Adam Coll lay on his red sofa directly in the stream of the whirring Zenith A.C. window unit. Through the pane he could see the staggering hot blue summer sky, filtered only by the slightly shimmering leaves of the old cypress in the side yard. At 33, being recently unemployed, he had no plans for the day, nor any real direction for the near term of his life. Around 1 o’clock he rolled over on the sofa. Placing his feet on the hardwood floor, he rose and walked into the kitchen where he drank the last of the milk from the fridge. Buttoning his haggard Levis and slipping on his sneakers, he stepped out the back door and walked the gravel drive to his white pickup.
The radio said it was 101 degrees. Having sat on the dash all morning the wayfarers burned his face a little. The disc jock played The old man is down the road as Coll left the neighborhood. Airport boulevard stretched out in front of him in a downhill line all the way to the river. Sleepy old town, not a damn thing you could do about it. The interstate gleamed white hot and Coll glanced out over the trees of the black land prairie to the east and then to the hills west of town. A woman with big Jackie O glasses passed him in her Mercedes. You could hate the rich, but you couldn’t beat them, he thought.
The city pool was quiet. He stretched out on a bench and opened the Laferriere paperback. Romance floated across each page, and the steaming sun lulled Coll into a heavy sleep. Down the rabbit hole, he saw his childhood home, the woods where he used to hunt with his big black sheep dog, Lucy. The brown creek rippled under the downpour of rocks made into hand grenades. Viet Cong sniped at him from the trees; he escaped across the train tressel and over the hill through the ragged barbed wire fence onto Mr. Reinhardt’s land. There in the shade he rested, drawing enormous female breasts in the dirt with a stick.
Thanks for the vivid postcard from the land of slack. I look forward to more!
This story makes me want to put on my wayfarers and head down to Deep Eddy with a paperback. Long live the velvet rut!
very nice aaron. more more.
Wow. Good work Aaron! I have to say, i definitely want to know more.