The signs from the bar cast their neon glow through our truck’s windows, rendering the dashboard an iridescent green. An ace of spades and an ace of hearts have been emblazoned on the bar’s metal door. Just underneath this, another sign proclaims CHEAP BEER & LIVE MUSIC NIGHTLY. Caroline and I watch the couples arrive and climb down from the tall cabs of their pickups. The women are wispy, their men thick around the middle in western shirts with straining snap buttons. Bodies so normal their imperfections make me jealous. The longer we sit, the more I start to grow nauseous at the thought of going inside.
I always felt sick before a show. Needed to sit alone for a few minutes and just meditate on my breath. Try to exorcise all the fear so that my hands could steady and play. I’m not sure what exactly brings on the upset stomach tonight. Maybe it’s Angela’s signed guitar, secured in the hard-shell case and resting at my feet. Hidden underneath the instrument in a secret pouch is a 45 record of Angela and me playing “The Poison Flood.” The guitar is Russell’s if he wants it. I can still deny my involvement in the band if he shows it off, just say it was a kind present from a childhood friend. The record is different. It feels more like a full betrayal, one where I’m still contemplating whether or not the money is worth it.
The plan is to blend into the crowd as best I can and sell the memorabilia afterward. Caroline, however, is dressed for attention. Tight jeans and a dark halter top. Wedge heels and scarlet lipstick. She checks her reflection in the side mirror, and I know I’ll be noticed just standing near her. As we climb out, some high school boys exit the bar. Country music washes out on their heels and fades as the door swings shut behind them. They lean against the banisters that hold up the rusted metal awning, share cigarettes and swig from longnecks.
The pack notices Caroline right away, but she keeps moving forward through the catcalls, dodging the deep puddles in the road as she carries my guitar case. Russell’s black hearse is parked by the front door where a man struggles to unload a drum kit from its rear. He deposits the bass drum next to the alley entrance and returns to retrieve the snare. After all the drums are accounted for, I watch as he strains lifting a Vox amplifier. Caroline and I step to the side while a bouncer holds the door open for the staggering roadie.
“Wouldn’t a van be easier?” Caroline asks.
The bouncer shrugs. “These are some strange cats. Five-dollar cover charge.” His eyes move over her body, down to the guitar. “Unless you’re with the band.”
Caroline hands him two crumpled fives. The bouncer never looks at me, just keeps his eyes buried in Caroline’s cleavage.
Inside, the dead blue haze of cigarette smoke swirls as butts burn in outlaw satisfaction at the broken no smoking laws. Men sit upon unsteady Naugahyde stools that sway as they shift. Bar lizards with leathered skin and unlit smokes bend toward offered flames. Glasses clink in the quiet. On a small stage raised only a few feet higher than the dance floor, a man begins tuning a Telecaster while another bends behind the drum kit, his beer belly hanging pendulously over his rodeo belt buckle.
Caroline orders a Jack and Coke at the bar while I climb up onto the stool beside her. I notice no one tips the gaunt, pigtailed blonde who digs low into the cooler, pulling deep in the ice to get regulars the coldest High Life possible. All around is the sense of a community. Acceptance through forced camaraderie like soldiers in foxholes, love at the knowledge one has no other tribe. I wish I was a part of it. I haven’t felt included in something since the band, and that was all Angela.
Onstage, The Copper Thieves, the opening act of the evening, begin a low-pitched rendition of Dwight Yoakam’s “Guitars, Cadillacs” that sends a few couples swaying to the beat, boot heels stomping a rhythm. I steal a sip from Caroline’s cocktail and feel the whiskey burn its way down. She lays a fat tip on the bar despite the obvious breach in etiquette. The blonde’s smile looks eerie through the tobacco cloud brightened by red stage lights. The patrons have yet to notice my ugliness. Maybe the haze works as a shroud. If so, I’m thankful for it.
“What’s with the hearse outside?” Caroline asks the bartender.
“The Excitable Boys tour with it.” The bartender shouts to be heard over the music. “You heard of them?”
“Yeah,” Caroline replies. “I’m looking for a certain singer.”
“Ain’t we all?” The bartender gives her a conspirator’s grin.
“His name is Russell Watson,” Caroline says. “You know him?”
The blonde shakes her head hard enough to send her pigtails lashing. One wraps around her neck like a constricting serpent. “Don’t know them personally, but they put on a hell of a show.”
The band plays a southern rock tune that gets the women out on the dance floor. The men slide close and grind. Even though the music is all wrong, the same sort of hoodoo that used to pump from Angela’s guitar is in the air. I can feel the power of it infecting the audience, whittling away the hard work week, the cousin in jail and the hollow pain inside all of us poor rednecks that whispers you’re nothing but country trash, that if there is such a thing as a soul, yours is made of dog shit. Music was the only thing I ever found that could mute those voices for even an hour, but since I left the band, songs bring on memories of Angela. I wonder if anything good will ever be free of her.
After the Garth Brooks and George Strait covers end, the bearded man with the Telecaster strapped shotgun high across his chest tells the audience to stick around for something different. He leaves the stage to a plump roadie who begins exchanging the equipment for the next set. Couples wander outside or return to the bar for refills. I watch as the crowd begins a slow metamorphosis. Cowboys slink out, as men without a stitch of clothing a brighter hue than gray stalk in. Both males and females are raccoon-eyed with mascara, their faces full of piercings. The Excitable Boys’ fan base.
The band comes onstage to the ominous sound of an organ. A fog machine belches across the crowd, catches the purple and blue stage lights as Russell hobbles his way to the microphone on a silver-capped cane. He wears a black suit smeared with dirt, the white tuxedo shirt so soiled it looks as if he’s been buried in it for centuries. The shoulders and lapels of his jacket writhe under the lights as live night crawlers hang from his clothing. The slimy bodies drop atop his shoes to writhe blind across the floor. Behind him, the rest of the band stand caked in makeup to resemble ghouls. Ashen faces with bits of drying gore at the corners of their mouths. Bloody wounds drawn on foreheads or throats. Victor plays bass and is the only member not in the black suit of a pallbearer. He wears a new cream-colored Stetson hat and dark boots with rusted spurs. His gun belt is strapped low on his hip. The peacemaker still rides in the holster.
“These are The Excitable Boys,” Russell says, pointing at the band.
No further introduction. The drummer and guitar player blast into a deafening barrage that shakes the small space. The crowd surges, slamming into one another and the stage. Maybe fifty kids in all, but the cramped dance floor makes it seem like a swarm beyond comprehension. Russell leans down, occasionally offering the microphone to a fan screaming lyrics. I can’t make out all the words through the buzz and distortion, but the kids eat it up. They sing back the chorus. Scream as the guitar player leads the band into a solo.
Even as I watch Russell vomit fake blood on the front row, the music incites a pang of nostalgia. It carries echoes of my own adolescence fueled by hate of The Reverend. Worse, I envy the stage presence. Russell prowls, twirls the microphone or falls to his knees crushing worms into the floorboards. I was always stationary. A man cemented to a barstool or a chair, my body unable to carry the guitar if I stood. Sitting so rooted in place made me feel vulnerable before the audience. Russell controls them.
The Excitable Boys play a full hour. Mostly originals from the album Russell gave me, but a few covers like T.S.O.L.’s “Silent Scream” and The Cramps’ “I Walked All Night.” They conclude with Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died.” After the final feedback dissipates, the members drop their instruments on the stage and step behind the curtain without a word. Applause follows for nearly a full minute after.
“You think I could meet them?” Caroline asks the bartender.
The blonde wipes the bar clean with a moist rag. “I guess. On through the back.”
Caroline lifts the guitar case, pulls me off the stool and we navigate through the people clamoring for drinks. I squeeze between leather-clad shoulders studded with spikes, women who smell of skunked beer and marijuana. Caroline opens the back door, pushes me inside and closes it behind us. We swim through total darkness, hands searching until I discern the margins of a narrow hallway. We follow the sound of voices down the path.
After a moment of blindness, the room materializes. Strangers mingle around a row of liquor bottles, laughing as they toss back shots or stand in a circle passing blunts. Cigarettes are dropped to the concrete floor and left to smolder out. I search the crowd and find the band members lounging on plush couches augmented with duct tape. The guitarist is smiling at a girl who’s picking fake blood from the hair of his goatee. She stops plucking at the coagulation as Caroline approaches, but the band members all keep their seats. Only Russell stands from the chair he’s been straddling.
“Are you lost?” he asks.
Streaks of mud run down the lapels of his dinner jacket. He’s much taller than Caroline and uses his size to loom over her, teeth exposed in a grin that shows incisors capped with long fangs. He wasn’t wearing the teeth when he came calling at my house. I wonder how he can sing with them in his mouth.
“I brought Hollis to the show,” she says.
“That’s awful sweet of you,” Russell replies, but his focus has already shifted to me, eyes brightened by the same hero worship as before. He lays a hand wearing a dirty white dress glove on my shoulder. “I’m really honored you came.”
Behind us, two girls lie atop a table. Two men sprinkle their taut stomachs with salt, then lick the exposed abdomens before sucking tequila from the hollows of the girls’ navels. Tongues trace their way up toward eager mouths. A vacuum-hard snort through a rolled bill echoes from the far corner of the party and another girl is swept off her feet by the potbellied drummer, swung over his shoulder like a bindle as he performs a swaying dance. Her giggles turn to a cackle that pierces the murmured conversation. She might be nineteen. The same sort of safety pins in her earlobes and black-nail-polished punk as Angela growing up.
“That for me?” Russell asks and points to the guitar case.
“Once we agree on a price,” I say.
He nods. “I’m thrilled you changed your mind. Can I offer you a drink?”
“No, thank you,” I say. “Just wanna talk business.”
“We got plenty of time for that. I’ll have to swing by the house for the cash anyhow.”
Russell gestures for me to sit. Across the room, Victor sparks a fresh joint and passes it to the guitarist. Remnants of fake blood stain the paper. Everything about the man makes me uneasy. The way he stands off to the side of the party, not engaging with this group of misfits, feels wrong.
I sit and listen to Russell hold court on music. The partygoers lean into his talk, but after about five minutes of his diatribe on X, Caroline asks if they have anything to drink. Victor escorts her to the keg. Russell keeps me cornered, talking so fast about The Stooges that spittle flies from his lips. Occasionally during his lecture, Russell pulls an iPhone from his pocket and texts someone.
“So, you’re a musician?” the guitarist asks me. He’s a large man with neatly trimmed, purposeful stubble that I’m tempted to call a “city beard.”
I don’t know how to respond. I don’t want to give up any more information, and I’ve lost track of Caroline in the crowd. Russell pulls his dress gloves off with his teeth. Lets one of them hang limp from his mouth as he talks. His eyes are covered in enough eye shadow to resemble black holes. “Hollis used to jam with Angela Carver before The Troubadours.”
The guitarist gives an amphetamine-induced titter.
“No shit,” Russell says and sucks on the passing joint. “He’s the best musician in the room.” No one challenges the statement.
When Caroline returns, she’s clinging to Victor so that half the snaps on his shirt have popped open. Her cheeks are flushed, all the muscles in her face slack. I’m not sure what she’s taken, but her eyes have the wet slickness from a fresh line. It’s been something strong. Caroline can typically handle enough drugs to stun a mule.
“What’s with all the makeup?” Caroline asks. She slurs, tongue too medicated to enunciate.
“Don’t we look pretty?” Russell asks.
Caroline laughs and falls against Victor’s chest. She straightens up as Russell leans toward her.
“Appalachia is the right place for the grotesque. Don’t you think?”
“It’s nothing new to me,” Caroline says. “I lived here my whole life.”
“Then you understand how people see it,” Russell says. “A fatalistic, feudist country. Half the town has a man who’s died in a mine somewhere. Some relative who stood in the picket line during strikes. As far as the rest of America is concerned, we’re different. Have you seen the protesters?”
We passed the protesters along the highway again this evening. Men, women and children all holding signs attributing atrocity to Watson Chemical. Sludge ponds of mud left behind where the company used to wash its coal, now quagmires rumored to swallow up small animals too foolish to avoid them. One day, when the companies are finished with this place and the strip-mined mountains are free of people, those preserved skeletons will be all that is left. I wonder how Russell really feels about these people. Sure, he runs with Victor and spouts his rhetoric. Even now the lecture he’s laying on Caroline is more reciting the things Victor has likely taught him. Still, I’m not sure one could totally turn against their family. It took years for me to dispel my father’s influence and even now, on the right sort of night, I can awake with the certainty that The Reverend’s preaching was true. That I’ve lived a false life and eternal Hellfire awaits. If gospel ghosts can linger like that, why wouldn’t the influence of something as tangible as money hold Russell’s allegiance?
“But what does any of that have to do with corpse paint?” Caroline askes.
“A local girl should have read Anthony Harkins’s Hillbilly,” Russell says. “Heard of it?”
“No,” Caroline says. She’s wearing a smirk now. The last thing I’d have expected from a man dressed as a corpse is a book recommendation, but I can see Russell is serious. All the swagger is gone. He isn’t purring out the information like before. Victor is watching his protégé lecture, a pleased grin on his face.
“Harkins traces the whole history of the Hillbilly as a cultural icon. Used as noble pioneer when Americans are weary of urbanization, other times as something he calls ‘the last acceptable ethnic fool.’ Something the white middle class can publicly vilify.”
I don’t think America ever limited itself to one fool or villain. Looking back at our history, no atrocity has ever been off limits.
“You always try to impress girls with this stuff?” Caroline asks.
The fangs appear again as Russell grins. “Is it working?”
Caroline shrugs, collapses into Victor’s chest again. I’m beginning to get angry watching this display. Not rage, but a simmering indignation that makes it harder not to say something. I know she isn’t mine and I have no right to dictate how she behaves, but I thought she’d have the decency not to do this in front of me. I tell myself it’s just the pills, that Caroline would never hurt my feelings intentionally. This does little to soothe the fact her hands are all over Victor, fingers snaking inside the popped buttons to rub his chest as I sit next to them pretending not to notice. Victor seems almost bored with the attention. Accepting, but his mind elsewhere as her fingers caress his chest. I can tell he wants to join the conversation but is too proud of Russell to interrupt.
“The people who truly feel grotesque want to blend in,” I say to Russell.
“Maybe that’s their problem,” Victor interjects. “Maybe they should just embrace who they are. If more people stood up, we’d have control of this country instead of all these corrupt corporations.”
Words that could only be spoken by the painfully average. I wonder if my definition of corrupt would be the same as Victor’s. I’m about to ask him to elaborate, but am distracted by a woman stepping away from the keg. My first thought is how she reminds me of Angela. There is no physical resemblance; this woman’s skin is darker than the translucent pale that let me see Angela’s veins, and her hair is fashioned into a pixie cut where a silver butterfly barrette a child might choose secures the few longest locks. Still, her style is all Angela. Faded brown leather jacket, black skinny jeans and a T-shirt bearing the album cover from Blondie’s Parallel Lines. Each step she takes cools the nearby men’s conversations, a funeral-parlor quiet echoing with the click of high-heeled Doc Marten boots. I notice the camera bag that hangs against her cocked hip and immediately understand she is Press.
“You boring these nice folks?” she asks Russell.
“Of course,” he says. “Rosita Martinez, meet Hollis Bragg and Miss Caroline.”
Rosita takes the seat beside me. She crosses her legs, her heavy boot nearly touching my knee. She’s the kind of woman who makes men like me realize how stunted we are. Flawless caramel skin, large brown eyes and a beauty that comes without effort.
“Let me guess,” I say. “An artist?”
Rosita smiles. “Is it that obvious?”
“I’m psychic,” I say. It’s as close to flirting as I’ll allow myself. Rosita doesn’t even raise an eyebrow, but Caroline spews beer and doubles over into a laughing fit.
“What sort of photography do you do?” I ask, pointing to the camera bag.
“I work for a magazine called Strange Sounds. I’m here to write a piece on The Excitable Boys.”
Strange Sounds is the younger, hipper version of Rolling Stone. Most hungry journalists would probably prefer it. The sort of place that isn’t going to run an article on some band playing Madison Square Garden for the hundredth time, but up-and-comers getting millions of streams or selling exclusively in vinyl. It’s the cool gig even if it holds less prestige. I knew she was more than the guitarist’s wife or a groupie with an expensive camera, but sitting next to an actual music critic makes my mouth feel dry. Russell may have already talked to her about me. He’s certainly made it no secret that I used to play with Angela Carver. A smart reporter would take mental note of that and try to find out just how much involvement I’ve had with Angela. The night is turning into a trap.
Rosita takes a slug of beer. “You’re a musician?”
Before I can respond, the blond bartender runs in with her pigtails flapping. The apron is still tied around her waist, shirtfront wet with spilled drinks.
“Turn on the TV,” she shouts.
“We’re chatting,” Russell says.
“It’s important,” the bartender says. “Some serious shit is going on.”
Russell retrieves the television remote from the end of the couch and turns on the flat screen mounted to the far wall. As he cycles through the stations, every channel displays the same image. A woman in a blue raincoat stands at the edge of the Guyandotte River, wind blowing the dandelion-white strands of her hair across her face. On the far shore behind her, several hulking storage tanks rise behind a fence topped with razor wire. One of the tanks has a deep gash in the bottom corner that pours out a frothing chemical. A wall of sandbags has been laid out in a weak attempt at containment. Overhead, each smokestack expels a continuous cloud that billows and grows, spreading out across the sky until I wonder how the plumes don’t blot out the moon.
“We’re being told that the spill occurred sometime earlier this evening,” the reporter says. “Residents alerted American Water to a strange scent they described as similar to licorice whenever they turned on their tap.” She gestures toward the chemical plant. “Others living close to the river claimed they could smell a similar odor in the air. Not much is known about the chemical other than it’s used to process coal. It’s considered dangerous and can be absorbed through the skin.”
Islands of white foam float by on the water’s current. Some clumps beach themselves against the weeds near the bank and break up before continuing downstream. Others collide, converging into larger masses. I search for dead fish or animals coated in the froth, but the camera pulls back to the reporter. The screen is split now, a man in the newsroom on the left side, the woman in the field on the right.
“Jessica, do we have any information as to the danger this might pose to residents?” the man asks.
“We don’t have any specific information at this time, but the governor has issued an order restricting water use in several counties.”
A scroll of names covers the bottom of the screen as the anchor recites the list. The room fills with a prickling energy of panic. I feel it spreading just below the surface, the surge passing from person to person. Victor tosses an unopened beer can at the television as Coopersville County appears on the bottom scroll. It bursts and sprays across the room.
“Motherfucker,” Russell says. He points his finger to the dripping screen. “You see how big that tank is?”
Victor removes his hat and rubs fingers through his hair, scratches the stubble on his jaw. “I tell you one thing,” he says. “It’s everybody’s problem now.”
“What do you mean?” Russell asks.
“Pretty soon all that tainted water flows to Louisville.”
“It’ll dilute by then,” Russell says.
“Something needs to be done,” Victor says. “This is the opportunity we needed.”
All my concern over Rosita and jealousy regarding Caroline are gone. I’m thinking of the wasteland lullabies I’ve written. Is this how it starts? A sudden catastrophe that makes it impossible for men to imbibe the water, mutates the fish and withers the crops? Am I a prophet and is today the first day of the scripture I’ve been writing? My father would certainly be on his knees, praying for the strength to endure these newest trials.
“Thousands of gallons,” Victor says. “National media will be here before tomorrow morning. We have to use this. Otherwise, we won’t have another chance. Are you ready?” he asks Russell, but Russell is glued to the television.
“Focus,” Victor yells to get Russell’s attention. He turns from the television, locks eyes on Victor, who has removed his hat and sits turning it in his hands. “If we really want to make a difference, now is the time.”
The screen cycles through the same images: the river, the storage tanks, an ominous shot of a kitchen sink with a dripping faucet. There is a photo of a woman who’d been washing dishes without knowledge of the spill. Her fingers are swollen twice the normal size, the pads of her hands lobster red and skin peeling. The worst are her fingernails. They’ve begun to turn black, as blood wells underneath them and oozes from the end of each digit. The news anchor informs us the woman is being treated in the hospital’s intensive care wing.
Russell raises his arms for the group’s attention. “We need to make a run for some bottled water.”
This isn’t what Victor wants to hear. His brow creases in frustration and he leans forward like he’s ready to say something, then considers his audience. He sinks back down into the couch, ready to wait for a better time. There’s something that strikes me as dangerous in this waiting. Victor doesn’t recline and relax, but seems to be settling into his position like a coiled snake. As soon as he has Russell alone, he’ll say his piece.
“Does the bar have any bottled water?” Victor asks the bartender.
The bartender shakes her head. “Just a soda gun hooked up to the tap. We got some ice, but not much.”
“We could hit Shaheen’s,” Russell says. “Grab some provisions before things get wild.”
“Who?” Caroline doesn’t speak to anyone directly. Her half-lidded eyes blink slow and she slides down into the plush couch as if hoping to recede into the cushions.
“You okay, sugar?” Rosita asks her.
Caroline nods, but her eyes stay closed a bit longer with every minute that passes.
I want to retreat home where we can safely drink from the well, but that’s not going to happen. I’ve gotta stick with Russell if I want to get paid. Besides, I have no driver. Caroline is barely conscious, still draped across Victor’s chest, head dangling on a bobbing neck and then jerking erect.
“I need some air,” I say.
The group is still debating, so I head into the hall before Russell can follow. My eyes suddenly feel hot and wet. My throat raw. I can’t recall if I’ve drunk any water since leaving the house but decide it’s just paranoia. If I had, my face would look like the dishwasher’s hands.
Outside, the lot is empty aside from the hearse and Caroline’s truck. Down the street, a few vans from the local news stations already idle by the curb. I can’t make out their logos in the darkness, just the newsmen milling around, snaking cables out the back of the panel doors. In minutes, the street will glow from all the lights. I want to disappear before one of the cameras finds me vulnerable under the buzzing neon of the bar sign.
I hear the door open behind me. When I turn, Rosita holds it while Russell and Victor come nearly dragging Caroline. She staggers with the guitar case clutched like an oversized infant.
“What the fuck did she take?” I ask.
Victor shrugs. “Whatever was cut up on the table.”
I should be more worried, but the images on the television have inspired my internal conductor to strike up the band. A guitar plays against the steady throb of an improvised drum. Rusty scrap metal utilized for percussion. I can hear the weary chords. A tune that personifies the schools of bobbing fish and the islands of toxic white foam. I need an instrument and a pen, but my driver is too stoned to be left alone. If I’m ever going to make it across my creek—a dangerous proposition considering the quality of the water—I’ll need help.
Russell unlocks the hearse. Rosita and Caroline climb in back where a casket should lie. Victor sits on the floor between the girls, his back to the driver and long legs extended until his spurred boots rest against the closed back doors. I take the passenger seat as Russell pulls onto the main road.
Once safe inside the car, Victor can’t contain himself. He turns forward so that Russell can see his eyes in the rearview.
“Those were your family’s tanks,” he says. “I need to know you understand that.”
“I do,” Russell says, but I don’t hear the same conviction in his voice.
“You can see the truth now, right? You see that they are killing us. Can I depend on you? Do you have the resolve to see this thing through?”
“Of course,” Russell says.
I’m about to interject when we reach the roadblock. The protesters stand across the yellow line with their hands linked into a human chain. The spectacle has drawn some rubberneckers, who are kept behind sawhorses by a small group of state police. The cops stand beside their cruisers, muscles tense under the green sleeves of their uniforms as they wait for things to escalate. One officer, short and mustached, is shouting for the protesters to clear the road. They only tighten their links, coil inward and look to one another for assurances no one will desert if the hickory batons come out of the cops’ trunks.
Watching them, I feel ashamed of how many times Caroline and I have driven by. I wish I’d done something to show solidarity. I’m considering how it’s too late when a man breaks from the chain and staggers into the median.
“He ain’t gonna move,” Victor says.
“Yes, he will,” Russell replies, but I’m not convinced. The man looks transfixed by our approaching headlights, ready to let his body meet the hearse’s grille. Russell stands on the brake. I see his eyes close in the illumination from the dashboard lights.
Behind the man, the human chain begins to cheer. Russell rolls down the window to shoo him away, but it’s taken as an invitation. As the loner approaches, I think he’ll reach through the window and grasp the crooner. Instead, the man slams his fist against the hood.
“The road’s closed,” he screams. “No one passes.”
Russell nods in agreement, reassures him by saying, “I’m on your side, man.”
The man has finally noticed Russell’s ghoul paint. His upper lip pulls back in disgust. “You Goddamned freaks,” he shouts.
“Step away from the car,” an officer calls. He draws his gun as he steps forward. Rosita screams from the backseat and places her palms flat on the glass. I’m suddenly taken over by survival tactics my father taught me. Anytime I was approached by some authority figure from town, I was told to run through the same internal list. Be polite. Cooperate. Assume you are in violation of something. Do not bring unwanted attention down on the church. I follow Rosita’s example and place my palms on the windshield. Her shallow breathing seems obscenely loud in the quiet.
“Step away from the car,” the officer says. I can’t tell if he’s noticed the man isn’t armed. The gun stays on target.
“Fuck you, pig,” the man screams. He swings a haymaker reminiscent of something from a John Wayne western. The trooper tackles him to the ground and slaps the bracelets on his wrists while another officer approaches my window. The protesters hiss and shout insults as the cop wrestles with the man. A random bottle sails through the air and smashes against a nearby cruiser. Another officer points his firearm at the crowd in warning. This is answered with lobbed rocks and more bottles that shatter in front of the man’s feet.
“Road’s closed,” the officer says to me. He shines his Maglite on Russell. If the ghoul makeup shocks him, he suppresses it well. “I’m going to have to ask you to go back the way you came.”
The cop smells like sweat-drenched polyester and morning breath. I guess no one has showered this evening. Caroline leans toward the front like she wants to ask a question, but Victor pulls her back. Russell whips the car around and drives away. A flash erupts from the backseat as Rosita takes a picture through the tinted glass. Inside the confines of the car, the light is blinding as a supernova. My retinas are imprinted with spheres of red long after the bulb is extinguished.
“Wrong lenses for this dark,” Rosita says to herself.
“Put it away,” Russell yells.
Several protesters break from the chain. Bottles and rocks continue to rain down on the police. Most seem aware that this rage is misdirected and refuse to unhinge from their link. These bodies hold fast, leaving the group divided. I watch in the rearview as the police move in with clubs held high. Before the two lines converge, the groups become dark shapes indistinguishable from one another.