Speaker 1: This podcast is not a monster story podcast. I'm reading
Speaker 1: two fictional short stories by published writers. The first story
Speaker 1: is called George, written by Shane Brown. Shane is the
Speaker 1: son of Larry Brown, the nationally renowned Southern writer from Oxford, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: who had several published books. Shane is he's making it
Speaker 1: on his own accord. He's got a publishing deal. I've
Speaker 1: met him. He is such a nice man, and I
Speaker 1: met his mother and his family and actually bought some
Speaker 1: ice cream front. They have a dairy farm down in
Speaker 1: close to Oxford. I don't know when his book is
Speaker 1: going to come out. He's writing it now. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a collection of short stories, a novel
Speaker 1: or what it is. But when it comes out, i'll
Speaker 1: let you know. The second story is called Chasing Rabbits.
Speaker 1: The author is Michael Ferris Smith, who you all have
Speaker 1: heard me read some stuff from his writing. This particular
Speaker 1: short story was his directorial debut in filmmaking. It's become
Speaker 1: a film. I'm going to try to find it and
Speaker 1: put the link in the description if you want to
Speaker 1: watch the It's about a twenty or thirty minute short
Speaker 1: film that follows this storyline. Actually I've seen it. I
Speaker 1: went to the screening of it. It was entered in
Speaker 1: a film festival in Oxford, maybe a couple of months ago.
Speaker 1: I actually got to meet Michael for about fifteen seconds.
Speaker 1: He's real nice guy, great writer. But the second story
Speaker 1: is called Chasing Rabbits by Michael Ferris Smith. Before we
Speaker 1: go any further, there is profanity in one or both
Speaker 1: of these stories. I can't recall. If strong language offends you,
Speaker 1: don't listen, and don't leave me a comment about how
Speaker 1: disappointed you are in me about me reading these stories.
Speaker 1: This is literature. This isn't just pulp type fiction. This
Speaker 1: is These writers are good. These guys know how to
Speaker 1: tell a story. They're good. And if you're from the
Speaker 1: South for more, particularly from Mississippi, these stories will sound
Speaker 1: like something your neighbor just told you. You will, you
Speaker 1: will recognize the culture right away, and I think you'll
Speaker 1: enjoy these stories. If you're not from Mississippi or anywhere
Speaker 1: in the southern state, I think you should enjoy them.
Speaker 1: We have a wonderful culture of just common people down here,
Speaker 1: and I love it. And there's plenty of material to
Speaker 1: write great stories about. So I'll shut up. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys enjoy this podcast. I appreciate you clicking on
Speaker 1: the video. All right, here we go George by Shane Brown.
Speaker 1: George stopped by the house last night, and he never
Speaker 1: did that. Last night. It was the first night, but
Speaker 1: I know it won't be the last. I didn't even
Speaker 1: really know George, but he acted like I knew him
Speaker 1: a lot. I started feeling that as we sat inside
Speaker 1: the car port and talked. I was in my chair
Speaker 1: beside the mini fridge that I used to keep extra
Speaker 1: beer in for buddies to come over. It's always dashed
Speaker 1: with an ash tray and a candle. I like my
Speaker 1: car port. That's my favorite part of the house I
Speaker 1: think George liked it a lot too. It seemed like
Speaker 1: he felt some type of connection to me last night
Speaker 1: when I sat there and listen to him talk and
Speaker 1: sometimes cry, and all I said was, yeah, I understand,
Speaker 1: and it'll be all right. George was a little drunk.
Speaker 1: George is a pretty good guy. My beer was cold
Speaker 1: and I was a little thirsty. After driving fourteen hours
Speaker 1: hauling a load of steel down to Gulf Shores, Alabama,
Speaker 1: my truck just got parked when George pulled up. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know George's truck until he got out and
Speaker 1: walked over with a drink and a plastic cup. I
Speaker 1: said hey to George, and George said hey back to me.
Speaker 1: I was putting down my blockers behind the tires and
Speaker 1: ready to crawl inside of my car port. He started
Speaker 1: talking like we were old friends. He started telling me
Speaker 1: things that I knew that I didn't really want to know,
Speaker 1: and I got to wondering who he was and where
Speaker 1: he came from. I started second guessing my mind and
Speaker 1: started thinking that maybe I really didn't know George. But
Speaker 1: I was more worried about how cold my beer was
Speaker 1: and about the other ones in the cooler. I was
Speaker 1: ready to relax from my long ride and have my
Speaker 1: own time in the carport and have a few coal
Speaker 1: ones alone. But I didn't get to be alone. George
Speaker 1: had followed me into the car port and sat down.
Speaker 1: I found out that George's wife didn't love him anymore.
Speaker 1: She had told him that she had told him that
Speaker 1: they needed to be better, that she needed to be
Speaker 1: held and told how beautiful she was, and that he
Speaker 1: needed to love her more. She also told him that
Speaker 1: he needed to quit hunting. And fishing and hanging out
Speaker 1: with all of his fucking friends. She even said that
Speaker 1: she was tired of cooking supper for him and him
Speaker 1: not eating it because he didn't like her food. Then
Speaker 1: he didn't even wash the damn dishes, that that was
Speaker 1: his job. He thought that was bullshit. He liked her food.
Speaker 1: He was just a little drunk at night, not hungry,
Speaker 1: and then he forgot about the dishes. Sometimes George only
Speaker 1: forgot about the dishes because he had gotten drunk, because
Speaker 1: he had wanted to get drunk. It only happened every
Speaker 1: once in a while, but now it happened a lot.
Speaker 1: It usually had only happened when she was fussing at him,
Speaker 1: and recently it happened again when he went to see Bobby.
Speaker 1: He had gone out fishing one afternoon with his little cousin, Bobby.
Speaker 1: George told me that Bobby could real good and that
Speaker 1: he always liked him going with him. They fixed and
Speaker 1: poured each other drinks and helped each other take fish
Speaker 1: off the fishing poles that they had dragged off their boat,
Speaker 1: and patrol the waters. They talked about different things, about
Speaker 1: how nice the water was and that the sky looked
Speaker 1: pretty and then they told some funny stories about times
Speaker 1: when they were kids, and then Bobby would have to
Speaker 1: hear about George's stories too, after George got drunk, and
Speaker 1: Bobby would sit there and say, yeah, I understand, and
Speaker 1: it'll be all right too. But Bobby knew more than
Speaker 1: I knew. And then Bobby told George some stuff that
Speaker 1: afternoon that he thought George knew, stuff that made George
Speaker 1: cry some more. George told me that Bobby told him
Speaker 1: that he thought that his wife might be cheating on him,
Speaker 1: but Bobby wasn't for sure. I had only had one
Speaker 1: beer in me by this point, and that wasn't enough
Speaker 1: for what I was fixing to have to listen to
Speaker 1: already wanted another beer, just to try to catch up
Speaker 1: to my day and to maybe feel even sawyer for
Speaker 1: this son of a bitch than I already did, and
Speaker 1: for maybe being a little annoyed as I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to go inside yet and be with Audrey. Now. Bobby
Speaker 1: wasn't for sure, but he was kind of for sure
Speaker 1: because there was a truck that had come over to
Speaker 1: George's house when George was gone. Bobby had only noticed
Speaker 1: it the last couple of weeks when George had been gone.
Speaker 1: It was a red truck, and then Bobby said it
Speaker 1: was late at night, he'd only seen it on his
Speaker 1: ride home when he passed George's house, and that he
Speaker 1: knew George wasn't at home because he was at the
Speaker 1: deer camp. George said he started getting mad and screaming
Speaker 1: and cussing. He said that he started throwing things, and
Speaker 1: that even through his fishing pole in the water that
Speaker 1: his wife had bought him for Christmas when they had
Speaker 1: first started dating. He said he yelled at the fishing
Speaker 1: pole as it sank in the water to drown bitch.
Speaker 1: And then Bobby told George that maybe he didn't need
Speaker 1: to fix him another drink and that they should get home,
Speaker 1: but George said, fuck that and the fish, and that
Speaker 1: he'd be all right. George didn't want to go home,
Speaker 1: and then Bobby fixed George another drink. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what to do but sit there and drink my beer
Speaker 1: and listen. That's what I did. George was mine now.
Speaker 1: And then he cried and he started saying some more
Speaker 1: stuff about her and him, and about how she didn't
Speaker 1: love him, and about how he loved her so much.
Speaker 1: He took a few drinks and then kind of smiled
Speaker 1: at me. He had quit crying and then asked me
Speaker 1: if I cared if Charlie got out of the truck.
Speaker 1: I asked him who Charlie was, but he smiled bigger
Speaker 1: and pointed to his truck and said that his dog
Speaker 1: was in the truck. He looked back at me and
Speaker 1: said that that was his wife's dog too. I said
Speaker 1: hell now that I didn't care, and ask him why
Speaker 1: he had Charlie locked up for this long. George laughed.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen George's life all night. He went to
Speaker 1: go get Charlie and I went to get another beer.
Speaker 1: After I got a beer, I turned to walk inside,
Speaker 1: but turned back around and grabbed another one. I was
Speaker 1: going to go inside real quick and check to see
Speaker 1: what Audrey had us for supper, and to tell her
Speaker 1: that I was coming inside for good soon when George left,
Speaker 1: and to see if she wanted a beer. She usually
Speaker 1: drank wine, and usually all of it if it was
Speaker 1: in the house, so she probably didn't want any of
Speaker 1: my cheap beer like I like to drink. I came
Speaker 1: in the kitchen first, and supper hadn't even been cooked.
Speaker 1: But it was laid out over the counter ready to fry.
Speaker 1: It looked like she was getting ready to make us
Speaker 1: some deer meat. She knew that deer meat was MY
Speaker 1: favorite and that I liked eating in a lot. I
Speaker 1: came through the living room and one single lamp was
Speaker 1: on in the corner of the room, and the TV
Speaker 1: was on but muted. She wasn't in the living room,
Speaker 1: so I kept down the hallway to our bedroom. I
Speaker 1: looked in there and she was propped up on the
Speaker 1: bed with an empty glass laying in her lap, and
Speaker 1: her head was pointed down, and the cigarette was hanging
Speaker 1: out of her lips, and she was in a deep sleep.
Speaker 1: The cigarette had gone out, and I took it from
Speaker 1: her mouth and put it in my pocket. I grabbed
Speaker 1: her glasses and sat it on the night stand beside
Speaker 1: our bed, and pulled her and her pillows down and
Speaker 1: lowered her on the bed. But she moaned softly a
Speaker 1: little bit and mumbled something I didn't understand, and I
Speaker 1: tucked her in the bed, and I kissed her forehead,
Speaker 1: and I cut the light out. I knew then I'd
Speaker 1: be cooking supper. As I slowly lingered down the hallway
Speaker 1: and on my way back to the car port, I'd
Speaker 1: been getting used to that. I started to make my
Speaker 1: way back outside, and I glanced through my kitchen window
Speaker 1: and I see George just standing in the carport beside
Speaker 1: the chair that I gave him to sit in. But
Speaker 1: he's holding Charlie like a mama would hold her new
Speaker 1: born baby. A leash angles from the dog's neck, and
Speaker 1: George is dancing. He's shaking his hips and he kind
Speaker 1: of does half of a spin with his hips and
Speaker 1: his legs as he's looking down at Charlie and smiling
Speaker 1: and saying something to him. I turned up my beer
Speaker 1: and I finished it, and I threw it in the
Speaker 1: trash can and opened the one I had for Audrey.
Speaker 1: I turned it up and finished it too, and I
Speaker 1: started thinking that I already knew what was going to
Speaker 1: be for supper. I walked outside and grabbed another beer,
Speaker 1: and I smiled at George, and he's really smiling big
Speaker 1: at me. I could tell George was a little drunk
Speaker 1: and feeling pretty good. He asked me if I'd like
Speaker 1: to hold Charlie, and I told him I would later on,
Speaker 1: and then I sat down in my chair. George walked
Speaker 1: over next to me and leaned on the brick wall.
Speaker 1: He was smiling and holding and loving on Charlie and
Speaker 1: telling him that he was his best friend and that
Speaker 1: he didn't know what he was ever do without him
Speaker 1: or where he would be. Charlie looks scared to me,
Speaker 1: like he was saying for me to save him, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to save him, and Charlie didn't
Speaker 1: know how to save me. George laughed and smiled and
Speaker 1: then walked over to the chair I had gotten for him,
Speaker 1: and he sat down again. George's plastic cup was back full,
Speaker 1: and I asked him what he was drinking. He told
Speaker 1: me it was four roses with half a bit of
Speaker 1: Diight coke. He sipped it after I asked, and then
Speaker 1: he turned the rest of it up and he finished it.
Speaker 1: He put Charlie on the floor of the car port
Speaker 1: and started tangling his leash up in some twisted way
Speaker 1: around one of the arms of the chair, and I
Speaker 1: started to worry about Charlie. I'm thinking that it's maybe
Speaker 1: a knot that he has tied. Charlie just stared as
Speaker 1: I did. Hell, Charlie didn't care. I didn't either. George
Speaker 1: doesn't even know if he cares. George's truck is still running.
Speaker 1: Heastel engine has been loud on our talk since he
Speaker 1: pulled up to my carport. I say something about the
Speaker 1: truck running well. He laughs and tells me he's sorry
Speaker 1: that it's been on and ask if he needed to
Speaker 1: cut it off. I told him I didn't care. He
Speaker 1: said he had been keeping the truck crank for Charlie
Speaker 1: to stay warm while he's been talking, and he didn't
Speaker 1: want Charlie bothering anybody, and he had forgotten to cut
Speaker 1: it off. When he got Charlie out, George got up
Speaker 1: to crank the truck off and to tell me that
Speaker 1: he was going to make another drink. I knew then
Speaker 1: that Charlie and I were fucked. George's truck was finally
Speaker 1: not making any noise. It's a lot quieter now. I'm
Speaker 1: hearing tree frogs and bugs trying to sing to us.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite sounds. They bring some kind
Speaker 1: of peace to me that I probably learned at a
Speaker 1: young age. I sat there and listened, and I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: It's always a good moment that I enjoy, and I
Speaker 1: use have that in my core. Port and what I
Speaker 1: wanted before George showed up. Then George starts back up,
Speaker 1: talking again about his goddamn wife. I look at Charlie
Speaker 1: and he's looking at me, and I'm feeling sorry for
Speaker 1: Charlie and this guy. But I've got my own two
Speaker 1: to worry about. I've got stuff I wouldn't tell him,
Speaker 1: stuff like why I ain't got fried deer meat for supper.
Speaker 1: It's stuff he don't even want to know about it.
Speaker 1: It's stuff that makes me angry because I have worse
Speaker 1: problems in his fucking marriage. I wanted to scream at
Speaker 1: him and tell him to fuck off and get away,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. I can't, so I listened to him
Speaker 1: as he was fussing again. He told me about the
Speaker 1: money that he has to spend to buy his daughter
Speaker 1: or a car, money that he doesn't have. And he
Speaker 1: told me that she's sixteen now that she has to
Speaker 1: have one. His wife wants one that's real nice for her,
Speaker 1: but George just wants one that runs, one that maybe
Speaker 1: has a nice radio. He told me he lost his
Speaker 1: job three weeks ago and he doesn't know if she'll
Speaker 1: get a car. George started crying again. I started drinking
Speaker 1: another beer and wondering if Audrey was gonna wake up.
Speaker 1: Audrey wasn't gonna wake up, and that's okay. I had
Speaker 1: just hoped that she was resting. I hope that she
Speaker 1: was not dreaming or waking up and thinking about the baby. Damn,
Speaker 1: that was bad. I tried not to think of it much,
Speaker 1: but sometimes when I'm out in the carport alone and
Speaker 1: it's quite I do. But I couldn't because George was
Speaker 1: still talking. He wasn't upset at that moment, but telling
Speaker 1: me about his step son, who's a really good bowler.
Speaker 1: He said he was on a high school team and
Speaker 1: that he has his own bowling ball, something about maybe
Speaker 1: getting a scholarship to college because he can throw a
Speaker 1: bunch of strikes. He said he doesn't even use rails anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm listening, but I'm still worried about Audrey. I told
Speaker 1: her that I was going to be home early, but
Speaker 1: a highway trooper in Meridian stopped me and brought in
Speaker 1: the Department of Transportation to check my rig out. I
Speaker 1: stood on the side of the road for ninety two
Speaker 1: minutes for six citations and a lecture from some little
Speaker 1: weasel right out of camp. I knew I couldn't drive
Speaker 1: fast enough to get home when I left Meridian, or
Speaker 1: that I should. I didn't need any more trouble with
Speaker 1: the law. I didn't like the law, and the law
Speaker 1: didn't like me. I knew she'd start drinking and wondering
Speaker 1: where I was. I knew Audrey loved me, I didn't
Speaker 1: know George would come over. George was still talking and
Speaker 1: I'm grabbing another beer. That's when I decided I didn't
Speaker 1: want any dear meat for supper. I had looked down
Speaker 1: at my phone and saw that it was still kind
Speaker 1: of early in the night, and I knew Audra wasn't
Speaker 1: going to get up anytime soon. So I decided that
Speaker 1: I was just going to sit in the carport drink
Speaker 1: a few more beers with George. As I drank my supper,
Speaker 1: he was getting a little bit better about laughing and
Speaker 1: listening to a few stories that I told him, instead
Speaker 1: of fussing and crying. He would laugh and agree and
Speaker 1: carry on, but I could tell with his eyes that
Speaker 1: he was really wanting to talk more about him and
Speaker 1: maybe her. He kept quiet, but was drinking faster, and
Speaker 1: I started thinking that I needed to drink faster too.
Speaker 1: I didn't think that I could catch up to him,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't. Well. That's when George started screaming and shouting,
Speaker 1: and I got up from my chair and I tried
Speaker 1: to calm him down, but it didn't help any He
Speaker 1: knelt down on the car port on both knees and
Speaker 1: looked up to the sky and he started mumbling something
Speaker 1: about a duy and that she was leaving him. I
Speaker 1: still didn't know what to do, but I listened, and
Speaker 1: I sure as hell was wishing Audrey wasn't waking up.
Speaker 1: I looked over at Charlie, and the motherfucker was looking
Speaker 1: at me, and I wanted to un his leash and
Speaker 1: let him run. I had thought that maybe he could
Speaker 1: go one way and I go the other. Maybe we
Speaker 1: could both get lost in the woods long enough that
Speaker 1: George left or looked in the wrong place. So I
Speaker 1: grabbed George and I picked him up to his feet,
Speaker 1: and he told me that he was sorry, and I
Speaker 1: told him that it was okay now. I looked over
Speaker 1: at Charlie and he wouldn't look at me. When I
Speaker 1: woke up this morning, my head was hurting pretty hard.
Speaker 1: I had stayed up too late with George and drunk
Speaker 1: right up till about the sun was about to come up.
Speaker 1: And when George had finally left, I watched the sun
Speaker 1: rise a little bit before I walked inside. That was
Speaker 1: actually my only time to enjoy my car port, because
Speaker 1: I was already feeling guilty helping him climb into his
Speaker 1: truck and wondering if he could make it home. Well,
Speaker 1: I felt bad, but damn, I was ready for bed.
Speaker 1: And I also knew that I wasn't getting into bed
Speaker 1: early enough to go to church with Audrey, and I
Speaker 1: felt bad because of that too. He told me he
Speaker 1: only lived about a mile down the road at his
Speaker 1: deer camp. He said that he was gonna probably live
Speaker 1: there forever. Now. As I was laying in bed, I
Speaker 1: started feeling guilty for a lot of things, A lot
Speaker 1: of things I just couldn't help, but a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I could help. So I got up and
Speaker 1: got in a shower. I found a pot of coffee
Speaker 1: kind of warned that Audrey had left, and put it
Speaker 1: in a thermos. Now I got in my truck and
Speaker 1: I decided to drive to the cemetery while Audrey was
Speaker 1: at church. I saw some wildflowers on the side of
Speaker 1: the road on my way, and I stopped and picked
Speaker 1: them as I grabbed a beer out of my cooler.
Speaker 1: Sundays were always tough on me when I visited his grave,
Speaker 1: but they sure wasn't like Audrey's day. Every day she
Speaker 1: lived with all the pain. I could get away more
Speaker 1: than she could. She couldn't, and she didn't unless she
Speaker 1: had some whiskey, and then her pain was gone until
Speaker 1: she woke up up. She didn't wake up much. She
Speaker 1: hasn't been awake since we lost the baby. She was
Speaker 1: never at fault, but she thinks she is. It was
Speaker 1: just something natural, something that the doctor said was a
Speaker 1: big heart for a small baby. She still thinks it's
Speaker 1: her fault. Audrey ain't gonna wake up. When I make
Speaker 1: it back home from the cemetery, I notice how high
Speaker 1: the grass is in our yard, and I went inside
Speaker 1: to check on Audrey. She was in the bathtub, and
Speaker 1: I know she'll be in there for a while, and
Speaker 1: I tell her that I'm going to get on the
Speaker 1: lawnmower and cut the grass and fire up the grill
Speaker 1: later for some steaks for supper. She thanks me, and
Speaker 1: she tells me that she will see me after a while.
Speaker 1: Her voice through the door is softer than it should be.
Speaker 1: I know she's upset with me for not coming home
Speaker 1: early enough yesterday and not going to church today. But
Speaker 1: I knew if I get the grass cut real quick
Speaker 1: and hit the grill, then she would come out to
Speaker 1: the car report with some wine. And I like when
Speaker 1: she did that. He usually led to some good talks
Speaker 1: and laughter and eating some good food and the sex.
Speaker 1: After all, that was amazing. Well that's what we used
Speaker 1: to do, but we don't anymore, not when Audrey doesn't
Speaker 1: wake up. I was getting close to finishing cutting the
Speaker 1: yard and I thought it was George's truck pulling up,
Speaker 1: and it was. I looked over to my car port
Speaker 1: and Audrey's standing there, smiling and waving at me. She
Speaker 1: had a glass of wine in her hand, and she
Speaker 1: looks pretty. Her shorts are high showing her nice tanned legs,
Speaker 1: and her blond hair dangles in front of her blouse.
Speaker 1: I looked back over across the yard and George is
Speaker 1: walking up over the grass. Now I'm about to finish
Speaker 1: shut I ate my lawnmower his way and he stops,
Speaker 1: and I got up to George and I shut the
Speaker 1: lawnmower off. He smiled and asked me what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and I told him that I was just trying to
Speaker 1: finish up some yard work before I hung out with
Speaker 1: Audre and some steaks. He's standing in the tall grass
Speaker 1: and scratching at his knee. His whiskey spills out of
Speaker 1: his plastic cup. He has socks up to his knees
Speaker 1: with flip flops on. He has a plain white T
Speaker 1: shirt on, and he's smiling like he was last night.
Speaker 1: I got off the lawn morn I walk inside the
Speaker 1: carport to grab a beer. George following me into the
Speaker 1: car port and sat down, and I saw Charlie sitting
Speaker 1: on the dashboard of George's truck, scratching at the windshield.
Speaker 1: I knew what I'd be eating for supper, and I
Speaker 1: knew then, too, that Charlie and I were fucked. Chasing
Speaker 1: Rabbits by Michael Ferris Smith. Rachel crawls out from under
Speaker 1: the bed. She takes a rope from the hook on
Speaker 1: the closet door. She had awakened in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night and heard the voices outside the house, then
Speaker 1: heard the back door forced open and she slipped out
Speaker 1: of bed onto the floor, stirring under like an insect.
Speaker 1: She listened as they ransacked the kitchen and living room,
Speaker 1: their movements loud and uninhibited, as they believed they were alone.
Speaker 1: After half an hour, they left, but she hadn't moved,
Speaker 1: lying motionless, afraid to blink. Her nose inches from the
Speaker 1: box spring. She eventually unclinched her jaw and relaxed. Then
Speaker 1: she slept her body straight and still, as if in
Speaker 1: a coffin. Now she moves toward the bedroom door in
Speaker 1: the gray morning light, wary of what she'll see on
Speaker 1: the other side. In the kitchen, the drawers are out
Speaker 1: and emptied onto the tall floor. The cabinet doors are
Speaker 1: ripped off the hinges, The kitchen table and chairs are overturned,
Speaker 1: the refrigerator doors opened and its few contents splattered onto
Speaker 1: the wreckage and salad, dressing and leftover spaghetti. In the
Speaker 1: living room, a knife has ripped the cushions of the
Speaker 1: sofa and the recliner, and small chunks of foam littered
Speaker 1: the room like dirty snow. Picture frames and lamps are broken,
Speaker 1: and the television in VCR gone, and on the walls
Speaker 1: of both rooms. She finds creations in black spray paint,
Speaker 1: four letter words, and cartoonish private parts. Rachel tiptoes carefully
Speaker 1: through the fragments of broken glass to the telephone on
Speaker 1: the kitchen wall, somehow still on the hook. She dials
Speaker 1: the sheriff's office and asks for her brother Stephen. Gone
Speaker 1: to early, ain't it? He answers, I need you to
Speaker 1: come out here. Somebody broke in and trash the place. Jeez,
Speaker 1: not again. That's a third one this month? How bad?
Speaker 1: Is it? Pretty bad? And you I'm all right? They
Speaker 1: say goodbye, and Rachel picks up the kitchen chair and
Speaker 1: sits down. It'll take fifteen minutes for Stephen to arrive.
Speaker 1: The Sheriff's department on the other side of the county,
Speaker 1: with many bins and many narrow roads between them. Outside,
Speaker 1: the sun creeps higher, and the gray light becomes yellow,
Speaker 1: and the light growing through the kitchen window above the
Speaker 1: sink and shining on Rachel's bare leg. It's warm, and
Speaker 1: she opens her robe and slides her other leg into
Speaker 1: the light. And she sits still and closes her eyes,
Speaker 1: can almost feel the sunshine penetrating her skin. She keeps
Speaker 1: your eyes closed and imagines this warmth finding her somewhere else,
Speaker 1: a hotel, pool, a long walk, and her mind wanders
Speaker 1: until Stephen pulls into the driveway. Where were you? Stephen asks?
Speaker 1: He stands in the middle of the mess with his
Speaker 1: hands on his hips. He shakes his head and bites
Speaker 1: his lip. Little punks. Rachel stands in the living room,
Speaker 1: leaning against the paneled wall. I hadn't been here long.
Speaker 1: I worked late last night. Let me guess Dale was
Speaker 1: a here? She shakes her head. How long has he
Speaker 1: been gone this time? Day or two? I see the
Speaker 1: car's not here, so he got it. Mary picked me
Speaker 1: up for work. That ain't the point. Stephen kneels and
Speaker 1: looks more closely at the covered floor. He picks up
Speaker 1: a coupone that drips with Italian dressing. Then he stands
Speaker 1: and walks to the back door and examines where the
Speaker 1: dead bolt splintered the frame. How many did it sound like,
Speaker 1: he asks? At least three? I think any ideas? I
Speaker 1: figure it's some board high school kids. They don't usually
Speaker 1: take anything, just do it for the hell of doing it.
Speaker 1: If your car would have been here, they'd have probably
Speaker 1: kept going. They took the TV in the VCR. Stephen
Speaker 1: takes a notepad from his shirt pocket makes some notes.
Speaker 1: Wearing steakers. Now with a robe, she walks across the
Speaker 1: living room, past Steven and out the back door. He
Speaker 1: follows her. She sits down on the blue chest under
Speaker 1: the car port and asks for a cigarette. They smoke together,
Speaker 1: Stephen with his back to her, looking out across the
Speaker 1: overgrown acreage surrounding the small brick house. No one lives
Speaker 1: within sight, and he's relieved they didn't know she was there,
Speaker 1: that she stayed put and didn't play hero. From here,
Speaker 1: you could scream and scream, but it would be the
Speaker 1: same as a whimper. He flicks a cigarette into the yard,
Speaker 1: and then he turns and says, I'll give you the
Speaker 1: money to get up there, Rachel. Just pack up and go.
Speaker 1: Mama's told you a hundred times you could stay with
Speaker 1: her for a while. I know. Then go this afternoon,
Speaker 1: take the bus. When Dale gets back, I'll come out
Speaker 1: here and take the car from him. Me and the
Speaker 1: kids will clean up. I'll think about it. My god, Rachel,
Speaker 1: he says, don't mind God me, Stephen, I said, I
Speaker 1: think about it. Let me have another cigarette mine or
Speaker 1: lost in there He gives her another and takes one
Speaker 1: for himself. The morning is cool and clear and quiet.
Speaker 1: They had grown up with mornings like these. Their mothers
Speaker 1: helped them make sandwiches, and they walked across the damp
Speaker 1: fields to the woods and down to the stream. Stephen
Speaker 1: took a hatchet. They built forts and later skipped rocks
Speaker 1: as they waited for the day to warm up. Then
Speaker 1: they stepped into the spring fed water, waiting downstream to
Speaker 1: where their feet came out from under them, and they
Speaker 1: dove for the bottom, grabbed a clump of mud, and
Speaker 1: hurried up with it dripping between their fingers, to prove
Speaker 1: they'd made it all the way down. Now the fields
Speaker 1: are overgrown, and on Sunday afternoon, Rachel had gone into
Speaker 1: the woods and looked for the path to the stream,
Speaker 1: but it was also gone, and so was their mother,
Speaker 1: living with a man neither of them have ever seen,
Speaker 1: somewhere in Ohio. What's Dale up to this time? Stephen
Speaker 1: asks Rachel, shrugs the road falling from her shoulder. She
Speaker 1: gives it a tug and says, he's been talking with
Speaker 1: this guy over at Hattiesburg about buying and selling buffalo.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be the new Hamburger A buffalo farm. Huh?
Speaker 1: Will this be like the Lama farm he had out
Speaker 1: here in the backyard. At least he's trying, trying, is working,
Speaker 1: not running all over the place digging for goal. Rachel
Speaker 1: stands from the cooler size and doesn't know what to
Speaker 1: say about Dale, or about the mess inside, or about
Speaker 1: anything I need to clean up, She says, Instead, I
Speaker 1: got off at Ford me and the boys will come
Speaker 1: out and help. You. Got to work today tonight. She
Speaker 1: moves to go inside, and Steven says, think we shed
Speaker 1: call mom and let her know. Rachel runs her hand
Speaker 1: across her forehead and then answers flatly no. She goes in,
Speaker 1: and Stephen walks to his car, looks back at the house,
Speaker 1: and then the radio calls out a wreck on the highway,
Speaker 1: and he drives away. The windows are down and the
Speaker 1: music is up, and the beer sits between Dale's legs
Speaker 1: as he drives a long highway ninety eight. Pattiesburg has
Speaker 1: been what he expected, and both the cooler and the
Speaker 1: gas tanker full a buffalo farm is on its way
Speaker 1: to southeast Mississippi. He met the man with the money
Speaker 1: who had friends down from Birmingham with more money. They
Speaker 1: piled into a pickup truck and drove into the Forest
Speaker 1: County countryside and saw the acreage. Met with the men
Speaker 1: who attend the herd, walked around with their hands on
Speaker 1: their hips. Dale couldn't afford what they were asking, but
Speaker 1: he talked like he could. So the men with the
Speaker 1: money bought his dinner and drinks, and later he danced
Speaker 1: with the red head and then a brew Net shook
Speaker 1: hands firmly, almost believe he was the big shot he
Speaker 1: pretended to be. When they left the last bar at
Speaker 1: two in the morning, he lifted the twenty dollars bill
Speaker 1: that was left for the tip, and that gave him
Speaker 1: money for gas beer for the ride home. He slept
Speaker 1: in the back seat of the small nie sign at
Speaker 1: the city park and awakened with a terrible catch in
Speaker 1: his neck. With cigarettes and tacos and a clear highway later,
Speaker 1: the day seems to open its arms, and going home
Speaker 1: empty handed. As an afterthought, he finishes a beer and
Speaker 1: tosses the can out of the window. The starfoam cooler
Speaker 1: sits on the passenger seat. He takes another from it.
Speaker 1: He looks around at the inside of the car and
Speaker 1: thinks he might stop, give it a vacuum, maybe even
Speaker 1: wash it, give Rachel something to smile about. Along the
Speaker 1: side of the highway, old men sell watermelons and peanuts
Speaker 1: and sweet potatoes out the back of their trucks. He
Speaker 1: waves to them as he passes, wonders what kind of
Speaker 1: money they make, wonders if any of them need a partner.
Speaker 1: He hasn't held a job since the textile plant laid
Speaker 1: them off. But Dale, unlike the others who set small
Speaker 1: fires and tosses rocks through windows on their life, Dale work,
Speaker 1: wasn't upset by it. He figured the Severn's pay was
Speaker 1: good enough and would give him time to think, to
Speaker 1: figure out how to work less and make more. All
Speaker 1: he needed was a catchy phrase on a T shirt
Speaker 1: or a gadget that no housewife could live without. He'd
Speaker 1: been thinking now for almost three years, and the best
Speaker 1: he'd done was a booth each year at the county
Speaker 1: fair selling giant pandas, which he didn't like because he
Speaker 1: didn't make enough to hire someone to do the actual work.
Speaker 1: He was smart enough to know Rachel never complained as
Speaker 1: much as she wanted. They live in her mother's house,
Speaker 1: square and small and free. The Nissan is Rachel's, passed
Speaker 1: down from Stephen. Dale keeps the grass mode and the
Speaker 1: dishes washed her uncle bush hogs of twenty acres twice
Speaker 1: a year. Every once in a while he cooks dinner,
Speaker 1: and if she wants more out of him, she hadn't
Speaker 1: said it, or at least she hasn't said it loud enough.
Speaker 1: He anticipates the day when he can tell her to
Speaker 1: quit her a waitress job at the truck stop, and
Speaker 1: that we're moving up in the world. How about a
Speaker 1: week in in Gulf Shores. To celebrate, he tosses another
Speaker 1: empty can out the window. The men from Birmingham said
Speaker 1: he needed twenty thousand dollars to get a piece of
Speaker 1: the herd. Said he could turn around and make twice
Speaker 1: that once the buffalo matured and went on the market,
Speaker 1: and then you were set turn it over and turn
Speaker 1: it over and watch the money grow. You have to
Speaker 1: spend money to make money, they told him. Heck, everybody
Speaker 1: knows that, Dale said, and laughed big. But they might
Speaker 1: as well have asked for millions. As the twenty bucks
Speaker 1: Dale swiped at the bar. Was it anywhere? A few
Speaker 1: miles down the road, he passes another old man with
Speaker 1: another pickup truck, and in the back of it sit
Speaker 1: giant Winnie the poos. Dale slows to get a closer
Speaker 1: look at the huge yellow heads is bigger, bigger than
Speaker 1: his white face pandas the old man waves and Dale
Speaker 1: shakes his finger at him and then yells out the window,
Speaker 1: don't even think about bringing your tail to the fair.
Speaker 1: Rachel rests on the shredded sofa, still in her robe,
Speaker 1: her forehead moist with sweat. See salvage little from the
Speaker 1: kitchen floor and emptied what was left in the refrigerator
Speaker 1: into a garbage bag. The cabinet doors were ruined and
Speaker 1: they lay in a pile by the side of the road.
Speaker 1: The tile floor was mopped and the living room vacuumed.
Speaker 1: She tried to scrub a three foot middle finger off
Speaker 1: the kitchen wall, but the black paint only smeared and
Speaker 1: formed a circle of gray clouds hollow in the center.
Speaker 1: She will need paint for the kitchen, and she doesn't
Speaker 1: know what for the wood panels of the living room.
Speaker 1: There won't be money to replace an entire wall. She's
Speaker 1: happy the television is gone, and she wonders what Dale
Speaker 1: will do now. The place still stinks, so she gets
Speaker 1: up and opens windows. It smells like urine, but she
Speaker 1: checked the carpet for damp spots and found nothing. She
Speaker 1: hopes Dale will show up before she has to go
Speaker 1: to work and help move the furniture out to the road.
Speaker 1: She found her cigarettes and she lights one as she
Speaker 1: gazes out of the kitchen window. The grass high and
Speaker 1: healthier cross the fields through the summer has been dry.
Speaker 1: She leans on the counter, wonders where the smell is
Speaker 1: coming from. She envies the people who did this, the young,
Speaker 1: careless voices that scared her underneath the bed while they
Speaker 1: raised with careless intentions. She tried to remember what it
Speaker 1: was like to not give a damn. She wanted to
Speaker 1: not give a damn right now. Like Dale. She knew
Speaker 1: that he would walk in the door, shrug his shoulders
Speaker 1: and say it ain't so bad, Say why don't we
Speaker 1: cook out tonight, Say we need to go to the
Speaker 1: pawn shop and get another TV, and she'd go along
Speaker 1: with it. She figures it'll be weeks before the four
Speaker 1: letter words are painted over, weeks before the smell disappear,
Speaker 1: weeks before she gives up on him doing anything to
Speaker 1: help those little pricks. She imagines them sleeping late, comfortable
Speaker 1: in the black and white dreams of apathy. Dale hasn't
Speaker 1: always been this way, and she can't think of anything
Speaker 1: from before they were married that warned he was a
Speaker 1: rabbit chaser. The year's worth of severeigns pay they spent
Speaker 1: in a few months, taking weekends in Memphis and Jackson
Speaker 1: and drinking without asking prices and dancing until the lights
Speaker 1: came on. Then, seeing the end of the road, she
Speaker 1: began picking up double shifts at the truck stop again.
Speaker 1: But instead of looking for work, Dale started talking schemes,
Speaker 1: quick fixes, early retirement talk that she listened to and
Speaker 1: smiled at and figured it would wear off. It began
Speaker 1: with Dale sitting up all hours of the night watching infomercials,
Speaker 1: making notes, writing descriptions of typical people with typical needs
Speaker 1: that weren't being met to the fullest with their typical
Speaker 1: household products. He would draw sketches of new inventions, rough
Speaker 1: childlike sketches that were often as simple as triangles on
Speaker 1: top of squares or circles inside of triangles, sketches only
Speaker 1: Dale could understand. Then he began naming the sketches red
Speaker 1: light radar detector, solar powered can opener, chandles, shoes that
Speaker 1: transform into sandals, into easy steps, movie in a box.
Speaker 1: He'd stand in the kitchen for hours, staring at the appliances,
Speaker 1: going through the motions of cooking dinner for six imagining
Speaker 1: cleaning corners that had never been cleaned. He bought stamps
Speaker 1: and envelopes and wrote elaborate letters to invention companies. They
Speaker 1: didn't answer. He called the eight hundred numbers from the infomercials,
Speaker 1: hoping to speak to the man in charge, but the
Speaker 1: operator only processed orders. He asked Rachel about her domestic needs.
Speaker 1: It's about how her feet felt after ten hours of
Speaker 1: filling coffee cups and bussing tables. She was too tired
Speaker 1: to help, so he turned his attention outside the house.
Speaker 1: They had twenty acres, plenty of space to turn, plenty
Speaker 1: of profit. He fenced off three acres and bought lamas,
Speaker 1: though he never understood what he was supposed to do
Speaker 1: with them. The lamas bade all hours of the night
Speaker 1: and ate without ceasing. Several of them hopped the fence
Speaker 1: and were found as far as ten miles away. He
Speaker 1: finally gave away the few that had an escape to
Speaker 1: a petting zoo in Hammon, Louisiana. To cheer him up
Speaker 1: after the Lama fiasco, Rachel took him to the county fair.
Speaker 1: They rode the ferris wheel and ate cotton candy and
Speaker 1: threw darts of balloons. But Aldale could say during the
Speaker 1: evening was why couldn't I been the guy who thought
Speaker 1: up fares. The next year, he set up a giant
Speaker 1: panda booth, and he discovered people loved giant pandas. But
Speaker 1: the fare is only a month out of the year,
Speaker 1: which returned him quickly to nowhere. Buffalo Buffalo, Rachel says
Speaker 1: and laughs. She doesn't understand why Dale needs the big score.
Speaker 1: He never says what he might do if he hits.
Speaker 1: She figures they will live right where they live, know
Speaker 1: the people they already know, Maybe eat better, build a pool,
Speaker 1: drive faster. Steven has been after her for the last
Speaker 1: year to leave him and sell the house, go to
Speaker 1: Ohio and stay with mom, do your own thinking, get
Speaker 1: away from the sorry piece of you know what. But
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to think or leave, and something inside
Speaker 1: her can't help. But smile when a new idea pops
Speaker 1: into Dale's head. Like a child entertained by a burning match,
Speaker 1: she drops her cigarette into the sink and walks into
Speaker 1: the bedroom, kicks off her sneakers and drops her robe.
Speaker 1: She looks into the closet and doesn't like anything. And
Speaker 1: she looks around the room and doesn't like anything. Her
Speaker 1: naked body looks back at her in the mirror. It
Speaker 1: doesn't like anything either. She puts a rode back on,
Speaker 1: and from the night stand drawer she takes out the
Speaker 1: house insurance policy, two credit cards she keeps hidden from
Speaker 1: Dale in a small photo album. She picks her purse
Speaker 1: up from the floor, and then she walks back into
Speaker 1: the kitchen and lights another cigarette. She stands in the house.
Speaker 1: She is known as a child, as a teenager, as
Speaker 1: an adult, but she's like a ghost in a ghost town,
Speaker 1: and it surprises her how easy it is to walk
Speaker 1: over to the shredded sofa and drop a lit cigarette.
Speaker 1: Rachel sits on the ground by the road, leaning against
Speaker 1: the mailbox post. She watches the fire through the windows
Speaker 1: as it spreads from the sofa to the carpet and
Speaker 1: begins to crawl up the walls. Of the living room.
Speaker 1: Smoke seeps from underneath the closed windows in a slow exhale.
Speaker 1: It isn't long before the flames spread to the other
Speaker 1: rooms of the house, the kitchen to her left, the bedroom,
Speaker 1: and the bathroom to her right. More smoke drifts out up,
Speaker 1: and she watches it trail away into the clear morning sky.
Speaker 1: She stretches her legs out, unties the robe and lets
Speaker 1: it fall open. She hopes the road will remain quiet,
Speaker 1: that the distant neighbors are all at work, so that
Speaker 1: she can watch it burn to the ground. In a
Speaker 1: few minutes, the roof of the living room caves in
Speaker 1: and a gust of black smoke shoots up through the
Speaker 1: burning hole. That'll do it, she thinks, somebody will see that. No,
Speaker 1: it isn't trash burning. The flames grow, and a breeze
Speaker 1: brings us warmth to her bare skin, and she closes
Speaker 1: her eyes again and imagines lying next to a hotel pool,
Speaker 1: kids flapping in the shallow end. Mother's reading tan stranger
Speaker 1: asking if she wants a beer from his cooler. She
Speaker 1: here's a car coming, and she closes the robe and stands.
Speaker 1: She sticks her purse and the mailbox and then prepares
Speaker 1: herself to appear frantic, but there is no need, as
Speaker 1: the car is her own. Dale making his way home,
Speaker 1: he stops next to the road and hurries out of
Speaker 1: the car and over to Rachelne says, are you all right?
Speaker 1: She nods, what happened? Have you called the fire department?
Speaker 1: It's okay, Dale, I'd to go on, nattiesburd He looks
Speaker 1: at the house and then back at her, and he
Speaker 1: grabs her firmly by the shoulders. Honey, you're in shock.
Speaker 1: Sit down. She brushes him off and says, I'm not
Speaker 1: in shock. Dale, I lit the thing myself. He sits down,
Speaker 1: his mouth open as he watches the blaze. Chunks of
Speaker 1: roof were caving in from side to side, and the
Speaker 1: heat makes waves high into the blue sky. She sits
Speaker 1: beside him and says it's kind of pretty in a way,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Dale looks at her, his mouth still open,
Speaker 1: and back at the fire. Says, you always have something
Speaker 1: to say, some sails, pitch something, describe what you feel
Speaker 1: in twenty words less, and I'll open my robe. He
Speaker 1: hasn't noticed until now that she is in her robe barefooted.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? He asks. She grits her teeth,
Speaker 1: suddenly impatient with him. What are you doing? Huh? Tell
Speaker 1: me that, Dale, what are you doing? A large section
Speaker 1: of the roof caves, glass shatters, and something pops like
Speaker 1: a pistol. The growing heat pushes toward them, and Dale says,
Speaker 1: let's move back. But when he tries to stay and
Speaker 1: she grabs his arm and says, sit down, have you
Speaker 1: lost your mind? Sit down and tell me what you're doing.
Speaker 1: What happened in Hattiesburg? Tell me and you can get up.
Speaker 1: He gives in and leans back on his elbows. Nothing happened,
Speaker 1: Nothing ever happens. You should know that by now. No buffalo.
Speaker 1: Well there's plenty of buffalo, but they want on a
Speaker 1: twenty grand investment minimum. He sits up in huffs. One
Speaker 1: thing's for sure. There ain't no gimmicks. Money makes money,
Speaker 1: not some wild eyed nineteen ninety nine gadget thought up
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. She takes his hand
Speaker 1: and holds it. He keeps his eyes on the ground
Speaker 1: in front of him. Unaffected by her softness. She moves
Speaker 1: his hand away and feels the heat on her face.
Speaker 1: She will call Steven and ask him to keep quiet.
Speaker 1: About the break in. She'll give Dale the money wants,
Speaker 1: the insurance pays for the house. This, she'll sell the land,
Speaker 1: and they'll move close to the buffalo so they can
Speaker 1: keep an eye on their investment, maybe even help with
Speaker 1: the herd wherever. That means they will buy a house
Speaker 1: of their own with an alarm system, and she'll get
Speaker 1: a job and he'll get a job in case there's
Speaker 1: a buffalo plague. This will be part of the deal.
Speaker 1: This is her plan, and it comes to her simply
Speaker 1: as if someone had handed it to her on a
Speaker 1: note card. If nothing else, she thinks it will be
Speaker 1: something different. She will tell him about it, but not now.
Speaker 1: She stands and takes his hand and leads him around
Speaker 1: the snapping fire behind the house and into the tall
Speaker 1: grass in the shade of a cluster of pine trees.
Speaker 1: She takes off her robe and lays it on the ground,
Speaker 1: and then she brings him down with her, and the
Speaker 1: wind blows smoke across them, and Dale raises his head
Speaker 1: and says, I think I hear a siren, And then
Speaker 1: she puts her hand over his mouth and tells him
Speaker 1: to stop talking.