This is grat­i­fy­ing to see, but Kesich doesn't rep­re­sent the typ­i­cal Miller­ton res­i­dent, either, many of whom I imag­ine will, like Steve Miller, take the mon­ey and run. And why wouldn't they?  To para­phrase my dad, these are most­ly life­long farm­ers and blue col­lar work­ers who are get­ting more mon­ey then they ever dreamed pos­si­ble. They can't not sell or lease their land.

Good luck, John.

This arti­cle is by Cheryl R Clarke from the Sun-Gazette:

WELLSBORO — John Kesich, a Green Par­ty mem­ber, offi­cial­ly has announced his can­di­da­cy for incum­bent Matthew E. Baker's seat as state rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the 68^th District.

Kesich is wag­ing a write-in cam­paign in hopes of win­ning the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion. He also is encour­ag­ing Repub­li­cans to write him in as well.

Kesich, 55, is a retired sys­tem admin­is­tra­tor from New York Uni­ver­si­ty and has long opposed Baker's views on the gas drilling indus­try and the recent­ly passed nation­al health care reform bill.

"This is real­ly a ref­er­en­dum on how well Mr. Bak­er has done pro­tect­ing Penn­syl­va­nia from the neg­a­tive impacts of the cur­rent under-reg­u­lat­ed gas rush," Kesich said.

Kesich has been out­spo­ken in ques­tion­ing and crit­i­ciz­ing lack of prop­er reg­u­la­tion regard­ing Mar­cel­lus Shale since March 2009 and has been active with the Tio­ga Coun­ty group Cit­i­zens Con­cerned about Nat­ur­al Gas Drilling.

Accord­ing to Kesich, the state should stop issu­ing new per­mits until a com­pre­hen­sive harms-ben­e­fits analy­sis is com­plet­ed and steps are tak­en to ensure that indus­try pays all the costs of drilling rather than offload­ing them onto local res­i­dents. More.

The End of the War

Moth­er drove our exhaust­ed Toy­ota out of the shade of the trees, past a swath of sun­burned lawn lit­tered with bits of Sty­ro­foam where they had dragged the raft from the shed down to the lake. Out on the raft two girls broiled, bronzed, blonde, too far away to see who they were, the girls too alike to guess. Moth­er cut the engine and we rolled to a stop behind the house.

Hope leaned out from the side of the porch and waved, smil­ing, her fin­gers stained almost black by the shells of pur­ple hull peas. Aunt Ophie burst out of the house, still dry­ing her hands on a dish­tow­el, down the steps and to the car before Moth­er had even got out, lean­ing into the open door to hug Moth­er and both of them cry­ing already. A mud-spat­tered lit­tle Kawasa­ki lean­ing against the wall of the car­port remind­ed me that I’d trad­ed my Yama­ha for gas to get here. As if I need­ed reminding.

The back of the Toy­ota was stuffed with our things, every­thing we could load from the house includ­ing Mother’s chi­na and my min­er­al col­lec­tion. The Singer sewing machine Dad­dy gave her for Christ­mas three years ago. Year­books and pho­to albums and video tapes of me as a baby, my CDs and stereo. Mother’s paint­ings. Suit­cas­es and box­es of clothes and clothes piled up in the back and our good clothes hang­ing from a pole run­ning across the back seat, every­thing we could sal­vage. Eleven hours to dri­ve the three hour dri­ve to get here. I climbed out of the car and stretched and looked at our mess about to burst out the rear win­dows. It was too hot to unload it all, and Uncle Brown still had to find a place to put our stuff, any­way. I mount­ed the steps to the porch and sank into the swing next to Hope, who was shelling peas into a black enam­el roast­ing pan. Out on the lake, the two girls lay head to head on the raft. One sat up and turned over, tug­ging the lemon-yel­low biki­ni bot­tom from the crack of her painful­ly per­fect ass.

“Where is every­body?” I asked.

“Col­ly and Pep­per are fish­ing, the girls lay­ing out on the raft,” Hope said. Col­ly was my age, four­teen, and named Collin, but every­body called him Col­ly; next old­est were the twins Pep­per and Hon­ey, both thir­teen. Hope, sit­ting next to me, was the youngest, twelve years old and elfish as a star. There was also Lily, a daugh­ter by an ear­li­er mar­riage, twen­ty-some­thing, liv­ing in Oxford where she was a grad­u­ate stu­dent in Organ­ic Chemistry.

I want­ed it to be Dee who had sat up, but my pre­scrip­tion sun­glass­es were still in the car. Dee was the daugh­ter of Uncle Rocky and Aunt Des­de­mona; her name was Debra — called Dee for short, tomboy­ish­ly six­teen and long­ing in my dreams. Her younger broth­er was also four­teen like me, named Ruther­ford, but every­body called him Red because of the splotch­es on his face. They lived in a split-lev­el ranch house across a nar­row grassy val­ley from Uncle Brown’s house. A dry creek spanned by a wood­en foot bridge at the bot­tom of the hol­low divid­ed their lands. In heavy weath­er, the creek took on like a trout stream. The boys would put a canoe in at the top and shoot the brief rapids down to the lake.

“Who’s that out there? Hon­ey and Dee?” I asked, shad­ing my eyes with my hand as I stared down at the raft. She dropped a hand­ful of peas into the pan.

“That ain’t Dee. It’s Lily,” Hope said.

“Why aren’t you out there with them?” I asked.

“I got to get these peas shelled,” she said.

I looked at Hope, notic­ing for the first time how much she had grown since last Christ­mas. She wore fad­ed cut­off jeans and a white tank top that sagged just so you could see inside the arm­hole but not far enough to see any­thing. Not that she had much to see. Her legs jut­ted out of the frayed bot­toms of her shorts and spread care­less­ly, long toes hooked over the edge of the porch table, knees up, black roast­ing pan in her lap hold­ing a nest of pur­ple and green pea hulls. She picked up a shell and split it between her thumb and fore­fin­ger, stripped the peas out, and dropped them into the pan. The emp­ty shell fell into a gro­cery bag beneath the angle of her knees.

“That’s Lily?” I asked, try­ing to dis­tract myself. I wished I had worn my glass­es. “I thought it was Dee.”

“Dee and Red don’t come over no more,” Hope said. “We’re at war.”“War?” I turned back, try­ing des­per­ate­ly to be casu­al. She tilt­ed her head and looked up at me under the white curls of her bleached-out hair hang­ing over her green eyes.

“Last Christ­mas, Red start­ed hang­ing out with that Cobb Whar­ton on account of his sis­ters, Kel­ly and Helly. They call Helly “Cat­fish” ‘cause she has hairs on her lip that tick­le your dick when she sucks it.”

Good God, I thought, she knows about that?

“They’re fools after them girls. Col­ly and Pep­per, too,” she said.

“That's why they’re fight­ing?” I asked, my face hot and tingly, feel­ing swollen.

“Yep.” A pea land­ed in my lap. I picked it out of the crease in my jeans, care­ful not to touch my thing, which was bur­geon­ing. Moth­er and Aunt Ophie stag­gered up the steps, lean­ing togeth­er and snuf­fling, and entered the house with­out stop­ping. I was glad because I didn’t want to have to stand up and give out hugs with a hump in my pants big as Calvary.

“What’s Dee got to do with them?” I asked.“She’s bi now, her and Kel­ly Whar­ton,” Hope said flat­ly, her thumb strip­ping up through anoth­er shell. “That Kel­ly, she’s all the time squeez­ing Dee's tit­ties. She even tried to kiss me.”

I shift­ed in the seat to give myself room to expand. “Did you let her?”

“For a minute,” she answered, shrug­ging. “It weren’t much. But Dee’s all for it.”

I’d been sor­ry to leave home, which is a crazy thing to say con­sid­er­ing it wasn’t even there any­more, but I wasn’t so sor­ry now. I thought about that sweet lit­tle Kawasa­ki lean­ing against the car­port, prac­ti­cal­ly call­ing my name. I need­ed a good fast ride to clear out my head, but there weren’t no stand­ing up now. I won­dered if I would be stuck on the porch until dark.

“Col­ly and Pep­per been hard up for fun since the war start­ed,” Hope said as she stirred the peas in her pot, search­ing for unshelled pods. Find­ing none, she rose and walked to the door, her legs too long for her, her shorts rid­ing up and show­ing some butt cheek and a fringe of shy panty, so that I thought I might die. She leaned into the screen and popped the door open with her elbow, entered the house.

A splash from the lake drew my atten­tion. Lily stood at the edge of the raft, set­tling her grad stu­dent tit­ties into her biki­ni. Halfway between her and the shore, Honey’s head and heart-shaped butt broke the sur­face of the water like a pair of tur­tles, legs kick­ing the green water. There was no way I was going to wait around for them or I’d nev­er get off the porch. I jumped up and head­ed for the Kawasa­ki beside the carport.

Hope leaned against the door, the pan of peas still in her hands. “Where you going?” she asked. I angled away to hide the bulge of my johnson.

“I’m head­ed down to the Red Bird store,” I said as I jumped down the steps.

“Hold on a minute. I’ll go with you,” she said. She let the door swing back with a wood­en slap.

I pulled the bike away from the wall and swung a leg over, dropped onto the sad­dle, and goosed the gas a cou­ple of times. Then I checked the tank and found her three-quar­ters full. Hope came down the steps in two fawn-legged strides, her brown feet set­tled into a pair of worn san­dals. She hiked a leg over the seat and slid in behind me, adjust­ed her hips against my butt, her hands warm against my back. I rose up and came down on the kick­start, the engine whined to life. I popped her into first, spun her around and head­ed for Flow­ers Road on just the back wheel, Hope hold­ing on tight behind.

Pepper’s Kawasa­ki was a lit­tle less than what I was used to rid­ing, but it was fast enough and as soon as I reached the road, I wound her out. Hope's fin­gers, black from the peas, locked togeth­er over my bel­ly, and the faster I went, the tighter she pulled her­self against me. I goosed the engine up and leaned heav­i­ly into the turns with her flat­ten­ing her­self against my back, chin dig­ging into my shoul­der blade. I looked down dur­ing the straights and saw her knees beside my thighs. She lift­ed her feet and let the wind flap her sandals.

Up we climbed into the thick­er pine for­est on the heights above Flow­ers Lake: sud­den, impos­si­ble heights invis­i­ble from the high­way, coast­ing up over the top and look­ing down across the flat sil­ver lake tiger-striped in the sun beyond the trees. The road divid­ed here on the ridge, grav­el lead­ing to the lev­ee to the left, behind us the black­top curl­ing down through the trees. The wind blew cool off the lake in the evening, so all the hous­es lined the shade along the south­ern shore. The north shore was dark with trees, a few old vaca­tion hous­es lying up there in mossy ruins, A‑frame cab­ins tilt­ing into ravines. The swing­ing bridge hang­ing above its reflec­tion in Bridge Cove, the long straight mound­ed up lev­ee grown over with wild rose and hon­ey­suck­le, the naked posts and ruins of piers and boat docks across the water pok­ing out from the over­grown banks into the lily pads, and below us, cling­ing to the hill­sides in grassy clear­ings, the hous­es where the Flow­ers over­looked their lake and their own boathous­es and docks and sun­bathing rafts, lawn chairs and upturned buck­ets and bench­es tiny beside the shore mark­ing the best fish­ing spots, the grey and brick-red roofs of their hous­es pok­ing up through the green pine canopy like Mayan ruins, and the long black dri­ve­ways snaking up to touch Flow­ers Road.

Now we rode down through the pines, going faster and lean­ing hard into the turns, down through the Texas-look­ing coun­try, past the cat­tle, the dazed cows, the steers chew­ing the air, nos­ing the sun­burned grass. The road was grav­el all the times before until this time, all the sum­mers we came to vis­it, all the Decem­bers, but now this hiss­ing black asphalt beneath the Kawasaki’s knob­by tires. Moth­er said that before the road was grav­el it was dirt, and that the Flow­ers had cut the road them­selves, then paid to have the grav­el laid and the grad­ing and regrav­el­ing when there was no more grav­el to grade.

We clove down through the shim­mer­ing brassy late August heat, our speed bare­ly cool­ing the air, past the luke­warm green cow ponds and the washed out red clay banks, the thick­ets of with­ered hon­ey­suck­le and fields of loom­ing anthro­po­mor­phic kudzu mon­sters. There was a stand of pecan and hick­o­ry trees sur­round­ing a mossy green con­crete stair and an old rust­ed out trash bar­rel mark­ing the place where some fam­i­ly had lived, bred, scratched the dirt for a few years, then dragged their trail­er away to some eas­i­er Mis­sis­sip­pi. In the ditch­es beside the road lay fifty years’ accu­mu­la­tion of pitched-out sun-fad­ed beer cans slow­ly absorb­ing back into the soil, buried under the inex­orable glacial crawl of red mud.

Out of the hills, the last mile to the store was most­ly straight going. Hope unlaced her fin­gers and let her hands slip down until her warm palms rest­ed on my thighs. But she stayed pressed close, her cheek against my back. We reached the store and I slid the bike to a stop beneath the locust tree out front, pop­ping the clutch to kill the engine. “That was fun,” she said into my shoulder.

***

The store was called The Red Bird. An old white man named Elmer Car­di­nal and his wife Bit­sy owned it. Elmer perched atop a stool behind the counter, shirt­less in the sum­mer, a smol­der­ing Kool Fil­ter King per­pet­u­al­ly dan­gling from his dan­gling low­er lip. Bit­sy made tuna sal­ad in a five-gal­lon buck­et for the truck­ers stop­ping there for lunch every day.

Hope dis­mount­ed from the Kawasa­ki and stood beside me while I dis­mount­ed and leaned the bike against the locust tree.There were dozens of truck­ers out­side the store, eat­ing their lunch in the shade or ranged along the gallery. We moved through, step­ping over legs, the men watch­ing Hope with lust blaz­ing in their hearts, jeal­ousy quick­en­ing my blood. We entered the store. “Looks like rain,” Hope said. The south­west sky had dark­ened con­sid­er­ably, though the sun still baked the dirt beyond the gallery, glanced blind­ing­ly off the wind­shields of the near­est trucks.

“Lord knows we need it,” Bit­sy said from behind the counter. “Who’s that with you? By God, it’s that Rakestraw boy. Look how much he’s grown. You’re a foot taller!”

“Two inch­es,” I said from the can­dy aisle. Hope had already dis­ap­peared down the dark length of the barn-like store. Gen­er­a­tions of near-wild cats slept and bred and bat­tled each oth­er under its wood­en floor, which creaked like a sail­ing ship in the ris­ing wind.

The far end of the store glowed from a door left open to let the breeze through, dust sift­ing though shafts of light. I found Hope there, ass in the air, glass rat­tling, lean­ing into an old Coke cool­er with the slid­ing glass doors on top and dull gal­va­nized sil­ver sides inside. She came up hold­ing a milky-brown bot­tle of Yoohoo, her breath smoky in the chill air.

The door beyond her dark­ened and she stepped back. Some­one stood there, short as a midget until I real­ized he was stand­ing on the ground out­side, the floor of the store even with his hips, point­ing a pis­tol at us. “It’s Red,” Hope said flat­ly as she unscrewed the top of her YooHoo.

“Y’all get out the way,” he hissed, tug­ging the des­per­a­do ban­dana from his face. “And shut the fuck up. We’re gonna rob Elmer and Bit­sy.” He leaned into the door and looked around.

“You and who?” I asked.

“Me and Cobb, Dee, Kel­ly and Cat­fish. Rakestraw? I thought you was Col­ly. When did you get here?”

Hope titled the bot­tle of YooHoo up and drank, her cheeks suck­ing in.

“Y’all ain’t rob­bing shit,” I said, pulling my eyes away from her. I reached into the cool­er and grabbed the first thing on top – a quart bot­tle of Miller. Red point­ed the pis­tol at me, but it was only a BB pis­tol, I could see. I flung the bot­tle at his head. He ducked and the bot­tle pinged on the dirt out­side the door, skit­tered across the grass. He jumped after it, cussing under his breath, picked it up and cocked back to throw it at me, then stopped. He set it on the ground.

“Throw me anoth­er one,” he said, grinning.

Kel­ly and Helly and Cobb scam­pered in to col­lect the bot­tles as I threw them and Red caught them. Hope watched with her green eyes, qui­et­ly suck­ing on that Yoohoo. I pitched eight quarts out the door, not even stop­ping to see what they were, before Elmer got curi­ous and edged his fat butt off the stool behind the counter. I grabbed a bot­tle of Coke and head­ed for the front. Behind the store, Red and his gang cranked up their motor­cy­cles and tore off, laugh­ing, engines whin­ing up through the gears.

I paid Bit­sy for the Coke and then for Hope’s YooHoo. It was worth the dol­lar to watch her mouth the top of that bot­tle. She fin­ished it even before we got back to the Kawasa­ki under the tree. I mount­ed the bike and she slid on behind me and we took off, Hope cling­ing tight again, her hard lit­tle tit­ties pressed into my back. Up into the hills again and no sign of the oth­ers, gone, dis­ap­peared and with all that beer, too.

Top­ping the next hill, we near­ly ran smack into Col­ly and Pep­per rid­ing a pair of big yel­low-and-blue Husq­var­na 450s. I slid to a stop, knob­by tires protest­ing on the asphalt, engine pop­ping, while they turned back and rolled up next to us. “Hey. When’d you get here?” Pep­per said. His bike was too big for him; he stood up on his toes just to hold it.

“Me and Red just stole a whole shit­load of beer,” I said.

“We’re at war with Red and them,” Col­ly said.

“Not no more, you ain’t. Let’s go get that some of that beer before they drink it all.” I didn’t give them a chance to argue. I just took off, pop­ping a quick wheel­ie, Hope hang­ing on behind. They quick­ly caught up to me with their big­ger bikes, Pep­per on one side look­ing pissed, Col­ly on the oth­er smil­ing. “Hell yeah!” he shout­ed over the whine of our engines. “I’m eatin’ cat­fish tonight!”

The two of them took off then, Col­ly rid­ing a wheel­ie all the way to the next curve, Pep­per lean­ing low over the han­dle­bars of his bike, angry and sullen. The Kawasa­ki couldn’t keep up with their 450s and after a few min­utes, they were gone, the hills hid­ing the noise of their engines. I slowed, turned my head and shout­ed into the wind, “Where would they go?”

Hope leaned up, her chin on my shoul­der. “Oth­er side of the lake. Take the lev­ee road.” I sped up, but slowed again when I heard her shout some­thing, her chin mov­ing against my shoul­der blade.

“What?”

“I said I ain’t kiss­ing no beer breath,” she said, her lips almost touch­ing my ear. I coast­ed for a few sec­onds, the engine pop­ping as it wound down, feel­ing her slide back down and press her cheek against my back, her fin­gers tight­en­ing on my hips. Then I nod­ded and opened the throt­tle, the wind slash­ing my eyes, tach nee­dle inch­ing to the red line as the smell of sun-scorched pines whipped by.

Jeff Crook is the author of four nov­els and dozens of pub­lished short sto­ries. He lives in Olive Branch, MS with his wife, kids and cats. Bar­ry Han­nah was Jeff's first cre­ative writ­ing teacher and is the rea­son he is a writer today. You can find him at http://​jef​fcrook​.blogspot​.com and http://​www​.face​book​.com/​p​e​o​p​l​e​/​J​e​f​f​-​C​r​o​o​k​/​1​4​0​8​9​5​2​341.

The Wire Out

For the sec­ond morn­ing in a row Lawrence leaned back in the chair onto two legs and away from the table and let go.  Count­less attempts at strik­ing the per­fect bal­ance so the chair would stay on two legs had Lawrence exhaust­ed.  Yes­ter­day morn­ing he had fall­en on his back once.  It was on that attempt that he held the bal­ance the longest but he was pun­ished for his suc­cess with a sore back.  In front of Lawrence on the table was a bowl of cin­na­mon cere­al that was well on it’s way to being mushy.  He was try­ing to bal­ance the chair on two legs while the cin­na­mon fla­vor was being assim­i­lat­ed into the milk, but it wasn’t ready yet.

A flow­ered kitchen tow­el was next to the bowl.  Yesterday’s attempt was still in the sink along with glass­es and straws from lunch and din­ner.  The impos­si­bil­i­ty of bal­anc­ing a chair both­ered Lawrence the longer he wait­ed.  Even if he found the moment of bal­ance some­thing would change, the chair wouldn’t recon­fig­ure itself to rest on two legs into infin­i­ty.  It was a fools’ errand, but one he couldn’t avoid pur­su­ing.  More often than not Lawrence had to put his feet down to keep from falling back­wards.  He liked to think this was because he was going for it as opposed to Sal­ly­ing out before he reached the bal­ance posi­tion.  In push­ing the chair back too far he was at least giv­ing him­self a chance to bal­ance it.  But it also meant the pos­si­bil­i­ty of falling.

Lawrence bumped the bowl slight­ly, allow­ing the cere­al to read­just among itself with­in the milk.  Things were as mushy as they would get and the fla­vors were thor­ough­ly inter­spersed between flakes and milk.  Lawrence tucked the kitchen tow­el into the neck of his shirt and spread it out so it would cov­er as much of him­self as pos­si­ble.  Then he picked up the bowl with both hands and poured the milk up against his teeth.  After near­ly a week of hav­ing his mouth wired shut Lawrence was des­per­ate for the taste of sol­id food even if it was only mushy cere­al.  He could taste the cin­na­mon fla­vor in the milk that made it into his mouth but not much of the actu­al cere­al made it past his clamped teeth.

But dras­ti­cal­ly more of the milk streaked down the kitchen tow­el and onto his box­er shorts than made it into Lawrence’s mouth.  The doc­tor wasn’t sure exact­ly how long his mouth would need to stay wired but the lack of sol­id food seemed like appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment for run­ning his mouth while we has drunk and feel­ing sor­ry for him­self about his wife.  She was gone and Lawrence wasn’t any good at accept­ing that fact, espe­cial­ly at night after their daugh­ter was asleep.  He tilt­ed the bowl to his mouth a sec­ond time with iden­ti­cal results, then a third time.  With most of the milk gone from the bowl, Lawrence set in to bal­anc­ing the chair again.  He posi­tioned the chair where he thought it would bal­ance, only his thumb touch­ing the table before he let go.  This was a new tac­tic and one Lawrence didn’t enjoy.  The dan­ger ele­ment wasn’t there so he went back to push­ing off with his feet and hop­ing to reach the per­fect position.

This deci­sion quick­ly became tur­bu­lent.  In going for it, he pushed off hard, for a moment think­ing he had it, then for a moment he thought he could find it again.  While hold­ing out longer than nor­mal Lawrence sprung his arms into the air.  It was there, the bal­ance posi­tion, he felt it but then it was gone.  His body fol­lowed his arms and for a brief moment, he knew he was falling and he was pissed.  Lawrence grunt­ed through the wire when his head hit the kitchen floor.  It bounced back up and slammed into the tile a sec­ond time but he was silent and momen­tar­i­ly unconscious.

Lying on his back he wasn’t think­ing about the pain in his jaw until he real­ized he wasn’t think­ing about the pain in his jaw.  It was enough that Lawrence didn’t want to get up, but the only thing that could have made this moment worse was if his daugh­ter had been there to wit­ness her father in milk stained box­er shorts lying on his back in the mid­dle of the kitchen.  But she had already got­ten on the bus for school and Lawrence need­ed to dress for work.  He tried to focus on his daugh­ter instead of the pain in his mouth and head, but think­ing about her brought so much dread he didn’t know if he could stand it.  She didn’t real­ly under­stand it three weeks ago when he told her her moth­er was gone.  She didn’t under­stand that she wasn’t com­ing back and there wasn’t any­thing the two of them could do.  He had nev­er imag­ined him­self as a sin­gle father but he knew there would be many more ques­tions over the years he didn’t know how to answer.

Halfway to work Lawrence real­ized he had for­got­ten the dry erase board back at the house.  Not hav­ing it would make talk­ing to his daugh­ter after school more dif­fi­cult.  Lawrence slammed his clenched fist down on his thigh.  He want­ed to yell but the wire was in the way.  If he wasn’t so close to work he might have cried.  Or turned around.

His neon vest seemed to fit a lit­tle loos­er than it had a week ago.  Stand­ing on the steam­ing asphalt he had plen­ty of time to notice things like this.  And he had time to dwell.  Every few min­utes he turned the sign he was hold­ing around and thus passed his morn­ing.  Usu­al­ly around 10am some­one came around col­lect­ing five dol­lars per man for a lunch of fried chick­en, cole slaw, and bis­cuits.  It was one of the ways Lawrence kept time at work since his job was so monot­o­nous he had giv­en up wear­ing a watch.  Lawrence saw the man walk­ing to the oth­er guys but avoid­ing him.  Since his jaw had been wired shut he’d been ostra­cized by the oth­er guys.  They’d made him the butt of jokes, even throw­ing a chick­en leg at him yes­ter­day.  His hard hat was plen­ty of pro­tec­tion for a thrown rock or a chick­en leg, but it did noth­ing to keep the sweat out of his eyes.  Lunch used to be the high point of the work­day, what all the guys looked for­ward to from the moment they clocked in, but since he couldn’t eat it was just a time he felt more iso­lat­ed than normal.

Wait­ing for the day to pass he strad­dled the cone with his feet, the pole in his left hand for sev­er­al min­utes, then switch­ing to the right.  Ear­li­er Lawrence had picked up a cou­ple of rocks and was fid­dling them in the pock­et of his vest.  In reg­u­lar inter­vals he rotat­ed the pole in his hand so dif­fer­ent sides of the sign faced traf­fic.  He pre­ferred the ‘stop’ side of the sign, that way he didn’t have to nod or wave to strangers in the oncom­ing traf­fic.  Back when he tried explain­ing the sit­u­a­tion to his daugh­ter she had looked at him with a straight and solemn face.  But he wasn’t sure if she under­stood what he was say­ing, actu­al­ly he was sure she didn’t, he didn’t either real­ly, but he could tell her mind was try­ing to process it but got dis­tract­ed.  She asked sev­er­al ques­tions that Lawrence couldn’t answer, ques­tions that swal­lowed a piece of his insides each time she asked.  But there was one ques­tion that remind­ed him that she was still a five-year-old girl.  One ques­tion that didn’t real­ly have any­thing to do with his wife, but did.

Stop was fac­ing a four-door pick­up truck loaded with shirt­less col­lege kids who were blar­ing music loud enough to be heard over the machin­ery when “lunch” was called out over the walkie talkie.  Instead of sub­ject­ing him­self to lunchtime taunts with­out a way to answer back, Lawrence moseyed over to the iso­la­tion of his truck.  It wasn’t much of a truck, a four cylin­der Ford with rust on much of the low­er half, but inside it was a place where Lawrence could sit alone with the pain in his head and jaw.  He leaned his head against the head­rest and closed his eyes.  Although the sleep was light he fell into it eas­i­ly.  He hadn’t been sleep­ing well at night late­ly.  There was the pain from los­ing his wife, pain he couldn’t do any­thing about, but there was also the pain he caused him­self.  Lawrence was pret­ty good at find­ing ways to hurt him­self, get in his own way, and screw things up.  But it was going to be hard­er now with no one to rely on and it was these thoughts that kept him from sleep­ing at night.

It was the same kinds of thoughts that caused Lawrence to jerk his head for­ward when he real­ized he had fall­en asleep.  He noticed one of his daughter’s toys on the floor­board of the pas­sen­ger side.  The pink syn­thet­ic hair was man­gled and one of the pony’s eyes was miss­ing.  Today was report card day she had remind­ed him when he walked her to the bus stop.  Back when they were talk­ing about her moth­er being gone Lawrence had made a promise for today.  A promise he could keep, even though it was a small thing he knew there would be so many days that he would fail that he bet­ter do this one thing right.

A car honked at him almost as soon as he got back from lunch.  It was a long honk, not one that told him to wave to some­one he knew as they passed, but one that was intend­ed to make fun of him.  He’d seen it before.  Then a few min­utes lat­er a woman talk­ing on her cell phone drove by him with­out pay­ing atten­tion.  She swerved toward Lawrence and he had to jump back to avoid being hit. His hand was already in his pock­et and with­out think­ing about it he grabbed the hand­ful of rocks and tossed them toward the car.  Fuck­ing peo­ple on their phone always irri­tat­ed Lawrence.  The sign warned them that some­thing was com­ing but still some­times peo­ple nev­er paid atten­tion.  They didn’t think of him as a per­son, just the thing that turned the sign around.  If he was run over he wouldn’t reshape like a cone would.  He had thrown the rocks not intend­ing to hit the car or any­thing but when the brake lights came on and the woman pulled the car over he knew he was in trouble.

The woman was hold­ing her cell phone in her hand while she was talk­ing to the fore­man.  She had exag­ger­at­ed hand ges­tures and moved her head around just enough to let every­one that passed know she was agi­tat­ed with the sit­u­a­tion.  Fuck her, she could rot in hell for all he cared and he planned on telling her exact­ly that until he thought about his daugh­ter wait­ing for him to pick her up after school.  Lawrence’s shoul­ders dropped and he turned his back to the fore­man.  They were far enough away that he couldn’t hear them and he hoped the next time he turned around she would be gone.  Maybe she was talk­ing to the fore­man about some­thing else.  Cob­bler recipes or direc­tions to the bank.  Maybe they were old friends and she want­ed to share baby pho­tos.  Lawrence waved the cars along while he avoid­ed look­ing toward the fore­man.  It was prob­a­bly less than two hours before quit­ting time, he fig­ured, and he was look­ing for­ward to pick­ing up his daugh­ter.  They had a date, kind of, and if there was one thing he was going to do right today it was that.  She was a good kid and deserved bet­ter than he could do, but it’d have to be good enough and he would try not to beat him­self up about it.

“Hey dum­b­ass, dum­b­ass.  Do you hear me dum­b­ass?”  Lawrence’s fore­man was hol­ler­ing and mak­ing a bee­line straight toward him.  His skin looked like worn in leather and his atti­tude was rougher.  Lawrence didn’t like cross­ing him but he also didn’t like tak­ing shit off of him.

“Did you throw rocks at that car?” Lawrence final­ly turned around and the fore­man was near­ly breath­ing his hot breath on Lawrence’s face.  “Bud­dy, that’s about the dumb­est thing you could do right now.  I’ve got a hang­over I can’t shake and two guys out sick and all I’m try­ing to do is get this sec­tion of road fin­ished before we got­ta shut down. So why’d you do it, just to get my blood boiling?”

Lawrence watched the foreman’s lips while he talked.  They didn’t move enough to read lips.  Lawrence found it fun­ny that he couldn’t respond to the foreman’s pity par­ty, he real­ized not being able to talk wasn’t such a bad thing.  It had its advan­tages, not being able to talk.  He shook his head no but knew he was mean­ing that he didn’t do it to get the foreman’s blood boil­ing, which was just a lit­tle added ben­e­fit.  And since Lawrence couldn’t talk at all the con­ver­sa­tion lost its heat quick­ly.  He was pret­ty sure the fore­man want­ed an argu­ment and it gave Lawrence just the small­est bit of sat­is­fac­tion to not give it to him.

The guys doing the paving were mak­ing steady progress after the fore­man yelled at Lawrence.  He watched them as they worked on top of their machines.  They had the more active jobs, push­ing petals, shift­ing levers, and steer­ing the machines, Lawrence was a lit­tle jeal­ous. But he had his daugh­ter and she was even more impor­tant to him now than ever before, but when he was able to talk again he didn’t know how he would explain the things she would need to know.  There would be bras, boys, and bleed­ing and he didn’t make much mon­ey either.  If the wire nev­er came out of his jaw then he’d nev­er real­ly have to explain stuff to her and out of the hot pave­ment with the sweet drip­ping into his eyes and soak­ing through his t‑shirt Lawrence was con­sid­er­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of nev­er tak­ing the wire out.  He could just not show up at the doc­tor.  Prob­lem solved.

Lawrence was chin high in thoughts about his daugh­ter grow­ing up, what she’d look like as a teenag­er, braces, and let­ting her dri­ve his car when the fore­man called the end of the day.  There hadn’t been much traf­fic in the after­noon or much need for him to be stand­ing with his sign, but he need­ed the hours.  He had got­ten his pay­check ear­li­er in the morn­ing and now he was think­ing how it would all be gone by tomor­row after­noon.  He took his orange cone, vest and pole over to the foreman’s truck.  Guys were milling around, one or two said some­thing or anoth­er to Lawrence and he nod­ded as best he could to respond but it wasn’t much.  And then he tossed his gear in the back of the foreman’s truck and start­ed to walk away.

“Hey dum­b­ass,” the fore­man called.  “You bet­ter watch how hard you’re throw­ing stuff in my truck.  I’ll take a chunk out­ta your hide if you ain’t care­ful.”  Lawrence turned around and caught the foreman’s eye, raised his hand and nod­ded in under­stand­ing, but what he was think­ing was that he need­ed to get on and get his daughter.

“I love you Dad­dy,” his daugh­ter said as soon as she climbed into the truck.  Lawrence leaned over and kissed her just above the beret that was keep­ing her brown hair out of her face.  He again regret­ted leav­ing the dry erase board at home but instead drew a heart on a scrap piece of paper.  His daugh­ter could read some words, enough that they could com­mu­ni­cate enough while his jaw was wired closed.  He showed the paper to his daugh­ter, point­ed to him­self, then to the heart, and then at his daugh­ter.  The sides of her face stretched to con­tain the smile.  Then he point­ed to the pur­ple book bag she had tak­en off and thrown on the floor of the truck.

“Can we go Dad­dy?” Kate asked.  “You said we could.  You promised.” He looked again at the book bag and raised his eye­brows to let her know he want­ed to look at what was inside.

Lawrence’s daugh­ter unzipped her bag, “Dad­dy, it’s good,” she said as she pulled the piece of paper out.  Lawrence exam­ined the let­ters. A’s for pen­man­ship, math, social stud­ies, and behav­ior, B’s for sci­ence and art.  There were pos­i­tive com­ments from her teach­ers and per­mis­sion to enter the sec­ond grade.  “Can we go get a kit­ty cat? Please?”

Lawrence smiled as best he could and ignored the pain from stretch­ing his face.  And nod­ded to his only daugh­ter.  It was only in this moment that he wished he could talk.  But moments like this one were so small and so infre­quent in the last week and in his entire life that his jaw being wired closed was almost not an incon­vience at all.  He was going to take his daugh­ter to get a kit­ten, even though he didn’t know if he could pay for the food and the lit­ter box and the vet vis­its that would sure­ly come.  Even if he were able to talk he wouldn’t be able to explain finances to her or what hap­pened to her moth­er.  But it seemed like it might be bet­ter to try than to draw fig­ures on scraps of paper.  As Lawrence drove he watched his daugh­ter out of the cor­ner of her eye.  She was bounc­ing up and down in the pas­sen­ger seat and qui­et­ly singing along to songs about farm­ing com­ing from the stereo.  Silent­ly he steered the truck toward the pound.

Charles Hale has had and still has the kinds of jobs writ­ers have that allow them to write.  His work has appeared in Noo Jour­nal, Dead Mule School, & Mus­ca­dine Lines, and oth­ers.  He received his MFA from God­dard Col­lege and calls Oxford MS home.

Heard first on NPR, via my love­ly wife, and ver­i­fied by Reuters.