Porch with Chrissy
Cax and Sally, they's always on the corner
Cax, she's about my height maybe prettier
Sally looks like Fonda's boy
No. Anyway, they's the first ones come to mind
And maybe check Jackie's place 'cause she ain't straight
Just ain't
We got a lot of cats, is why it's all like this
I put'em downstairs after you said you'd come
Yeah, Cax, well she ain't gonna tell truths, but she's smarter than hell
Mark, he's his closest bud, probably gay
Maybe on Ninth street at the court where he does lay-ups and free-throws that sorta thing and he's got about a ton of antiques 'cause his daddy got runned down behind the mine there, and Mark got most of it left him and sold some of it and that he lives on now
Yeah, he don't work, just shoots on the court
alone
Courts with Mark and Lionell Epps
Fifteen years ago, maybe
She's a great girl, but a little too much, and then she dated Joe
I heard it
Like an engine without the muffler, but a big chain wrapped around it too and maybe some kinda chain hangin' off the back, like a
Yeah, maybe that too, but kinda low—like a train
Well he built one a year ago, but he blew it up usin' nitro and stuff
Yeah, I heard about it
I ain't never been up there, you Lionell?
Turkeys up'n there, but I ain't never been to his home none, and he often comes to the bar but don't speak, just orders a fish battered sandwich and a Schlitz with a Makers starter
Lionell owns Epps's
He look daft to you?
Just lettin' him know
Korea
Wears that thing all year round
Don't sweat none anymore
Lynn at Roxie's
You know, our boys, you know they're just so damn creative
He built it himself and no one really even taught him
Mark neither, just sold to Sotheby's, and we hadn't even heard the place
Made a great sum, and he gave a third to the church, good man he is
And we told him, back then, since he wasn't going to work for money, he could volunteer in the kitchen and converse with the Vets, but he wasn't having it because
Lionell won't go near the kitchen, and those boys don't go to Epps's
Well, here, and Suzy's, called Old Draught One—it's by the road to the mine on the river
Just follow out to route eighty and you'll see the sign, it's just a picket sign, but it's a sign alright
Ice Cream, our biggest seller
Kids, you know, after school and church
St. Augustine with Janet
Well, it's certainly a pleasure to meet you—I heard you were on your way from Chrissy
Said you're the nosey type
Well you is, ain't you
I been here thirty-five years to the month and I haven't found a man yet to replace Jesus
You laugh, I'm serious, handsome
Sure, I heard, but I don't want to really talk about it
He's no good
She ain't neither
Jackie's House
A spigot runs, a large basin spills to geese and their goslings bathe.
The fuck you want
Is that any of your goddamn business?
No
Didn't wanna see Mark
Goddamn you been around, huh
Bet you think I'm a whore
Turn off the damn spigot (a toddler girl runs from screened porch, smiles me while she kills the spigot, comes to Jackie and hides a leg)
She's his, they know it
He owed me money, and a goddamn husband
You want a beer or somethin'?
Come on in
Don't touch that, it's not grounded
Yeah, I read them at night
My momma had a subscription all through the seventies
I read it to her when she can't sleep, most nights
Susy, turn the damn thing off
Anyway, should've stopped it with that first one
Exhaust shot the blades too hot and burned it all up but it was a drone anyway, so it wasn't none too dangerous, but we all heard the bang
Nighttime, always, so he could see flame come off the thing, but with that second one, well he got it all fix'd to take a passenger, and Mark saw it and told me but he didn't care none, just let him do it—Fucking Mark
Walk Lionell Epps to Old Draught One
Because around here you don't do that
Why we ain't got a local newspaper
Same reason
People get news from wives and ain't nothin' new about it (Lionell's son walks before us thirty feet off, shoulders narrowed and scoliosis bends him down, not a word)
Just the same old shit
Someone raped the girl just from Florida; Someone spiked Mary's drink, which is always bullshit, anything with Mary; Someone bought a foreign car, big thing, and they're liberal; Someone—and it's all like that
Probably put up a sign, somethin'
I'll leave you here, kid, enjoy your beer and when you want a good sandwich
Right
Old Draught One
A good boy
Yep
Yes
He is, was
And we know'd he'd done it when he blew up that first one and kept buildin's others
Yep
He did
Yes
Coulda sworn I seen you before
Right—Jackie's got a girl
She is his daughter, that much I do know
Ha, boy
Yessir
Is it?
Jesus
Take it down, you'll be fine
Sure, last year Thomas ordered three of them for the corners, all except the one with the Turkey beards
Fuck me, livens the place up, what'd you just want the damn clack of billiard balls?
Love my golf on the TV
Yep
Yessir
Cax, Sally
Where you from?
That's far
You visitin' family
Writer, balls, what've you written?
He ain't written nothin', Cax
I ain't doin' that, ain't you got nothin' in the store?
Well, what good're you, then?
Fine
He's a man
He's twenty-five
Right
And he built 'em since he got out of middle school
Redhead
He is that
I dated him when we were in the last few weeks of high school
And he raped you
And he Did
And she got preggers
And I did Not
It's what John says
John can fuck hisselfv
Mark at Joe's
Close
I went and put a bunch of flowers and my Aunt fainted, I got that kinda family
Helped him build the first one
No seat, just a drone, he called it
About three-fifty, tops, but boy when it blew up, like I told you yesterday, jesus, sky high
Angle, the propeller
On the river they got a propeller plant
Wouldn't known it 'less you was from here, guess
Wood, ply
A beautiful fan of plys glued up and pretty
Second one's what killed him
Right in the neck
Did a good job, open casket, 'n all, but damn hell of a mark, and his arm's pretty well tored off
He taught me a lot growin' up
Five years
Yeah, two of my pals in a few years, rough
Just his heart, Dad took nitro-glycerin for his heart and Joe used nitro in his engines
Loud as hell
No one told you about that? No one said how it worked?
He mounted them on the railroad tracks that stop dead on a hill in the field, but he build the water pit there, how the breaks'd work
Fifty feet up, maybe a hundred out, the water, just insane the energy behind those things
A dirt road to Joe's barn and tracks gleam a mile out to crabgrass fields, dead trees every so often. Grass and dirt flattens, crisscross tracks emergency vehicles left. A piece of metal black soot covers.
Tracks fade to oil filled pond, a disc of silver on red dust field.