remembers to show up for work. Like other local girls popular with the drill crews, she seems to live her whole life in or near a bar.
âItâs her night off,â says Rich.
âShe wonât mind.â Dick makes a quick pass down the bar, collecting the fives and singles and stuffing them into Richâs shirt pocket. âYou earned it, buddy. Now get out of here before I change my mind.â
Rich grabs his keys and slips out the back door. All along Baker Street, every parking space is taken, pickup trucks with out-of-state plates and the occasional bumper sticker: DONâT MESS WITH TEXAS. DERRICKHANDS KNOW HOW TO TREAT A HOLE. A half dozen have crowded into the small lot behind the Commercial, despite the sign Rich hung there: EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY. ( What employees? Dick protested. Half the time itâs just my car out there. Richard, donât be a prick. )
Rich heads for his truck, parked at the far end of the lot. Directly opposite, ten feet away, sits a red Mazdaâlocked in a stare-down, grille-to-grille, with Richâs truck. Even with its windows closed, he can hear its radio blasting hip-hop. The tattooed skinhead sprawls behind the wheel, leaning back against the headrestâeyes closed, sleeping off his drink.
Rich gets into his truck and flicks on the lights. A second later,a head pops up from beneath the Mazdaâs dashboard. Gia Bernardi squints into the headlights, her hair in disarray, her blouse undone.
Rich squeals out of the parking lot into the street.
He takes the long way home, avoiding the drunks on Drake Highway. The extra driving doesnât bother himâitâs a relief, actually, after sixteen hours on his feet. Forty-two, he thinks. This is what forty-two feels like. If heâs this beat at forty-two, how must his father feel? Dick at the stage in life where, if he were a car, youâd junk him before the transmission went.
In five minutes the lights of the town are no longer visible. Rich drives and thinks of Gia Bernardi, servicing strange men in the parking lot of the Commercial. His dadâs favorite waitress, beloved like a daughter. If Dick ever found out, it would break his heart.
Forty-two feels like the midpoint of something. His dad will be seventy-six next month. Duane Allman was dead at twenty-four, his Sportster creamed by a flatbed truck.
Number Twelve Road is high and winding, unlit, the rusted tipple looming in the distance like a dinosaurâs skeleton, all that remains of the old Baker Twelve. Beyond it lies a valley of dense forest still known as Swedetown, though the mining camp is long gone and no Swede has lived there in a hundred years. The valley belongs, now, to the Prines and Thibodeaux, clans connected by marriage but eternally feuding, each sequestered in its own ramshackle compound of junk cars and sagging sheds and stationary trailer homes, the whole mess wrapped in razor wire and guarded by rottweilers, as though anybody is fighting to get in. The families are known in town, easily recognized: the long Thibodeaux face replicated through the generations with uncanny accuracy; the pale and white-blond Prines. For a few years, in elementary school, Rich knew kids from both tribes, a marauding band of cousins who roamed whooping and barefoot through the forest until they grew into their parents, impulsive, semiliterate, precociously sexual, and heavily armed.
He takes the curves quickly. In his peripheral vision, a burst of light: the Prines or Thibodeaux are setting off fireworks. The forest is loud with canine excitement.
Another burst of light.
Finally the road curves eastward, through cleared farmland. Heâs maybe fifty yards past Peachy Rouseâs when he sees a county sheriffâs car parked at the side of the road, a uniformed deputy at the wheel. In the passenger seat is Chief Carnicella, the town cop, miles outside his jurisdiction. Remembering the stolen fertilizer, Rich gives him a wave.
He
âItâs her night off,â says Rich.
âShe wonât mind.â Dick makes a quick pass down the bar, collecting the fives and singles and stuffing them into Richâs shirt pocket. âYou earned it, buddy. Now get out of here before I change my mind.â
Rich grabs his keys and slips out the back door. All along Baker Street, every parking space is taken, pickup trucks with out-of-state plates and the occasional bumper sticker: DONâT MESS WITH TEXAS. DERRICKHANDS KNOW HOW TO TREAT A HOLE. A half dozen have crowded into the small lot behind the Commercial, despite the sign Rich hung there: EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY. ( What employees? Dick protested. Half the time itâs just my car out there. Richard, donât be a prick. )
Rich heads for his truck, parked at the far end of the lot. Directly opposite, ten feet away, sits a red Mazdaâlocked in a stare-down, grille-to-grille, with Richâs truck. Even with its windows closed, he can hear its radio blasting hip-hop. The tattooed skinhead sprawls behind the wheel, leaning back against the headrestâeyes closed, sleeping off his drink.
Rich gets into his truck and flicks on the lights. A second later,a head pops up from beneath the Mazdaâs dashboard. Gia Bernardi squints into the headlights, her hair in disarray, her blouse undone.
Rich squeals out of the parking lot into the street.
He takes the long way home, avoiding the drunks on Drake Highway. The extra driving doesnât bother himâitâs a relief, actually, after sixteen hours on his feet. Forty-two, he thinks. This is what forty-two feels like. If heâs this beat at forty-two, how must his father feel? Dick at the stage in life where, if he were a car, youâd junk him before the transmission went.
In five minutes the lights of the town are no longer visible. Rich drives and thinks of Gia Bernardi, servicing strange men in the parking lot of the Commercial. His dadâs favorite waitress, beloved like a daughter. If Dick ever found out, it would break his heart.
Forty-two feels like the midpoint of something. His dad will be seventy-six next month. Duane Allman was dead at twenty-four, his Sportster creamed by a flatbed truck.
Number Twelve Road is high and winding, unlit, the rusted tipple looming in the distance like a dinosaurâs skeleton, all that remains of the old Baker Twelve. Beyond it lies a valley of dense forest still known as Swedetown, though the mining camp is long gone and no Swede has lived there in a hundred years. The valley belongs, now, to the Prines and Thibodeaux, clans connected by marriage but eternally feuding, each sequestered in its own ramshackle compound of junk cars and sagging sheds and stationary trailer homes, the whole mess wrapped in razor wire and guarded by rottweilers, as though anybody is fighting to get in. The families are known in town, easily recognized: the long Thibodeaux face replicated through the generations with uncanny accuracy; the pale and white-blond Prines. For a few years, in elementary school, Rich knew kids from both tribes, a marauding band of cousins who roamed whooping and barefoot through the forest until they grew into their parents, impulsive, semiliterate, precociously sexual, and heavily armed.
He takes the curves quickly. In his peripheral vision, a burst of light: the Prines or Thibodeaux are setting off fireworks. The forest is loud with canine excitement.
Another burst of light.
Finally the road curves eastward, through cleared farmland. Heâs maybe fifty yards past Peachy Rouseâs when he sees a county sheriffâs car parked at the side of the road, a uniformed deputy at the wheel. In the passenger seat is Chief Carnicella, the town cop, miles outside his jurisdiction. Remembering the stolen fertilizer, Rich gives him a wave.
He
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