“You going out tonight?” Rafael asked, knowing even without asking that she was indeed going out, as she always did on Thursday evenings, going out to her book club, even though it was Valentine’s Day.

“Yup, going to my book club.  We’ll be at Kathryn’s, but don’t try to reach me because we have the unwritten rule: no cells, no blackberries, total blackout from seven-thirty until ten-thirty.  I’ll be home by eleven.”

Like I said, this is a smart girl.

“What are you guys reading this week?”

Marianne had her book tucked under her arm, but she didn’t pull it out.

“It’s called Bedtime, Bedtime, Jill McMillan.  Fun.”

“Then why are you taking that old Tom Davis piece of shit with you.”

Marianne pulled out the book and sure enough, it was Death on Wheels, a Tom Davis thriller, same size, same color.  She jogged back into the bedroom, but couldn’t find the McMillan book.

“I’m late, gotta run without it.”

“I’ll find it and bring it to you.”

“No, no, Don’t bother. I must have left it at work, reading a lot on my breaks.”

Yeah, yeah, Rafael thought to himself as she pulled out of the driveway,  just like you go to your fucking book club every Thursday night.

He slipped the McMillan book and the Beretta from beneath the sofa cushion, fondled one for a moment, then the other.  He’d give her thirty minutes to get there, then take her the book.

Bedtime, Bedtime.  Valentine’s Day. Sometimes things just work out, don’t they?

It had been three weeks since he left. Three weeks of jumping up to look out the window at every car that passed. Three weeks of Mama setting a place for him – only to clear it away because he did not come home for supper. Three weeks of pushing down the emotions to stop the pounding in her chest. One day Mama would act like nothing happened. That would be the day she would pretend he had just gone out for cigarettes. It was that day that ended in a night of gut wrenching crying – Mama in her room – Esther in hers – both crying for different reasons. The days that followed that day would be filled with fits of anger and sudden tantrums that seemed to spring up out of nowhere. There was more crying but only Esther cried on those days. Mama raged. Esther cried.

Creek rock crunched with every step as Esther slowly walked up the road that led to her house. All day she had a bad feeling. Experience had taught her to trust her feelings – especially bad feelings – they came as warnings and today’s was the warning kind. Climbing the grassy bank from the road to the front yard Esther panned the house. Everything looked as it did when she left this morning. Once under the shade of the trees she could see the front door was open. The screen door slammed behind her.

Esther did not know it at that time but the slamming of the screen door would be the only thing she could have any certainty of that day. The scene inside the house would change in detail like a kaleidoscope.

The house looked as though someone shook it like a snow globe. Nothing appeared to be in its rightful place. A strange metallic taste coated Esther’s tongue. She thought for a minute she would vomit but something inside her steeled her urging her to keep moving – don’t stop here – keep moving. Romance novels lay scattered in the living room some with pages torn from their spines and set on fire. Esther’s eyes registered the charred paper but her mind could not reason why there was no smell. Drops of sweat run down her legs onto her sweat soaked socks so wet that her shoes rub blisters on her heels. Radio static splits the silence – a man laughs at his own joke as he announces things for sale on the local Swap and Shop. His laughter upsets Esther and she swings her arm as if to slap him – to shut him up – the radio sailed from the bureau to the floor just as he announced the Ladies Missionary Society would be selling pies and cakes to raise money for children in need.

Flour covered broken dishes and the refrigerator door stood open as flies swarmed in and out of a torn window screen. As if being lead through a fun house on a dare, Esther stepped out onto the back porch dazed and numb. On cue, the barn door slammed drawing her attention to it.

Like the effects of smelling salts, the familiar odors of the barn sobered her. There in the golden shafts of sun light piercing through the barn’s boards danced dust motes around her mother’s hanging feet.

The mid-morning chime was followed by a monotone female voice, “Units two and three please make your way to the session room. Units two and three – group session – units two and three.” Esther sat on her hands pressing her palms against the seat of the cold metal chair. She stared at the space of floor between her feet. She studied her socks – the bulky seam across the toe – she curled her toes exposing the seam between the tiles. “Step on a crack and break your mother’s back.” She smiled.

The silence hung in the air as dense as smoke. Neither of them had spoken a word in over an hour. With a deep sigh he turned to the girl and looked at her for a long moment before speaking. “We need to get out of here for a while. Let’s go get some coffee.” She nodded in agreement and pulled her worn shoes onto her feet. When they both were appropriately shod she opened the apartment door and a gust of cold air welcomed her. Shivering she said, “winter’s here again.” Turning in the hallway she removed a green army field jacket from the closet. As she slid her arms into the sleeves she inhaled the scent of the fabric deeply, nothing left, only the smell of last years coat that needed cleaning. Outside the cold air made a mockery of the bright sunshine, which seemed to promise warm temperatures. Eyes squinted against the sun, the couple walked slowly up the street. Once inside the diner they sat, warming their hands with cups of coffee, each seemingly lost within their heads. Reaching for the sugar packets at the same time their hands brushed against each other’s. The act of touching seemed to bring them to the present. For a few seconds they each studied the face that looked at them across the table. He was first to break the silence. “We can’t go on like this. It’s not good. In the beginning I thought by sharing our grief we could work through things together.” He paused before continuing. “But instead of working through it, it has become what we are, the sad people, wrapped up in the past. Not able to move toward the future.” “I’m sorry, I didn’t want things to be like this.” Her voice was barely audible. She looked at the murky coffee in the cup, as if it held some answer. “Look I’m going to make this as easy as possible, you finish your coffee and I’ll pack a bag and go to my sister’s. We can discuss everything else some other time.” For the first time that day his voice was strong and animated. She watched as he paid the check and walked from the diner. She felt if she should say something, call out to him, but there was nothing to say. It had already been said, many times. Instead she gave him time, time to make his escape. She sat there sipping on the now cold coffee, refusing the waitress’ offer to warm it. She kept her face turned to the window, not seeing the traffic or the people.

When the sun was almost gone from the sky, she decided he had been given enough time to pack a bag. She stood and once again she slid her arms into the field jacket. Suddenly the oversized jacket made her feel small and alone. When she walked from the diner’s door she placed her hands into the pockets for warmth. Her right hand came into contact with something cold and hard. Pulling the object from her pocket she saw that it was a key. Large, brass colored, it was the kind that opened doors. She stood in the cold fading sunlight starring at the key, a single tear slid down her cheek.

The Meskelly family winds its way through my stories for several reasons. I guess the main reason was the number of them. Two girls and eleven boys. The old man and the boys worked the land and kept the wolf away from the door. The woman kept house and worked in the fields if needed.

The oldest boy, James, slipped off and joined the Army. This event almost killed the old man. He blamed himself for the impending demise of his first-born. Not so. Old James just grabbed death by the ears, spit in its eye, and survived that war.

To make matters even worse, James had been a paratrooper. He liked it better than farming and decided to become a “lifer.” In a round-about way I reckon it was James that put me and the old red Meskelly mule on a collision course with that damned old surplus Army parachute. James sent home a parachute because his mom had heard about but never seen any Nylon fabric. Being a woman who still made most of the clothes for her daughters and herself, she was curious about this new fangled stuff.

James must have gotten his hands on a bunch of the things because they began to show up pretty regular for a while. Our rural mail carrier was a man named Joe Manasco. Joe had a hell of a time getting the packages containing the parachutes delivered. However, as legend has it, nothing stops the US mail. Wasn’t long until the Meskelly family had cornered the parachute market in Walker County.

Meanwhile, my cousin Charles, the thinker in our bunch, had come across an ad in the Sunday edition of the Birmingham News. The ad showed happy half-naked young ladies being towed behind powerful speed boats. The girls were not water skiing but instead were hanging beneath a parachute. Charlie figured it was a neat way to fly once you mastered it. His ultimate aim was to sneak out his dad’s 1949 Ford V-8 and tow the parachute down the Cedrum Road, but for now, he needed to train a pilot. Lucky me would be that pilot.

One of the Meskelly mules would tow me and the parachute. The reason for picking those mules was that the pasture where they stayed was composed of about twelve acres of flat grassy ground with few trees, not to mention the fact that the parachute was close at hand.

The big day finally came. It was a pretty and sunny Saturday about the middle of September. Most of the adults were gone to town. We had the place all to ourselves. I believe every kid in our rural community was there. The Meskelly boys harnessed up a big red “Jack” mule that had been picked to be the power source. I was dressed in a long sleeve Mackinaw coat and a old coal miner’s safety helmet. “Old Cuz” had come up with darn near one hundred feet of rope to use for tying the parachute and yours truly to the mule. Once everything was attached it was lift-off time. We were ready, by gosh.

Charlie’s original plan had been to ride his old “Roll Fast” bicycle and lead the mule by a rope tied to the harness. We never gave any thought to what to do if things didn’t go as expected. Murphy’s law, you know!

Our first two attempts were pretty much what you’d expect. I’ve always felt that on that day the Good Lord was watching us. I can just imagine him getting a chuckle out of the show we were putting on. I figure he turned to Saint Peter and said, “Pete, lets have a little fun with these kids. Watch this.” He snapped his fingers and wind started to blow.

We in our haste had missed the point that most all flying machines need to take off into the wind. The parachute was no exception. As we turned around to try again the wind caught the chute and filled it with air. It bloomed into a great cloud-like circle. Charles started peddling the bike faster and leading the mule into the wind. I ran after them dragging the parachute behind me. Once the tow line tightened up I noticed that my feet were skipping across the ground, just barely making contact, and then they weren’t touching the ground at all.

The transition to flight was scary, as you can imagine. I didn’t have a clue about how I should try to keep this contraption stable and not go crashing into the ground that was now several feet below. No one knew the exact altitude I reached but all agreed it was “way up yonder”. Of course, the faster the mule went the higher I soared, and therein lay fertile ground for Mister Murphy’s law to kick my hind end. As I climbed higher with the sun at my back the shadow of me and the chute overtook the mule and cast our dark image on him.

Mules are intelligent animals, as a rule always aware of what’s going on around them. This old red mule was no exception. When the dark shadow swept across his back he naturally glanced over his shoulder to see what was happening. That was about the time that Murphy pointed out to the mule that he was being followed by a “Booger” of some sort. The mule’s reaction was immediate and natural. He took off running. Charlie and the bicycle fell by the way side. Me and the mule and the chute headed for the other end of the pasture.

I figure this was about the time that Saint Peter said, “Hey Boss, maybe you better check on this crazy hillbilly kid.” Suddenly the mule decided to turn around and head toward the barn. As the mule came around the parachute began to collapse into itself, and I hit the ground with a thud. It was about here that the Lord told Murphy to “beat it”.

Charlie had attached the rope to a D-ring on my chute harness. He’d used a knot that he thought would hold but release fast in case I needed to get free of the mule. I couldn’t get hold of the rope end that I needed to pull to free myself. The old mule was running and I had a major problem. All of a sudden the rope tightened up like a bow string and snapped. It had tangled in a small stump and broke. The free end shot forward and smacked that old mule on his behind which only scared him more. He let out a loud “heehaw” and hid in the barn.

As for me, I vowed to never let Charles talk me into such craziness again. Of course that didn’t work out to be the case. I mean who’s gonna believe a story about mule-powered flight. If a feller intends to become a legend he’s gonna have to do better than that.

It was a private women’s college, you can figure out which one. It’s in Decatur. I had been a feminist from the age of twelve, when some idiot told me he was automatically smarter than me because he was a boy. This was obviously ridiculous but I decked him anyway just to make a point. By eighteen I had read Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Wollstonecraft, Gloria Steinem, and _The New Our Bodies, Ourselves_, and I decided to find the closest women’s college and go there.

When I arrived I found myself in the middle of a culture war between the lesbians and the Southern belles. This was not the sisterhood of women I had imagined. I refused to declare allegiance to either side and withdrew to my dorm room to write terrible poetry and discover alcohol.

When I say that I did not like it there, an example of the sort of thing I mean is that every year there was a Christmas tree decorating contest. The people who won that year made a manger scene with teddy bears dressed as Mary and Joseph and the shepherds. There was a baby bear Jesus. There were Wise Bears.

My dorm, the smallest and closest to the railroad tracks, was full of reprobates, outcasts, and other artistic persons. We decided that the theme for our tree should be “Safe Sex.” We hung condoms on the tree with care, and the foil wreaths out of used birth control packs tied up with red and green bows. We fluffed tampons and made Santa Clauses out of them. They already come with strings and all you have to do is add eyes, a mouth, and a little hat. For the top of the tree, we had an Alabama license plate.

We did not win, even though we had a constant stream of people coming into our dorm to look at our tree. Taking exception to the obvious bias and bourgeois sensibility of the award committee, we snuck into the winning dorm at 3 am where, drawing upon our expensive liberal arts education, we rearranged Baby Jesus Bear, the Wise Bears and the rest of them to portray our own vision of _The Rape of the Sabine Bears_.

The years have passed and I heard that it has become a tradition to hang condoms on the Christmas tree there. I can’t say I am surprised, it’s a very Southern place and making a tradition out of it is how all Southerners deal with trauma. I haven’t been back myself.

I wonder if the lesbians and the Southern belles ever resolved their differences. I could have told them they were not as different as they might believe. Sisterhood is powerful.

He had arrived in Atlanta from Semmes, Alabama with high hopes. He had always been good with cars and thought he could land a job quickly. He rented a room in a seedy motel while he looked for a week.

But even Jiffy Lube wasn’t hiring.

Kenny found himself downtown. He watched a little boy tugging at his mother’s skirt, whining as they passed a bakery. Kenny thought of how many times he had tried convincing his mother to buy him a cookie when they went shopping in Mobile. He fought tears.

Unhooking his duffel bag, he dropped himself onto a bus-stop bench. He hoped he wouldn’t have to call his mother for help. She never wanted him to leave, yet gave him two hundred dollars to get started. He wondered how many tables she had to wait on to have saved the money. He tried gathering the nerve to ask a white man in a suit and tie waiting at the bus stop for money, but he panicked trying to figure out what to say. Even though he was grown, he understood his mama would beat him if she knew he was even thinking of begging for money.

Counting the change in his pocket–eighty-seven cents–he turned towards a hot dog vendor, a short distance from where he sat. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday and the sizzling meat smelled so good it made him hurt all over. The sign on the man’s stand read: Jumbo Hot Dog. $2.50. He put his head in his hands and prayed for a sign. Should he give up and go home or should he keep searching for a job and a place to stay? When he opened his eyes, he saw a wallet on the bench next to him. Why hadn’t he seen it before? He reached for it and counted ten crisp twenty-dollar bills.

“Praise Jesus,” he said aloud. “Enough for me to start over.”

The wallet was filled with credit cards. Kenny looked at the driver’s license picture of the young black man who had owned the wallet. He knew the resemblance in the picture was enough to pass the quick inspection of most white people.

Slipping the wallet in his pocket, and grabbing his duffle bag, he walked to the hot dog vendor. His stomach rumbled as he waited in line behind a woman with two children. The sound in his belly reminded him of the gravel voice of his pastor from back home. He could hear Rev. Echols say, “God works in mysterious ways.”

Jim Morrison, picking up a load of seasoned oak, stood on his front porch and sniffed the air expectantly. Fog, like a demented banshee, swirled around his head, coating his thick glasses, compressing his body and whispering possibilities.

“I need your help,” he said, opening the door and addressing a family of seven. Without question or comment, they rose in unison and followed him robotically through the three-room cabin outside and into a shed that dwarfed the cabin. They made short work of the task as sixteen hands, small and large, passed cans and sealed bags down to the far end.

The work done, Jim said, “More than likely going to be a busy night. Everyone go to bed now and get some sleep.” They obeyed with precision and within five minutes the cabin was dark. The fog moved confidentally on up the gorge and bedded down to await the prey.

Around midnight the murky cloud rose on its vaporous hind legs at the sound of a muffled motor, futilely searching for lower gears and dragging its heels while cursing its tread-bare feet, impotent wipers and blinded eyes. The Morrison family, awakened by the prey’s gathering momentum, sat upright in their beds, heard its moans for God’s mercy as it passed, and listened for the inevitable moment of silence, followed by sounds of catastrophe.

Jim was on the phone. “Bad, Sheriff, sounds real bad.”

The Morrison clan arrived first on a flatbed truck, its cab arrayed with six penetrating searchlights trained on the bottom of the two hundred foot drop-off which marked the final hairpin turn of the highway before straightening out and gliding into the valley. All was quiet escept for some death rattles from the motor. The fog obligingly parted so that the eight Morrisons got their first view: a tangled mass of metal rent asunder by sharp boulders, a gaping wound in its side that spread its life-giving contents over the rocks like a frozen, shiny, tin waterfall. Its name, like a gravestone etching, could still be read. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co.

In about fifteen minutes the sheriff and two deputies arrived, followed by a hearse, a driver and one assistant. With the aid of the Morrison searchlights, the deputies lowered a canvas stretcher and repelled over the cliff. On the signal yell, Jim cranked a windlass on the back of his truck as the deputies respectfully, carefully guided their load over boulders and into the waiting arms of the hearse driver and helper. The procession passed with the family standing stiffly in line and crying. The hearse eased its way reverently down the mountain. The sheriff placed a comforting hand on Jim’s shoulder.

“Bad business,” the sheriff said.

“Some mother’s son,” Jim said. He wiped his eyes with his coat cuffs. His hand crossed his heart as fingers felt into his shirt pocket. He pulled out an accordion-folded, one-hundred-dollar bill and pressed it into the sheriff’s hand. The sheriff and deputies headed back down the gorge.

Jim looked at his business partners. The word would be out tomorrow all over the valley. Orders would start to come in. There was work to be done.

“Don’t say it that way. So cold.” The woman turned and fixed her gaze on the moon, just rising now, big and low in the failing daylight, as if birthed, like some old Egyptian god, by the black waters of the Edisto itself. An egret lifted up from the shallows.

“That’s his soul,” she said, pointing at the bird. “That’s his beautiful mule soul.”

The man said nothing. The woman, a respected pediatrician back home in the High Country, a clinical professor at the medical school, a scientist, his wife of forty years, had always solaced herself in times of sorrow by becoming like a child herself, like one of her patients in need of a story.

The woman followed the egret’s flight. She wanted to go with the bird, but chained to earth she closed her eyes and let her thoughts fly where they would, back to school at Old Dominion, and farther on, back to her daddy’s farm in Leesburg, and to the horses and mules there, and to Rafe, her favorite. And then to the healing services her uncles took her to on Thursday nights, the one crippled by arthritis in his hips and knees, the other dying slowly, of a smug, lazy cancer that was in no hurry, and how the first would tell her, after the preacher had laid on hands, that he felt the arthritis draining from his joints — thick pain, like molasses, leaving his body — and how for a day or two after, he could walk.

“I’m getting my medical bag,” she said.

“We can’t help him,” said the man. “He’s in mule heaven now.”

“We’ll see,” she said.

Alone with the mule for a moment, the man nudged the animal with his foot. “Get up,” he said. “Heal! I command thee!”

His wife arrived with her medical bag and a syringe. “I’ve got adrenaline in here for a football team,” she said. She found a thick surface blood vessel in the mule’s fetlock and emptied the syringe into the vein. She pounded on the mule’s chest.

Her husband walked away and let her do what she needed to. As a clergyman, High Church Episcopal, he understood the boundless permutations of grief, and how they had to be honored.

Wherever they had lived, even in their salad days, he and his wife had always kept a pet mule. They’d been the butt of jokes because of it, but it didn’t trouble them. “Lose touch with your childhood,” his wife used to say, “and you lose touch with your life.” The man recalled how he would often talk to the mule, and even try out sermons on him. Sometimes the mule would start kicking and rolling in the dirt as he spoke, and those sermons were always his best-received. Some had been published.

He gave his wife a few minutes’ time alone before he returned to her side. “How’s he doing?” he asked gently.

“I think I’ve got a pulse,” she said.

“Honey …”

“I think I saw his tail twitch. Did you see it?”

“Honey …”

She was weeping copiously now.

The man gathered up his wife and led her to their cabin, while in mule heaven, a newly dead mule made himself at home.

He twisted and sat with his good leg stretched out. He waved away gnats and gingerly tried to pull his foot free, then winced and leaned back on his hands again. A column of black ants caught his attention, following each other along the crosstie, across his shoe, and over the rock holding his foot trapped.

He looked back at the path, hoping his daddy would come striding into view. The boy wasn’t really scared, but his foot was hurting, and he was hot. Tar from the crossties burned his skin, and the rocks were getting sharper by the minute.

Glancing at the path again, he imagined what a hero he would be when school started, stuck all by himself on a railroad track, with a witness and an injury to prove it. He squinted into the sun, already enjoying the glory that would be his. The girls would really be impressed.

Then the ground beneath his hand vibrated. He looked up and down the tracks, his eyes large, his hands suddenly shaking. A whistle brayed in the distance, making the train sound like a beast of prey scenting his fear.

The boy jerked his head toward the path again and yanked on his leg, struggling to free his swollen foot. He felt the vibration in his feet and his butt now, and the train whistle sounded again, closer than before.

“No. No, no. No. No, no. No. No, no,” he panted.

The train showed itself then, just at the point where the two rails came together on the horizon, and the boy heard the engine’s rumble, sending him into a panic, clawing at the rock that held his foot. His tears mixed with his sweat and snot before running down his throat. Blood from his torn fingernails dripped onto the rock, and the black ants gathered to feast.

He repeated his mantra, much louder, trying to hear himself over the train’s engine. “No. No, no. No. No, no. No. No, no. No. No, no.”

The locomotive’s red and gold nose and rotating headlamp hypnotized him. He released his ankle and stood, his leg at an angle, when the train’s wheels shrieked and threw up a shower of sparks.

Then, silence

The boy lay in his bed, his mother beside him, telling him not to worry. Everything would be all right.

Fresh tears ran down his cheeks, though, when he saw it was his younger brother in the room, crying and cradling his arm because the boy had punched him for snitching a baseball card.

“You can have them all,” the boy said, but his brother kept crying.

He suddenly found himself with the prettiest girl he knew, and the day was hot, and she tried to be mad, but her tears said she was hurt, not angry. He had kissed her, the first for both, and when his buddies teased him about it, she overheard him say she was gross, and he had never kissed any girl, especially her.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, but something drowned out his words, and she stood on the railroad track staring at him with those tear filled eyes. The boy reached for her, but he was in Sunday School. It seemed strange that he and the teacher were the only ones there, and that they were meeting on a railroad track in the heat and in the woods, but the teacher glared at him over the top of her glasses, and he knew he had to pay attention.

“We have to be good if we want to get to heaven, don’t we?” she asked. “And when we’re not, what do we do?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“What we do is pray, and ask God to…pray, and ask God to…pray and ask God to…”

The train pounced, its wheels shrieking and hot sparks burning the boy’s face and arms and legs. The noise crushed him, and the shaking ground made it hard to stand on his trapped foot, but he planted his good leg and screamed, his voice growing louder with each word.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name! OUR FATHER, WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME! OUR FA…”

On September 27, 1959, I was privileged to interview William Faulkner. I recorded our conversation so as to preserve his wisdom for the ages, but was devastated to learn when I played back the tape that while the microphone had captured each of my questions, it had not picked up a single word he said. Nonetheless, his indomitable spirit comes through so strongly that I know our conversation will be a source of insight for Faulkner scholars for weeks to come.

INTERVIEWER: First, I’d like to thank you for agreeing to this interview.

FAULKNER: [Southern-accented murmur]

INTERVIEWER: I know you didn’t exactly, but an unlocked attic window IS an agreement in my book. Speaking of books, let’s get started. You once said that you “react violently” to personal questions, so let me assure you that I’ll keep this professional and dignified. After a day of crafting work that shows “the human heart in conflict with itself” — to which I might humbly add, by the way, the right thumb of Man wrestling with the left thumb of Nature — and you retire for the night, what are you wearing: PJ’s, long-johns, or do you go it nudesies? T.S. Eliot does, you know. Also, any embarrassing puberty anecdotes?

FAULKNER: [Irritated grumbling]

INTERVIEWER: But I just got here. What inspired you to write about a little girl’s tragic disfigurement in “A Nose for Emily”?

FAULKNER: [Indistinct]

INTERVIEWER: A rose? Well, as they say, a rose by any other name would smell just as damn good. Unless you don’t have a nose, like poor Emily. Moving on. You’ve stated that the only thing that can stop a writer is death, yet your own As I Lay Dying was obviously written posthumously. Explain this inconsistency — in other words, Gotcha! And I think you know what that means…now get over here and take your noogie like a man.

FAULKNER: [Bewildered silence]

INTERVIEWER: Suit yourself, Pappy. Say, would you mind putting that pipe out? I’m allergic, and when I sneeze I tend to lose sphincter control.

FAULKNER: [Hastily taps pipe into ashtray]

INTERVIEWER: Not since Balzac — Lou Balzac, the legendary Snuffy Smith rewrite man — has a writer created a world as complete as your fictional fiefdom of Yucky Naphtha, the “Green-stamp of naïve soil” that’s been home to so many memorable Missourian men and mules and echoes with the indelible and inedible old verities they speak. Yet there are surprisingly few Eskimos in your work. Thoughts?

FAULKNER: [Low growl]

INTERVIEWER: I make Benjy seem like J. Robert Oppenheimer? Not sure I follow, but compliment accepted. Now, regarding your quote about how “the pest isn’t dead.” Amen to that one, brother. My kitchen has been overtaken by moles. Or maybe they’re voles. Been after those yellow-toothed mini-Snopeses all week with a double-barrel pea-shooter and still can’t evict ‘em. Reminds me of a good joke, though—had Jack Paar on while I was reading up for this. Bear walks into a bar. No, wait — bear walks into the woods. Big woods, fathomless in their ancient verdancy. He symbolizes the vanishing wilderness and the fading past. Hunters are after him, including a boy who will become a man during the hunt. Bear turns to one of the hunters’ horses and says, “Hey, why the long face?” Haw HAW HAW! [Emits rude noise] Sorry, happens when I laugh, too.

FAULKNER: [Pained groan]

INTERVIEWER: So, do you agree with Malcolm Cowlick’s contention that the joyous cartwheel Colonel Comptoris performs at the end of The Unvarnished signifies — Whoa! Is this it? The actual Nobel Prize medal? Pretty hefty, huh? Like a big ol’ coin. Hey, call it in the air, winners keepers. Whoop—

[Metallic clanking]

FAULKNER: [Anguished cry]

INTERVIEWER: Well, go down, Moses! I couldn’t have made that thing roll all the way across the floor and down that heating grate if I’d tried.

FAULKNER: [Angry shout, chair being pushed back]

INTERVIEWER: Just calm down, Mr. F., I’m sure you can win another one.

[A violent struggle, furniture being overturned, etc.]

FAULKNER: [Discernable but unprintable]

INTERVIEWER: Uncle, uncle! Aunt? Unhand me, mustachioed laureate! You’re…chokinckkkhh—

[Loud crashes and thuds, as if a tape recorder has been thrown through a plate-glass window, followed by an interviewer.]

INTERVIEWER: [Weakly, muffled by shrubbery]

Oof. Back’s out. Help me up to your bed?

A few years ago they’d built this housing development out here across the road from his little wooden place. After the development had filled up, it didn’t take but a few weeks for us to notice his wry behavior. He would sit out on his porch at night mumbling to himself, looking out at the sky. Then the cans would get to piling up next to him pretty high and he would start stumbling around in his yard with a rifle yelling. He’d say things like, “It’s a coming! It’s a coming!” or, “Come on home with it! I been waiting!” Then he’d stagger to stop, slam the bolt shut on the rifle, shoulder it, and point it towards the night. It was as if the sky was made out of black tin and he fathomed himself shooting holes in it, making stars, letting the outside light seep into our world. He never did fire though. Everyone just assumed he was having flashbacks from the war or lashings from his father, depending on which rumor they preferred.

One summer night he was being louder than what we’d become accustomed to so we went outside to find him sitting up on his roof. He had his rifle across his lap, a box of shells on one side and a styrofoam cooler of beer on the other. He dropped his head back and tilted up his can then hollered long into the stars like some rabid coyote that had just gnawed its paw out of an iron-jawed trap. After tossing the empty can down in the yard, he snatched another out of the cooler and stuck it in his overall pocket before somehow making it down the ladder, rifle slung across his back. He turned around and opened his beer and took a drink while staring up into the night as a bright light began to slowly hurl its way toward him. He dropped his can, unslung his rifle, shouldered and aimed. He pulled the trigger and whatever it was in the sky burst into pieces and pelted the ground around him. He stood still for a while and we all stood watching until he finally went calmly inside, leaving his rifle and us in the damp grass.

The next morning word had gotten around and various kinds of people showed up nosing around. That’s when it was discovered that the thing in the sky had been a meteorite about the size of a fist and that Old Man Dan was slumped over his kitchen table dead, from natural causes presumably.

I snuck over and took the rifle out of his yard before anyone noticed it and cleaned the barrel and wiped it down with a thin coat of oil. Now, once a year, our development gathers around and fires a shot into the sky.

I stood beside my car at the gas station overlooking the local aurora borealis, remembering that I was there at its inception in 1983. The mundane act of filling my car with gasoline alongside what I assumed were other normal people, buffered me from the insanity awaiting in the valley below, where the aurora originated.

I was back from college again, and this time for good. I was back without any prize in hand or any foreseeable job prospects. Back without any tangible way to prove that I was better than my redneck relatives who had never left and were themselves the source of the flashes of orange and blue brilliance that continually lit the night sky. I knew the kind of reception I would receive. They would not rub it in that I was returning home with nothing in hand. In fact they seemed to have no concept of success or failure at all. They only understood having fun. They would offer me a beer and welcome me to join in the festivities. In fact, my brother had just called me and told me to hurry to get there, that there would be a grand finale like none before. “Little brother is the first to go to college, but I’m the first to go to the stars,” he made the vapid comment as was usual for him, and it meant nothing to me at the time.

The aurora, like so many excesses born in my childhood, had its origins in the 1970s national experiments with moderation. Experiments that supposed that fundamental things might be altered for the greater good, such as reducing the interstate speed limit to 55 miles per hour. For a decade our state banned the sale of fireworks. But in 1983 the ban was lifted. Immediately an entire generation of children surged forward to taste the forbidden fruit. We had heard tales of sanctioned mayhem that ensued on July 4th and New Years Eve during the 1950s and 60s. Tales of cherry bombs and M-80s and bottle rockets and other fireworks of near military ordinance strength. My father, Boonie Townsend, always industrious in fits and spurts, was there to fill the vacuum left by years of prohibition. He operated the most popular firework stand in the area from 1983 until his untimely demise in 1990. The firework stand suited him perfectly: he could earn a living working four regular weeks per year and do odd jobs and hunt and fish the rest of the time.

At the end of the first season of selling fireworks my father unintentionally created the first aurora. The unsold fireworks lost their potency quickly and could not be resold. They were gathered together and piled into a ditch on our family land in the country. Collectively they made a giant mound weighing several hundred pounds. The mound was dowsed in kerosene and set ablaze. The light from the burning mound was magical, changing colors from pink to blue to orange to silver with sudden eruptions and changes as different types of fireworks burned through. Real danger, a necessary ingredient to charm the hearts of people like my relatives, was ever present as renegade bottle rockets or missiles leapt from the fire without warning, taking an unknowable course. Near misses were common, as were minor injuries. The first year, it was witnessed up close by only a few relatives. But the following years, it became a party attended by scores. It became locally known as “trash lightning”.

I capped the gas tank, swallowed my pride, and drove down into the valley to join my brethren. I was greeted with urgent waves and shouts imploring me to move closer to the fire so that I might not miss the “launch”. I drove as close to the dancing fire as seemed safe and parked my car. A throng surrounded me and pulled me ever close to the fire and directed my attention to what I recognized as a ramp like launch platform. My brother sat atop a homemade rocket, pointed upwards at roughly a sixty degree angle. I know my brother, and I knew this event had been directly inspired by Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump. The crowd that had ushered me forward now looked up at him and pointed towards me. Someone shined his flashlight on me. He looked down at me and gave a thumbs up, just before the tail of his contraption took fire and flames spewed from behind it, propelling it upward towards space.

“He had really wanted you to light him, but he had an official launch time like they do at NASA,” one of my cousins informed me as I watched my brother rocket higher and higher.

Wherever he touches down is where he’s gonna make a new start. I guess that makes you the man from here on out,” stated my cousin Dewayne as he slapped me on the back.

I watched until my brother was a tiny dot against the backdrop of the moon, poured the beer just handed to me into my mouth, and turned and gazed at my inheritance by the firelight.

Ravens have been gathering in my fancy neighborhood in Danville, VA. They perch on power lines and walk about on the nice lawns. They seem to be surveying the territory for their own dark purposes. They remind me in some ways of the potential buyers who have been visiting the houses in my neighborhood looking for bargains since the real estate market collapse. They are not the sort of buyers that local realtors would normally allow to shop in my neighborhood.

The lawns here in my neighborhood are tended mostly by what most people in my neighborhood would call foreign entrepreneurs who drive early 1990’s vintage pickups and use push mowers. They seem to find in the ravens kindred spirits. I hear them speaking to the birds occasionally while I am outside smoking.

My wife doesn’t allow me to smoke in the house. Life has rules, you know. I have always tried to recognize this and obey the rules as I understood them. But it feels like there are rule changes occurring these days that I don’t understand.

The conversations between the foreign entrepreneurs and the ravens I understand imperfectly. But I understand enough to feel – not threatened, exactly, but alert – the way I feel when the news announces that the threat level is elevated.

I find that explanations are what make us feel as if we are safe.

But right now I have no explanations.