIGtH7zki6Lyhp8KVuIt59XH9l7tZDpAfr8ZvRpi_7Y7T86ShgZvp_HNkS2iZACU2XIZbvGYxATjb3S/s1600-h/hathcock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrfWBDm9fRgJroGrFNDCgrbQD4xjy1SH4xYQYB_dGIQUWafVb5v7s9s5zxPAaMSJIGtH7zki6Lyhp8KVuIt59XH9l7tZDpAfr8ZvRpi_7Y7T86ShgZvp_HNkS2iZACU2XIZbvGYxATjb3S/s320/hathcock.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><pre style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" wrap=""><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Barrett Hathcock</b></span> was born and raised in Jackson, Miss., but now lives in Memphis, Tenn. He teaches writing at Rhodes College. For more stories, please visit <a href="http://barretthathcock.com/">barretthathcock.com</a>.</pre></div>Rustyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11209150671200557517noreply@blogger.com0