prank.
There are people who enjoy making miserable events even more miserable for those involved. I don’t understand people who admire communism, I don’t understand people who hurt children, I don’t understand people who rob and cheat old people, I don’t understand White Sox fans.
And I especially don’t understand people who find human grief something to exploit for laughs or profit. Someday I’m going to build my own private death row and I’m going to put all these people in it. Except for the White Sox fans.
Following that team is punishment enough. No incarceration required.
I drove back down to the starting line. The blue air was alive with pheasants. You could watch them take fragile flight, their elegant colors vivid above the cornfields and the meadows. In another week it would be legal for hunters to put their rifles and shotguns on them and blow the shit out of them. From all the gunfire in the surrounding hills it sounded as if at least a few of the brave and intrepid hunters were already blasting away. Those damned pheasants are mean.
The area around the starting line was a mess of crushed beer cans, crumpled cigarette packages, pop cans, smashed bottles, empty potato chip packages. But when you looked away from the debris, looked up at the smoky autumn hills, everything was clean and coherent, and the death of a young man last night seemed not obscene but impossible.
I wasn’t looking for it when I found it. I walked right past it, recognizing it for what it was, of course, but not connecting it to Egan or last night.
I was just walking back to my car when I happened to see the trail of it glistening there, a gleaming snake that had already claimed its victim —a gleaming trail of oil.
I walked over to the snake and measured its lengths in steps. The snake extended well beyond my desire to count off its length. I wasn’t sure what it meant. There might be a
harmless explanation. Or a harmful one.
Extremely harmful.
It was getting hotter. I went over and put the top down on my ragtop. I headed back to town.
People clog the churches on Sunday morning, so I always feel self-conscious when I’m tooling past a church and the congregation is gathered on the steps to congratulate the minister on another dynamic sermon—the congregation always gives you the look it reserves for burglars and heathens.
I was hoping to find Egan’s smashed-up car at the Dx station where I trade.
It sat in front of an open bay waiting for its autopsy. The motor might be salvageable —probably was—z well as some of the custom accoutrements that private owners would pay decent money for.
Jay Norbert was looking it over and nodding his head in rhythm to whatever his customer was saying.
The car itself was a great alien metal beast to be pondered and studied. A lot of people would want to know what had gone wrong. Had it been the car or Egan or both?
The customer walked away just as I
approached. Jay had just gotten out of the army.
He’d been a good mechanic when he went in; he was an even better one now that he was out. He was a skinny twenty-two-year-old who was already losing his hair. He always kept his uniform spotless. His boss had opened another gas station across town and put Jay in charge of this one. A doctor in a nearby town had done some questionable things during the pregnancy of Jay’s wife; that was why I knew his story. We were suing the doc.
“Sonofabitch,” Jay said. “There isn’t enough left here to haul to the junkyard.”
“The poor bastard.”
“I didn’t like him but I sure wouldn’t wish this on him.”
“Why didn’t you like him?”
“He came on to Marie one day.” Marie being his wife, a pretty farm girl. “Right in front of me, too. I started to say something but Marie dragged me away. Was hard workin’ on his car when he came in.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“His car. I was wondering if you’d check
There are people who enjoy making miserable events even more miserable for those involved. I don’t understand people who admire communism, I don’t understand people who hurt children, I don’t understand people who rob and cheat old people, I don’t understand White Sox fans.
And I especially don’t understand people who find human grief something to exploit for laughs or profit. Someday I’m going to build my own private death row and I’m going to put all these people in it. Except for the White Sox fans.
Following that team is punishment enough. No incarceration required.
I drove back down to the starting line. The blue air was alive with pheasants. You could watch them take fragile flight, their elegant colors vivid above the cornfields and the meadows. In another week it would be legal for hunters to put their rifles and shotguns on them and blow the shit out of them. From all the gunfire in the surrounding hills it sounded as if at least a few of the brave and intrepid hunters were already blasting away. Those damned pheasants are mean.
The area around the starting line was a mess of crushed beer cans, crumpled cigarette packages, pop cans, smashed bottles, empty potato chip packages. But when you looked away from the debris, looked up at the smoky autumn hills, everything was clean and coherent, and the death of a young man last night seemed not obscene but impossible.
I wasn’t looking for it when I found it. I walked right past it, recognizing it for what it was, of course, but not connecting it to Egan or last night.
I was just walking back to my car when I happened to see the trail of it glistening there, a gleaming snake that had already claimed its victim —a gleaming trail of oil.
I walked over to the snake and measured its lengths in steps. The snake extended well beyond my desire to count off its length. I wasn’t sure what it meant. There might be a
harmless explanation. Or a harmful one.
Extremely harmful.
It was getting hotter. I went over and put the top down on my ragtop. I headed back to town.
People clog the churches on Sunday morning, so I always feel self-conscious when I’m tooling past a church and the congregation is gathered on the steps to congratulate the minister on another dynamic sermon—the congregation always gives you the look it reserves for burglars and heathens.
I was hoping to find Egan’s smashed-up car at the Dx station where I trade.
It sat in front of an open bay waiting for its autopsy. The motor might be salvageable —probably was—z well as some of the custom accoutrements that private owners would pay decent money for.
Jay Norbert was looking it over and nodding his head in rhythm to whatever his customer was saying.
The car itself was a great alien metal beast to be pondered and studied. A lot of people would want to know what had gone wrong. Had it been the car or Egan or both?
The customer walked away just as I
approached. Jay had just gotten out of the army.
He’d been a good mechanic when he went in; he was an even better one now that he was out. He was a skinny twenty-two-year-old who was already losing his hair. He always kept his uniform spotless. His boss had opened another gas station across town and put Jay in charge of this one. A doctor in a nearby town had done some questionable things during the pregnancy of Jay’s wife; that was why I knew his story. We were suing the doc.
“Sonofabitch,” Jay said. “There isn’t enough left here to haul to the junkyard.”
“The poor bastard.”
“I didn’t like him but I sure wouldn’t wish this on him.”
“Why didn’t you like him?”
“He came on to Marie one day.” Marie being his wife, a pretty farm girl. “Right in front of me, too. I started to say something but Marie dragged me away. Was hard workin’ on his car when he came in.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“His car. I was wondering if you’d check
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