Dark End of the Street

“We ain’t shittin’ on your relatives or nothin’,” the other man said, pulling off an old brogan and smelling it.

“Nope.” I took a few breaths and pulled some tomatoes off my boot. “Hey man, you guys don’t happen to know a man named Clyde James?”

“Yeah, we know a Clyde. Sleep here sometime.”

“He’ll be back?”

“Prolly down with Wordie,” one said.

“Who’s Wordie?”

“Some woman who kiss his ass,” the man said, smelling his shoe again.

I took a final puff of the cigarette and pulled some soggy peach off my jacket. The man kept muttering, “She only like him ’cause she think he used to be somebody famous.”

I smiled.

“You know where she lives?”

“Down in Dixie somewhere. You know, Dixie Homes. Where the po’ folks stay.”

Chapter 10

WHEN ABBY WAS eight years old, she used to sneak into the woods behind her parents’ house in Oxford to make forts from small trees like the Indians once did. She’d read somewhere in a child’s science book about how some tribe up north would bend little trees to the ground to make an arc. The Indians would then make a shell by covering the tree with more leafy branches to protect themselves from the wind and rain. When Abby made her little fort, she always chose the most remote location on her parents’ land. She didn’t want Maggie to find her, or her parents, or anyone. Inside, she’d kept simple things: an old broom to smooth the dirt floor, a few My Little Ponys, and her favorite book, Where the Wild Things Are.

Mostly she’d just hidden from everyone, beneath the branches listening to the birds and the rustle of squirrels, believing the animals would keep her secret. No one would know where she was. Abby was invisible and that had given her peace.

On the road with Ellie, Abby wondered if she’d ever know that same peace again as lightning cracked a veined pattern across the flat sky of northern Mississippi. Ellie sped through back hamlets to Oxford skirting the highway around Holly Springs. The leather of Ellie’s car smelled fresh and new, and the hot coffee they bought at the truck stop made her think of home.

She took a deep breath and watched the weathered barns, trailer homes, and convenience stores whip by the car window. Her eyes felt heavy and she hugged her arms across her chest. Ellie was still rambling on about her latest boyfriend and some new restaurant on the Square that served crepes with strawberries. Abby wasn’t listening and didn’t really care. She was going home. She was leaving the woods.

“Son of a bitch,” Ellie yelled, thumping the wheel of her car. “We’re going to have to stop in a minute. I’m out of gas and about to pee in my pants.”

The blacktop loped into a sharp curve before stretching into a brief straightaway and then cutting through a red mud hill. Ellie flicked on the stereo and started singing along with some old song about “boots made for walkin’.”

“ ‘One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you,’ “ Ellie sang, beating out the fuzzy guitar on the wheel.

Abby tore open a Butterfinger she’d bought at the truck stop, tried to ignore the music, and said, “You still in school?”

“Yep,” Ellie said. “You ever hear of a professional student?”

Abby nodded, taking a small bite. Orange crumbs dropping into her lap while Ellie punched the car up to about seventy.

Abby’s fingers clawed into the leather of the seats. White lights in the buildings shot by almost as if they were in a dark tunnel. Rain splattered her windshield and in the headlights the highway asphalt looked like glass.

“So you met Maggie through your boyfriend?”

“Yep.”

“Who is that?”

“Jamie Jensen.”

“Don’t know him.”

“He was a backup quarterback a couple years back, now he’s a bouncer at the High Point.”

Abby laughed. “For Raven?”

Ellie nodded in the passing light of the road and mashed the accelerator up to eighty-five. Everyone knew Raven “Son” Waltz. At twenty-eight, he was the biggest dope supplier for most of Oxford and north Mississippi. Kid had black eyes and dirty fingernails and ran this cinder block roadhouse at the county line where you could drink on Sunday.

Ellie’s fingers rolled over the steering column and the back wheels slightly fishtailed turning a corner. Suddenly, a deer sauntered out to the middle of the road and Abby shut her eyes tight as Ellie took the car up onto the muddy shoulder, punched the accelerator again, and careened around the animal.

“Jesus,” Abby said. “Could you slow it down a little?”

“I told you, I have to pee. All this water is pushing at me.”

Ellie slowed the car and turned down the stereo as a song came on about a bad dude named Tony Rome.

“Abby, I hate to ask this, darlin’, but do the police know what happened to your parents?”

“Police say they were robbed.”

“You believe ’em?”

A tow truck barreled toward them in the passing lane and cut back about twenty yards ahead. Ellie gave a short burst of the horn but otherwise seemed to ignore the fact she’d almost crashed.

“No,” Abby said.

“What do you think happened?”

Abby shrugged.

“Was your father workin’ on anything?”