A clear sky, a warm sun, a perfect day for gorge-peeping. In the morning Graveyard and Ambience left their “suite” at the Stay ’N’ Pay, strolled outside, shared a smoke, remarked on the pleasant weather, and settled into the leather interior of their roomy HomoDebonaire. Graveyard put the key into the ignition and turned it. On the configurable driver display the Body Integrity warning light began flashing red. “What now?” Graveyard said. Cursing, he got out. He walked around the car, inspecting the windows and frame. Twice. Around the door handle on the driver’s side and the trunk lock there were numerous scratches defacing the perfect paint job. Cursing, he got back in the car.
“What’s wrong?” Ambience said.
“Looks like someone’s tried to jimmy the conveyance,” he said. “Did a fuck of a job on the finish.”
She didn’t respond. She sat silently, staring out the window at the bleak institutional gray door to the motel. Finally she said, “Who do you think did it?”
“Three guesses,” he said, “and the first two don’t count.”
“So what do we do now?”
“What do you think we do? We do what we do. Fuck him and his brainless client. If he can afford to throw thousands out the window like it’s useless trash, he can afford to lose thousands. No fucking tears, okay? Now let’s get on up to the fucking gorge and not think about this shit anymore.” So they did.
After the mood-killing prelude, the drive itself turned out to be unexpectedly relaxing, the miles moving steadily away beneath them, leaving something stickily unpleasant far behind. Graveyard cruised easily along on what he’d always privately referred to as His Road, the local one whose various bumps and bends he knew by heart, the one that took him to most of the places he’d ever wanted to go. This morning, when he came to the first major intersection, he promptly turned off onto Their Road, the one he didn’t know all that well, the one other people took to get to places he had little interest in. It was a noisy, nasty, heavily traveled multilane freeway that today, at least, transported them into an otherworldly country (trees, hills, fields, sky, like that)—the kind of place they only lately came into contact with by way of media representation. The scenery was so different from any they had personally experienced in years, so silently alive, that it even altered the landscape of their minds. All the nonhuman stuff parading nonstop across their eyeballs seemed to induce a kind of salutary calm. The thick trees pressed in so closely around the road that the air itself appeared to be green. It smelled green. Both Graveyard and Ambience wondering privately, to their unspoken surprise, was this a place they could possibly settle into someday? And actually like it? The windows were open and in the deep shade cast over the road they could feel themselves moving into and out of pleasant pockets of coolness scented with a refreshing brew of new leaves and old earth. The place seemed intensely familiar to Graveyard, filling his road-empty head with reanimated scenes from his past: standing in an open field around parked cars while his father and the friends with the guns talked quietly among themselves, then suddenly being bundled into a car and driven off while the men remained and hiked off into the woods in search of the game they had come for; the musty family cabin up on the hill in the trees, where the days were always cool even in the hottest summers and where his brother once choked on a chunk of watermelon and his face turned purple and Roulette picked him up, flipped him upside down, and slapped him on the back until the melon piece popped out; his grandfather clicking on the door-mounted spotlight during a late night drive one summer and aiming it off into a clearing in the darkness and conjuring into view the bright diamond eyes of a whole meadow full of startled deer; the twilight sky above their house alive with thousands of ravenous bats fluttering overhead like bits of blown ash from an overfired chimney. For several years of his childhood, at least, Randomburg was a breathing site of genuine wonder, of true color—as long as his father’s bar, The Crevice, remained solvent and Roulette’s mood stayed relatively agreeable. When profits ran low, though, so did the magic. And then town and country tended to turn to charcoal. But that wasn’t a problem for him anymore, now, was it? He carried the spells with him. Whatever he called home would always be displayed in wide-screen Technicolor. Right?
Ambience liked the woods, too. She liked the shade, the relief from the unseasonably brutal sun. The area was okay, but that’s all it was. A pleasant place to visit, to pass through, not a place to hang around in forever. She’d had her fill of small-town hokeyness back in Flinchtown, where her mother still lived and where she still made fishing lures by hand in her kitchen—her mother being the inventor of the award-winning Black Duffle Wobble, best streamer fly east of the Canaugawonga—an activity she had taken up the year after Ambience’s kind, quiet father, without the warning prelude of a single fight, physical or verbal, or even a heated argument, quietly packed a bag and one cold winter night headed off into whatever place it was where escaping fathers disappear forever. Ambience had been nine years old at the time, a perilous age, she had observed. Effigy’s mother had died when she was nine, as had MelodyRose’s and SweetCustard’s. SandyLoam’s father had dropped from a heart attack, as had PedalTimp’s and RollerDrum’s, all with at least one of their children in his or her ninth year. At the age of nine, AdzukiBean, Ambience’s best friend in grade school, lost both parents when they were hit by a bus on their way to choir practice. And there were many more. Ambience had been keeping track of such tragedies her entire life. She couldn’t help wondering if there wasn’t some mystical curse bound up, for some reason or other, with the number 9. She didn’t know. What she did know was she wouldn’t want to live through her ninth year ever again. If you survived the age of nine with both parents intact and still living amicably together in the same home, you were one fortunate child. And if you were still trapped in Palookaville or any of its numerous deformed twins at the age of nine and beyond, you were fucked. Unfortunately, it had taken her seventeen long years to get out of Flinchtown. She’d wanted people, traffic, lights, nightlife. And after a slight detour through the army fun house, she’d found them in Mammoth City. So while she certainly wouldn’t mind occasionally vacationing in a chloroformed backwater like Randomburg, she found that after two weeks at most, all this oppressive greenery tended to blend into one big boring green backdrop. You could only look at a tree for so long before you started seeing it as an object to be chopped down and converted into something useful, like a door or a baseball bat. Once she realized what was actually scrolling through her mind, she knew she was more than ready to go home.
“So,” she said, “any idea yet how long this trip down memory lane is going to last?”
“We only got here yesterday.”
“I know. Just asking.”
“You don’t like Randomburg.”
“It’s okay.”
“Oh, God.”
“I’m here in the car with you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah. All the time desperately wishing you were anywhere else.”
“I liked your house and your funny little room and your wild-child sister.”
“And my parents?”
“They were okay.”
And then they both laughed.
“Just ahead is a turnoff onto a gravel road leading to the secluded family cabin where I lost my virginity about a hundred years ago. If it’s even still there.”
“What? The cabin or your virginity?”
“Which do you want it to be?”
She paused for a moment. “How about both?”
When they got to the turnoff, he turned off. The HomoDebonaire shook and rattled its way down the narrow bumpy gravel road, low-hanging branches scraping against the pricey body of the car. At the sound of each agonizing scrape, Graveyard made a wincing face. At the end of the road was a small clearing in which stood a modest-size cottage with eye-popping mauve shiplap siding and adorned with startling architectural embellishments not ordinarily seen on your typical cabin in the woods. It had a mansard roof with green tiling and fake dormer windows with bright yellow board-and-batten shutters, each with its own astral balcony baluster. There was a small blue-trimmed porch, its overhang supported by a series of orange spindles. The door was fire-engine red. The whole building was trimmed in elaborate white friezes, scrolls, brackets, and plaques. It was a structure not just to take shelter in but also to profitably study.
“Who built this cake?” said Ambience. “Elves?”
“Uncle GriddleCakes. It was an evolving ‘project’ he worked on sporadically for almost fifteen years in order to keep the growing tide of his ‘nerves’ from overwhelming the levee.”
“It looks like something you could eat.”
“Well, you think this is overwrought, wait till you see my mom’s house, and it’s a full-size construction. She’s still at work on that ‘project’ after a couple decades or so. She calls it Forevermore.”
“You have a very intense family.”
“Thank you.”
They parked. They got out. Graveyard walked around the car, checking the body for damage.
“Not bad,” he said. “Hardly noticeable.”
“Thank God,” said Ambience. “Last thing we want is to be mistaken for run-down commoners.”
“Fat chance of that. You even noticed a single HomoDebonaire since we’ve been here?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“League of our own, honeybread.”
They walked over to the porch. At the door Graveyard started searching high and low. “Now, if I can just remember where they keep the damn key.”
“Here,” said Ambience. She pointed to a small key hanging from a nail on the jamb.
“Touch it.”
She did. It was a painted picture of a nail and a key.
“One of Uncle GriddleCakes’s little jokes,” said Graveyard. He picked up the welcome mat, which said GO AWAY. There was nothing under it but dirt and wooden flooring. “Wait—how could I have been so stupid as to forget this?” On one of the orange spindles marking the entrance to the veranda was a remarkably realistic carving of the instantly recognizable face of beloved slapstick comedian RosinBag. Graveyard made a V with the first two fingers of his right hand, then pressed the tips into RosinBag’s wooden eyes. The mouth opened, the tongue came out, and on it rested the key to the front door. “Voilà!” he said. “Comedy is king.”
Thoroughly bedazzled by the full-spectrum exterior, Ambience was visibly startled by the in-your-face austerity on prominent display inside. Beyond the door was revealed a familiar middle-class interior just like any other, standard stuff in standard places, but all of it strikingly clean. The floor had been swept, the furniture dusted, even the walls washed. But there was no color. Almost every object was either black or white.
“Based on the outside,” said Ambience, “I certainly didn’t expect all this monochrome.” She ran a finger over the ebony mantel. Checked the tip. Spotless. “Or all this nicey-nice.”
“Who ever does? Interesting people are always more than one thing; that’s why they’re interesting.”
There was one interesting exception to the severe art design. Ambience reached down and picked up a magazine from the discordantly polychromatic pile on the black coffee table. It was the latest issue of Turtle Fancy.
“Yes,” Graveyard said, “the totemic animal of the family.”
“What animal?”
“Totemic. The creature we all gather around and worship together as a group. Doesn’t every family have one?”
“Only the ones living in tepees.”
“My mom collects turtles, the figurine kind. Her house is full of ’em. She’s president of the local TDL. Turtle Defense League.”
“Your family. Who could make this stuff up? Is Uncle GriddleCakes still with us?”
“Unfortunately, no. Lasted an amazing ninety-two years, though. Joked and laughed his way through decades of crazy good health when suddenly, out of nowhere, his body just broke and that was that. It was a shock to all of us, especially Uncle GriddleCakes.”
“So who’s managing the upkeep on this historical site now?”
“I really don’t know. My own parents never gave a damn about the place. My father called it a summer camp for rich fairies.”
“Ever the charmer.”
“I’d guess Aunt Tuffet’s probably the one keeping everything all spick-and-span. She loved GriddleCakes. She loved this house. If there’s still a garden out back, that’d be hers.”
They wandered through the house. In the gleaming kitchen they found the dishes scrubbed, the counters bare, the pantry and refrigerator stocked with food, all the expiration dates recent. There was even a large liquor cabinet full of well-branded samples from every major spirit group.
“It’s so weird,” said Ambience. “I feel like we’ve stumbled onto a movie set.”
“Except on a set,” Graveyard said, “the food would be fake.”
“Not always.”
They went upstairs. There was a big bedroom and a little bedroom, both hotel fresh. Both beds were professionally made.
“I feel at any moment,” Ambience said, “somebody’s going to pop out and say, ‘Surprise! You’re on Voyeur Voodoo.’”
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s fuck.”
So they did. They took off their clothes and slid into the sheets on the big bed in the big bedroom. The sheets were crimson and woven of five-hundred-thread-count spun satin. Their luxurious color and touch made Graveyard and Ambience feel even hornier than usual. Then hands did what hands liked to do. Then there was a sudden commotion of liking.
“I feel the sheets are fucking me,” Graveyard said.
“Then pull them in tighter.” She reached up around him and pulled the top sheet down tight across his naked back. “Now make your little groan,” she said. He did. She pulled the sheet tighter. “Now do it again.” He did it again. When he came it was with such unexpected force she was startled into coming herself. Then it took a while for their breathing to calm down. “Wow,” he said. “I never—”
“Don’t talk,” she said. They lay there quietly, their legs stretched out before them, his bare left leg lightly brushing the full length of her bare right leg. After a while their breathing returned to normal and when their breaths were in sync she turned to him and said, “So is this where the big event took place?”
“What big event?”
“Your epic deflowering.”
“Are you kidding? We never even made it up here. It happened just inside the door, on the couch down in the living room.”
“Was it good?”
“I’ve never forgotten it.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it was good.”
“I’ve never forgotten it.”
“What was she like?”
“I’ve told you about Borealis.”
“Tell me again.”
“Well, she had dark, dark hair, almost black, but not quite, just a dark, dark brown.”
“Cut short, like SleekBreath.”
“Yes. Like SleekBreath. But she didn’t really look like her. Only the hair. And she had a bad temper, but when she got really angry her eyes would cross and she looked like a doofus and you couldn’t help but laugh and she’d get crazy mad and hit you. And she liked mangleberry ice cream and bonzo rap and plinking buzzards on the internoodle.”
“And she played the flute.”
“Yes. She played the flute.”
“Funny. Never saw you as a guy going for a flute player.”
“I never did, either.”
“What’d you like best about her?”
“She always smelled like fresh laundry.”
“What do I smell like?”
“I don’t know. Everything the goddesses on the mountain kept for themselves.”
Her eyes were shining now and it was a long time before she spoke again. “Want a hit of ellipsis?” she said.
“I didn’t know you had any.”
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know.”
“You holding out on me?”
“How’d you think I got through the big family dinner the other night?”
“Is that what got you through this afternoon, too?”
“Don’t make me mad.”
“Fork over the ellipsis.”
She leaned over on her side of the bed, pulled her SenseiVanderMess leather shoulder bag up off the floor. She rooted around in it for about half an hour.
“What is this,” Graveyard said, “a treasure hunt?”
“It’s a pricey HauteFemme pillbox I bought just for special drugs. I know it’s here somewhere. Give me a sec.” She continued to root. “Ah, success.” She proudly showed him a tiny gold case tiled with emeralds.
“What’s it hold, one pill?”
“More than enough to meet our needs.” She opened the case, extracted one tiny white tab, which she handed over as if conferring upon him the last jewel from the last crown of the last kingdom. He immediately popped it into his mouth and swallowed. Ambience took one for herself and did the same. Then they sat back and they waited.
“Oh, look,” Ambience said, “someone left an entire cake.” They were in the kitchen now. She lifted the dome off the crystal cake stand sitting on the shiny too shiny kitchen counter.
“Oh, boy,” said Graveyard. “Chocolate. Gimme some.” There was a knife and plates and forks, too. They needed to eat two pieces each. Quickly. And drink two bottles each of StaggerBump beer, with the lovable bucktoothed beaver on the label, from the magic refrigerator that was perpetually full of everything they imagined they wanted.
In the garden they could feel the weight of the sun on their bodies. They weren’t wearing clothes. Clothes were so heavy and scratchy. Under their bare feet were the growing things. Everything was immediate and alive. Antennae receiving messages from the outer realm. They pulled carrots from the ground and ate them raw. With the holy specks of dirt still clinging to them. Ambience’s thigh looked like the juicy pulp of some new wondrous fruit. Graveyard leaned over and put his mouth on it. He licked and he sucked at the sweetness. For a long time. “Hmmmm,” Ambience said. “Hmmm.”
In the shower the water ran over their bare skin like a moving silk curtain that made them laugh.
“Have you peed yet?” Ambience said.
“No.”
“Do you have to?”
“Give me a minute.”
“Don’t do it yet. I have to get into position.” She got behind him, pressed herself up against his back, then reached around and took his penis in her right hand. “Ready,” she said.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve always wanted to see what it would be like to pee in the shower with a dick for a nozzle. Just let go when you’re ready.”
So he did. He could feel her hand feeling him, the steady surge coming from him. Her hand aimed the stream down toward their naked feet, first onto his feet, then onto hers. When the stream stopped, she shook him to free the last few drops.
“How was that?” Graveyard said.
“It was okay. You know, Effigy pees on her feet every time she showers. She says it’s good for you. Prevents athlete’s foot.”
“I did not know that.”
“Now you do.”
The day was so sunny and clear even the pavement looked bright. There were plenty of parking places. Pick one. He did. He turned the engine off. They sat quietly together for a while. Neither of them said anything. They looked out the windows.
“Don’t you think the grass is greener than usual today?” Graveyard said.
“I was just about to say the exact same thing,” Ambience said.
“Our minds have melded.”
“They’ve melted all right.”
“I said melded, not melted.”
“That, too.”
“I have to say I think that’s funny, but I don’t feel like laughing.”
“Perfectly okay.”
They stopped talking again. Time revolved. The Red Hole popped unexpectedly into Graveyard’s head. He never knew when it was going to show up again. It was always surprising him. He was learning to look at the Red Hole from a distance, regard it as something not too connected to him. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t.
“So where’s this fucking gorge?”
“Over there past that fence and those trees. It’s what the bridge is for.”
“What bridge?”
“The one that begins a little farther down the road here, where this parking lot ends. We haven’t come to it yet. We stopped here on this side.”
“Well, let’s get out and take a gander at this glorious wonder of the ages. That’s what we came for.”
They went to the end of the parking lot and then out onto the pedestrian walkway of the bridge. Halfway across they stopped and leaned against the rail and stared down, contemplating the abyss.
“Is that a river at the bottom?” Ambience said.
“The Bangadrumga. Headwaters back up in the foothills of the Bric-A-Brac Range, original home of the Quidnunc. You know, the tribe that started the Burlap-Ragtag War. The one where General Hiccup famously declared, ‘When we run out of shot, we’ll fire acorns.’”
“I thought we were up in the AppleCore Mountains.”
“No, I’m afraid that’s south of here.”
“So much geography to keep track of.”
“If you don’t want to get lost.”
“So much history, too. Everything you grew up around is so creepy, so old.”
“Yeah, I sprouted up out of some terribly old dirt.”
“I can actually see the tops of trees,” Ambience said. She was peering intently down into the gorge. “How deep is this thing, anyway?”
“They say fifteen hundred feet or more. The deepest gorge in the state.”
Ambience abruptly turned away, pushed herself back from the rail, and slumped down on her heels. “Makes me woozy. I think I’m going to faint.”
“You okay?” Graveyard bent down, studied her face. It had lost its normal face color.
“I’ll be okay in a minute. I’ve got a stupid thing about heights.”
“You know why people get vertigo? It’s not so much from fear of falling as fear they’re going to jump.”
“Like you’re being called.”
“Or like some part of you is yelling, hey, I got to get down on solid ground as quick as possible.”
“Solid ground,” Ambience said. “That sounds mighty good right about now.” She grabbed the railing, pulled herself up on wobbly legs. She followed Graveyard down the walkway off the bridge and toward the parking lot, but then he turned and led her onto the grass and toward the wire fence and the trees along the edge of the gorge. “Hey,” she said, “where we going?”
“You’ll see,” he said. “One of the seven wonders of the natural world.”
They went along the fence. “There’s an opening here somewhere if they haven’t fixed it yet. Ah,” he said, stopping beside one of the metal poles supporting the fence, “here.” He stooped down and pulled a loose section of wire aside. “See if you can squeeze in through there.” She could and did. He followed. On the other side of the fence was a row of large trees and then the rim of the gorge. “This better be good,” she said. “Trust me,” he said. He led her over to an opening in the weeds bordering the edge and a worn dirt trail leading steeply downward.
“You’re kidding me,” she said.
“We’ve had six-year-old kids go down this path and they all did fine,” he said.
“They were six,” she said. “What do they know?”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re only going a couple hundred yards.” Turned out the descent was relatively painless. Then Graveyard stopped and pointed to a striking-looking tree standing all alone in the center of a clearing. The tree was utterly leafless and stark white, a barren object in an undeveloped negative.
“Impressive, huh?” Graveyard said.
“Yeah,” said Ambience. “What happened?”
“It’s said that some eighty years ago, around the time of the Great Harrowing, a vicious storm moved in one summer and, out of all the possibilities in this whole dense forest, a single bolt of lightning came down and struck just this one particular tree, and in an instant, every speck of color was drained out of it forever. Became kind of a local landmark and tourist attraction. People came from all over the country to take pictures of it, to pose beside it, to touch it, and to wish on it. Supposed to give you good luck for seven years or something. They call it the Hankering Tree.” The tree was largely an odd assortment of gnarly branches with a scattering of brittle leaves pasted to them.
“Looks like it grew up out of the ground already dead,” Ambience said.
“And yet the sturdy sprout still thrives.”
“Do you think the magic still works?”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. We’re probably already loaded up on enough luck to cover seven years and more.”
“I’m going to make a wish anyway.” She walked over to the tree and took her place beside it and closed her eyes for several seconds. “There,” she said and opened her eyes. “Done.”
“What’d you wish for?”
“I can’t say. It won’t come true.”
“C’mon, it’s just a tree. What’d you wish for?”
“All right, but this is on you. I wished we wouldn’t get hit by lightning.”
Graveyard laughed, then he said, “Look across the gorge here for a minute. See that giant boulder about halfway up on the opposite slope? What’s that look like to you?”
“A fucking big rock.”
“Doesn’t remind you of anybody?”
“No. Should it?”
“Lots of folks claim to have seen the face of Jesus in that stone.”
Ambience took another serious gander. She shrugged. “All it looks like to me is a drunken pirate.”
“You’re hopeless. So much for Randomburg’s tourist attractions. Let’s get out of here.”
Slowly they climbed back up the same trail they had just come down, Ambience complaining only once. Up on top they were searching along the fence for the exit opening when out from behind the thick shaggy trunk of a tree none of them could identify with any certainty stepped—who else?—Mr. BlisterPac.
“Taking in the sights?” he said. He was wearing his trademark smirk.
“We were,” Graveyard said, “till you showed up.”
“I’m a curious fellow. I like to travel, see new places, meet new people. Fine community you’ve got here. Filled with good folks. Law-abiding, too. Pretty low tolerance for wrongdoing. Wrongdoers. Know what I mean?”
“You’re wasting your breath on the wrong people.”
“Really? On the contrary, I don’t think I am. I think I’m addressing the exact right people. Don’t you agree, Miss Ambience?”
“If I had a dick, I’d fuck you in the ass.”
“Now, now, Miss Amb, watch the hostility, watch the gay slurs. What’s that say about our friends in the gay community who regularly enjoy certain offline sexual practices? That the intimate act of love is actually a covert expression of outright hostility? I’m disappointed you’d even imply such an unfortunate notion.” As he spoke he moved steadily toward her until he was only a couple of feet from her face. “But of course, what could one reasonably expect from a liar, a fraud, and a thief?”
Graveyard stepped between Ambience and BlisterPac. “That’s my wife you’re talking to.”
“I’m well aware who I’m talking to. I wouldn’t be saying these things to anyone else. And I’m not done talking.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong.” Graveyard made the first two fingers of his right hand as straight and rigid as it was possible for fingers to be made. He pictured them as metal rods. He then began poking them into BlisterPac’s chest as hard as he could, emphasizing each word as he spoke: “You are done talking, understand?” At each poke BlisterPac took a step backwards.
“All right, you two cunts,” BlisterPac said. “Let’s cut to the weenie, and you two just come clean and cough up the cash that we all know you have and end the bullshit and you can go return to your lives, however squalid and petty they may be.”
“No,” said Graveyard. “How about you [poke; a step back] return [poke; a step back] to your monkey job [poke; a step back] and inform the head monkey [poke; a step back] that there’s no money [poke; a step back], no people [poke; a step back], no—” [Poke, and then there were no more steps to take.] Blisterpac had vanished backwards over the side. Into the distant bottom of the gorge.
“Holy shit,” Ambience said. They both rushed as close to the edge as they dared to get and peered over.
“He never made a sound,” said Graveyard. “Not even a single scream.”
“Can you see him?”
“I don’t see anything.”
“You think he’s dead?”
“I can’t imagine what other condition he could be in.”
“Critical but alive?”
Graveyard took another peek into the gorge. “Not from this height. And look at all the rocks and trees he’d crash into on the way down. I don’t know if he’d even still be in one piece by the time he hit the bottom.”
“Well, now what?”
“Let’s get back in the car and sort this out.”
Though they recognized the sole HomoDebonaire in the lot as definitely the very vehicle they had driven in on, it looked odd, slightly different, enough for a flicker of doubt to register in both their minds: is this really our car? But of course it was. Inside they sat in silence for several minutes, staring out the window. The sky was the same blue, the grass the same green, and time ticked on in the same way time does.
Finally Graveyard spoke: “It was an accident. Just one of those unfortunate miscues that happens sometimes when a curious, inexperienced out-of-towner takes one chance too many.”
“He’d heard about the Hankering Tree,” Ambience said. “He was climbing down to take a close look, to make a wish.”
“He slipped.”
“Right. He never got his wish.”
“Or maybe he did.”
“We didn’t know him. We never saw the man before.”
“We’re out-of-towners, too.”
“Terrible tragedy.”
“Our hearts go out to the family.”
They sat in silence again for a couple of minutes.
“All right,” Graveyard said. “I think we’re ready.”
“Yeah. Let’s get the hell outta here.”
So Graveyard turned the key in the ignition and they did.