Evie Stone grows roses. She sits on her porch in the afternoons and calls you “darlin’”. Her son and daughter are buried in another state. The mayor is her great-nephew.
In the old church tramps curse and strays whelp. Streetlight shines against the vaulting. Shards of blue glass cling to corners of the broken windows.
White smoke climbs from a field of burning cotton. Silhouettes twist in the flames. Passengers watch from parked cars. Golden rods wave in the ditches.
You take a seat at the diner counter beside a man praying. The waitress puts a glass of ice tea before you. “Corn bread or roll?” she asks. It’s the only choice you have.
People bury pets in the woods. Dogs prowl in packs and kill everything they can catch. Nobody locks their doors at night.
The town constable takes football players hiking in Tennessee. His daughter weaves tapestries and listens to jazz in the garage. His wife drowns puppies in the kitchen sink. His son is somewhere in Canada.
When the flower shop burned, Charlie the mynah trapped inside cried, “Poor Charlie! Poor Charlie! Poor Charlie!”
East of town is a sun-bleached, tattered neighborhood that no one ever seems to leave, where feelings and relatives are buried alive, and the earth waits to swallow you.
