Saturday, November 28, 2009

Okatooga Warhammer



Okatooga Warhammer

They looked like girl’s jeans. Matt held them against himself in the mirror. Not that girl’s jeans were a mark against them. Usually, girls had better jeans anyway. Matt took two of the biggest pairs out of the big chest in his grandmother’s back closet. He hadn’t decided whether or not he would go through with it. He didn’t even know if they would fit. Matt thought the flare at the bottom was a little extreme. He didn’t know why Hank liked that so much. But, what Matt didn’t know about his father could easily fill ten of these chests.

*

The first thing Matt Grady hated about the float down the river with his physics class was exactly that; he was spending two full days with most powerful group of asslicks in the whole county. The feelings he had toward the majority of his classmates were easily reciprocated for multiple reasons, though the primary being that he was some noname redmud who suddenly led the Liberty football team to two playoff wins for the first time since the eighties, and he was cocky as hell about it. He’d made sure everybody knew he was offered academic scholarships to both Tennessee and California but had turned them down to play football in Austin, Texas—Austin? Coincidence? Fate? He’d already started wearing his blue cap turned backwards with the big white A facing front which would become his trademark.

The bus ride up highway 11 made Matt think about the way things had changed. Every five miles or so there was another gas station, used car lot and road sign advertising some seasonal bullshit up in Coalwater. Matt could just barely remember riding the roads with his brother, Tom, and there was nothing all the way up Highway 11 but one old vegetable stand run by Bobby Nutall who used own half that land anyway. He’d sold out nearly six years ago and bought a ranch outside of Butte, Montana. Matt had heard it was nice up there and wanted to go sometime. Milk River. Powder. Yellowstone. Tom killed a bear in Yellowstone.

As the bus ambled along the forty some odd miles from Liberty to Coalwater, Matt wondered why he, in fact, had come on this trip. He’d always wanted to come up and ride the river with Tom. Tom had been saying he would be down to visit soon--for the past four years. He’d ridden off that day for California and that was the last Matt had seen of him. Supposedly, he was doing well. Matt’d finally given up trying to talk to anyone about Tom. No one wanted to believe in such a creature anymore. Tom Grady belonged to a past most people would rather never really existed. No one gets in car chases. No one can pitch boulders as a tot. There was no bomb. And certainly no one kills a grizzly bear unarmed in the modern world. Common Era: What the fuck?

Football was real enough, though. That was all too apparent. Matt would have gone completely unnoticed had it not been for the all-star receiver who transferred in from Nebraska the past summer and showed up for two-a-days and kept outrunning anything the old starter could pass him. Matt stepped up and tattooed one into his chest from thirty yards. It got the coaches’ attention. The new kid’s father was chief of surgery at Collierville Methodist; his money had the school board’s attention. Anyone who allowed the new kid to shine was given a length of rope.

Culloden County had completely changed. Coalwater was growing more and more fake every day. It was nothing but bullshit antique shops and overpriced restaurants that didn’t season food—so as not upset the gentle palates of their varied clientele; that meant the Yups. Liberty was near as bad. There were almost no farms left--just subdivided housing, shitty coffee bars, and two bridal shops now.

“You ever been up there on the river before?” Chet asked. Chet. They were all in a race to have worst names.

“No.”

It wasn’t completely true. Matt had never floated the Okatooga. Back when he had his dirt bike, he rode all across the county, sometimes out all night. He camped along the river more than once—just himself, a bag of chips and a jacket. He missed that. In the last year Matt was thrust into the spotlight of the school social scene. He wasn’t used to dealing with people—especially those his own age. He could do well enough with some of the old timers out at Smith’s Grocery once in a while. Matt had grown right fond of Austin—even got him to help build his final project, a Rube Goldberg coke machine that was twelve feet tall and eighteen feet long and was so big Austin hauled it to class on a flatbed trailer. It was by far the biggest one on Ms. Spinks’ class record. Got a 95. Bitch.

Aside from Culloden Mountain opposite the lake, which wasn't a real mountain at all—there are no mountains in Mississippi—but a sort of joke carried down from the old hillbillies who first came here, there were just foothills really. They were a bad batch of rocky bluffs and jagged edges all along either side of the skinny river—itself more of a creek. The Devil's Backbone, it'd once been called, though few still called it that. They made for decent landscape along the part of the river that formed the north border of the county and helped give it several one and two’s and even a few class three chutes. It wasn't exactly the Colorado or the Nantahala but it was cheap, close, and it would do. The shuttle ran April through Labor Day out of Coalwater Outfitters, a division of Grand Vistas National Outdoor Recreation. They’d bought out old Hart Cameron a few years back and streamlined the whole business. The whole thing had always been a front for Hart to run whisky anyway.

“All right, guys and gals,” Ms. Spinks said as the bus stopped. “We’re going to go ahead and unpack our gear into the cabins and then we’ll meet up with Tony, our guide on the river and go over some basic river safety rules before we hit the water.”

Ms. Spinks’ former husband taught down at Collierville College of the Arts and Sciences, a low-rent liberal arts school for people who weren’t good enough to go anywhere decent but wanted to pretend to be intellectual nonetheless. He’d left her to have a fling with one of his students two years ago and she decided to revamp her image and become an outdoor adventurer. She needed to drop about thirty more pounds to really sell it. But it meant a fall hike through Blaecwud Forest and in the spring the river run.

While all the other assholes piled into the bunkhouse to become engrossed in quibbling about who would be tops and bottoms—a debate they found it impossible to engage in without laughing sadistically—Matt just tossed his bag inside and grabbed his game ball from their last playoff win. He tossed it up and caught it over and over trying to drum everything else out and was doing decently at it until Marshall Deveraux slapped it out of the air and went to chuckling.

Matt just sighed in irritation.

“What about it, QB WT?” Marshall taunted. WT, it was their little pet name for him. They didn't much like it that he'd been plucked out and planted in their white and tidy little country club world. They might as well just call him “nigger” and be done with it, but, oh, that was a word they didn't use. Only rednecks used that word. But, go check the demographic of their gated community. “Huh?” he reiterated. “Huh?” He pushed his chest as close to Matt’s as he could without actually touching. He was another one of these stamped out mass-produced, pink polo shirt-wearing future date-rapists that the whole country was turning into if TV was any honest window. Apparently the idea was that Matt should hit him or some such idiocy. Because, well, that's what white trash does, isn't it? “Well? What are you gonna do, hotshot?”

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. Go to Texas. Play in a national championship. Go pro. Be famous. Something like that I guess,” Matt said and walked over to pick up his ball. He considered for a moment the irony of a football player being heckled.

He caught a glimpse of Lauren Hurley taking her stuff off the bus and heading into the girl’s bunkhouse. She was the closest thing to a human he’d come across at Liberty High during his four year tenure. They sat next to each other in Ms. Bounds’ A.P. U.S. Government class. Once, she had invited him to a party at her house. She was blonde.

His next thought was, naturally, of Lacy Parker—Tom’s old sort-of-but-not-really girlfriend from high school. Matt had gone to the trouble of looking up what ever happened to her after she left Liberty. She’d gone to law school in California and had just started with a firm in L.A. somewhere. Odd. Tom had been in San Fran off and on for years boxing and working the nightclubs. Ten to one’s they never knew the other was that close, Matt figured. Funny old world.

Tony, the guide, turned out to be a skinnyleg assbag from L.A. who couldn’t have sucked harder if he spent a year practicing on tow-hitches. He was one of those thin all over types like he lived off tofu and cannabis. Probably did. He had long brown Barbie doll hair and just a hint of a scraggly beard. He stretched out his vowels when he talked.

“Heey guuy’s I’m Toooony,” he said. “I’m your guide for the river today, m’kay? Let’s just go over a few safety rules before we get to our rafts, K? First of all how many of you know the legend of the Okatooga?”

No answer. Matt winced inside—fearing the suck.

“No one? The Screaming River? Anybody?”

Ahh damn it. There it was: the great wall of shittiness that was all life. What a goddamn asshole.

“They say the Okatoogas were some of the last of the holdouts against Indian Removal. Uh huh. They refused to be moved off their land and were embanked along the river until the army came in and opened fire into their camp killing them all. That’s why they say you can still hear their screams on certain nights of the year.”

This guy deserved to die a rotten death along with all other shitty fucks. Matt wanted to bean him in the eye with something. He hadn’t the slightest clue where all this ‘Screaming River’ bullshit came from all of a sudden. There was the Singing River down in Pasccagoula--but that involved two Indian tribes; not as conveniently politically valuable as whites shooting Indians. Then there was Screaming Woman Road south of Boon, but no one really knew about that anymore. It was closed off these days anyway. The river itself had been the scene of Cherokee Bob’s last stand against a platoon of Yankees. This whole Indian bullshit was completely made up. Matt wanted to slap him in the face with his ignorance, but decided, in fact, the best revenge against a goddamn idiot is to let him go on being a goddamn idiot.

“And moving on to my first point about safety, I want you to take a look at the paddles we’ll be using.” He held one up by its handle. “This is the T-grip. You want to keep your hand on this at all times. Don’t grip by the shaft. We have someone every year get jabbed in the eye by someone’s T-grip because of improper procedure. It’s so common we’ve even given it a nickname, the Okatooga Warhammer.”

At that, Tooony began waving it back and forth in some odd tomahawk motion. More suck.

After that Matt, left for Eternia where he considered the practicality of riding a cat into battle. Supposedly the goddess Freya—Freyja’s Daeg-Freitag-Friday—had two big cats that pulled her war-chariot. That seemed much more sensible. Matt’s daddy, Hank, had said Mack George used to have a pet tiger. Matt wondered if that was true.

When Matt came back Tooony was talking about mandatory helmet-wearing. Shitty.

Once the group got all geared up and ready for the river they loaded up on the Coalwater Outfitters bus—a stripped down utilitarian version of what they rode up in. It was about another twenty minute drive to the put-in, mostly because they were going so slow through the little winding river roads. The trees were overhanging so much they almost wanted to reach in and grab Matt by the waist and haul him off the bus. There was a sleepiness to these old roads and Matt thought of his trips here on his bike. It was nice to see that some parts of the county were still much the same.

The original meaning of the word Okatooga is lost now. Oka, Matt knew, meant usually water or pool. Tooga was probably some badly anglicized spelling of some Indian word now forgotten. Most people just assumed it meant river--altogether. The particular band of Indians who had lived here, people called the Okatoogas--because they mostly lived near the river in the hills. They were a mix of Choctaw and Cherokee. It was the highlanders that brought them down with Jackson and had founded the county, then just a settlement, if that. Made sense enough to Matt. From the pristine look of the river and the hills, this was the best part of the whole county. He could only assume the fishing and hunting were the best, too.

Culloden County was strange in its history. For one thing there wasn’t much to speak of before the Civil War. A bunch of Scottish families, leftovers from the '45, had trickled down the Jackson road, some even before it was the Jackson road. They'd seen the summit and some old timer had made mention it reminded him of the old country, the way it looked down on the deep lake. And, the weather in Southern Miss is a sight prettier than Northern Scotland or even the Smokies, so they they planted right down. Culloden was more an idea in their heads as none would've been old enough to have been there, but their fathers and grandfathers had.

But, no one else on the river that day knew any of that. Matt had made it his obsession of late to pore through old county histories and had long conversations with the oldest dudes in the county he could find. He had written an essay that caught the interest of the people out at UCLA, about his theory of a band of practicing pagan Celts holing up in Culloden County before the Civil War. He only had conjecture, however—nothing solid. And besides, he only attracted the Anthropology and Literature departments’ interest. Texas gave the promise of a nice, fat championship ring.

The water was colder than the sweat off a witch’s back. Matt had opted out of the wetsuit—which supposedly dried faster—and was now questioning his decision. He shared a raft with Mallie the lazy-eye girl and James and Walter, the two smallest boys in class. Their guide was Ariel, a thirty-something river-hippy—someone who had done this a while and landed in Culloden County and never had moved on. Happened sometimes. Culloden County was an easy place to get by in. Ariel was a spot-on pro at the riverwork but she wasn’t a hoss by any stretch of the brain and so Matt was considerably unmatched by the others in his boat and constantly had to pull his strokes short to keep from twisting them about. It also meant that they persistently lagged behind throughout the day.

Not to say that the trip was all bad or a waste by any means. The river was good, as most rivers are. Just often enough to keep Matt grounded, they shot round a bend or curve or hooked past some big rocks through some rolling water. It was still pretty cold—the water—and gave Matt a rush every time some hit him. It was nice, not like on the field, but enough.

Around noon they beached for lunch and flipped one raft to use as a buffet table. Just sandwich gear and that sort of fare. There was a big tray of condiments with a big bowl of some pale-yellow paste in the middle that no one in the group seemed to account for. Matt himself was a little perplexed and sniffed it.

“Smells like beans,” he said.

There wasn’t nearly enough to be had and Matt was full aware most eyes were on how much he would suck down. Size was becoming more unattractive each year, it seemed. Matt blamed MTV and the anorexic movement. He pined for fall and counting himself tiny next to his Texas teammates. It’d be nice to feel normal again--like it had been with Tom.

Fortunately, Matt brought two powerbars and augmented his meal with that. Not the most appealing, but at least he wouldn’t fatigue now for the second half of the ride.

“Hey,” Tooony’s voice called out. “Who jellied my hummus?”

Hummus. Of course. Should have known that. Kicked himself.

The river rats were an interesting bunch, aside from Tooony. Most of them were somewhere between twenty and thirty. The guys were mostly thinner, but cut up like they just walked off a magazine shoot. Two of them, Randy and Floyd, were busy taking turns seeing who could shimmy up the rope swing and slap the branch the fastest. Seemed an interesting endeavor and Matt wondered if he might not try in a second.

“Why did you come on this trip?” Lauren asked. Matt hadn’t even noticed her walk up. Strange how that worked. In the middle of a play, he would see everything. At rest, a wailing ambulance could sneak up on him.

“What do you mean?” Matt asked looking up at her from the remains of his powerbars.

“You just sit off by yourself and don’t talk to anyone. Like you always do. So, why come on a trip with people you don’t talk to?”

What the fuck was her deal? He wasn’t bothering nobody. Jesus, can’t he just sit and eat his lunch and watch people muck about on a rope without being called a jerk? Guess not.

“Because I like the river,” Matt said, then jumped up and took his turn on the rope and hand-over-handed it all the way to the top a sight quicker than anyone yet. Then he slid back down, took the rope back to a decent vantage and swung out into the river and made as big a splash as he could muster. Hadn’t he done this same thing before?

The cold water hit him like bricks. When he topped, he was moving fast downriver and Tooony and Teach were screaming some bullshit at him about the water being too high. Had they mentioned that earlier? Was that why the raft guides hadn’t jumped in themselves? Made sense, suddenly. Oh well.

Matt shot down the little straightaway with the current. He knew enough about the river to know he wasn’t in a great situation. Rocks ahead. He had to figure a way out of this quick. Out the corner of his eye, he spied Tooony barreling through the brush and hit the rocks just ahead of him and started hopping them like an Olympic hurdler. Matt was taken by the efficiency in which the guy moved. Focused. Flawless. Now this was something.

Moving back to his problem at hand, Matt spotted a thick vine hanging over a fat rock and slapping about in the water right in his way. Convenient, that. Just before Tooony got close enough to reach out his hand, Matt snatched the vine, jerked himself upright and was up on a rock in no time. He shivered and shook out as much water from his hair as he could. Should he cut it? Nah. Not yet.

“That was a hell of a good run,” Matt said.

“You’re crazy,” he yelled--apparently unhappy. In less than a year people would be paying good money to see work like this. Ungrateful. “You’re lucky to even be alive!”

“Not really,” Matt said.

Tooony gave him a confused look.

“I don’t think luck had anything to do with it,” Matt added.

He looked back at the vine, at the river. It was moving awful fast. He thought about the rope. The game. School. The last four years. Where had it gone? How did he do it? He couldn’t remember when it started. He would get the headaches all the time. So bad he couldn’t see. Only at night, usually. Alone. Still. On the field, taking a test, anything that required focus--it went away. Clear. It all made itself open to him. Time was slower the faster he went. That didn’t make sense. Is that how… There was Hank. How had he done it?

Of course, even Hank found his limit.

Hank.

He had longer hair, too.

Matt had almost no memory of his father. Hank Grady. Everybody knew Hank Grady. Matt didn’t. Died when Matt was eight. Eight. Before that Hank was a truck driver. Hot shot and cross country. There were a few pictures. They played cards. Matt remembered poker. Gin rummy. Hank was a legend, even then. Was he? More of a myth now. Time. Things forgotten.

Supposedly they looked a lot alike, now Matt’s hair was longer. With it short he was the skinny version of Tom--not that Matt was actually skinny, more that Tom was a massive giant. Matt’s hair was darker than his father’s, though. Still, it was enough his mother wished he would cut it. She didn’t like to remember. Supposedly she had loved him. Why wouldn’t she? Why did she?

A Kaiser blade sliced through Matt’s brain when he got back to the riverbank. That’s what it always felt like. It was almost crippling. He tried to move and couldn’t. He couldn’t let on, though. No one could know. Should they? Maybe he ought to tell someone. A doctor? Why? No. Ruin it. Fuck it all up. Texas. The game. The ring. For glory? No. For hate.

A quick burst of pushups cleared the headache and Matt was ready to go. Ms. Spinks gave him the one-eye as they geared up for the second half. She’d be calling his mother later on. What’s wrong with your son? Fuck off. He seems to have issues. Issues? What does that even mean? Idiots make up their own language and get annoyed when other people don’t know it. Sound. It doesn’t mean anything.

The second half reminded him of the first. There was one really great rapid that they weren’t allowed to run through because the water was up too high and it was “too dangerous.” Scared. Fuck it. After that they hit the west end of the lake. They were met with a speedboat and all tied up and motored back to the outfitter.

After they all geared down and got ready to head for the lodge for dinner and some weird slideshow Ms. Spinks had planned, Matt stood outside in the yard alone. There was one oak tree outside the main house of the outfitters. It wasn’t in bloom. It was so old its branches leaned almost to the ground. Sad to be left alone. Oak trees were special. Sacred. For a moment, Matt thought he saw something in the tree, like he was staring at someone he knew from a long time back, someone he shouldn't even remember. He couldn't explain it, even in his mind. But, he felt someone was looking back at him, too. The moment passed. Matt looked up and saw clouds rolling in. Darker. He held out his arms and wondered if it could rain on only him.

He could feel the sideways glances as the others walked out onto the porch.

The slideshow was stupid. Who would have guessed? It was a lame montage of images from the last few years. The same shit they show at the awards day for the graduating seniors that Matt made sure to miss.

After dinner, the guys and girls went off to their respective bunks to wait the appropriate amount of time before all sneaking off to town to stay out all night trying to get drunk. Most of them had brought enough of their own gear to get the job done twice over and so the going to town bit was just for rebellion’s sake. Was it rebellion if it was both expected and practically encouraged? Theatrics. Run the play as it’s called.

There were no real bars in Coalwater anyway. It was a dry county. Maybe they didn’t remember that. There were a few restaurants with special permission to serve alcohol but they all closed at eleven. It was nearly ten before everyone even went out. But, there was a pool hall and some other spots open later.

Then, there was the Countyline. Matt didn’t know if his classmates knew of it. It was named for the obvious and was the only spot that would be serving liquor all night. It was also an old jukejoint and where, supposedly, Hank had haunted often as not back in his day. No doubt a rough sort of place. Dingy. Smelly. Old timers bar. A joint. Locals from way back. Sounded great.

Matt jerked out his satchel and took out the jeans. He’d been to see his Grandma Ruth a few weeks ago. While there he got to rummaging through some of his father’s old things. Matt’s mother had wanted to get rid of it all--no reminders. Ruth refused to let it get thrown away. She said she’d keep it for him. It was the least she owed him. Matt hadn’t known what that meant. He only knew later that Hank and his daddy had never got along. Something fierce, apparently. Matt’s grandpa had been a preacher.

The jeans were Hank’s. Matt slid them on and they barely got over his butt. He had to pull and tug for a while to get them situated just right. Jesus Fuck they were tight. How the hell had Hank worn shit like this all the time? Matt knew his dad had been skinnier than he was, but not this much. He almost had to find a pair of pliers to zip them up. As it was, he did some squats in them for a while until they loosened up enough he could move around in them.

They didn’t look too damn bad, all told.

He pulled on his boots and stuck on a ten dollar cowboy hat he bought at the truck stop on highway 11 and dove into a pool with to give a good shape. And there it was. Spitting image.

When the ghost of Hank Grady walked into the Countyline roadhouse that night, Charlette, the waitress, spilled her tray and dropped to the floor. Some guy to the left laid a five on the table and slid out the door. Voices in the background got slightly quieter and the only sound discernable was Dwight humming on about his Cadillac.

“Holy Shit!” some man’s voice called out from the back of the room.

The moment went. Things resumed.

Through the thick of his shades, Matt spotted Tooony--well, Tony, after all, maybe. He was chucking darts with some other skinny guy and a rough-looking girl--rougher than the rest, anyway.

Stacy Lee Tolbert was there with her Gibson strapped to her back like Cash and was gabbing with Turly the barman and brushing off some would be man-groupie. Didn’t know she was playing this evening. Turned out she’d been the one to load the box with Yoakam to play through her break so some other shitbird wouldn’t fuck with her vibe.

Austin Grantham was there, too, seeing how fast he could spin himself on his barstool and then kill a beer. He seemed to be besting some backward-capped half-yup from probably down in Liberty. Long way off, that one. Collierville bars were a lot closer. Matt gave him a nod once he caught his eye and Austin just motioned him over.

“Buy me a whisky, Hank,” he said. “I’m near broke from horsing around here with these kids.”

Matt one-eyed him through his glasses. Surely Austin wasn’t that far gone. But, then, he did tie them on pretty hard. Matt pulled out a twenty. It was all the money he had. He’d thought about trying to work more regular, but it interfered too much with training. The ring was everything. Everything. For himself. For Tom. For all of them. Everything dead and dying.

“Two whiskies, Turly,” Austin called out. The barman eyeballed Matt pretty hard and Austin cussed him for being slow and to let his good friend and competitor be. Turly went to pouring Oak-barrel bourbon and Austin turned to Matt and winked at him. “You win that contest?”

Matt didn’t know at all what he meant and after concluding that Austin did, in fact, know it was him and not Hank, he assumed then he must be referring to the Rube-Goldberg machine. “Yep,” Matt said. Despite the fact it wasn’t really a contest, he still considered himself having beaten everyone else.

“What the hell you doing all the way up here?” Matt asked as he was handed a shot.

“Stackolee, Stackolee!” Austin said, holding his glass up high.

That didn’t make much sense even for Austin.

Then, of course, there was the problem that Matt didn’t really drink bourbon. Austin wanted to shoot them together for old times’ sake and Matt had to oblige and nearly coughed himself blue afterward.

Stacy Lee was staring at him from across the bar and Matt wondered what Hank had ever done in her life. Charlette had recomposed herself and come over wanting to say something but then no word came out.

“It’s okay,” Matt said taking off the glasses. He could barely see shit anyway. He hadn’t the slightest clue why the fuck his father had ever carried on with them all the time like he did. Surely, he took them off to drive at night. Or, maybe not. Hank Grady could drive like the devil and twice as hard, so they said.

Matt tried to shoot a game of pool with Austin but was beat straight off the break. No matter, he sucked too bad to have had a chance anyway. Why is that old dudes are always awesome at every dumb sport like pool and bowling and darts and cards? Matt sucked at the lot but for darts. He had a mean aim. Obviously.

Dwight finished his set and Stacy got ready for her second of the evening and lit off with her own version of Guitar Man. Seemed odd but sounded good.

There was one really old man sitting alone at a table in the center of the room drinking white lightning and Matt wondered at who the hell would voluntarily consume that when there were other options. The more Matt watched him, the odder he seemed. He had a gold pocket watch and checked it about every other minute and his left boot tapped almost independently of himself to the music coming at him. His coat--not that Matt thought anyone needed one, it was smoky and humid enough in there--had a thick fur collar on top of some kind of fine leather. That had to be Mack George, if anybody--the original owner of the legendary Killafella. Who just gives away a racecar? A billionaire. Jesus. He was just nuts enough Matt could actually respect him despite his money.

Matt stood in the corner half the evening holding his pool cue in a pose despite the fact he only played the one game. He still caught the bulk of the stares aimed his way. Eventually, Tony walked over just to verify his eyes worked all right.

“I thought that was you,” he said smiling. “They let you in here?” How was Matt to politely explain to him that he belonged here a long mile sooner than Tony California and his Yuppie cohorts, that these were Matt’s people, not his, that this was Matt’s home; this was Culloden County. Nevermind it was the other side of the line.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Tony added for lack of response. “I don’t care. Hell, that was some wild stunt you pulled today. We’re not supposed to say so, but I thought it was cool. Liabilities. All that shit. Buy you a beer?”

Matt just looked at him. Funny old world, after all.

“You know what?” Matt said. “I think I owe you one. Hey Austin!” Matt motioned for him. “Grab a pitcher and come have a drink with the guy who almost saved my life.”

Matt shook Tony’s hand by way of some acknowledgment.

“Well, I didn’t really do anything,” Tony argued.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “But you made a really good run today. That was pretty slick work on those rocks. You ever play any ball?”

“Soccer all through high school,” Tony said.

Well, nobody’s perfect.

*

Matt closed down the bar with Tony and the others. Austin spent the rest of the night regaling the outsiders with county lore, the many legends of Hank, and before the evening was done their table had attracted a gathering of half the bar, Mack George even looking on for some while with a wry smile. Tony seemed enraptured with the whole thing. Kitschy, no doubt he was thinking, Matt figured.

As they each piled out of the bar to go separate ways, as many going out of their way to shake Matt’s hand as Stacy Lee’s, he got a wrench in his gut. He’d just spent the whole night with a room of strangers, most of which were part of a past that created him yet he could never belong to--each one of which had some kind of experience or relationship with the man Matt could see in the mirror everyday but would never know.

Matt crunched the sunglasses on the walk back to the camp.

Next year he would be in Texas.

____________________________________

Jason Stuart is a native of South Mississippi and studied writing at Southern Miss before getting his M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Florida. He now lives just south of Memphis and rides a motorcycle.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Country Pictorial


Country Pictorial

The rural roads of the South
reflect a simpler time, like watching
the flickerings of an 8mm film.
Narrow gravel top roads with no markings
wind their way through the countryside,
single-car bridges span slow flowing creek beds.
Cotton fields dot spaces between pecan groves
that teem with trees full of sweet nuts and random
bundles of mistletoe that squat high in the tops.
Dirt roads jut left and right bearing the names of
generations past and present, their property bordered
by rusty barbed wire and weathered poles covered in kudzu.
And the barns, with breaches like gap-toothed kids
held together by square nails and habit. Their faded
rooftops still whispering the invitation to "See Rock City".

@stacey dye ~ 2008

____________________________

Stacey Dye
Stacey
has previously been published in the Camroc Press Review, Here and Now, Mused - BellaOnline's Literary Journal and will be in Cafe Del Soul in November.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Forseen


The Forseen
by Nomi Liron

Even as a girl Michelle knew she didn’t have the looks to command attention, but she had been determined to make something of herself. She won a scholarship to Stanford, excelled at her studies, and landed a prestigious job. She lived with her daughter lived in an adorable three bedroom house with bright red roses in the front yard, a magnificent garden in the back yard, and a single lemon tree leaning against the garage. She made friends among her peers, dated as often as the combination of motherhood and a career allowed, and had even made the long journey to China to adopt Katrina. For twenty years she had done everything right.

Then came the fatigue, blurred vision, weakness, lack of co-ordination, difficulty controlling her bowel and bladder, and the hateful finality of the Multiple Scerlosis diagnosis. Michelle was rattled. It hadn’t been in her plans to become disabled and see her savings drip away to cover bills insurance wouldn’t pay. She had never intended to end up living off a meager social security check with trips to the county food bank to fill the cabinets in a small studio apartment. Katrina slept on the narrow couch at night. Michelle passed the night on a mat on the floor, falling asleep amidst the clutter of clothes and toys which did not fit in the single closet.

At first there were gossipy calls from former peers, flowers, cards, and presents. But, as time passed, her co-workers and friends, caught up in their careers, and families stopping calling.
She slept most of the day and went weeks without showering. Her clothes became increasingly wrinkled and dirty. Katrina ate cereal every night of the week.

Michelle’s doctor referred her to a depression overview group which would start in two months.
“I am going to kill myself. I hurt so bad I can hardly breathe.” Michelle ran the bathroom and stuffed a wash cloth in her mouth so Katrina would not hear her gasps of pain.

She often thought of those little blue capsules she was told would eventually help her depression. At least three times a day she wanted to get a glass of water and let them all slide down her throat. She knew she needed to be in a hospital, but all she was had was medicare, a government entitlement given to her of account of her disability. When it came to psychiatric matters it did not cover much.

Her Medicare Advantage Plan allowed her to see a therapist. She was assigned a man called Clem. They spoke for fifty minutes. He had soft brown eyes and seemed to understand her situation until she spoke of suicide.

“I’d call you a long term risk rather than a short term risk,” Clem said, “You have a symbiotic relationship with your daughter.”

I need to put on a T-shirt, Michelle thought, with ‘Things are not fine’ written on the front. Maybe if I wear it and walk down the street someone will understand.

Nine o’clock came and she had an excuse to put Katrina to bed. She lay quietly on her mat until she was sure her daughter was asleep. She went to the phone and dialed the number she knew so well. 1-800-SUICIDE. As usual she was put on hold. Experience had taught her that she had to say she was going to immediately kill herself or someone else to get help. Otherwise they would only give her a few minutes of their time. There was always the next call, the next potential suicide – someone serious. Then one of the counselors came on the line.

“I want to kill myself,” she whispered, one hand pressing hard against the center of her chest.

“Please help me.”

“Do you have a method?

“I was going to overdose.

What were you going to overdose with?

The medication the psychiatrist ordered for me. An anti-depressant. I can’t remember the name just now.”

“You are working with a psychiatrist?”

“Yes. But the doctor said the medication will take a few more weeks to work. Don’t you see? I am trapped! I have a daughter. My situation is even more desperate because I want to die but can’t.”

“Have you given away any items or written letters saying goodbye to anyone?”

“No. I have nothing. There is no one except my daughter.”

“Do you have a gun in the house?”

“No. No. Of course not. I have a child.”

“Well,” he hedged. “If you feel like you are going to do it, you can always walk into an emergency room, you know.”

“Yes. I know.”

“Well, remember that. You can always call again. You don’t have to go through this alone.

However, I need to take another call right now. We are backed up. In a large metropolitan area such as Atlanta we receive many calls.

Michelle hung up the phone once again defeated. No one asked the right questions. No one asked - Are you in enough pain to kill yourself? Does it hurt enough for you to do it?

She knew it was only a matter of time before the answers would bring her to her death.

__________________________________

Written by: Nomi Liron

Nomi writes Flash Fiction and is currently working on her first novel.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

In Sure and Certain Hope


In Sure and Certain Hope
by William J. Brazill

The funeral was held in a small church in a small town in rural Fauquier County, Virginia. The sun shone brightly that day, but it did not warm the earth.

His father had died suddenly. No warning. No illness diagnosed. No doctor’s visits. Just a 911 call that brought help too late. No time for goodbyes.

“Goodbyes?” he asked himself. Even if there had been time, would the words have been spoken? Or would too many years of disappointment and resentment and recrimination have censored any such words, a personal history unconquered even by the imminence of death?

He remembered their last phone conversation. Three months ago. Just words, fragments of statements about the weather and “how are you?”, “how’s work?” punctuated by long silences. Just ice cubes clattering in an empty glass. Two human beings at the polar ends of unforgiving emotional tautness.

The church was Episcopalian-unadorned, its windows plain-glassed, its pews fitted with velvet pads that assured no one in the congregation would feel any discomfort. The rector gave a eulogy also designed to assure no one would feel any discomfort. Maybe something about death as the fulfillment of life. He could not really remember just what the rector had said, probably because he did not half listen. He was thinking of his flight back home.

Afterwards, people gathered, an ancient ritual of the living remembering in the face of death. It seemed that everyone there was elderly, slowed by incapacity, foraging in their memories to find meaning. He did not converse with them; he just listened.

One older woman struggled toward him, her cane probing the space ahead of her for assurance. “Your father was a wonderful man,” she said by way of greeting. She followed with words that told of his kindnesses, his generosity, his unfailing charity. Her voice carried the conviction of something deeper than affection. Her words, her gestures, her eyes said she loved his father in ways he did not, ways that to him felt alien and strange. Her words mysteriously had an effect, as if somehow leveling the ruins that lay between him and his father, leaving a space to be probed. Her words created a circle around him that slowly drew him into the memory of his father, that embraced him and united the two in ways never expected.

He forgot about time, about his flight. Other words rose to his consciousness: “The night is advanced, the day is at hand.” Maybe these came from the reservoir that lies deeper than memory. Or maybe they were words the rector had used in his father’s funeral service. He did not know. Now abruptly aware of the darkness, he went out into the yard and stood and stared at the fluid cobalt sky that hovered just over the tops of the mountains. A bright star shone just above the horizon. Was it the morning star or the evening star? He did not know.

______________
William Brazill lives in northern Virginia on the banks of the Potomac River, where he writes fiction and watches the water flow by.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The Times, They are A’Changin’


The Times, They are A’Changin’

Come gather round people, wherever your roam…

As a Southern Baby Boomer, my childhood memories paint an era reminiscent of Bob Dylan lyrics. The times were charmed for me, yet tumultuous for society; I experienced it firsthand. During the long hot summer of 1957, at the age of three, I moved from Mobile, Alabama to Camden, Arkansas. I know we traveled through the Delta, because consequent trips back to Mobile, my city of birth, seared the landscape into my memory. Flat, hot, farmland turned into kudzu-covered ravines around Vicksburg; we crossed the mighty Mississippi by way of a scary, narrow bridge with a train track smack dab in the middle. I remember praying that a train would not cross at such a precarious time. It would surely cause the structure to pitch us all into Ol’ Man River. Stuck to the hot vinyl covered seats on those road trips, I soaked in all there was to see in the Deep South. Cotton, no longer king, was still planted along the two-lane highways; remnant bolls trapped in farm equipment reminded passersby of changing times.

Upon hearing that we would be living in Arkansas, my pediatrician warned Mama that I might need shots usually reserved for trips to Third World countries. Thank goodness, he was unnecessarily concerned. The worst we found was a lack of decent housing and grits. Both were resolved with time.

…as the present now will later be past…

Root beer Fizzies and hula-hoops created fun during the summer days. Loud attic fans as well as oscillating ones lulled me to sleep while fireflies and heat lightning performed light shows; crickets provided raspy percussion accompaniment outside the screened open windows. The septic tank was the downside sans air conditioning. Dime stores, pre Wal-Mart, smelled of an amalgam: roasted peanuts, cashews and mothballs. Ice cream tasted sweeter in those days.

Long before Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and years before Kermit was a nappy green twinkle in Jim Henson’s eye, we made do with Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Green Jeans, Mr. Moose, Grandfather Clock and Tom Terrific in grainy black and white. Color televisions were yet to make it to the average household; we were ignorant of that luxury and didn’t care. I never tired of Soupy Sales and pie in his face. Those early television icons helped raise us; they instilled moral fiber into the middle children of Baby Boomdom.

I was too shy to commit to kindergarten and this was long before attendance became mandatory. I guess you could say I was home schooled. Lazy days were filled with observations. We lived directly across the street from the football field. I watched as the high school band marched around our neighborhood for practice. During the early autumn months, Thursday and Friday nights provided plenty of entertainment in my small town. The black high school used the field on Thursday nights; their cheers were much more amusing than the white high school’s. “Our team is red hot. Yo’ team ain’t doodly squat! The black band put the white one to shame with their strutting. Even our cat approved, perched on the corrugated tin roof of the ticket booth.

Radio tunes emitted mono sound from the kitchen counter as Mama performed her daily household duties. The MacGuire Sisters sang harmoniously of Sugar in the Morning and Doris Day tugged at my heartstrings with Que Sera, Sera; I wistfully thought about the day when I would leave the comforts of home. Our black ironing lady, Stella, drank milky coffee from a saucer. It cooled faster that way. Those were indeed the good old days.

…And admit that the waters around you have grown.

There were bi-annual trips to Mobile and obscure Gulf Shores, before Hurricane Frederick put Alabama’s private vacation spot on the map, transforming it into a condo-ridden nightmare. Back then it was a pristine beach with houses on stilts, looking very much a village of huge birdhouses in the sand. Getting there was a lesson in patience. Prone to car sickness, I was given a front seat and would watch as we traversed the changing scenery; Mobile Bay would turn to Baldwin County farms, then tall pines, and finally, the sand and surf. Pitching colorful green striped canvas, we constructed makeshift tents by water’s edge, eating sandwiches and drinking cold sodas from Grandaddy’s aluminum ice chest. We rode waves until sea sick, some knocking us into the surf and below the water; we managed to find our way to the surface. Tired and often sunburned, we rode back to Mobile late evening, happy, despite the chafing sand in our bathing suits. No air-conditioned cars, the daily Gulf thunderstorms were a welcome relief from the heat on the way back to Granny’s. Hot baths and frilly baby doll pajamas made for sweet dreams on pallets thrown on the floor. Trips to Mobile made it possible for my sister and I to play hopscotch with cousins, slide down the hill in the backyard on makeshift cardboard sleds, and make forts and shady retreats with blankets and quilts under the trees; we took trips to the local TG&Y to spend our allowance on paper dolls and coloring books. Summer squalls were perfect for naps. We couldn’t wait for the ice cream truck in the afternoons. Granny cooked fried corn, okra and squash; field peas, and buttered cornbread rounded out the meal. You know what they say about Southerners and fried foods. We ran behind the mosquito truck at night, sucking up toxic misty fumes, more than likely DDT.

…There’s a battle outside and it’s ragin’…

I screamed in adolescent frenzy as Paul, John, George and Ringo shook their mop tops and sang “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on Ed Sullivan, still in black and white. As birthdays passed, I watched the first space flight and then man land on the moon. Silly Putty and Slinkys were overnight sensations and toys of choice. Kruschev banged on the table with his shoe. China became Red China. At school we watched films on how to survive an atomic blast and avoid radiation poisoning. My house lacked a basement full of canned goods. What was I to do? My obsessive/compulsive disorder was rearing its head and I feared each plane that flew over was a crew of Communists (probably a mixed group of Russians and Chinese with Kruschev and Chairman Mao as pilots) with an A-bomb aimed right at my house. I took the Cold War personally. Later in the decade, nightly reports of our defeats and fallen soldiers in Viet Nam dominated the airwaves and added fodder to my psychoses. The hippie movement was a welcome respite. I gladly donned bell-bottoms, strung beads, and ruined my arches with suede moccasins.

…Come senators, congressman, please heed the call.

Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall…

In junior high I devoured Gone with the Wind like a hot fudge sundae. I read fast and couldn’t put it down. I listened to Kim Stanley narrate as the older voice of Scout Finch’s character in To Kill a Mockingbird, her voice like slow honey. I related to small town Southern life. Atticus Finch made me swoon. I had a crush on Andy Griffith’s Opie. Stories about the South still fascinate me. Perhaps it’s because I lived through much of its history.

Poignantly, I recall looking into the heartbreaking soulful eyes of old black men; their gazes seemed to look beyond everything in hopes for a better day. Each ebony wrinkle told a story. I saw the obvious humiliation, yet quiet acceptance in African Americans when forced to use bathroom facilities and drinking fountains marked “colored.” I sat in a movie theatre, downstairs for whites, balcony for blacks. I got an extra day off from school Thanksgiving 1963 when President Kennedy was buried. I remember the Birmingham riots, the Selma March, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Segregationist/Governor George Wallace was shot and crippled during my youth and as an undergraduate at the University of Alabama, I personally watched him kiss the University’s first black homecoming queen from his wheelchair on the Quad. Busing, integration, and other racial issues were in the paper and news daily. My school had forced integration; Camden High School Class of 1972 never had a prom due to a paranoid school board. Fights at school were commonplace. Not all of my black fellow graduates attend our high school reunions. Some of them choose to have their own celebrations. But the ones that started with us in junior high, that played football, basketball, and ran track, that shed and shared the tears of adolescence as well as integration, those friends come, like long lost buddies. Their parents were paid to place them with the whites, human guinea pigs in a social experiment. We shared history, didn’t we? We wear our years of civil unrest like a badge…survivors. Bob Dylan was prophetic with his lyrics.

…Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again.
And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin;
And there's no tellin' who
that it's namin'.

For the loser now will be later to win for the times they are a-changin'
January 20, 2009 I watched on my color, flat screen television, in high definition, as a black man, an African American, became President of the United States. I heard the collective gasps and sighs of my fellow Baby Boomers. The times are still a’changin’.
______________________________________


Nita Risher McGlawn

Nita is a freelance writer and visual artist living in Katy, TX. Her most recent published work was in the University of Alabama Alumni Magazine. The piece, “Born to Be Bama Bound,” chronicles how she came to attend the University of Alabama during its glory years of the early 1970’s, even though she grew up in South Arkansas.

Prior to that publishing, Nita’s two Louisiana poems, “New Orleans Ambience” and “It’s Called Acadiana” were written. The poems describe two distinct cultures in South Louisiana. Her “Mardi Gras Madness” is a companion piece to compliment both poems.

Soon to be published, “A Bama Primer,” takes a whimsical tour of the University of Alabama. Children, university students, and die-hard fans will enjoy the alphabetical journey with landmarks, famous Bama folk, and trivia represented. Verse and graphics are original work by Nita.

In addition, Nita is working on her memoir as an expatriate in Indonesia and Oman. She has a plethora of poignant and hysterical accounts of life abroad. Another children’s book, “Butch, the Traveling Expat Cat” is in the works as well.

Visit www.nitamcglawn.com to view some of Nita’s original artwork.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Alligator in my Back Yard


Alligator in my Back Yard


By Rita Monette

It was an especially hot and steamy August afternoon as I sat with my legs dangling off the dock. Of course, in southern Louisiana, it’s hard to tell when one day is any hotter than another.


I sat waiting for Groucho to show up for his usual snack of leftovers.


The muddy water started to swirl under my feet and I pulled them from the water. I didn’t want my new-found friend to think my toes were his meal for the day. I had only met him a week earlier, and wasn’t sure how much he valued our friendship.


“Hey there, Groucho,” I called as the top of his head appeared from the mud soup that was my back yard. He blinked his vertical eyelid once to clear away the film.


Living in a houseboat set me apart from most kids I went to school with, especially old Jonas Boudreaux. He was especially mean. He didn’t understand that I was no different from him. My house just floated on water while his was on dry land. That’s all.


Jonas was a year older than me, but he acted like being ten years old gave him bullying rights, and I was his favorite victim.


Groucho made his usual low grunt, then opened his mouth wide. I threw a piece of fried chicken into the gaping cavern, and he snapped it shut, then ducked under the water with a splash. What a cool pet to have. I’ll bet old Jonas didn’t have a pet like mine in his back yard. All he had was a beagle and a calico cat.


It was right then that I decided to show Jonas who had the best pet. I ran into Daddy’s shed to find a rope suitable for a leash for an alligator. All I had to do was have Groucho follow me down the road to Jonas’ house. Then he’d see.


I ran back to the edge of the bayou with my rope and the rest of my leftovers. Groucho lifted his head from the water again when I placed another piece of chicken on the bank. I watched as he slid his heavy body across the mud toward the food. When he got completely out of the water and was swallowing his meal, I tossed the rope over his head. Groucho threw his head from side to side trying to knock the foreign object from his neck. I pulled the rope tight. Groucho just looked at me and grunted.


“Here’s a biscuit, boy.” I threw another piece of food at him. He quickly gobbled it up. Groucho followed me up the bank as I held onto the rope. This was going to be easy. Or so I thought.


Just about then, the big alligator decided he wanted to go back for another swim and turned suddenly, jerking his head toward the bayou, which in turn pulled the rope with me attached to it. I tried to let go the rope, but it had tightened around my arm. I dug my heels into the mud while Groucho gently slid back into the water. Giving up holding him back, I followed him into the water and climbed on his back, hoping I could untie the rope. The alligator swam into the shallow bayou and followed the bank toward the Riverside Park where the kids played in the summertime. I tried to pull the rope from my arm, but he jerked and made it tighter. I needed to get loose before he decided to go underwater and take me with him. He swished his tail as he swam toward the old willow tree where the boys had tied a rope to swing themselves into the water.


“Hey, look, it’s Johnny Hebert and he’s riding a gator!” shouted one of the kids. It was Jonas. He stood next to a couple of his friends.


Groucho slowed down as he neared the cypress stumps at the edge of the water, then he stopped. I got the rope loosened from my arm and climbed off the alligator. As I stood at the edge of the water holding the rope, Groucho slid backwards, leaving the rope behind, then disappeared under the murky water.

Jonas ran up to me with his mouth open. The other boys followed.


I smiled and said, “That’s Groucho, my pet alligator.”


From that point on, Jonas, along with the other boys, wanted to be my pal.


I still feed Groucho at the dock every afternoon, but I never tried to put a rope on him again.


____________________________________________


Rita writes: "My name is Rita Monette. I am a member of SCBWI and SCBWI-Midsouth chapter. I have completed several picture books and one children's middle grade Novel, which are yet unpublished. My stories are all based in Louisiana, where I was born and raised. It's what I know. I have had several short stories published in a State of Michigan employee newsletter, but nothing paying as yet. Visit my blog at http://ritamonette.blogspot.com/"

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Mr. Snake Gets Religion


Ruth Ann came to live on Black Mountain through a real round about way. Aunt Beatrice, due to the unfortunate circumstances, came down the mountain to fetch Ruth and her belongings, which amounted to a sack full of worn out clothes and a pile of beauty magazines. Aunt Beatrice didn’t acknowledge her Asheville family. She was married to Scott Weehunt, whose family owned the largest farm on the mountain. They didn’t much approve of Beatrice because her parents were poor farmers—her mama wasn’t even from the mountain—but she worked her way in like an earthworm tunneling through the dirt. She was a faithful, loyal, church-going wife and that won the approval of her biggest enemies. Within a year the Weehunts just cooed over Aunt Beatrice, and ten years later when she took in an orphan girl from the wrong side of the tracks down in Asheville, where all the sinners lived, an orphan girl with Aunt Beatrice’s cornflower-colored eyes and a real hankerin’ to be a hairdresser, those church-going folks from Black Mountain Baptist Church made her head of the choir and Aunt Beatrice couldn’t sing a lick, much less read music.

Aunt Beatrice knew a good thing when she found it and crushed Ruth’s dreams, explaining that folks like her never amounted to more than maids and laundry girls. Ruth refrained from reminding her aunt that her mama came from the same part of Asheville, but the seed of revenge was sown.

The whole incident began on the hottest afternoon Black Mountain could remember. The air was so thick a soul could slice it with a knife. Here came Uncle Scott stumbling in the house after a visit to Charles Ray’s moonshine still a couple of farms over. Aunt Beatrice had gone to some church function all dressed in fancy clothes, seeing how all the women ooed and ahhed over the new preacher. He was the replacement for the preacher who was murdered down in Georgia the year before. Ruth didn’t live on the mountain when the murdered preacher was alive but she could bet he got what was coming to him. It had been her experience that preachers came a dime a dozen. And, Uncle Scott backed her up. He claimed the new preacher was as slick and conniving as Hobbs Pritchard. When she asked him who Hobbs Pritchard was, Uncle Scott only shook his head and told her she didn’t want to know.

Her dislike of preachers didn’t mean she had lost her belief in God. Lord, she had to believe in him. She trusted he would be the one who made her dreams come true. Anyway, that hot morning, Ruth heated water on the coal stove to wash the cooking dishes. She did all her Sunday cooking on Saturday because the church insisted no work on the holy day. Aunt Beatrice pulled both Uncle Scott and Ruth to church each Sunday morning whether they wanted to go or not.

“What are you doing there, Ruthie?”

She ignored her uncle. And, he continued as if she weren’t really standing at the kitchen sink pumping water into a large tub. He chose a big wooden spoon from the counter, scooped a spoonful of scalding water, blew on the steaming liquid, licked his lips, and slurped it down. “That’s mighty tasty soup, Ruthie. No one can cook like you, missy.”

She yanked the spoon from his hand. “I guess so. You’re so drunk, you killed your own taste buds. Get on out of here.”

He laughed and slapped his knee, nearly falling over. “You know Bea, she would just throw a fit if she knew I was drinking again. Lord, that woman should’ve married a preacher or better yet, became one herself. She wasn’t nothing like that when I married her. She was the prettiest girl on the mountain and the boldest and a darn good kisser.”

His bony arm didn’t resist her tug. “Go sit.” Uncle Scott was a good soul. She guided him to one of the two rockers, where he stumbled and fell missing the rocker by only inches. She poked at him with the toe of her shoe. “Aunt Beatrice will be madder than hell when she sees you laying out here on her sitting room floor.”

“Let me be, child. Go back to that soup. It’s burning.” He rolled on his side; his breathing turned heavy and changed to loud snores.

And, fate being an old friend picked that time to send Aunt Beatrice speeding into the driveway, throwing gravel with the back tires of her car. And, what did she see when she opened the door: On the wood floor, in front of the fireplace, lay her loving husband dead to the world. She held her hand to her heart, stamping her foot with a petite little tap. Her passenger, the preacher, dressed in black, a dark wide brim hat placed on his head, unfolded from the car.

Aunt Beatrice did a dance, two steps toward Uncle Scott, and four steps back to the preacher, who fast closed in on the scene. Ruth removed the stained apron and smoothed her housedress, noticing how the pattern disappeared into a bland description at best.

“Pastor Williams, you must excuse my husband. He is quite sick. So, sick we made him a pallet in the front room.” Aunt Beatrice’s voice climbed three octaves with the last few words. Ruth rushed to the rocker, grabbing a lap blanket and cushion, tossing the blanket over Uncle Scott in a haphazard way. She pulled his head up by the hair, threw the pillow down, and slammed his head on the floor, missing the pillow.

“Ah, ah…”

Ruth knelt down beside her uncle. “Now, now, you just rest.” She watched Pastor Williams. He was a fine looking man, and that made it hard for her to believe in his dedication to the Lord.

Aunt Beatrice, hands fluttering, panic wrinkling her face, stood in front of Uncle Scott. “Ruthie light a fire!” She looked at Pastor Williams. “He’s not catching. He just has these spells you know. It runs in the Weehunt family. Pace, his little brother, has them all the time.”

Ruth smoothed the blanket. “You’ll feel better soon. We’re praying for your soul. I can’t see how a fire can help you on such a hot day, but I’ll light one.” She smiled big at Pastor Williams.

Aunt Beatrice frowned. “Go get the wood, Ruth Ann!”

Ruth went to the shed to gather some of the firewood left over from winter. She was convinced that Aunt Beatrice and Pastor Williams’ god was an entirely different god from the one she knew. God couldn’t smile down on women who walked around acting like the Queen of Sheba. Mama always said: once a mule, always a mule. Aunt Beatrice couldn’t never be nothing but a darned old mule. Ruth stacked wood in the crook of her arm, small round pieces of the old apple tree tipped over in the ice storm. The snake lay curled on the last piece, in the shade; he raised his head with an irritated look. Then, it came to her, clear, like them visions the Catholics talked about all the time, the Virgin Mary standing in the air, hovering, small children witnessing. Ruth’s vision was just the same, holy, glowing around the edges. The snake was curled in Aunt Beatrice’s Garden of Eden. He wasn’t nothing but an old chicken snake, wouldn’t hurt a flea, but he was good and long, lazy. He wiggled a bit, twisting and turning, when she scooped him into the feed sack.

The flames leapt into the growing heat, the sweet scent of apple wood filled the room. Sweat beads popped out on the good pastor’s forehead and he loosened his tie. Aunt Beatrice acted as if sweat stains weren’t ruining her blouse and running down her back.

Ruth brought a tray with two glasses of tea, warm, probably sour, and some three day old peach tarts with tough crusts and too much sugar. She placed the tray on a small coffee table, yelling over Uncle Scott’s snoring. “Here’s some refreshments.” Pastor Williams’ eyes were clear blue, too blue for a pastor muddled with a congregation.

Aunt Beatrice swiped at drops of sweat on her upper lip, beading in the fine blonde mustache. “Thank you so much Ruthie.” She turned her attention to the pastor, touching his hand with hers. “Ruth came to us from a family in Asheville, dirt poor and nothing to wear.”

Ruth never was sure if it was the heat from the fire or just pure spite that led her to the next set of actions. It was really quite simple, this vision: She rolled the feed sack into the fold of a fresh blanket, making that snake good and mad. Carefully she spread the blanket on top of Uncle Scott, who could care less about snakes and such. “Put the devil behind these souls, Lord, cleanse them.”

“What? What did you say?” Aunt Beatrice watched her.

“Maybe Pastor Williams would like to pray over Uncle Scott.”

“You’re stepping out of your place, Ruth!” Aunt Beatrice never did care much for praying.

Pastor Williams sat his glass on the table. “No, no. Ruth is correct. I will pray.” He smiled and dropped to his knees.

“My mama always said the devil finds our weaknesses and chips away at them.” Ruth turned on her charm.

“That’s enough, Ruth.”

The pastor closed his eyes. “Dear God in Heaven heal this fine man of his affliction whatever that may be.” The flames licked in the fireplace. “He is a good man, married to a beautiful woman in our church.” Aunt Beatrice, kneeling beside him, smiled behind closed eyes. “The devil has found the weakness in this family. We know what weakness is Lord. We know of souls with weak faith.”

Mister Snake slithered free of the blankets.

“Lord God.” Pastor Williams raised his closed eyes to Heaven. “God cast this evil from this unfaithful soul.”

Mister Snake scooted across the floor and lay on the tail of Aunt Beatrice’s skirt as she kneeled near the pastor.

“Heal this man oh God!”

Aunt Beatrice stirred, opened her eyes and caught sight to the three foot chicken snake. “Oh God!” She struggled to her feet. Mister Snake latched his fangs in the hem of her skirt and swung with her. “Oh my God! Help me! Help me!” Aunt Beatrice grabbed Pastor Williams by the hair. “Help me you stupid fool!” She twirled around in an attempt to release the devil from her.

Uncle Scott picked that very minute to wake. Ruth liked to think God chose this moment to pass retribution onto Aunt Beatrice; in other words, she finally got what she had coming to her. Uncle Scott wiped sweat from his forehead. “It’s hotter than hell in this house! What is going on?”

“Oh God, help me!” Aunt Beatrice twirled around like a horrible ballet dancer, pure terror written on her face.

The laugh built in Ruth’s chest. Pastor Williams pushed a chair over scrambling to his feet, pushing Aunt Beatrice away from him. “Get away from me you devil!”

Uncle Scott joined in Ruth’s laughter. “By God Bea, I don’t think I’ve seen you dance since we stopped going to the roadhouse.” He shifted on his unsteady feet. “I think we all need a good stiff drink.” He stumbled forward.

Aunt Beatrice took one last twirl, screaming. Mister Snake released himself in midair—floating in what seemed like slow motion—and slapped around the good pastor’s neck, skin against skin.

“God in Heaven!” Pastor Williams looked around crazed just in time to see Ruth double over in giggles. He ran from the house, his hands pulling at the devil wrapped around his neck.

When Aunt Beatrice settled down, Ruth would speak with her concerning a beauty college down in Tifton, Georgia. She heard it was the best school in the south.

_____________________________

Ann Hite's Beautiful Wreck - Semi-Finalist in Amazon Novel Breakthrough 2009 Contest www.freewebs.com/annhite/

Ann Hite’s Black Mountain stories were featured in the May 2008 Issue of The Dead Mule as an ebook, Life on Black Mountain. Beautiful Wreck, her new novel, was a semi-finalist in the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. Circle of Light, a Black Mountain story, was nominated for Sundress Best of 2008. Believing in Magic, a personal essay, will appear in a new anthology published by Adams Media October 19, 2009, Christmas Traditions. The Christmas Tree Hunter appeared in Christmas Through A Child’s Eyes, published by Adams Media in 2008. Her personal story, Surviving Mom, was part of Marlo Thomas’ latest collection, The Right Words At The Right Time, Vol., 2

Ann has taught numerous workshops, most recently at Scribblers’ Writing Retreat on St. Simons Island. She lives with her family in Atlanta where she has over 1,000 books, a butterfly garden, and her laptop.

Monday, November 16, 2009

BNA

The wrinkled impressions from the bed sheets paint red streaks across her ass that goes BANG-BANG as she walks to the bathroom, muscles tweaking firm beneath that tight vanilla skin, the smell of which fills the still air between the blank hotel walls. The clock radio blares with an electric DING-DONG, louder and LOUDER until Vince swings blindly, arm tearing through the sheets towards the source, and slams the screaming plastic alarm with a limp wrist before feeling around and yanking the cord from the wall. He lies in the bed and waits for the desire to move. When he hears the toilet FLUSH, a shadow appears at the end of the bed. Out of instinct, he leans up gently on his elbows, nose foremost, and finds the nude silhouette of the girl tip-toeing through the dark, all hips and gait as she careens in a tawdry stretch. Mornin’, she says softly, moving quietly across the room to the window and pulls the curtains back, letting the light invade the room. Vince squints but can still see her tits and ass bounce playfully through the slits in his eyes as she wanders from the window into the heart of the room, kicking at the towels and pillows cases strewn in random locations across the floor with a bare foot, searching for her scattered garments. She does not speak and seems to approach the silence with a guarded regularity that allows Vince to drift off again. Letting his head fall back on the bed, he stares at the ceiling for a few moments before closing his eyes, the daylight glowing softly through his thin lids as he tongues the roof of his dry mouth, tastes his sour breath and yawns hard enough to make his eardrums POP. Resting quietly, he can hear the familiar groan of planes taking off (or landing) as the girl dresses, working her fingers along the cuffs of her blouse, slipping on her shoes and wiggling her ankles into place. She digs around in her purse for discs of make-up which click and clatter as her arm moves deeper before running a brush quickly through her tangled hair which grinds and catches with a kink inside the matted tangles.

Vince rolls over searching for, Jus five mo’minutes, he thinks to himself and waits anxiously for the girl to finish, Oh – Hurry it up child. He remains still, breathing heavily into the coarse hotel bedding, giving the clear indication that he WILL NOT be bothered. A few minutes pass and he begins to feel a needling pressure prickle up in his bladder as nature comes calling, but he manages to appear lifeless beneath the sheets and waits intolerantly for the girl to depart. He hears the sound of her re-capping a tube of lipstick which clicks shut and after she ZIPPS her bag shut, she turns to pivot and pauses. Almost, he utters to himself, remaining motionless on his face and feels the girl’s eyes slowly graze across the twisted blankets that cover his body. He listens for her breath in the void beyond the bed, That’s it – Getta move-on now, and a wave of relief rolls over him as the girl’s footsteps scuffle along the carpet towards the door, the snap of the latch engaging, the door opening then closing, and scratch of the DO NOT DISTURB sign swinging from the knob outside.

Immediately, Vince sits up wearily and examines his surroundings, rubbing his eyes into focus as he looks around the room before tearing off the sheets and climbing out of bed. He lumbers toward the bathroom in a sightless rush and paws clumsily in the dark for the light switch which his fingers find above the sink. The halogen bulbs ignite slowly, blink-blinking sluggishly before beaming and humming alive. He coughs-up a cud of phlegm and drops the hawk into the toilet with a stream of piss grinding against the bowl. He watches it loathingly as the curd slowly oozes down the smooth porcelain basin and into the golden froth.

Leaning against the counter for support, he twists on the sink nozzle and dives his face into his palms, splashing the cold water against his skin and slurping up the runoff. He works his hands across his head and feels down to his bristly cheeks, then stands upright, grabs a towel off the rickety metal shelf fastened to the wall and dabs his mug with a sigh, gazing into his droopy sockets looking back and examining his silver stubble, the boyish glint in his tired blue eyes too gray to recognize.

He putters through the room on his heels, now in no real rush to find his bearings. He wonders what time it is but sees the dead clock on the night stand standing between two double beds (one untouched) and sits down. He can feel the vessels inside his skull throb less and less as he slowly becomes more awake. Lunging forward, his flicks the television on and a pundit’s voice comes POUNDING out with headlines: Optimism reigns that Nashville will weather recession – Many homeless at risk of dying – More churches enlist money guru – The time is 9 o’clock. He shuts the television off and rises to a stretch, elongating his arms to their knobby capacity.

The light from the window burns Vince’s eyes as he walks over, coughing-up another wad of snot, this time swallowing. He finds his underwear en route balled-up beside the empty dresser and picks them up with his toes. At the window he leans against the pane and looks out at the highway below. Past it, the control tower peeks-up from the earth in the heart of the airport, a tiny little monolith protruding from the emerald veneer of the valley, the shine of its antennas vaguely visible in the morning’s gruff ambiance. Vince watches a plane descending in the distance, losing gravity, gliding lower and lower, the blast from its engines MOAN against the glass which rattles as the aircraft’s wings vibrate in the headwind and a vapor trail streaks from behind and expands in the whirling draft. Looking deeper into the glass, he sees his nude reflection staring back, his saggy, love-handled frame hanging flaccid in a slouch. He cranes his head looking deeper, inspecting his form with which time and gravity have had their way. The plane disappears behind the crest of the horizon. He closes the drapes.

Dressed and disheveled, Vince lurks down the hall through the dimly lit corridor towards the elevator, moving swiftly as he buttons his shirt. He presses the DOWN button and waits for a few moments, but the elevator doesn’t come so he presses the button again, this time more forcefully and growing more aggravated. Damn lift, he mutters, his exasperation is apparent and draws the concerned stares from a maid ushering a cart of towels and sheets up the hall. Vince smiles politely at the woman’s disparaging gaze before turning and making his way to the stair case. The door closes behind him with a BLAST and the resonance crashes harshly against the wall as he hurries down to the ground floor, his feet shuffling swiftly and echoing across the dry rubber surface.

He takes a deep breath before pushing into the lobby, slowing his pace into an upright trot, arms tick-tocking back and forth as he saunters past the front desk and gives the clerk a quick salute of recognition. The clerk bobs his head in acknowledgement then looks back down at his desk.

Outside the sun has begun to burn through the morning haze, filling the atmosphere with bright light beaming in all directions. In the roundabout at the entrance, a flock of senior citizens wait in a queue beside the coach, MUSIC CITY MINIBUS is plastered along the vehicle’s flanks and the elderly bystanders wear folksy expressions as they wait patiently to be carted off and paraded around town with bulky cameras draping from their necks below their hulking sunglasses and crumpled visors, the corrosive fume of old lady perfume filling the air. An old woman applies suntan lotion to her husband’s bald head, BUBBALA – HOLD STILL, she howls. A short man with a hunch leans over and snaps a shot of Vince as he struts to his car, a black Mercedes sedan with chrome trim parked at the end of the lot. He approaches admiringly and plops behind the wheel then revs up the engine as the door chime DINGS-DINGS above the stereo BLARE. Vince inspects his face in the rear view mirror, thinking, Aww – Coulda used ah shave – But it aint that bad now – Looks good – I would look good in a beard, before swinging the door shut and pealing out of the lot.

Shit still smells lika p****, Vince gripes, rolling the windows down, letting the warm breeze flow across his face, the odor of gasoline eking up from the asphalt. The west bound traffic is bumper to bumper going into the city and he darts the nose of the purring Mercedes from one lane to another, weaving around behemoth eighteen-wheelers and horse trailers gradually chugging along. After shifting lanes, the one he merged from seems to start moving faster so he shoots back carelessly, evoking the irritated horns and scowls from drivers behind him who he ignores, more concerned with working the dial of he radio before zipping into the next lane. He spins through the dial, but its all advertisements: Tennessee Lottery games are entertaining and easy to play! – Come enjoy a Bellevue restaurant that’s worth the drive. He flicks the dial off with a fit, glances over his shoulder, and changes lanes.


By the time he gets to the office it’s eleven. He feels as if he’s had to cross oceans and mountains to get there. In the downstairs atrium, a man sits watching television behind the security desk. His fat neck seems to flow out and over the collar of his wide-cut suit and tie as he shoots a cagy glance at Vince who avoids eye contact as he presses the elevator button and waits. The air inside is cool and the heels of his shoes CLICK-CLACK against the smooth marble floor. The sound reminds him of a flamingo-legged woman in high heels and the image excites him. Pacing back and forth, he works up the courage to nod at the guard, Morin’ partna, Vince says. The guard does not respond, but bobs head slowly before returning his cold stare to the screen as the elevator doors open.

Vince strolls past the receptionist, a busty blonde with perfect ivory colored skin rearranging her headset, the soft muscles of her milky arms flex as she looks up at Vince and gives an assuming but warm glimpse, taking no note of his tardiness, which makes him feel safe. Good morning, he says, greeting her formally and sucking in his waist. She smiles back, Well – Hello Mista Ford – Howya doin’? Very good, thankya fo’ askin’, he replies over his shoulder as he slinks past, moving down the hallway to his door.

He has never been so glad to see the inside of his office. The room is dim and he paces past the cobalt couch resting behind a glass coffee table. He checks the drawers of his desk for aspirin and finds a bottle, but it’s empty so he falls back into his swivel chair, slouching down, and tries to rest his eyes when there’s a knock at the door. Vince sits up straight, Who is it? he asks at an alarmed volume. Mail, a voice murmers. No one important, he thinks, Come on in. The door swings open and a boy with a slight frame appears from behind it. Hello, Mister Ford, he says, his squeaky voice lending itself to his slight, adolescent form. Howsit goin’ kido, Vince says, shooting a quick glance at the boy’s name tag, Sam? The boy is clasping a short stack of envelops with both hands, I’m good, he says. Vince grabs the telephone from his desk and cradles it, as if to look preoccupied, Thanks – Just drop that anywhere, and the boy holds the stack out over the end of the desk, Yeah – That’s good, Vince assures him, Thanks ah ton. And Sam smiles without responding and moves towards the door. Open or closed? he asks obligingly, reaching for the knob. Yeah – Closed is good, Vince says as he pretends to dial away at the key pad, cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, looking inattentive. He watches as the boy slowly shuts the door then hangs up.

Vince waits until he can hear the sound of the mail cart tinkering down the hall, away from his door then rises and walks around his office. He turns and faces the window, peeking through the blue Venetian blinds before pulling down the drawstring and letting the sunlight to pour in. He inhales deeply then shuffles over to the mini fridge beneath the metal cabinetry studded to the wall his office shares with the hallway. Swinging the small door open, he grabs a bottle of water, cracks the cap, and inhales the fluid in what feels like a single gulp, Umm - Thas nice, he grumbles.

Dropping the bottle in the empty trash can beside his desk, Vince picks up his telephone and checks his messages: Marty from upstairs wants to meet today, Free Flu shots next week, The wife just checking-in – How’s Atlanta? Call me when ya get this. He hangs up the phone, sits back down, then reaches for the stack of mail and begins to shuffle through the stack, All garbage, and shucks the papers into the trash.

He turns around in his chair and peers out the window. Sitting in silence, he gazes out at the city below and watches the tiny lines of cars slither up Music Row and down Demonbreun Street which rolls out towards the skyline that frames the horizon to the east. The blue sky glows with a brilliant indigo shine offset by wandering clusters of cotton clouds painting vague shadows across the washed-out city below. Nashville’s minor skyscrapers dot the background and tangled phone cables line the streets. Beyond the highway stands a billboard beaming pink and black in the dusty air: DÉJÀ VU presents SHOWGIRLS – 50 BEAUTIFUL GIRLS and 3 ugly ones. The scene reminds him of the surface of some Martian planet, barren, desolate and covered with grime as he peers down from his high-rise crag, lonely like an astronaut.

His mind begins to wander and he attempts to relive the past twenty-four hours. He thinks about the girl, Whas that now? – Three? – Four times? – Guess, I’ve lost count, muttering with a shrug. He tells himself he should be smarter, but the thought melts away. He thinks about calling his wife, but fails to muster the energy. He pictures her at home, resting calm and safe in the neatly manicured confines of their neighborhood: pools, paperboys, potted plants and all the other things that make no difference to him. He can almost smell the aroma of freshly cut grass in his office as he imagines their street. She’ll be alright, he convinces himself as his eyes roll across the urban sprawl below. He feels a wave of restlessness come over him and finds his teeth clenched harshly and both of his hands clasped tightly in fists. He rolls his neck then tries to pull his shoulders back and fill his lungs with air.

Vince hears someone stirring in the hall behind him, footsteps and voices muffled by the hallow drywall. He hops up and moves cautiously towards the door. Outside, he sees Trig standing beside the receptionist counter flirting with the blonde behind it, trying to stare down her spacious shirt with his sunken eyes. Hearing Vince, Trig looks up startled and then, seeing Vince, smiles and says, Hey Brotha – How’s it hangin’? and he turns back to the blonde, I was just think about gettin’ somethin’ ta eat, to Vince, but looking at the girl, offering the invitation open to any takers, pawing his grey goatee with a vein-ridged hand.

Trig is audio engineer extraordinaire, a relic from the early days, a man who speaks of the venerable greats by their first names. He started as a roadie, made his reputation as a studio technician for anyone and everyone who’s made in it Nashville. He discovered and encouraged many of the performers that are now household names, but has not discovered anybody of worth in years and his main function is to serve as the totem figure of the Label for longevity and tradition.

You in, Vinny-baby? He asks. Not a bad idea, Vince says looking back at Trig, examining his tattered ponytail and the ragged flannel shirt he wears baggily over his lanky torso. And what ah bout you, sweetie-pie? He says to the girl, his oyster lips smiling as he leans over further, taking one last gander at the girl, big enough to last. She smiles up coquettishly and opens a drawer beside her, producing a brown lunch bag neatly folded at the top and dangles it between Trig’s leathery face and her ballooning chest. Aww, too bad for you then – Huh, darlin’? The girl continues to smile. Come on then Vinny – Les get ourselves ah real meal. Lead the way, Vince says, feeling relaxed. Oh – Mista Ford, the girl interrupts, Will you be back in the office today? Vince stops, his eyes looking around in laid-back contemplation, Yes, I will – If anyone asks, tell’em I’ll be in later. And the girl smiles and nods, Very good then – Enjoy yalunch.


…well, haveya ever thought about takin’ yaself ah vacation, Trig says over a basket of chicken wings drenched in blood-red buffalo sauce that oozes across the white wax paper. He took Vince to a bar off Hillsboro Road in the Village, a smoky place favored by frat boys, sorority girls, and other young kids from the neighborhood. He’s dropping ashes on his untouched food that lies cold in grease. Already he has announced that if he had taken off ALL the vacation days he is entitled to, Vince wouldn’t see him, For ah whole fuckin’ year, brotha – Haven’t hada proper giddaway in YEARS – But vacations aint what they used ta be – People always tryin’ to get a-HOLD of ya with them emails or mobiles – There aint no such thing as ah proper vacation no more – Same goes for the BIZ as ah whole. He’s on his third Jack & coke. Vince is trying to force down his second.

And it’s not just the BIZ that’s changed, man – It’s the music – The music ain’t what it used ta be, know what I mean? He grabs a wing from the basket and sniffs the wet crust before dropping it and takes another drag. These cats these days, brotha – They don’t even understand what it takes ta make ah good record – Probably cause they’ve never heard one – Haha – All this jobs ah bout these days is makin’ pretty faces look good on ah stage – Hell, it’s not like any acts are actually WORKIN’ for their sound no more – Don’t write the songs – Don’t play the instruments – HA – But I remember ah day when it wasn’t so…so, he picks up his glass and finishes his drink, so…cheap.

He tells Vince that there was a golden age of Hank, Merle, and Cash, then a silver age in which he played a modest role. Vince nods encouragingly as Trig goes on to say, Think we jus skipped the bronze age bhoy and went straight ta the dark ages – It aint even country no more – Radio’s all fulla Canadians and Australians singin’ bout any ol’sorta stuff and people DIG it so long as it’s sung with ah TWANG – Hell, ya even got negroes singin’bout DIXIE DIXIE DIXIE – Now THAT’S ah new’un. He laughs and Vince shakes his head politely. Trig continues, Anyways – It’s all amplified, recorded, and digitized now – Completely uninspired shit. Vince nods again in affirmation, knowing the issues of which Trigs speaks have no real bearing or concern to him. Don’t be seduced by all the crap about glitter and glam, Trig says, looking to the side, None of it got nothin’ ta do with cuntry – Platinum PISS.

He flags for two more Jacks. You got it made though, he says, All of this bullshit jus suits ya just fine don’t it – You money-men understand the game – I hear that and thas aight – You get ah product and sell it – Business, right? Vince smiles, I am but a mere foot solider, he says, The real decisions are handed down from…above. Trig shrugs and stuffs his cigarette out. Like I said – I get all that – Business is business, he mutters almost inwardly, It’s these – whatcha call’em? – A&R people…more concerned with how a singer looks than how one actually sings…It’s all backwards ifya ask me.

The waitress comes with the drinks and says to Trig, I guess you weren’t that hungry – Wasn’t it any good? she says looking at the plate full of food. Can I get ya somethin’ else? She has curly gold locks pulled back to look like a German barmaid and a low-cut shirt in an effort to encourage gratuities. O – I’m doin’ jus fine now thata you’re here honey-bunny, Trig beams as the waitress smiles with a wink, moving quickly to collect the basket of cold wings and takes them away.

…mmm-MMM – You know why I like ta come ta this place, Trig asks. Vince, already having a feeling, shakes his head, feeling the alcohol trickle as it begins to take hold, and allows Trig to continue uninterrupted. Cause of all the sweet young pussy runnin’ around – It’s nuff ta make ah poor fella like me Ka-razy. He taps his fingers against the rim of his glass reminiscently and looks at Vince straight in the eye with a devilish grin which exposes his chipped teeth gritted with tar and tartar. So you’re married right? he asks, Tell me how dats treating ya?

Thing are good – Sure aint bad, if that’s whatcher askin’, Vince says then reaches for his fresh glass and takes a swig which burns all the way down his gullet as he tries to assume a manly expression, eyes fluttering until the flame drifts away. Wanting to divert the subject, Vince revives Trig by asking about Cash, with whom Trig supposedly worked with back in the day. He tells him about a four-week, sex-fueled carouse soaked with whiskey and stuffed with pills, Wazzah different game back then – Lemmie tell ya, he says looking off nostalgically as he leans backward, the way it should be…

They share another round (and another), feeling the healing properties of the alcohol take effect as their blood vessels begin to loosen and they loose track of time. The day rolls by without a thought, both men only moving periodically to use the rest room or flag down a waitress, who now all look the same. At one point Vince steps outside to call the office from the payphone on the sidewalk out front, Heya Thompson – No, yeah – Tomorrow is good – I’m out at the studio right now – With who? Trig – Yeah, Tell me about it – I’m not sure when I’ll be back – Ten tomorrow morning? – That works – Ten A.M. sharp – See ya then. He hangs up the receiver and listens to his change fall into the belly of the phone box. He stands for a moment with his hand on the phone, feet frozen to the brick ground, and thinks about calling the house, Oppsss – Spent all my change, he thinks, remaining silent. He doesn’t check his pockets. A biker tears down Hillsboro on a brassy black hog, the ROOM-BOOM of the engine shakes him like thunder from a short trance. He turns, sighs, and goes inside.


Trig hardly notices when Vince says goodbye to him behind the bar. His posture is bowed and his nose he pointed down in the direction of his beaten cowboy boots, his eyes glazed with bourbon and memories. Vince feels a little glazed himself. The sun has begun its tired slide towards the horizon and the sky glows citrus orange. Three black men unload a trunk behind the Belcourt Theater across the road, rolling hulking speakers cautiously down a ramp. They pause briefly and stare at Trig and Vince as they stagger across the street to the car. The men look at each other and share a laugh before dabbing the sweat glistening across their dark brows and recommence their work.

Vince leaves Trig in the parking lot, Yeah, brotha – I think I might as well walk from here – Got a few stops of my OWN ta make, he says and Vince shrugs, Whateva you want fella, he says and shakes Trig’s hand. I’m tellin’ ya brotha – Takeya ah vacation – You could use it, Trig says before releasing Vince’s hand.

Driving back to the office is complicated by the preceding hours of persistent alcohol consumption, forcing Vince to pay extra close attention to the whirling lines on the road that won’t stay still and it feels more like he’s riding a Ferris wheel opposed to an automobile. Concentrating as intensely as possible, he brakes and swivels down Music Row, almost missing his turn before pulling into the lot of his building, now, almost empty with the exception of a few vehicles.

In the downstairs atrium, Vince finds that the security guard has left for the day as he waits for the elevator. All is quite when he arrives on his floor. All the lights have been turned off leaving the soft glow of the radiating sunset blushing in through the windows of the weakly illuminated corridor. Vince finds that the receptionist’s desk has been vacated as he slowly passes, feeling a letdown, and struts clumsily over the carpet as the boozes wrestles his sense of balance. Wandering along vacantly, he looks out one of the windows, the extreme sensation of loneliness mounting across his shoulders. As the sun dips down below the hazy grey skyline, the top of one distant mid-rise building seems to smolder pale and pink, like the glowing cherry of a neon cigarette that makes him think of Trig.

There’s a noise down the foyer. Vince follows the sound coming from the conference room at the end of the hall. He peaks his head inside and finds a fat Hispanic from the cleaning crew grappling with a garbage bag. The man pauses briefly to scratch his handle-barred moustache and slowly palms his round potbelly, looking bemused as he putters through the drudgery of his task. Good even-ning, the man says shaking out the bag like a dirty rug, the thin cellophane crinkling, making a meshing sound as it’s forced onto a waist bin. Vince nods and turns away. He continues to wander aimlessly around the office, listening to his feet scrape across the floor as he drags his heels, stopping every so often to glance calmly out the window. He thinks about calling his wife, but cannot muster the urge.

As he opens his door, he’s pleased to find the blonde curled up across his couch like a snoozing kitten, her white calves resting gently on the armrest, her chest stacked like a vanilla wedding cake. He stands over her for a few moments and watches her rest peacefully before flicking the lights on. Good evening, he says soft, trying not to slur. She blinks disoriented and stretches out her arms in a way that makes her back arch just so and make the boyish glint return to Vince’s eyes, burning through the whisky glaze as a smile spreads across his face.

What time is it? The girl asks as she slowly sits up, gently massaging her temples with the butts of her palms. It’s time ta go, Vince says, plopping down on the couch beside her, lumbering awkwardly across the cushions as he leans back and throws his arms around the girl. Is that right? the girl asks, And where would you be goin’? Vince makes a gaudy expression as he leans in closer, I’m goin’ where YOU goin’, he says, smirking slyly, making the girl blush. Well, Vinny – Glad I didn’t hold my breath for ya, she says grabbing Vince’s hand to read his watch, Seven-thirty? – Good GRIEF, she blurts, still holding Vince’s arm. She can smell the alcohol on his breath and knows he’s ripe for the picking. Told ya I’d be back for ya, girl, he says leaning in further with a childish grin. They sit for a few moments waiting for the other to speak then Vince takes the girl’s hand and places it firmly on his crotch, tips back, and holds it in place. She rests it there, looking out the window, feeling the sharp groove of his zipper and the caveat between his belt and groin before pulling her arm away. You dawg you, she chirps cutely feigning her disgust, Thas nasty. Well, if I remember correctly, Vince cheeks a Valentine’s-smile, Thas not what you were sayin’ last NIGHT. The girl shrugs and squints coquettishly, craning her head to the side before rising off the couch. We’ll if we’re gonna go, she announces, Leastya can do is feed me after standin’ me up ALL afta-noon. Vince waggles his jaw, licking his lips slowly, and says, Whateva you want, girl – So long as you do the drivin’, holding out his keys which dangle from his fingers. Now that, the girl says as she reaches out, smelling the barroom sweat emanating from Vince’s skin, is ah GOOD idea.

As the girl climbs behind the wheel, Vince watches her taut thighs pump and brush together against the leather interior from the passenger seat, her ruby pumps slowly finding the cool black pedals. He reaches for her as she adjusts the rearview mirror but she slaps him away, OFF, she barks, NOT while I’m drivin’. Vince laughs it off and looks away. Where we gonna eat, Vinny, she asks as they pull away. Les get room service, he replies. Not AGAIN, she sighs, her voice creasing into a whine, I wanna actually GO somewhere. Vince pauses in deliberation as he weighs out the odds, somewhere in his hazy mind knowing discretion is of the utmost importance. OK, he says, Fuck it – We’ll go to the Waffle House ifya SO starving – I aint even hungry. The girl does not respond and keeps her eyes fixed on the road, handily concealing her disappointment, but she knows the game and rolls with the punches. You betta get somethin’ in that belly of yours ifya wantcha strength fo’later, she says smiling, her plump red lips spreading across her face.

They sit silently as she guides the nose of the Mercedes onto the ramp and they start to chug east down the interstate with the setting sun to their backs. The motor purrs below the hood. The wind from the road drafts heavily against the windows as the tires spin across the asphalt. Feeling loopy, Vince tilts back in his seat and, stretching out, he looks out at the purple sky ahead and watches the branches along the roadside bending up from the fence-lined bramble swinging low in the breeze. In the distance he makes out a form, small at first but growing larger, and the outline of an airplane emerges on the horizon, whirling in slow rotations, like a buzzard patrolling the ground below from the blank regions above. Its wingspan glides down, gracefully slipping from the heavens, its nose foremost as it cuts across the sky. Vince squints and sharpens his eyes as the jet moves closer and closer. It begins to soar lower, plummeting sleekly through the atmosphere lined by migrant smoke, its polished metal frame sparkling brightly in the waning rays of sunlight, drifting faster towards the earth, taillights blinking like diamonds, engines roaring like lions. Wheels out and cleared for landing.

_____________________________________________

Adam Moorad
Adam’s writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in 3 A.M. Magazine, Johnny America, Pank, Storyglossia, and Underground Voices. His story "
Star-Spangled Enterprise" is/was a nominee for Best of the Net 2009. He is the author of an ebook, The Nurse and The Patient (Pangur Ban Party, 2009). He lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. Visit him here: http://adamadamadamadamadam.blogspot.com