[alloallo3]

Synopsis:
Chapter One of a longer work. A man has moved his family to New Mexico from Louisiana. This chapter is representative of the novel as a whole -- the story is not what it seems.

THE EDITOR'S NOTE IS PART OF THE STORY:

Editor’s Note: This story was written in 1969, and describes events that took place in 1967. Cultural references commonly understood by Americans of the time may confuse the contemporary reader. However, in keeping with the wishes of the author’s family, these references have been retained without emendation.

Chapter One:

The turkey vulture rested motionless one thousand feet above the desert floor, its wings extended their full six feet to capture the rising thermals. More than an hour had passed since he had flapped those wings.

The New Mexico sun struck the naked earth below with an August fierceness. Untempered by green, unrelieved by shade, the heat rose in waves. The vulture, floating above, saw the earth as through a great hot sea. The land tossed and the road below, the only artifact within view, writhed like a snake.

The vulture was hungry. In the angry sunlight its cranial carapace gleamed a noxious pink.

The vulture was very good at finding what he sought. His eyes were impossibly keen, his olfactory an engineering marvel. With these he pursued sustenance and the opportunity to reproduce. Each day he followed the roads, which he had learned are prolific sources of food. Along this stretch of road, which today was his alone, he would find his preferred fare -- road kill.

As he watched and sniffed the air, the vulture saw nothing of interest. He was looking for movement -- a particular kind of movement. He patiently surveyed the bare land below him for the final dying twitches of a coyote or a javelina. But there was nothing. From his lofty perspective the vulture could see two hundred square miles of New Mexico desert, and it contained no twitch. The air held no whiff of rotting flesh.

The vulture could see nothing, that is, except a beetle crawling slowly across the saddle landscape. Though it traveled the blacktop, it nevertheless left in its wake a thin rooster tail, a handful of the New Mexico dust tossed into the air. The beetle emitted its signature drumming.

At that moment, the driver of the car spotted the vulture.

“Huh, look at that,” Matthew Brandon said to his wife. He leaned out the open window to take a better look. “Is that an eagle or a hawk? I can’t ever tell the difference.”

Honey Brandon didn’t respond. After six torturous weeks she had that morning finally gotten the call from the Artesia library. “We got Valley of the Dolls waitin’ for you, Honey,” the librarian had told her.

As they drove through the desert, Honey was lapping up Jacqueline Susann like a cat laps up fresh cream.

Matthew Brandon shook his head. “How you can read that stuff,” he said to himself, “is beyond me.”

Matthew’s taste ran more to non-fiction. He read and re-read C.S. Lewis. Though he found it very difficult, he also read Aquinas and Augustine. And sometimes, when his pastor firmly pressed it upon him, he read a new book, some bit of painfully sincere piffle by one of the endless line of modern Christian writers whose books stuff the shelves of the Bible bookstores.

It was the look, you know, the look his pastor gave him. He engaged Matthew’s eyes with a look that was -- apropos to the subject matter at hand -- painfully sincere.

“We are readers,” his pastor’s eyes said to Matthew. “You and I, you know. We are brothers in our heightened appreciation of the written word.” And then Brother John would press into Matthew’s palm something pale and bloodless. Sometimes it was heartwarming, Matthew thought with an involuntary grimace.

Matthew looked at his wife, wanting to talk, but he knew she would be annoyed. So instead he took the measure of the horizon. As the beetle crested a hill the road stretched out before him, straight and empty to the rise of the next hill.

When the distance seemed impressive, he took note of his odometer, then entered the trough. The miles rolled by. Four miles…six…seven. Seven point four miles Matthew noted as he crested the once distant point. Matthew watched his rearview mirror as the road rose behind him, finally obscuring the past.

There is a place just above Roswell where the road ahead is visible for more than 12 miles. The distant point is hazy with dust and heat. Matthew loved that view.

He considered turning on the radio, but decided against it. When the atmospheric conditions were just right, he could sometimes pick up during the day the sources so constant in the night: WLS in Chicago, KAAY in Little Rock. Sometimes when driving at night through the desert Matthew listened to WWL beaming its 50,000 watts from New Orleans. He heard the familiar sour voices of New Orleanians, and heard in them his late home in Louisiana.

But anything Matthew managed to pick up during the day would be static-ridden. Matthew wouldn’t mind, but Honey, with her finer sensibilities, would be annoyed.

So he took the measure of the horizon, and thought about his Louisiana home with its curving, canopied roads. He remembered green things, and nights spent along the river road when the sodden land has exhaled. A funky murk has risen and a car, spinning through the night, tears through tissues of thin white mist. Beside him there is a woman.

This woman. His hand is clasped between her thighs.

“Why exactly did I move?” he wondered again.

Oh yes. There were the other aspects of Louisiana to consider. Rats, mice, water moccasins, roaches, red bugs. And heat.

On days like this, still days, when the temperature rose above one hundred degrees, his co-workers at the refinery remarked constantly on the terrible heat. “Es mucho muy calor, Mateo,” they would say, laughing as they made fun of Matthew’s childish Spanish. But Matthew laughed too.

“Pero la sombra…”

It is the New Mexico sun that is terrible, but it is easily defeated. The heat in Louisiana is oppressive -- invasive. It finds you, wraps itself around you, blankets you in hot misery.

Matthew considered again that he should put an air cooler in the Volkswagen. Perhaps he would build one.

Matthew was extraordinarily, absurdly proud of his ability to build coolers. That first summer in Artesia he had built for their new home a swamp cooler that functioned very well. It consisted in its entirety of an aquarium, an aquarium pump and a fan. Toward the end of August a mysterious fungal growth appeared in the corners of the living room, but he had ignored those. A little bleach takes care of that.

Matthew, Honey, Biddy and Paul lived in a tiny adobe house. It stood amidst other modest adobes in the Hispanic section of town. When he bought the house, Matthew was uninformed as to the importance of that fact -- the fact that he was moving into an Hispanic neighborhood. Like anyone from Louisiana, he assumed that Hispanics were white, in the direct sense that they were not black. It never occurred to him the same racial tensions he had endured in Louisiana were also found in Artesia.

There was no lack of evidence. The Hispanics lived in one neighborhood, the white folks in another. The very few black families in town lived near the Hispanic neighborhood, and attended the Hispanic public high school. The whites had their own school. For the most part the races lived separate lives, and spoke different languages.

Except Matthew and his family. They had with perfect ignorance settled smack within the brown section of town. When Matthew went to work each day at the refinery his was the only white face in his crew. The white folks had the jobs indoors, where they wore their short-sleeved white shirts with a tie, and enjoyed the swamp-cooled air.

At first, life in Artesia was difficult for Matthew and his family. It was difficult for a long time, and was made particularly so when Biddy and Paul enrolled at the white school. His neighbors were deeply offended, but they knew nothing about the pressure that had been applied to the Brandons. The white administrators had expressed disbelief when Matthew announced his intention to enroll his children in the neighborhood school. Some of his neighbors made it equally obvious that white, English-speaking children were unwelcome at their school.

Relief came in an unexpected way, though not if you knew Matthew.

After the success with his home-built air-conditioner, Matthew decided to try something a little more ambitious. He air-conditioned his back yard, all 2000 square feet of it.

It was a simple system. Matthew planted eight 12 foot posts in the backyard and with these created a wire frame. From these wires dangled eight lengths of yard hose, which he had carefully pricked with a pin. He capped the end, and there you had it: a misting system that reduced the temperature in the back yard by 20 to 30 degrees.

Matthew also determined he would have a lawn. He tilled the poor soil and fertilized and seeded it. Each evening after work he watered the seed. Some nights he left his misting system on, ensuring the ground never dried out. It was wasteful and expensive, but by July he had a lawn, three inches deep -- deep enough to mow. A hawk or an eagle flying over that neighborhood would have seen brown houses, brown dirt and brown streets. And in their geometric midst, a square so green it glowed.

But he wasn’t done yet. Matthew also purchased for his children a swimming pool, or more specifically a large cattle watering tank, the kind used by the local ranchers for their herds. It was 12 feet across and three feet deep. When you drew yourself from it into the dry hot air the water evaporated so rapidly it took your breath away.

Matthew’s plan worked. Soon the children of the neighborhood had discovered the Brandon’s back yard, and were inexorably drawn in. They understood for the first time the delicious notion of cool green grass on bare feet. And for the first time they knew the pleasure of a plunge in cool clean water.

Matthew and Honey weren’t well to do -- not even relatively so -- but they were able to purchase these few luxuries through a small inheritance Matthew had received ten years before when his mother died. Among the many perversities of Louisiana law is a constitutional requirement declaring that children are entitled to their inheritance immediately upon the death of a parent. The surviving spouse has no choice in the matter.

As Stanley Kowalski eloquently explained, “in Louisiana we got something called the Napoleonic Code.” The results are often tragic.

When Matthew’s mother died, his father was forced to liquidate a number of properties and to deliver the returns, in cash, to his sons. Matthew’s portion hadn’t been great. But he and Honey had banked it, and had made the wise decision to never spend it on anything other than luxuries.

With a few more dollars, Matthew made two final investments. He purchased an old coke machine, a cabinet-type with bottles hanging from metal rails. To free a coke you seized it by the cap and pulled it through a maze. He put the box in his back yard and filled it with cokes. The coin box was amended to return the dime and soon Matthew started supplying the entire neighborhood’s cadre of children with bebidas.

On came the children. In droves.

Then Matthew made one more decision. He loaded a few beers into the machine. Within days, the word was out. Cold beer, green grass and a place for the children to play. The Brandon’s house, each afternoon. The adults started arriving too, shyly at first, but Matthew made them feel welcome. “Have a beer!” he would say, though they noticed he never drank one.

At first Matthew worried that his plan would cost too much, but his neighbors were careful in their consumption, and were observant of his family’s privacy. Everyone out at 8 p.m.

Matthew loved his backyard. Like very few plans in life, this one worked with a beauty, an elegance, that was savory. With Biddy and Paul, and sometimes with Honey, Matthew would lie in the green grass after dark and enjoy his triumph. On clear nights he could see the Milky Way, which the damp air of Louisiana had obscured. He would celebrate with fireworks.

Only one fact kept Matthew from celebrating an unalloyed triumph. Beyond his neighborhood, just beyond Highway 16, the immense refinery rises like a fantastical city. Like a city it heaves and chuffs endlessly. The lights from its smoking towers glare. Red flashing lights spin in the black sky.

Matthew planted trees -- large, expensive pecan trees at the eastern end of his backyard to remove the refinery from his view. It was better, but it wasn’t perfect. Though he couldn’t see the refinery, he could smell it. It produced a stench like propane, which was possible because they also cracked natural gas and added odorant at the refinery.

When he couldn’t smell the refinery, he could hear it. The sound wasn’t always there in the background -- it was the sonic background, a massive sweep of clanging and chuffing and mechanical movement.

Sometimes when Matthew lay on the back lawn at night, enjoying the cool air of the evening, he would listen to the inexhaustible industry of the refinery and reckon it was the devil at work over there, just beyond his new trees, manufacturing something in the desert. Something smelly and profitable, something wrong.

But on many of those nights, Matthew knew it didn’t matter what the devil was about. Within his little yard and within his little house roamed a Son who held sway. He had wrestled with the devil, and despite Satan’s great vitality and endless enterprise, he was brought down.

Now love reigned in Matthew’s house, and on those dark nights in the dreamy grass Michael would sometimes descend, rocked by Jesus into a peaceful sleep.

“Ahh,” Matthew said, pleasure infusing his voice. “Route 66.”

Honey carefully folded down the corner of the page she was reading. She closed the book and held it with both hands in her lap. Her lips pursed in a small smile.

Honey knew perfectly well that in Matthew’s mind there was a certain romance to the road, a cachet implanted by the TV show. Before the move he had imagined spinning along in a new convertible Corvette, Honey by his side, an adventure at every turn. As he had talked to her about the move, as he worked to convince her of its certain goodness, he had spun stories of their adventures within the beautiful clean landscape and beneath the miraculous New Mexico sky.

Honey knew that as Matthew turned onto Route 66 the Nelson Riddle song was playing in his head. Spinning, spinning.

But she also knew the reality of Route 66, with its cheap motels and its souvenir shops. If the TV show had reflected reality, Todd and Buzz would have been collectors of mass-manufactured arrowheads, and would have made their way down the highway in made-in-Japan Indian bonnets.

He is so…transparent, she thought for the four hundredth time. He is like a little boy. “Yes,” she said. “Todd and Buzz, spinning down the highway.”

“That’s right!” Matthew exclaimed. It was as though she could read his mind!

Honey laughed, but her laugh was soft and sweet. “Can you just picture Todd and Buzz in an old beat-up Volkswagen?”

Matthew was quiet for a second. “So, how’s your book?” He was trying to sound enthused, and not doing a very good job of it.

“It’s good,” Honey said, shrugging. “Drugs, sex. Not much rock and roll. Not bad for trash.”

“Huh,” Matthew grunted. His mind had wandered back to Route 66.

That was the thing about him, the essential fact that Honey recognized. He wouldn’t read Valley of the Dolls, but it wasn’t because it was badly written. Bad writing didn’t faze him.

Matthew had been raised on Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Doc Savage. He had loved those books. But when books were no longer romantic notions -- when the characters lacked heroism, and moral fiber, he found he was no longer interested. The world is an ugly place. Why wallow in it? Matthew, Honey knew, had turned to the last redoubt of romantic fiction -- he had sunk his hopes in the vast wasteland called television. It was the only place that provided him with instant solutions to messy life.

When Matthew complained about the books Brother John pressed upon him, Honey knew why. They were too painful for Matthew. They affected him too deeply and he was embarrassed by the emotion.

No one else has seen Matthew as Honey has. As they spun along Route 66 on the way to grandmother’s house, Matthew thought of adventures with his beautiful wife. And Honey thought of other moments, perhaps the night Matthew was brought to sobs by one of the serial tragic deaths of a Cartwright fiancée. And perhaps Honey thought too about the profound illogic that characterized his love for her. Sometimes she felt like a fraud.

But those moments were rare. Most times, like this one, she was simply calm and sure. "How many people are sure?" she asked herself. And then: How lucky am I?

***************

Homer Thaw stood at the bottom of the steps. “Biddy, girl, come on down!” he shouted. “Your mom and dad are here.”

He listened for a moment and heard the bare feet of the girl squeak on the polished floor. “I’ll be down in a second, Pawpaw,” Biddy hollered back. “I’m just finishing up my packing.”

Homer returned to his La-Z-Boy. In a moment the girl came springing down the steps, two and three at a time. Her feet were still bare and they slapped at the polished wood. She took the last five steps in a leap, her bare brown legs extended, her honey hair flying.

“Done,” she announced as she stood at the bottom of the stairs. Her overnight bag swung from her shoulder.

“They still outside talking to your Maw,” Homer said. He looked at the girl. She is so beautiful, he thought. Even more beautiful than her mother. Taller, you know, maybe four or five inches. All brown limbs and beautiful hair. And smart too. Prolly smarter than her mom.

“Girl, don’t let the boys see you in them shorts,” he said.

Biddy blushed. “Paw...”

“Well, do what you like,” Homer said. “But if you was my daughter…” He let the words hang in the air.

“You’d let me do whatever I please,” Biddy laughed.

“Prolly right,” Homer said. He knew she was right. “Where’s your brother?”

“Still working on his hair,” Biddy said with a grin. “Pitiful, ain’t it?”

Homer smiled too. “’Deed it is.”

Homer knew how proud Biddy was of her hair. Too proud, really. Some of the other girls had to actually iron their hair to get it straight. But Biddy’s just fell in a golden cascade, nearly to her waist.

Paul, on the other hand…

Paul had taken after his father. His hair was black as burnt insulation, and had big waves in it. Each morning Paul put a dab of Brylcreem in his hair. It left a nasty sheen; made his hair look dirty. It didn’t help that his skin was shiny too. The various eruptions on his face were made all the more prominent -- they practically glowed! -- in the oily gleam.

Paul will be down directly, thought Homer. He will take his time with this, like he takes his time with everything. He will make his way slowly down the steps, like he’s deep in thought or something. Here he is entering the tenth grade, and he can’t get worked up over anything. Not even girls. Wonder what that’s all about? Must be a Brandon trait.

“Well,” Paw said, “shout him down, otherwise he’ll be up in that bathroom all day.”

The front door banged opened, its cheap wood and hinges protesting loudly. The New Mexico sun rushed in, blinding the room’s inhabitants.

"Comment ca va!“a loud voice boomed. Matthew Brandon stood in the doorway, his heavy frame luminously outlined.

Biddy ran to her father, hugged him. “Daddy!” she squealed excitedly.

Homer Thaw sat in his La-Z-Boy. “Ca va,” he said quietly. “Et vous?”

“Muy bien, Abuelo!” Matthew responded. “And how’s your Spanish coming along?”

“I’d have to say not too good,” Homer said. “Since I don’t know any.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got to learn. You can’t live in New Mexico and not know any Spanish.”

“Watch me,” Homer said. “I’m too old to learn another language.”

“Nah, you’re never too old,” Matthew told him. He was looking at the top of Biddy’s head, at the part in her beautiful hair. He kissed her there.

“Then maybe I’m just too stupid,” Homer said.

Biddy squeezed her father.

“Well, you would know better than me,” Matthew said. He felt Biddy stiffen, and knew she was stifling a giggle.

Matthew pushed away from Biddy, looking at her face. “Where’s your brother?”

Biddy rolled her eyes. “Doin’ his hair. As usual. I reckon he wants to look good for the drive home.”

“Well, you never know,” Matthew said. “I hear Maureen O’Hara is in Santa Fe making a movie with John Wayne. We might run into her.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Biddy said.

“But not often,” Matthew and Biddy said in unison, then laughed.

Homer stirred. “You sure you can’t stay tonight?”

“Naw, you know how it goes. I got to be at work at 7 a.m.”

“Well, maybe you can just leave your wife and kids here for a day or two. We can drive them home. Or just put ‘em on a bus.”

“The kids got things to do before school starts. It starts Wednesday, you know. They got some shopping to do,“ said Matthew.

“I believe,” Homer said, a lazy sly tone in his voice, “all the back to school shoppin’s been done.”

Matthew looked again at Biddy. “’s that true? You letting your old maw and paw spoil you -- at your age?”

Biddy grinned. “I only done it for their own good, Dad,” she said, slipping into a heavy southern drawl. “They’d a been heartbroke if I didn’t let ‘em.”

“Anyway,” Matthew said, turning to Homer, “I got some things I want them to do around the house before school starts.”

“Yeah, I imagine you do. Another social welfare program for the neighborhood, is my guess.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Matthew said. He was determined not to let the old man ruin his mood.

Matthew adopted his daughter’s drawl. “Run go fetch your brother.”

Biddy looked up with a grin. “Yonder?”

“Up yonder,” he said, returning her smile.

********************

“I get the distinct impression,” Matthew said, “your father hasn’t forgiven me for dragging everybody out here to New Mexico.”

Honey put down her book. She was running out of daylight, but she had no choice. They would have this conversation -- again. “You didn’t drag us out here, darlin’. We made the choice together -- as a family. And you sure as heck didn’t drag my mom and dad out here. They made that decision on their own. They just want to be near their grandkids.”

“And you,” Matthew said, stating the obvious.

“It was their decision. They can live with it.”

“Dad,” Paul said from the backseat. “Would you please just get over it. They’re as happy as they can be.” As always, his voice was dry, his last phrase tinged with sarcasm.

“All right. You’re right,” Matthew announced to everyone. “I just don’t know how a man who spent 30 years in the navy is going to enjoy living in the desert.”

No one responded. Matthew knew what that meant.

He got over it.

“Okay,” Matthew said, changing the subject. “Last stop before we hit the highway. If you need anything, this is the time to get it or do it.”

Matthew pulled the beetle into Vigil’s Esso. It’s a small place out on Central -- concrete block, a plate glass window on one side, a service well on the other. It is sooty, and somehow…rancid. An older man approached the car. Matthew was struck by the fellow’s odd looks. He was short -- no taller than a gas pump -- and skinny. Propped atop his skinny shoulders was a head two sizes two large, a fact emphasized by the fellow’s broad nose. He wore an old Esso shirt, laundered so many times the embroidered name tag looked like it had been erased with a pencil. With anthracite eyes the man looked at Matthew.

“An Indian,” Matthew thought with a small thrill. Probably from the Sandia Pueblo. He tried to read the name tag. Pl..c..b.o. Placebo? Pretty unlikely, Matthew thought. Better leave it alone.

“Fill ‘er up,” Matthew said to the man. The old Indian just nodded his head. He walked around the car, looking for the gas flap. Matthew stepped out of the car, smiling at the old man’s confusion. He pointed at the front of the car.

The old man again nodded his head. On beetles of this vintage the gas cap is under the front hood.

Matthew walked toward the little building. Biddy dashed past, darting through the doorway to get to the bathroom first. Paul walked slowly beside his father.

There was a fat man standing behind the counter, his broad, empty face glistening in the unnatural light cast by a single dangling light bulb. Like the attendant, he wore an Esso shirt. But as befits the owner of his own business, his was nice and fresh. Starched. And you could read his name tag. It read “Placed By.”

Matthew couldn’t suppress a small smile, but he soon dropped it when he realized he had blundered into a heated argument. A young man in a filthy cowboy shirt leaned over the counter, his finger in the fat man’s face. Matthew couldn’t understand the argument; they were speaking too rapidly, too aggressively. Matthew heard a few words he knew -- mostly the ones you learn first at the refinery: “Chingate!” the boy shouted repeatedly. “Respeto,” the man solemnly intoned.

The boy turned abruptly away from the counter. Matthew paused a moment, then stepped forward. “Gimme a couple cokes,” he said, “and four Butterfingers.” The old man looked at the boy for a second, then turned his back to Matthew. He reached into a refrigerator for the cokes.

“Mi amigo,” said the boy to Matthew. Matthew turned. He was surprised by the boy’s aggressive posture. His face was just inches from Matthew’s, his voice as oily as his hair. “Why did you take my place?” the boy asked.

Matthew took a step back. “I didn’t realize I had,” he said. “I thought you were done.”

“But you see, I was not.”

Matthew instinctively raised his hands. “Disculpe me,” he said.

The boy stepped forward. “Now get out of my way.”

Matthew backed up further. “Let me just get my stuff and I’ll be out of your way for good,” he said.

“You’ll wait for me,” the boy told Matthew.

Matthew looked at the counterman, who shrugged his shoulders.

It was all too much. Matthew stepped back to the counter. “Let me have my cokes, my candy and my change,” he said. The counterman complied.

Matthew turned and walked from the store. The attendant was blithely waiting for him, boredom etched on his face. He took Matthew’s $3.00 and pawed his pockets for change. Having delivered it he walked slowly to his station, a folding chair on the dark side of the building.

Through the open window, Matthew dropped his bag on the front seat of the car. He leaned over and looked at Honey. She was hungrily taking advantage of the last few minutes of light to read her book.

“Senor,” said the boy with the oily voice. Matthew turned. The boy was standing ten feet away in the penumbra of the station’s fluorescent lights. He was small and thin, and the unnatural light made his unhealthy pallor more prominent. He held a brown paper bag in one hand, a black pistol in the other. He turned the gun to profile, nodded toward it. When he was sure Matthew had seen the weapon, he slipped the gun into the bag and held it loosely in front of him. A strange thought went through Matthew’s mind: he had always been told that pistols look huge when they are pointed at you. He hadn’t found it altogether impressive in size. Ugly, yes. Black and greasy looking.

“Yes,” Matthew said. “What can I do for you?” His heart was beating quickly, his hands shaking, but Matthew was pleased with himself. He knew he didn’t sound scared, and that was the important thing.

“I want your money,” said the boy simply.

“No problem,” Matthew said. “You can have everything I got.”

“I oughta kill you, you know.”

Matthew stared at the boy. “Why in God’s name should you kill me?”

“You showed me no respect. Took my place in line. I told you to wait.” The boy was so angry his voice was shaking, and he spat with every other word.

“I apologized,” Matthew said. “What do you want from me?”

“Now give me your money,” the boy said again.

Over the boy’s shoulder Matthew saw Biddy and Paul standing in the doorway of the service station. Something, some intuition, had alerted them to the situation. They stared, but stayed where they were. Matthew was deeply grateful he had such smart kids.

“I’m going to reach into my back pocket,” Matthew said. “All my money is in my wallet.” He slowly reached around, dug his hand into his pants. He pulled out the wallet, which he knew contained $10. He wasn’t going to make any trouble for ten bucks.

The boy spoke: “Drop it on the ground and get back.” Matthew did so.

“Anything else?” Matthew asked.

“I oughta kill you, you know,” the boy repeated.

“Look,” said Matthew, “you have my money and my apology. What more do you want?”

That seemed to confuse the boy for a minute. Matthew thought perhaps the confrontation was finally over. He turned toward his car.

“Don’t walk away from me, motherfucker,” the boy said.

Matthew raised his hands. “I didn’t mean any disrespect,” he said. “I just assumed our business was concluded.”

The boy looked at Matthew, his eyes half-lidded with hate.

“Look, you have my money, I said I was sorry - just let me get my family and we’ll leave you alone,” Matthew said. He was searching frantically for the right thing to say. What would end this?

“You think I’m afraid to kill you,” the boy said. He stated it as a fact.

“No,” Matthew said. “I just think you’re too smart. Why would you want to throw away the rest of your life? For me? I’m not worth it.”

The boy removed the gun from the bag and pointed it at Matthew’s face. Matthew cut his eyes to Biddy and Paul. They were wide-eyed with horror.

“I’ll shoot you if I want.”

Matthew paused, thinking furiously. Then he heaved a sigh, and drew himself up. He tried to look dignified, and was worried he looked ridiculous. “Look,” Matthew said. “Can I talk to you? Can I tell you that I am a Christian? I don’t want you to ruin your life because of one small misunderstanding. You are too young.”

“Shit man, what do I care you are a Christian? Don’t you want to see your Jesus?”

“I want to live,” Matthew said simply. “And I want you to live, too. For your own sake, I beg you not to do this.”

“Do you think I’m afraid of jail?

“I have no doubt you are a brave man. But I must tell you, if you shoot me you will be grateful to be put in jail. If you shoot me, something will happen, something much more terrible than prison.”
“And that is…?” said the boy. “Are you talking about hell?”

Despite his fear, Matthew’s lips pursed in a tight smile. He hadn’t thought of that.

“Certainly hell is a possibility. But I suspect you’d be begging for hell before it was all over.”

The boy shook his head in disbelief. His eyes grew. “So now you’re threatening me?”

“How can I threaten you?” Matthew asked. His voice was beginning to crack with the strain. “You have the gun, you’re making the rules.”

“That’s right,” said the boy.

“Then please,” Matthew said. “My family is watching. Please let me go. I apologize if you feel I’ve shown you disrespect. I never meant to.”

The boy said nothing. He just stared at Matthew.

Matthew waited a beat. Then another. “I’m just going to slowly turn and get in my car. Please let us leave.”

***************

When he was a boy, Matthew would often go walking with his father. They would walk in the early morning, before the aggressive Louisiana sun turned the world stupefyingly hot. On those damp mornings Matthew would sometimes spot a spider web aglitter with morning dew. With the stupid heedlessness of boys, with their mindless desire to destroy, Matthew was drawn to these webs. With a single step what was beautiful was simply no more. Prismatic dew and its complex geometry disappeared beneath his step.

When Matthew for the third time turned his back on the boy, it was too much. Matthew didn’t hear the report; before the sound could reach him the bullet had struck between vertebraes five and six.

The momentum of the entering bullet split his spine as an axe splits a waiting log. His coccyx was driven deeper into his buttocks, while his brain stem was driven up into his cerebellum, which in turn smashed his central cortex.

The dewy web of neural connections that was Matthew Brandon was shattered. It was simply no more.

Matthew Brandon -- father, husband, son, brother, cousin and friend -- was no more. One hundred ninety-eight pounds of organic surplus fell to the ground, awaiting disposal.

The boy ran off into the night as Honey, Biddy and Paul Brandon huddled over Matthew’s body. The legs twitched twice, extending a cruel hope to the three of them. But had an eagle or a hawk been flying overhead, and had it bothered to look into the pools of blue fluorescent light below, it would have known that twitch.

************************

Honey flew the body home to Baton Rouge, where it was picked up by a hearse and driven to the Culver Funeral Home in Clinton.

Honey had never flown before; neither had Biddy or Paul. But it was a “luxury” to accompany Matthew home, Honey thought with considerable bitterness. Surely Matthew wouldn’t have objected.

There were the practical considerations as well. A body doesn’t last long in the heat of a New Mexico or Louisiana summer. It was important to get Matthew into the ground as soon as possible.

Matthew was buried in the Brandon plot in Silliman Yard, where he lies surrounded by his relatives: his mother, his grandparents, and a brother who died in infancy. And by his uncles, his cousins, his grandfather and grandmother. He lies surrounded by more than 30 relatives, most of whom bear the surname Brandon, some whose names were amended by marriage.

Honey made it clear to Ted Brandon that she was deeply grateful for the plot, and she also made it clear she expected the family would retain the plot next to Matthew for her.

“Honey…” Ted said, “You’re only 38 years old. Don’t bury yourself yet.”

“Just do it,” Honey hissed, surprising both with her fierceness.

The funeral was held at the First Baptist Church in Clinton, which was stuffed with more than 300 people. Old Joe Crowder presided over the event, coming out of retirement for a day to honor Matthew and the entire Brandon family. That meant pulling his robes out of their cellophane, and his sonorous voice out of the mothballs.

Ted Brandon was pleased by the size of the crowd that awaited him at the church. They were jammed below the portico of the old Greek Revival building, speaking in quiet clusters. Dozens more mourners spilled from between the building’s massive white columns onto its broad steps. His son was dead, his first-born gone for good, but for Ted there was comfort in knowing the boy had been so well loved.

Ted Brandon was met at the church by two large men. They were blond, like their brother. They had been waiting for their father, and they moved quickly to help him out of his white Caprice. Mark Brandon stood by the car, watching his father. The old man had killed the car’s engine, but he sat motionless, staring at nothing in particular. Mark opened the car door.

“Let’s go, Dad,” he said.

Ted Brandon looked up at his son. He didn’t say anything, but gripping the steering wheel he wearily turned his body and placed both feet on the ground. He sighed.

“I know, Dad. But we gotta.”

Ted Brandon extended his left arm. Mark grasped it, and helped lift the old man from the car.

Luke Brandon was standing behind his older brother. He grabbed his father by his free forearm. The boys were worried Ted Brandon might fall in the parking lot, and he’d never forgive them for that.

They moved together this way, Mark with a hand under his father’s right arm, Luke grasping his left. As they approached the crowd milling about in front of the church, the old man stopped them.

“Is he here?” Ted Brandon asked.

“Yeah, Dad, a’ course,” Mark answered.

“Reckon he’ll try to sit in the front pew?”

“No, Dad, he won’t do that. This is a funeral. He’s at least got the sense to leave us alone today.”

“All right then,” said the old man, and they continued together their slow procession. As they merged with the crowd, the three men released each other. It was time to shake hands, to put on a good face.

“Comin’ by for something to eat afterward?” Ted asked the mayor.

“I’ll be there, Ted,” the mayor said. “I sure am sorry for your loss.”

“That means a lot to me, Mayor. It really does. We got some good food too. We’ll talk at the house.”

“I’ll see you then, Ted.”

In the front pew, Honey turned to see the source of the small commotion in the back of the quiet church. She spotted Ted and his boys and waved shyly. Ted looked at her, then raised his chin sharply, acknowledging her. He turned again to the people who surrounded him, the people who were pressing themselves upon him.

Biddy and Paul sat next to Honey, Biddy inconsolable, Paul likely so.

“I am a widow,” Honey was thinking to herself. She was turning the word over in her mind, tasting it. She remembered she had done the same with fiancee, then wife. The words had seemed strange. It seemed impossible they applied to her. “Now I am a widow.”

“What a dreary word,” she thought. “Perfect for the job.”

For twenty four hours Honey had been inundated by sorrowful people she had to support, to succor. It seemed unfair, but she knew the truth. Had she been able to have this time alone, had she been able to dwell on the tragedy, she would have collapsed. She was responsible for ensuring other people were comforted, and she had done her job very well.

As Honey turned she saw out of the corner of her eye a strange sight. She looked again. In three pews there were perhaps two dozen grown men in orange jackets with black leather sleeves. Letter jackets. Some were stuffed like sausages into their old jackets. All wore ties.

“Those sweet men,” she thought. Twenty years before these fellows had as boys engaged in common battle on a field of no particular importance. Today they were here to honor their fallen comrade.

Honey didn’t know if she should laugh or cry, so she did a little of both as Ted Brandon and his sons crowded in beside her.

Old Joe, clutching his Bible, stepped out of the office that opened into the sanctuary. As the crowd in the church quieted, he strode at a slow, dignified pace to the casket that lay before the altar. He paused a moment, then bent and kissed Matthew on the lips. Joe closed his eyes and tilted his face heavenward. He mumbled a few words, then turned with a dramatic sweep toward the congregation.

“I wonder,” Joe said in a booming voice, “does anyone want to say a few words before we begin?”

No one wanted to be first, but eventually Joe Hardy, the principal at Clinton High School when Matthew graduated, stood up. He made his way to the pulpit where he told the crowd in moving words what a pleasure it had been to know such a good young man. “I will miss him,” he said. He paused for a moment, his face down-turned. And then he returned to his seat.

Hardy had properly primed the well. More than two dozen spoke that day, all speaking of Matthew’s goodness, of the goodness of his wife and children, and of his father and brothers. Most of the comments were forgettable, but before Matthew was cold in the ground two men would speak eloquently for him.

Ted Brandon stood. Mark Brandon stood too, intending to accompany his father to the pulpit. With a wave the old man told his son to sit down. He would do this on his own.

Despite his grief, he was quite capable of delivering a eulogy. Ted was a tough man, a soldier turned farmer. His grandfather had brought his family to Clinton from Ireland, escaping a famine that eventually left the island with a population just one-quarter the size it had been before the famine began.

Ted’s father had been hard, demanding. A speech was a simple thing.

“Matthew was…a good boy,” Ted Brandon said to the crowd. He looked down at Honey, and at his grandchildren. They were suddenly enveloped with sorrow, immersed in it. They were wracked with sobs. Then Ted turned his eyes to Mark and Luke. They were holding back their tears, hugging themselves tightly with eyes downturned.

I can’t do this, Ted said to himself. For their sake this can’t go on.

“Thank you,” Ted said simply. He shuffled down the steps to his pew. As he sat, Honey grasped his hand with a kind of urgency. For a moment Ted wanted to cry, to unload his sorrow. But he wasn’t built that way. He put his left hand atop Honey’s. “Shhh,” was all he said, and he patted her hand.

***********************

Homer Thaw was tired. He was tired of being angry. For two days his home had been the site of endless tears: of wails in the night and outbursts over cereal in the morning. Homer Thaw was angry at Matthew Brandon, now seven days dead.

Homer desperately wanted to air his anger, but he knew better.

But Homer also had questions, questions that needed answering. Why did he drag us out here, a thousand miles from home? What was he thinking, putting his wife and kids in that shithole town? What are they gonna do now?

Stay in Artesia? Not very likely, Homer thought with a grimace.

It’s not like there’s any jobs there -- not for Honey at least.

Homer Thaw could see the future. He would sell his house in Albuquerque, and the house in Artesia, and move his family back to Louisiana.

Never shoulda left there in the first place.

“I got to get out,” Homer Thaw declared. He stood up abruptly from his La-Z-Boy. The others looked at him, mildly surprised by his vehemence. Then they returned to their own thoughts. This was a time of grieving. No decision, no comment, was too surprising, too bizarre. It just was.

Homer slammed the door behind him. From the porch he looked at Honey’s Volkswagen parked on the street. What a piece of shit. He walked to the car and rested his elbows on its roof.

“Goddam,” he said. “That boy has left us all in a hell of a mess.”

Homer reached out a finger and with a nail scraped away a spot of mud. It was hard to remove -- it was black and sticky, like pitch. There was something else strange about it. Homer stepped back. Mud should fly backward from the wheels. There should be an expanding arc from front to back. But this spray was just the opposite. It flowed from the back to the front, little black specks that were hard to remove.

With a sickening swoon, Homer realized what it was. His daughter and his grandchildren had for two days been driving a car splashed with Matthew’s blood and viscera.

The old man reeled with the thought. But fortunately, tragedy is always two-sided: yes, there is pain and mourning. But there is also the opportunity to do good by somebody. With an unacknowledged gratitude -- even to himself -- Homer took bucket and brush from the garage and with these the old navy man did his work. When he was done, he took a hose to the car and rinsed it clean.

As he removed the last bits of Matthew Brandon, husband and father, Homer thought again about the boy. The two of them had never really gotten along.

Who would be stupid enough to turn his back on a pissant with a gun?

Homer knew the best way to take the measure of a man is by handing him a gun. A man -- a real man -- will treat the gun with respect. If he’s unfamiliar with guns, he will regard it with rightful trepidation.

But a pissant? A pissant swells when you hand him a gun. His breath quickens, and his pecker is suddenly two sizes larger. Or so the pissant believes.

And then there was the Brandon family -- the whole bunch. Homer believed corruption is inherited, like clubfoot. He’d always figured something would surface with Matthew to prove his point.

But now the boy was gone, and Homer Thaw had no proof of any malfeasance on Matthew’s part. Incompetence, yeah. Stupidity? Plenty of it.

For the first time, Homer realized Matthew had with his life done a good turn for Homer Thaw.

Most men are desperately fretful about their daughters, particularly for their choice of husbands. Homer was no exception. As he stood washing away the last New Mexico remains of his son-in-law, Homer realized how lucky he had been.

For all his faults, Matthew had loved his daughter, and honored her, the way a man believes his daughter should be loved and honored. And Matthew had loved Homer’s grandchildren, and overall he had done a pretty fair job of raising them.

For Homer Thaw, the realization came as a surprise. For the first time he realized his son-in-law had given him all a man can hope for from someone in that hard position.

As he poured his sponge bucket into the gutter, Homer Thaw, a man of few words, most of them nasty, gave Matthew his final and best eulogy.

“Goodbye, son,” he said.

For a moment Homer Thaw stood looking at the Volkswagen. The water sheets and droplets retreated, driven back by a hot eastern wind.

“That’s strange,” thought Homer. He turned and looked to the east, at the Sandia Mountains. They usually blocked the heat from the plains. A hot wind most likely started in Mexico and moved north. Occasionally you would feel a warm breeze from the west. But what could drive this kind of heat through the Sandias?

There was something else, too. There was in the air a peculiar smell, organic stuff, like rotting vegetation. He thought for a moment that it must be raining to the east, but that wasn’t it. When rain hits the New Mexico dust it produces a pungent odor, sapid and nostalgic, like coffee brewing.

But this wind was sour…and green. “That’s what it is,” Homer thought. “It’s green.”

Homer Thaw took another sniff, then squared his shoulders. It was time to get back to his family. Crying or no, they needed him.

[Keplaz]

I really enjoyed this piece. I love your descriptions and the way you paced the story. Your characters were wonderfully developed, very splendidly done. The story is gripping and your writing is joyful to read. My only criticism was that there wasn't enough tension before Matthew dies. Everything else was executed very very well. There is some tension before he dies but something there was lacking a bit there. The emotion however was very well written, I actually wanted to cry for Matthew too.

Please continue your book and I would like to read more of the story and when it does get published, let me know so I can buy it. It was very very good.

One minor error: They were wracked with sobs. Wrecked. Had to use my dictionary to make sure that was a typo as your command of the English language is exceptional.

[Ambrose]

The story wanders a bit, but overall I enjoyed it. I really like the spiderweb metaphor relating Brandon's death. I thought that was spot on. Same goes for how you tied the bird of prey motif back into the story when Brandon dies.

There's really nothing specific I have to harp on. Again, the story seemed a tad aimless toward the middle and I didn't get a strong sense of conflict. I appreciate the surplus characterizations, but I think you could have held back a little in some places for the sake of the plot. By the time you'd finished giving the family back story in the beginning, I'd clean forgotten that they were still driving through the desert, or why that was of significance to begin with.

I like the confrontation with the man in the store. I thought you handled that in a way that seemed realistic and happenstance, but still possessed resonance to the theme of change that I got from your story. I'd like to read more of this and I think you have a strong talent for creating lives.

[creativeminds]

His eyes were impossibly keen, his olfactory an engineering marvel.

Olfactory is the nerve responsible for smell is that what you ment or did you mean optic, but from reading the rest of the story, I am guessing that is what you ment, since your biology looks correct. ( sorry happen to be a bio student myself).

Over all the story was well done, look foward to reading more.