Spinning Dixie by Eric Dezenhall

were sandy. He was one of Mickey’s men. Carvin’ Marvin was so named because of his notorious skill with a knife. He avoided guns. “They’re dangerous,” he had said. I could see in the swell of his ankle, however, that he was carrying today. Claudine’s expression upon seeing him was that of the babysitter in horror films when she first sees the psychopath with the goalie’s mask.
    â€œI gotta get you outta here, College,” Carvin’ Marvin said.
    My heart dropped. I saw the pistol nosing its way out of his cuff.
    â€œIs it Mickey?” I asked. “Is Mickey all right?”
    â€œHe’s fine,” Marv said. “They just got Ange in Philly. Mickey says we gotta take you to that place, you know, where things’ll be safe.”
    A rotten part of me was disappointed that Mickey was all right. Then I was relieved. Mickey was always extorting me to do what he wanted with feigned heart attacks. I turned my attentions back toward Claudine.
    â€œI need to take you back to the hotel,” I said.
    â€œNo, College,” Carvin’ Marvin said. “Mickey wants you at that place.”
    â€œBecause of Mr. Bruno?”
    â€œNo names, kid. Let’s go.” He put his hand on my shoulder, gripping it. I wanted to kill him.
    â€œGive me one second. Please.” I stepped decisively toward Claudine.
    â€œI have to go,” I told her.
    â€œBecause of this Ange?” she asked, scared, or maybe intrigued.
    â€œYes, because of this Ange,” I said to her thigh.
    â€œWhat happened to her?”
    â€œAnge is—was—a man. A friend of my grandfather’s. He was killed.”
    â€œDid they arrest the guy who did it?”
    I instinctively laughed. “No, no, they don’t arrest these guys.”
    She tilted her head, as if I had been speaking Samoan.
    â€œJonah!” Carvin’ Marvin bellowed.
    â€œI’ll be right there…. Claudine, do you want the horse?”
    â€œFor that price, of course.”
    â€œGood, where will I find you? I can call and we can make arrangements to get the horse to you.”
    Claudine pulled a card from her pocket and gave it to me. It was rumpled and moist from both the sweat and sea air on her riding pants. The embossing read “Rattle & Snap, Mount Pleasant, Tennessee,” along with a telephone number.
    I sank my fingers into her hair and kissed her, probably too hard.
    As I tracked her disappearance into the casino, my mind whirred. On what cul-de-sac of our galaxy was Mount Pleasant, Tennessee?

Masada
    â€œEverything in life is in the hands of its enemies.”
    On the road to “that place,” I thought for the first time about the insanity of selling a horse that I didn’t own to Claudine. I hadn’t the slightest authority from the stables to do so. But I made the deal anyway. In the course of an evening, I had gone from being a smart kid with a great future to a huckster-fugitive.
    I sat in the passenger seat of Carvin’ Marvin’s Caddy holding up Claudine’s calling card to the moonlight, as if new information would emerge if I held the card in the precise way intended by Eros. I brought it up to my nose and vaguely detected flowers.
    â€œDo you have a pen and paper?” I asked.
    Carvin’ Marvin rummaged around the front seat of the Caddy and tossed over a Racing Form.
    â€œIt’s all I got, College. And here’s a pen,” Marv added, agitated.
    I wrote the name Claudine Polk in the margin and tore it off. I was afraid to write on her card, viewing it as an act of romantic defilement.
    â€œThis is serious business with Ange, Jonah,” Marv said.
    â€œI know it is.”
    â€œListen to that,” Marv said. “Jonah knows it’s serious.” Normally, a quip like this would have upset me, but Darwin had ranked Claudine Polk’s life infinitely higher than Angelo Bruno’s death.
    â€œWell,” he