flood into dark confines.
Roy enjoyed watching videos on the internet of riots and fights, natural disasters, and sometimes people falling off of bicycles and skateboards. Fights were fun as long as they were street-fights. Ultimate Fighting was too structured—he didn’t watch fights for the gore or brutality, the unpredictability was what drew him, the chaos and incongruity, the panic and frenzy that was almost slapstick in a way. Aimless beating, kicking, the rending of shirts and slipping and falling and flopping around, reducing each other to meaningless ragdolls.
If he were a decade or two younger, he probably would have enjoyed playing videogames like the Grand Theft Auto series.
As it was, behind the wheel he often fantasized about driving off the highway and tearing through back yards and flea markets, plowing through birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. Not so much for the violence of it, but for the strange sight of a car tear-assing through a place you didn’t expect to see it. You just don’t see things like that, and that’s what he enjoyed: things ‘you just don’t see’.
When he was a kid, he’d gotten his hands on a smoke bomb and set it off in the gym showers after sophomore phys-ed, when he knew it would be full of unsuspecting people. Waiting until the smoke had almost filled the room and was beginning to curl over the tops of the shower curtains, Roy had shouted, “Fire! Fire!” and ran outside.
His father had whooped his ass for it, but seeing thirty butt-naked high-schoolers storming through the gymnasium had been the highlight of his freshman year.
He tipped another pint of gasoline into the ants for good measure and got back on the lawnmower, starting it up and climbing the sprawling hill toward the adobe hacienda. A garage stood open out back where the driveway snaked up out of the darkness and curled around the house like a cat’s tail. Roy drove the lawnmower inside, filling the space with a deafening racket.
When he cut the engine off, the silence was even louder. He sat in the dark stillness beside the girls’ Winnebago, packing a box of cigarettes.
Outside, the evening was tempered by the faint murmur of Blackfield’s fading nightlife, an airy, whispering roar washing over the trees. In close pursuit was the constant drone of cicadas and tree frogs.
Southern cities don’t necessarily have nightlife. You go up north or out to Atlanta, maybe, or Birmingham—Roy had been to Atlanta twice and didn’t care to ever go back, that traffic was horseshit—and yeah, the cities don’t sleep. Life runs around the clock. Out here in the sticks, though, a city of six thousand, seven thousand like Blackfield, there’s a few creepers after dark (meth heads, winos, that sort of thing, sometimes hookers) but for the most part the main boulevard is a clear shot from one end of town to the other after dark.
He lit up, wandered back up the driveway and around the house sucking smoke out of the Camel as he went. Standing at the top of the drive, he was treated to a horizon swimming with the red cityglow of Blackfield, and under the jagged rim of the treetops glimmered the windows of the blue Victorian on the other side of the trailer park, a tiny hive of glowing elevens in the night.
As he blew the smoke into the night, multicolored lights flickered in the cupola. Someone was watching TV up there. “Looks like somebody’s moved into the old Martine place.”
An old woman stood by a barbecue grill crackling with flames. The ice in her glass tinkled as she took a sip of a Long Island Iced Tea. Cutty always started dinner with one to whet her appetite. “Know anything about them?”
“Black fella from up north, I expect.”
Roy ashed his Camel and spat a fleck of tobacco. The wind rolling across the top of the hill pushed at his copper hair. He’d once let her make him a Long Island, but it was so strong he could barely finish it. No idea how she could manage it, with her scarecrow
Roy enjoyed watching videos on the internet of riots and fights, natural disasters, and sometimes people falling off of bicycles and skateboards. Fights were fun as long as they were street-fights. Ultimate Fighting was too structured—he didn’t watch fights for the gore or brutality, the unpredictability was what drew him, the chaos and incongruity, the panic and frenzy that was almost slapstick in a way. Aimless beating, kicking, the rending of shirts and slipping and falling and flopping around, reducing each other to meaningless ragdolls.
If he were a decade or two younger, he probably would have enjoyed playing videogames like the Grand Theft Auto series.
As it was, behind the wheel he often fantasized about driving off the highway and tearing through back yards and flea markets, plowing through birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. Not so much for the violence of it, but for the strange sight of a car tear-assing through a place you didn’t expect to see it. You just don’t see things like that, and that’s what he enjoyed: things ‘you just don’t see’.
When he was a kid, he’d gotten his hands on a smoke bomb and set it off in the gym showers after sophomore phys-ed, when he knew it would be full of unsuspecting people. Waiting until the smoke had almost filled the room and was beginning to curl over the tops of the shower curtains, Roy had shouted, “Fire! Fire!” and ran outside.
His father had whooped his ass for it, but seeing thirty butt-naked high-schoolers storming through the gymnasium had been the highlight of his freshman year.
He tipped another pint of gasoline into the ants for good measure and got back on the lawnmower, starting it up and climbing the sprawling hill toward the adobe hacienda. A garage stood open out back where the driveway snaked up out of the darkness and curled around the house like a cat’s tail. Roy drove the lawnmower inside, filling the space with a deafening racket.
When he cut the engine off, the silence was even louder. He sat in the dark stillness beside the girls’ Winnebago, packing a box of cigarettes.
Outside, the evening was tempered by the faint murmur of Blackfield’s fading nightlife, an airy, whispering roar washing over the trees. In close pursuit was the constant drone of cicadas and tree frogs.
Southern cities don’t necessarily have nightlife. You go up north or out to Atlanta, maybe, or Birmingham—Roy had been to Atlanta twice and didn’t care to ever go back, that traffic was horseshit—and yeah, the cities don’t sleep. Life runs around the clock. Out here in the sticks, though, a city of six thousand, seven thousand like Blackfield, there’s a few creepers after dark (meth heads, winos, that sort of thing, sometimes hookers) but for the most part the main boulevard is a clear shot from one end of town to the other after dark.
He lit up, wandered back up the driveway and around the house sucking smoke out of the Camel as he went. Standing at the top of the drive, he was treated to a horizon swimming with the red cityglow of Blackfield, and under the jagged rim of the treetops glimmered the windows of the blue Victorian on the other side of the trailer park, a tiny hive of glowing elevens in the night.
As he blew the smoke into the night, multicolored lights flickered in the cupola. Someone was watching TV up there. “Looks like somebody’s moved into the old Martine place.”
An old woman stood by a barbecue grill crackling with flames. The ice in her glass tinkled as she took a sip of a Long Island Iced Tea. Cutty always started dinner with one to whet her appetite. “Know anything about them?”
“Black fella from up north, I expect.”
Roy ashed his Camel and spat a fleck of tobacco. The wind rolling across the top of the hill pushed at his copper hair. He’d once let her make him a Long Island, but it was so strong he could barely finish it. No idea how she could manage it, with her scarecrow
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