Chill Waters

EXCERPT FROM CHILL WATERS By Joan Hall Hovey

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CHILL WATERS

By

Joan Hall Hovey

It's like a lion at the door;

And when the door begins to crack,

It's like a stick across your back;

And when your back begins to smart,

It's like a penknife in your heart;

And when your heart begins to bleed

You're dead, and dead, and dead, indeed.

Anonymous; Nursery Rhyme

One

He stood near the ancient gnarled apple tree that for years now had produced only sour, wizened apples, waiting for her. The hot thick air hummed with the chirping of crickets. Behind him, an occasional fat June bug bumped against the screen door, drawn by the night-light. Now and then a car passed by, seeming only to emphasize his sense of aloneness. Not much traffic on Elder Avenue since they built the thruway.

Three houses down, Nealey's old black lab set to barking excitedly at something - a raccoon scavenging in a garbage can, most likely, but it could just as well be shadows. The mutt had a game leg and was as deaf as his mother's turquoise plastic crucifix that hung on the wall above the TV. The old man oughta have him done away with, put the damn thing out of its misery. Maybe I'll do it for him one of these days, he thought, a grin playing at one corner of his cruel mouth. As he retrieved the pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, he heard Nealey's door open, heard the old man's low, gravelly voice call the dog inside.

He gazed up at the starry sky, grin fading as he envisioned Marie and that hotshot kid in the fruity white blazer slow dancing under these very stars. Bodies molded together, the kid's hands moving over her, groping... his breath hot in her ear...

With a muttered curse, he shook his head as if to banish the image, checked an impulse to crush the pack of cigarettes in his hand. Instead, he struck a match against the tree, but his hand was unsteady and it took a few tries before he managed to get it lit. Leaning his back against the tree he closed his eyes. The rough bark of the tree stabbed like jagged stone through his thin nylon jacket. He sucked smoke into his lungs, exhaled slowly, trying to calm himself.

He wasn't usually a heavy smoker, but four hours later, when he finally heard the car drive up, a small mound of butts had accumulated beside him on the ground. With slow deliberation, he mashed this latest one out too, and rose to his feet. Although stiff from sitting, at the same time a power born of rage surged through his veins like electricity.

Music drifted through the open, car window - a soppy Manilou ballad about a girl named Mandy. Above the music, her laugh floated to him, high and lilting as wind chimes. Mocking him. The flirtatious note in her laugh made his throat tighten, his hands curl into fists at his sides. But it was the maddeningly long silence that followed, while the music went on playing, that made him want to fly at them, yank them both out of the car and beat that scummy kid with her until he had to crawl home through his own blood. He wanted to do it. He saw himself doing it.

It took all his will to remain where h