ANNIES

Outside makes the place look like a soup kitchen. Five or six employees without aprons leaning on pickups, talking, smoking, staring. Crows hopping phone pole to phone pole. Few cars driving by. Guess it's the odd hour. After lunch. Before dinner. Guess it could of just been Luverne Alabama. May as well be after lunch before damn dinner for the whole of the town. Not much of not much happening. Figure not much of not much status quo. Those around chiseled stoic and damn zen kind of quiet and very much content with contentlessness. Men mumble. Cigarettes are lit one off the other. Crows fly down an peck at spent butts thinking they're food and then startle off. 18-wheeler roars by.

Inside place is dimly lit. Smells like grease and pine sol. Tables a mix of industrial grade and what looks like pews pulled out of defunct churches. Place settings set. Bruce's Hot Pepper Sauce. Louisana Hot Sauce. Napkin holders fixed with Bible verses. Carved into table: YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN. Lady wearing hairnet, mu-mu and nurse's shoes meets us at the door with two menus and two pieces of paper. Paper handwritten menu. Meat n three. There's hamburger steak, country-fried steak, fried chicken, meatloaf. Look at vegetable list. Ask her if they put sugar in their collards. This bama aint it? she says. I take that as a yes.

Printed menu shows appetizers. Fried okra, fried pickled okra. Fried cauliflower and mushrooms and onions and cheese. Fried potatoes. Fried corn. Fried rib tips served with Ranch dressing.

She brings us our tea. It's quiet in there. Yellow oil skin drapes. Sun shines hard through them. Floor laid out in long searching shadows. Hear oil roll. Hear pans clatter. In ten minutes time three boys come in looking for "Heather Mae." They all wear BAMA hats with fishing hook clips. They all dip. They all look shy and pained to ask for "Heather Mae." Heather Mae must be one hot piece of ass. Or a meth pusher.

County-fried steak---white gravy what you wanted right, she says. I nod. Taste the collards. They're sweetened like tea for chrissakes. Steak crunches when cut. It sighs. Steam rolls out. Pew squeaks while I chew. Boy Number Four comes through the door. Same getup. Asks for "Heather Mae." I'll wait, he says. He sits in a pew. Flips an Annie's Country Kitchen menu over and starts doodling on it. Hear men talking outside. Mumbling. Laughing. Crows caw. An 18-wheeler roars by.

Ask lady if she's Annie. Aint er, she says. Is Annie here, I say. Nosuh, she says. Is she going to be here, I say. Nosuh, she says. Figure Annie's dead. Look at the photos of the woman on the wall. Point to em. Is this Annie, I say. Aint er, she says. Get up to pay. Walk by Boy Number Four. He's doodled baroque goddam dragsters and massive largemouth bass and myriad dip cans in three dimensions on the menu. He's written ROLL DAMN TIDE across the top in goofy bubble letters. Pat him on the shoulder. You ever met Annie, I say. Ann who, he says. You got somethin on your face, I say. He wipes his face. Did I get to it, he says. No, it's still there. Oh, this, he says. Aw hell, this heres a tattoo mister.

SET IN STAND

Had a buddy who'd count from one til he cant count no more soon as he in stand. Sun come up an he stuck on if he aint counted one thousand one hunnert fifty two or fifty three an he come back on it and said all hell with it an just take it from the top. No shit. Some buddies go through they billfolds or figger how much pussy they got in their life. Aint got much so that game end right quick like. How interestin is your goddam license anyhow? Not very I reckon. Me I always try and set myself fixed on my surroundins. What around me an under me and out in front of me. There this one ladder stan we got on the proptee an come rut all them trees across pond way are lit fire an they mirror in the pond an run it all sort of color across the water an if wind pick up it roll out orange an red an brown an it hard to do much else but sit an watch that water roll. May as well, cause bucks aint move in that wind no how.

But when it cold, real cold, come November or December, an you set in stand and not movin an worried bout even your breath keepin you out the hunt an you stare a path round you so hard it wonder the ground not lit fire itself, you begin to think on thing you aint never thought on. Like what relatives look like in they caskets. Aint lyin. Sick morbid shit. Folk been dead ten damn years. Like wonder if that suit still held up or if them pearls lay still round that neck or if they all but bone now or worse, like gone, just nothin but nothin. Aint even dust. An then turn the corner an you find your mind settle on hamburgers. Or steak. Or hamburger steak. Or like what kind gravy works best on chicken fried steak --- white or brown? Or what kind gravy works best on lard biscuits --- sausage or red eye? When you aint done nothin but set in stand since comin dawn an not moved so much as to free a fart you find your mind aint but the craziest bitch on wheels you ever borne witness to.

You set there an the slightest fucken sound, could be jus a grey squirrel, an it sound like the sky done fell. No time worry bout that see as you thinkin about what Polly Sue Honeypot said as she brought to brink first six times you stick your finger in the levee. Or maybe it done moved far past the flesh, even so far as the most profound and re leavin shit session you ever enjoyed. Maybe it about planets or stars or moons. Constellations. Brightest stars you ever seen. Blackest night you ever set under. Brighest fullest moon shot out the sky. Maybe it questions of conscience. Would you kill a man if you had to? Could you kill a man if you had to? If you killed a man and it was an accident, what would you do? Things like such. An then maybe you hear somethin an you lookin for them horns or listenin for them grunts and you aint heard neither and your heart poundin a hammer under them Sears Roebuck coveralls and then you get Polly Sue Honeypot's 'oh gee beh gee zus' or 'jim in eee criskets' tween them two froze ears or you smell two day old Maxwell House in the pan with that hambone and you know then what the best goddam gravy for lard biscuits is. No mind for that buck and his bidness. He show himself when he gooden ready anyhow.

WEST TX WHATABURGER

ANYTHING THAT'LL BITE

He'd found the Packard at an old Fayette County junkyard. Floorboards rusted through. Rats living in the doors. Windshield spider-webbed in smash. Took him better part of three years to fix it up. Freshly painted primer gray and rigged with a trailer to scoot his jonboat. Sounded like a Clydesdale dragging a piano up a gravel road. But it got us where we needed to go.

Off Roosevelt HWY. There in Red Oak. Small bait n tackle shop. Red neon flickers on and off: LIVE BAIT. Cowbells rattle on the door. Inside sounds like crickets. Smells like dirt. Proprietor huge black man in faded Liberty overalls. Must've weighed all of 450. What yall need? he said. What yall fishin fo? Anything that'll bite, Papa says. We need some minners n crickets. Proprietor pulls sack of Beech Nut out his bib and fills his cheek. Fishes minnows from a tank behind him. Shakes crickets into a wire net tube.

Papa picks up spool of eight pound test and spool of 10. You got livers, he says. Sho do, proprietor says. How many yall want? We got one or five pound. Grandad points to the five pound. Six of Nehi Grape, two moon pies, two Planters Peanut Bars, Chic-o-Stick, Lance crackers, few Dutch Masters cigars. Proprietor rings it up on battered hand calculator. Change made from a Tampa Nugget box. Yall tear em up, proprietor says.

Sun rises. Sky still and blue. Sky pink at its edges. Gonna be hot today, Papa says, puffing a cigar. Its end glows orange. Smoke fills the Packard. It smells good. He turns the radio on. Nothing but static. We're both soaked through by the time we get to the pond. He's already taken his shirt off, rubbed hisself down with Coppertone and Deet. Takes his old metal tacklebox from the backseat and the cooler and sets them in the jonboat and lowers the boat from the trailer with the crank. Throws an oar and two orange lifevests into the boat. Hands me the stringer and basket and the line tied to the bow. Hold on to this now, he says. Gonna pull the car up a little bit.

He rows us out to the far bank. Lined with mimosa. He rigs up a few rods. Hands me a Zebco push-button caster. Throws the cricket tube to me. Shake a cricket out and slide him onto the hook's barb. He wiggles and cricket juice oozes from his thorax. His legs shake and then relax. Quick cast to the bank. Sky's without ceiling and blue as can be. No sound but of crows high above. Watch my bobber. One of those small fire-engine red and white ones. Wind kicks up and eddies water. Loud splash and my bobber's gone. I'd just stopped watching it. Watch water roll towards the boat. Feel the rod come to life and shake and bow. Reel him in, shit, Papa says.

Reel and line goes tight and rod points down over the side of the boat. Papa's got the net and saying pull up on the rod, pull up on the sonofabitch. Bass leaps from the pond and splashes us, his big pink mouth large enough to fit a fist into. Reel, Papa says. Reel the sonofabitch in. He gets under him with the net and the fish thrashes in the net, silver and green, his eyes thick blobs of oil. Papa grabs him by the lip and pulls the hook from his lip. He dumps him in the basket and throws it in the water. He's a good one, Sturt. Looks about five pounds. A real good one.

Open a moon pie. Crack open a Nehi. Chocolate dipped cake tastes not so much like chocolate. Never has. But I keep eating it. Soda bubbles in my mouth. Papa belches and slaps his gut. Not a goddamn bite, he says. He shoots a line out towards the bank. Bobber bumbs the water. Drangonfly lights upon it. See splashing near the bank. Come get it, goddammit, he says. Bobber disappears. His line runs. That high-pitched reeeeeeeeeee. He laughs. Lets out line. Adjusts his drag. Reels. Reels. Cigar stuck point in mouth's corner pulsing with smoke. Goddamn, he says. Reels. Reels. Let me know when you want me to get the net, I say. This might could take a minute or two, he says, sweat heavy and slick on his forehead.

DEWEYS

CAINT BEAT OUR MEAT

He in handcuffs, girl working register asks. Larsen turns and looks at Cready and grabs his hands and holds them up and looks at the girl and says, Them are handcuffs, yes m'am. What he done, she asks. Larsen shakes his head. You aint want to know, he says and smiles at the girl. But I do, she says, smacking her gum and smiling back. He kilt three girls round your age in Coosa National Forest. Theys hiking them trails round it. Girl at the register asks how he kilt them. Larsen looks at the floor. He beat them unconcious with an extension cord and then he removed their extremities with a saw, he says. The girl behind the register's whiter than rice. He aint rite, she says. Bout as wrong as they made, Larsen says. An y'all come to eat hamburgers, she says. We're hungry, Larsen says. I'm drivin Mister Cready here to Walton County and since we come through Flobama we decide to get us a Whataburger.

Cready look up at the girl with his faded blue eyes and says, Do y'all beat your own meat here. Or y'all buy them pre-hammered patties. I aint sayin nothin to you mister, she says. You aint got to talk, Cready says. Aint like it much no how. Larsen holds Cready behind him and orders two Whataburgers and fries and coffees. Put a lot of jalapeno peppers on one of em, he says. Cready, you like jalapeno peppers, Larsen says. Aint care much for hot food, Cready says. You eat on it and it realase endorfins. I manange my endorfin release through other means.

Larsen takes the food to a table and helps Cready set in his chair. He squirts ketchup on his fries. Pulls a cigarette from the pack and lights it and drags hard on it. You gone eat or smoke, Cready asks. Sometimes it all I can do not to do both, Larsen says. I know I caint do both. But I try. All I can do.

The girl from the register taps Larsen on the shoulder and says, Mister you caint smoke none in here. Larsen picks up a gold foil ashtray. Why y'all got these on the tables then, he says. I don't know, she says. But I know you caint smoke. It aint allowed. Larsen stubbs his cigarette out in the ashtray. That look like y'all beat your meat here, Cready says, nodding at the hamburger. The girl stands there and looks at Cready. Do y'all beat it hard and slow or soft and fast, Cready says.

FROM THE HARD SCRABBLE

Nestled in crook between Tower Liquor and decrepit and abandoned City Hall East, Murder Kroger serves scrappins from the hard scrabble, transvestites and whores and hustlers, down trodden, meth heads, rogues, and those looking for the cheapest Fosters Oil Can in town. Got its name from an AJC reporter who drove round back, smelled unholy miasma coming from dumpster direction and alerted night manager. Allegedly only out to satisfy a moon pie fix, humble scribe helped locate missing person X, John Doe shorn of face and feet and hands and stinking to high heaven. People've been killed in the parking lot. People have contracted host of venereal disease in the parking lot. People've tripped over sex toys in said lot; shot of lost butt plug serves ample proof. So why go there?

Best meat selection in town. More feet and tongue and tail than anywhere within an hour's drive. Cheapest, oldest (not a typo) beer here. At one time it was six Oil Cans for $10. I practically affected an Outback accent, mate. Bizzare promotionals: Peeps at Christmas, Boxes of Moon Pies for a fraction of their original cost, Grape Jelly with oddly rusted metal tops buy one get four free. And then there are the employees.

Butcher's name is Truck or Fuck or something like that. Makes GG Allin look like Dr Phil. He's got a tatt of him banging his boyfriend on his forearm. Openly dips during worktime. Smells like Lysol. Cashiers aren't more different than the folks they ring up. Some of them look more dusted honestly. Pink fuzzy houseshoes wearin, nicotine gum smackin zomboids. Got me price check on tooooo, she says, nails like shoe horns.

Sure it's foul. Smells bad. Old food's not bettern new. People that work and shop there serve crude reminders we all shit and piss and sometimes smell like one or both at unfortunate times in our lives. It's like a Sharon Olds poem on bumwine, slicked with its own human awfulness, born out of disregard and fuckall into a city too stupidly plastic to think it anything other than "novel." Let's go Krogerin.

POKER

RATTLIN WINDERS

Most times folks call the office and say, Hey I got a real good story for you, it's crap. Sometimes those folks that call with the crap story don't take no for an answer and they come into the office and give me the same pitch and won't take no for an answer. Anson Hardy was one of those folks.

Anson Hardy said he knew a woman named Portia Hews and she sing in South River Pentecostal Church Choir near Newton County Line short ways from Frix's Barbecue. Anson Hardy said she had voice that rattled winders and charmed snakes and shook sin from rogues hardened to stations of the cross. He said, Mr. Newspaper man, you get fed too if you come. I said you're on.

August morning. Sunday morning. Already pushing 90 degrees. Bugs buzz in my ears. Sweat heavy through my shirt. Seat of my pants soppin wet with sweat. Walk through church door and Anson's there to meet me. He's in faded overalls and white undershirt. He shakes knot on his invisible tie and points at me and says, We come as we are here. Aint no need to wear no tie. Take that thing off. You makin me uncomfortable.

There's no central air in South River Pentecostal Church. No fans either. Folks fan themselves with whatever they have on them. Envelopes. Hats. Their hands. Preacher's name is Abraham Toll. He's about four hundred pounds and clad in overalls and a denim workshirt. Skin blacker than burnt oil. Voice deeper than any ever heard. Unnatural soundin. Not like talkin. But croakin. Tough to get used to. When he tells the story about Cain killing Abel on account of being jealous about his closeness to the Almighty I only get bits here and there but it sounds realer than I could ever recall. Abraham Toll says, And Cain he kilt Able. With a stone he crushed Abel's head. He kilt him. His brother. His brother. His brother Abel. And as he says this he pounds the podium with his big black hands and it echoes in the tiny church.

Didn't remember that bit about the stone. Maybe Cain did crush Abel with a stone. I'm no Bible scholar. When Abraham Toll said it, it sounded like storm grumbling in distance. One of those heat lightning storms that crop up early evening in late summer. Portia Hews has a solo after Abraham Toll's sermon. She sings "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Winders do rattle. Feel it in pine pews. They vibrate. Swear the floorboards creak and groan too. Anson Hardy keeps watching me while Portia sings. He keeps lookin at my hands to make sure I'm takin notes. I didn't know what sort of notes to take. So I didn't take any notes.

Service lasts only an hour. Expect it to run much longer. Tell Anson this and he says, What, you think we gone run bout with snakes and drink strik-nine and such. You crazy. He took me outside and we walked out back and the congregation is sittin at tables and on blankets eatin off paper plates. There is all sorts of stuff set up on one of those long school tables. Old Georgia flag, one with the stars & bars, was laid down as a tablecloth. South River set behind the church and it not movin, lookin mostly set and near solid. Wind blows up a little and no one going to complain about that 'cept the big oak branches swaying upsets the blacksnakes set in them and they dangle carelessly from the trees. Folks pick up and move from the shade. Grasshoppers everywhere. Landing on folks' plates, in ladies' hair, upon mens' laps.

Get yoself somethin to eat, Anson says. He hands me a plate and motions to fill it up. I got potato salad and coleslaw and fried chicken with that corn flake breading and fried yellow corn and pickled onions and pole beans and some sweet potato stuffing. I got a piece of vinegar pie for dessert. Never had none of that before. Anson tries to put some baked coon on my plate but I tell him I'm not quite ready for it. This's nother story for the paper done right here, Mr Newspaper Man, he says, pulling some of the brown meat from the coon's carcass. It was stuffed up with bread and yams and jowl bacon. It looked pretty good to be honest.

We sit on the ground with Portia Hews and she tells me she's been singing since she can remember. That's my earliest memory, she says. Aint member anything earlier than that. I member singin. Get up an sung "How Great Thou Art" at Cotton Pickin Festival in Gay when I were only three. Folks clap so hard it sound like storm come down. Felt the call from soon as I could stand my own two feet. God asks me to celebrate him in song. Sos I do.

While she talks butterflies, big yellow ones, float around her. They land on her dress. On top of her hair. On her plate. She pays them no mind. She stops every so often to make sure I'm writing it all down. Anson gets up and goes off to the buffet. He come back with a paper plate with some baked coon on it and put it in front of me. You try just a bite of this now, he says. Portia tells me her mama baked the coon. Her daddy trapped it and they kept it in an oil drum they found in the river long time ago. They fed it chicken scratch and cornbread for a month and fattened it up and then her daddy went out and shot him in the head with a .22 They bled him and cleaned him and cooked him up.

Meat's sweet as sugar aint it, she says. Tastes like them ducks daddy shoots on Ocmulgee. Aint dry like roast can get. I love it to def. You love it too aint you?

It's not bad, I say. Way better than I thought.

See, Anson says. You got yoself two stories now, Mr. Newspaper Man.

UP A TREE

GONE DARK

Skelton watches Larsen walk around him and take a seat at the bar on his right. Doesn't recognize him. Working dark for 18 months does something deep to the man. Hair and mustache grown out. Looks like he drives stagecoach as one of those Cival War reenactors. Eyes sunken dead. Only shoulder holstered .45 gives him away. Every cop carries nines but Larsen. Dicks in CID hate his ass. Known he smokes and snorts with the Techwood crowd. Known he's passed on half dozen collars in his 18 months. Dark age made him narrow. Made him reevaluate the book. Not spoken with Captain Hal Foote in six months plus. Figured him dead til Skelton reconnected on Roja case. Tailed tamale for three weeks and day. She turn to vapor and here come Larsen. He's got FYI on Roja before brass thought to even ask. Didn't want to ask. Didn't want to extend the hand. Didn't want its hand shit soiled with Larsen's.

Larsen's into his third cigarette. Rain's driving. Pounding the roof. Slapping big glass windows. HOT DONUTS sign flickers. Inside lights flicker. Big black waitress pours two coffees. Lipstick is bright pink and makes her lips look three times bigger than they are. She's got a cigarette going behind the bar. Looks like the bar's on fire. Smoke's rising out behind it. That botherin y'all, she asks. She don't wait on their response. She just smiles big and pink and pushes their coffees in front of them. Her thumbnail is size of a butterknife and speckled with glitter and says AINT NO MOUNTAIN HIGH NOUGH in lazy cursive. Coffee spills over mugs' lips and she apologizes and purses her lips bigger and pinker.

Well aint you look like fucken Yanni, Skelton says.

Roja's deadern hell, Larsen says.

How you know that, Skelton says.

Found her nailed to a tree in Piedmont Park, Larsen says. Screwdriver through her left eye.

Chrise, Skelton says. What it look like?

Bout eight inches long, Larsen says. Acrylic handle. Philips head.

Not the screwdriver, asshole, Skelton says. The fucken scene.

Clean fars I can tell, Larsen says.

Guy's a fucken maniac, Skelton says.

Or a carpenter, Larsen says.

Skelton laughs and takes one of Larsen's cigarettes.

Need to reach out to Foote, Skelton says.

Fuck im, Larsen says.

Says same of you, Skelton says.

Waitress puts paper box down in front of Larsen and he opens it and eats one of the donuts.

Makes my teeth hurt, he says. Nothin like these. Like eatin clouds of bacon but it's sweet and melts while your teeth mash it up. Can see why all these Ponce whores hit it. Like havin damn bump on the cheap. Eat half dozen of these an you walkin into walls and babblin bout the Jesus.

I'd been lyin if I said I aint seen it, Skelton says.

You seen yonder hombre in white two door out there, Larsen says.

Skelton looks out the window.

That truck, he says.

Only white two door out there, Larsen says.

Sure is, Skelton says.

Roja's pimp Apolinar, Larsen says. Been followin me for most the day. Switched cars twice on him and he's still a shadow. He's good.

What you make him for, Skelton says.

A killer, Larsen says.

How so, Skelton says.

Big shithouse Mexican boss enough to make it in Mechanicsville without gettin got by all them made niggers has got to be worth dead weight in tragedy, Larsen says. He's one of them doers. He's not one to get done. Bad shit surrounds that motherfucker. Got to beleive Concepcion Marquez was more than supplementary income. He got no reason to follow me so long.

Lights flicker.

Concepcy what, Skelton says.

Concepcion, Larsen says. Roja's given.

Larsen looks at the box. Skelton's not touched a donut.

Lights flicker.

You mind if I eat yours, Larsen says.

I don't see any hombre in that two door, Skelton says.

Y'all want more coffee, big black waitress asks.

They nod. Rain picks up. Lights flicker. Lightning breaks jagged on the sky. Transformer blows across Ponce and both Larsen and Skelton are off their stools when the lights go black. What in God's name, the waitress says. Sparks fly across the street. Cars stop. People look. Apolinar comes calmly through the doorway, black duster soaked with rain, TEC-9s in both hands popping wide open.

LOOKING TO NETHER

Only thing more frustratin than late season toms is early season toms, Dunn says and he starts laughin and spittin creamed corn all over his self. There's only three other people in Jimmy's Steak Out having late lunch. One's a trucker and other two are city police. They hear Dunn and nod and laugh like hell. Figure whole town's gone batshit crazy. You find out for your self, Dunn says, shoveling country fried steak into his mouth. You see, he says. You see right well after first mornin. Aint nothin worse.

That was a decade ago. I know what he means now. I've seen it. I've felt it. You get with folk who've hunted turkey for more than half their life and they talk about it as zealots talk about the Almighty. Glazed gaze. Hushed tones. Looking to nether. It's all there. Same package, different referents. Seem crazy to most. Not even the good kind of crazy.

Remembering that lunch I see Dunn's hand pointing at me. I see his face all smashed up and angry. It was more than a hunt for him. It was more than a hunt for anyone who ever got serious about taking toms. Worse than bettin horses or dogs or drinking or drugging. You never get over it. Even 'tween seasons, that time's spent thinking. Pondering. Visualizing. And for some, it's spent worrying. Worrying that those thoughts and ponderins and visualizations won't ever be brought to be. That a trigger squeeze won't reach out and touch tom and send him thrashing ass over head in quick dance of death.

Wade and I talked about it on ways up to Banks County. He's got it bad for deer and sometimes trophy hunters can't process why someone would waste so much time on an ugly ass bird most people won't even eat. Horned owl nearly flew through the windshield on the curve towards the property. He took that as a sign. It woke me up but didn't mean much. All he could talk about was his trail cam shots.

Doors shut soundlessly. Guns out of cases. Three inch shotshells loaded, chambered. Safties on. Check my calls. My boots. My jacket. It's cold. Mid-40s. Hit the crow call to locate gobblers. Hear nothing. No birds. Nothing. Start walking. Grass is slicked with heavy dew. Clearing breaks up ahead. We wade through weeds. Dad said he saw two toms here in this field Friday... Nothin here now of goddamn course, Wade says. We slide down the hill and set up in brush. Don't even have to move any branches. It's perfect. Hurry up and wait. Wade stroked quiet kee kee on worn slate pot. Is it too quiet? Old timers say one of the worst mistakes is loud callin. Wade scrapes out another kee kee. Nothing. No birds.

You hear that, Wade says. Sounds like a hen to my left. Northwest. You hear her. Listen.

He scrapes the pot. We sit still and listen. We hear nothing. Old timers say another mistake is over calling. They say if you've called more than once in ten minute time frame you've called too much. Wade scrapes. We hear something sorta like a kee kee. But it cuts out after two yelps. It's a goddamn blue jay, he says. He hits his crow call. No gobbles. Nothing. We decide to move. The walk is cold and wet and uphill. Keep thinking snake's gonna get out and latch onto my leg. Never happens. Never even see one. Don't see anything actually. Not even crows. No one's hunted this land this season. No one but Wade's dad's even stepped foot on it since Christmas eve.

We hit another field. Mist sets over and persimmon trees rise from it. We hear nothing. Drop down a hill to the creek. Check the bed for tracks. Nothing. Creek trickles over stones. Find a bleached out turtle shell. See some deer teeth white and stuck in rusty red mud. Climb the hillside and it's wet and loose and climbing doesn't go so well. Finally make it topside and land lays out a shelf and ferns cover the ground and elms and pines crowd one another. It's quiet. Looks birdy. Looks like tom's been here, stays here, likes it here. They roost up here, Wade says. Come off the roost and walk down the hill and take water and go out into that field. Light lay through the trees in beams like in Bible pictures. It's yellow and defined as if whole. We watch bugs boil in the light.

Sit. Wait. Call. Sit. Wait. Listen. Whippoorwills. Jays. Nothing else. Fall asleep. Wake slowly, confused. Browning loaded and heavy in my lap. See the decoy and startle. It's a shitty decoy. No wonder we've seen no birds. We shuck our shells out and begin the walk back to the truck. Say nothing. Walk through brambles and buck brush. Trees rotten and overturned. Piles of Budweiser cans. Haven't seen that era logo since Sharkey's Machine late night on Superstation. Old 7UP bottles. We kick through the cans. Looks like a little party, huh, Wade says. Some seven and seven maybe. Lookit them dam Bud talls. How old are those? Shit. Looks like early 80s.

Wade looks around. These trees probably weren't even here then. Crazy to think about, Wade says. Let's go fishin.

Sun's up and we lose our jackets and get into a few beers. Soft plastics and chicken livers and crankbait. Get the rods rigged up and hit the pond. Livers on trebles. Soft plastics swimmin in attractant practically cribbed from Charlies Tradin Post. Couldn't be more different for two guys used to dead drifting flies size of peckerhole lint. Bass hit it quick. Not big but they fight tooth and nail. Strike spinnerbait and they're out of water, leaping air, splashing down. It's like a goddamn TV fishing show. Green heron set over the pond, identified, seen, and gone. We get into the fish. No cats come for the livers. Someone must fished this damn pond out, Wade says. Can't beleive no cats. Can't beleive no turkey. Not even a gobble. What's the friend of your's. What's his name.

Dunn, I say.

Dunn, Wade says. He still hunt turkey?

Imagine so.

Goddamn. Poor sonofabitch must can't stand himself. Wonder anyone want to be around him. What he call that feelin.

Lookin to nether, I say.

Lookin to nether, Wade says. Goddamn.

Wade looks down at the basket in the water.

Let's split these up and do fish fry.

SLAW CHILI CHEESE PLEASE

HIGH IRONIC CONTENT

(Found and lost and found again;sorry LA Weekly readers.) Dad drank Pabst in the Navy. Said he had to use a "church key" to open it. Everyone else on the carrier drank Pabst. Officers drank Pabst. Enlisted men drank Pabst. Folks at bars sailors crashed on leave drank Pabst. Only time he didn't drink Pabst was when he was in Boston. Said he couldn't get it there. Said he drank Narragansett, or "Gansey" to locals, when he was in Boston. Said sailors cracked a raw egg into Gansey to make it taste better. Said he saw locals cracking raw eggs into Gansey to make it taste better. Gansey must have tasted like a urinal cake.

When he got out of the Navy he continued to drink Pabst. I remember the cans in the fridge. But he didn't stay true. He drank Schlitz and Miller High Life and later drank Coors Banquet exclusively. His dad, who drank Meister Brau exclusively, called Pabst "headache beer." His dad gave him a case of Heineken every Christmas. I drank more of that Heineken than he did.

But I liked shitty watery American beers as a kid. I liked Pabst. I liked Milwaukee's Best AKA "Beast." I liked Busch. Pabst was $10 a case. Perfect for us. We played quarters. We played submarine. We played King Turtle. We shotgunned beers. We funnelled beers. We sprayed them on each other. We were kids drinking adult beverages. What do you expect?

Bought Pabst off and on throughout college. Bought it off an on in the years after college. And it was around that time began to see kids drinking Pabst in bars and clubs. Like, exclusively. Everyone was drinking it. Everyone looked the same. Skinny. Tight pants. Plastic neon glasses. Thrift store t-shirts. Mustaches. Logger beards. And Pabst. Everyone had Pabst in their hand or in their glass. That was the beer to drink.

For a while it was OK. Pabst was cheap because everyone was drinking it. I could buy a double deuce of Pabst at a bar for $2--about what I'd pay for it at a gas station. But prices started creeping up over the years, and "everyone" got even larger. Pabst ads were in music magazines. Pabst billboards were up around the city. Pabst tatts were on "everyone." Indie-dramas showed people drinking Pabst. Every party you went to had a keg of Pabst. Music festivals were sponsored by Pabst. There was free Pabst everywhere. It was the cool cheap not-so-bad beer for everyone and it was everywhere and cool and cheap and not-so-bad.

Then the price went up. A six of Pabst is almost the same price as a six of Budweiser, the premium American beer. A six of Pabst tall boys is the same price as a six of Coors Banquet talls, and is almost a dollar more than Nautral Lite, Miller Light, Schlitz, or Old Milwaukee. It's expensive. So why is every kid with a fixed gear bike still drinking it?

Pabst defies every rule of artificial cool. Its ubiquity makes it normal, therefore uncool. Its price makes it unaffordable and therefore uncool to the trust fund kids who want to appear blue collar by drinking it. The blue collar crowd who originally held Pabst as their brand is gone. They've moved on to Budweiser or stepped down to Natural Lite.

Not one to necessarily believe in the sorta "brand conspiracy" ala Naomi Klein's NO LOGO propagated, but the ascendency and permanence of Pabst has been one weird airborne toxic event. I don't know if I'll ever drink it again. I can't shake the new potent associations, And, honestly, it's too goddamned expensive for me.

HOW BOUT IT

Sun comes hot through trees red and orange. Shot nothing. No one's even fired on a duck. They've come on quicker than hell. Darting through flooded timber. Squealing and gone before shot's lined up and squeezed off. Bugs worse than they were an hour ago. Just cause its opening day don't mean it's cold. Gloves came off before they were on. Sweatin heavy through our shirts. Caps dark at temples. Faces slicked with repellent and sweat. Guns still up still ready. Hear spitting and cussing and dog whining. Hear water trickling through beaver dam's weave of sticks.

There she goes. Woodie hen out of nowhere. Maybe from behind us. Beat a circle through the clearing. Screams off. No shot. Dog barks. I can feel the sweat slipping down my back pooling in the tailend of my waders. I've only been this hot a few times in my life and those times have been in August. Crows caw. We hear guns boom ways away. Motherfuckers must got into somethin, Carter says. He spits in the water. Dog whines. Shhh, he says. We gone get anythin today? Goddamn, Carter says.

Twelve o'clock comes warbling choke of geese. Sounds like a giant blowin through trombone twisted up a pretzel. They gone come right bove us, Carter says. Guns are up. We can see them coming. In a V. Just like in paintins. Just like em. Guns boom. When a goose falls it sounds like an armored car breaking the water. We got somethin, Carter says. Dog goes after em. Comes back. Goes back out. Comes back. How could I miss a bird bigger than a go-kart? Can't fathom it. I look down. Spent shells stand in left to right swing. Half circle of three misses. Red hulls twisted open standin on brass caps.

Woodies. Whole heap. Drop right in. I'm not even loaded. Still bitchin about missin. Load. Chamber. Shot off. One drops. Carter calls his and misses a bird a few feet from his face. Jesus Chrise, how bout it, he says. They keep comin despite the guns. Hen's beatin circle around the clearing. Only the drakes, Carter yells. They're gone as quick as they came. Dog hits the water. Retrieves. Load. Load. Load. Put my call in my mouth. Slow blow. Volume swells. DEW-WEEEP. DEW-WEEEP. DEW-WEEEP. It's sad, lonely, painful call. Hit on it again, Carter says. Slow blow. Volume swells. Three woodies down the chute. They put on the breaks as they see the guns, their landing gear out and slowing. Lined up. Two down. Burst of feathers. Carter's is on the water without a head. Feathers fall slow and white and they're on my shoulders and in my mouth and stuck to my face. Goddamn, son. I think we got our limit, Carter says. Dog squats and shits on the dam and the flies are on it in seconds thick and buzzing. You ready drank a margarita with me or what, Carter says.

HOT IN, HOTTER OUT

PUT A LID ON IT

Folks always said soon as Big Luke Mackey quit workin he'd break down and die. Day he and Polly decided to close The Mason Jar he stroked out in the kitchen while frying bacon. Polly found him convulsing by the stove, bacon burning in the pan. Johnny Brewster, one of three men not law enforcement in Alma County who wore pistols in plain sight, helped Polly get him into the bed of their old Chevy and they drove all the way to Macon with Luke in the back, empty Natural Lite cans and spent .20 GA shotshells rolling around him while he gazed fixed and queerly above at the sky, bluer than blue and sharper than any July morning he'd remembered. As Johnny and Polly gathered Luke up to get to the truck, Polly assured what customers remained that he'd be fine and they should stay at their tables and eat up what was left of their breakfasts. It's in the good Lord's hands now, she said, and Johnny hit her heels with trail of Amens descending in tone and potency.

Japeth Barrow shook his head where he sat. He aint gone make it, he said. He done et up with everythin. Di-beet-us. Cancer. Everthin else. Reckon he woulda died right here just now and Lord take him into His arms and ask him why in the hell he live so bad. The table of men laughed at Barrow as he lit a cigarette. You want rest of my ham, Tommy? I aint gone finish it. Tommy waved him off. You member that Thanksgivin we all had at Mackey's house on the lake when he grill up them chitlins and fire went down low and he spray fluid on it and it burn up in a cloud of flame and smoke and char them chitlins and he end up scrapin all the char off em and serve em on a platter like nothin ever happen. The table of men laughed.

That's where he got the name for this place, Tommy said. He get up at dawn and start drinkin corn liquor from a jar and by time he set to cook up supper he drunker than Cooter Brown. Michael Toombs says to him, Big Luke you oughta open up a etin place an call it The Mason Jar. Luke aint say squat. He just drunker than hell and all stiff and quiet and et up with drink. Aint seen nothin so sicknen as that plate of hog guts he bring to the Thanksgivin table. Be damned if half the family aint et it up. Fraid he gone shoot em all if theys don't. Big Luke set there at table's head sippin from his jar, .22 Colt pistol set in front of em. Same one he used to shoot squirrels dead with when he was Huber Mayor. He aint did much mayorin then, Barrow said. He aint did much of nothin but drink and shoot up shit. Miracle the Jar last as long as it done. Only place I known where your plate of food's different price evertime you come through. Aint matter how much or how little I get. Less ever time. Have a plate bucklin under sausage and streak-o-lean and biscuits and eggs and grits and Luke ring the register for no more'n three bits. He aint even look down at what I got. The table of men laughed.

Three hours later they are all still sitting at the table. Still sipping coffee. Still eating. Still talking. Eyes wandered while others spoke. Quilt stapled to the far wall: MASON JAR EST. 1989 - LUKE & POLLY 4 EVER. Spike buck here. Ten pointer there. Alma County record. Dressed out at 210. Feral hog, whiskers grayed and tusks yellow as smokers dentures. Table near front door loaded up with jars of pickled peppers, eggs, wild onions. Gallon jars of pickled hog feet, ears, snouts, tails. Basket on top. Index card says, PRICE ON JAR BOTTOM. PUT MONEY IN BASKET. HONOR SYSTEM. WE AINT WATCHIN BUT GOD IS. Joe Lane Ford walked through the door. Where everbody at, he said. Right here's everbody, Barrow said. Where Big Luke, Ford said. Hospital, Barrow said. What in hell for, Ford said. He dyin, Barrow said. About ten years too late, Ford said. Aint like he young. Sumbitch got to take half a Viagra to keep from pissin on his feet ever mornin. The table of men laughed. Who the hell gone cook me up a hamburger then, Ford said. You cook it your own damn self, Barrow said. Shitfire, Ford said, and walked on back to the kitchen.

When the doctor walked into the waiting room to tell Polly that Big Luke had passed Johnny Brewster was outside smoking a Tampa Nugget cigar. Polly went to the window and looked at Johnny and she pounded on the glass and he looked up and saw her crying and he unholstered his pistols and started firing. A huge black security guard wrestled Johhny to the ground. What the hell you think you doin? he said. Firin my guns, Johnny said. You aint able to discharge no firearm on this property, guard said. I aint dischargin, Johnny said. I givin Big Luke Mackey his 21 gun salute minus nineteen.

WHILE YOU'RE AWAY

Few quick things: I've changed this blog's name. The blog's changed direction, mostly, and its name doesn't fit it any longer. Not that there won't be fire or meat or blood. On the contrary, there will be more of all the above. Blood & Grits is a title of Harry Crews' anthology of essays and also a descriptive term employed to delineate folk of the hard scrabble South. It's comical and apt and makes much sense here.

The last few months this blog has featured shorter short stories mostly about people and food in rural Georgia. There will be more of those to come. They are written flash quick every day while I eat lunch and GSV III naps. No edits. Not a word changed. I guess we can call it "automatic writing." Some of the people are real and maybe even still living. Some of them aren't real and never were living. That's how it goes.

Thanks to New York Times food critic/writer Sam Sifton (um, and LA Weekly), this blog has seen more traffic than ever. That's great. If you're a new reader, welcome. Make yourself at home. If you're an old reader, thanks for sticking around. I'm not sure why I write about people or food or both, but I know I can't ever stop no matter how hard I try. Thanks for indulging me, but fuck you sideways for not leaving comments.

EYE FOR EYE

Warden Stourley Bend felt the heat through the soles of his boots. It was like he stood still in smoldering embers. He'd told Magda Prae it was illegal to handle, harbor, and harm black snakes. He'd told her such more than 10 times in the last five minutes. All while watching her move from coop to shed to stump. Her hands tight round thick cord of snakes. Their heads weaved in air. Their tongues shot out thin and black tasting air. They were so black they appeared blue.

Now don't think I don't understand your anger Magda Prae, Warden Bend says. If I come out sunup and find my hens lose and gone and all their eggs been eaten on by heap of black snakes, I'd work same course as you. Bend wiped his forehead. Magda Prae grabbed hold of machete. Its blade ran thin and then bloated at the head. It was orange with rust. Magda Prae held a black snake to the stump with her boot. Its head weaved upon the wood and then was gone to the grass. Its mouth wide and breathless like a fish dead on the bank. Magda Prae held the body squirming upon the stump with her boot and worked pliers from the tail to the neck and the skin come off like a sock. Thin as onion paper. Sun shone through it gray and it seem as shadow made material and real.

You know, Magda Prae, I, you see, I wish you stop killin them snakes while I stand right here to bear witness, Bend says. It aint like you hidin it. Cicadas screeched in pines and Bend could hardly hear his own self and he stopped talking and watched Magda Prae as she beheaded and skinned another snake and another and tossed their headleass skinless bodies into an orange Home Depot bucket and carried them into the house. Bend stood and looked at the pines spindly and thin standing in water brackish and boiling with flies. Bend followed Magda Prae inside. She set the bucket down by the stove. Cast iron pot on flame. She scooped lard from a bucket with a wooden spoon and slapped it into the pot and it hissed and then went from solid to liquid, white to clear. She cut the snake into one inch pieces with a rusty boxcutter and shook the pieces in a brown paper bag filled with corn meal and season all. She set the pieces in the bubbling lard and they fried up brown and she took the pieces from the pot with the wooden spoon and set them to dry on another brown paper bag.

Snake skins and turkey beards tacked to walls. Two gator heads smiled shiteatin grins on shelf above the sink. Black velvet painting of Christ on the cross hung over kitchen table. Pile of okra in a basket below it. Magda Prae motioned to the table and Bend grabbed a seat. She put a heap of fried snake on a paper plate and handed it to Bend. She put a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce in front of him. She heaped fried snake on another plate for her self and sat down across from Bend. You want a drink, she says. That'd be fine Magda Prae, Bend says. She get up and ran the faucet into a coffee mug says JESUS LOVES ME THIS IS KNOW on it and a rainbow over the sayin. Way you do this is shake some hot sauce on them pieces and then gnaw away the meat around the bones like this, Magda Prae says, her little brown teeth chewing away on the fried snake. Bend picked a piece up and gnawed on it and he chewed and says hey this aint too bad and he chew some more and by the time he's done with one piece of fried snake Madga Prae's eaten four and her plate is red with hot sauce. This crime I done committed, Magda says. Bend waves her off and gnaws some more. Only sound other than their eating is the cicadas screeching.

A LADY WITH A LAMP I SEE

When I was nine I wanted to be Florence Nightingale. Liked her name. Thought a nightingale was a bird that sang after dark. A small silver bird whose song was low and long and sweet. Saw her name on the blackboard in school. Mrs Prusser wrote it up there and call on youngins to come up and diagram sentences about Florence Nightingale. Mrs Prusser called on me first and sentence I was supposed to diagram was, Florence Nightingale believed God called on her to become a nurse.

Must be powerful thing. Havin God tell you what you do. He aint told mama or daddy what to do. Mama worked the police station workin radio for patrol. Daddy worked Southern Bell most his life. Climbin poles and fixin em. Reckon I'd work police radio too after school if I made it. Kept waitin for God to call on me and tell me what I was or what I would be. He never did. Wondered why he tell Florence what she gone be. I heard bout other folk bein called on by God. Wondered why he aint never called on me. I went to church. I sang them hymns. Paid attention to preacher's preachin. Nothin ever happened.

Couldn't diagram that sentence about Florence Nightingale. Drew a rocket and lines comin off the rocket but I aint member how to put the words. I just wrote FLORENCE on the side of the rocket in big letters and I turn round and look at Mrs Prusser and her face all wound up tight and sour. Liked the way the rocket looked. Looked like somethin that led to Heaven. Florence's rocket. Gone ways to Heaven. To be with God.

Next time I heard that name was at Huddle House ten years later. I was waitin on the manager, Mr. Bix, cause he was gone interview me for waitress job there and the other girl I was waitin with her name was Florence Nightingale. I say uh uh you lyin when she tell me her name and she say no I aint and ask me if she can have one of them Basic 100s and I give her one. We sat there and drank tea and smoked and sometimes it got weird cause we aint had nothin to say. An I reckon it was the job, either her or me. And when I think that I got all mad at her. I ask her if God call her to Huddle House.

What did you say girl, she said. I said did God call on you to do this job. God called on Florence Nightingale to be a nurse. I reckon he call on you to be a waitress. You aint got to tell me. I just never met no one who got called on. That's all. You want another cigarette?

Mr Bix was busy with something in the back and he come out few times and apologize to both of us and asked us if we wanted to get something to eat before he talked with us that would be fine. I member his shoes was so shiny I could see my face in em when I look down. Just like a mirror. He had one of them thin mustaches that don't look like a mustache at all an he had a pocket watch. Aint never seen one of them. Aint known no one to carry one. Florence got a fried chicken sandwich with extra mayonnaise and pickles and I got brown toast and grape jelly. It came out real quick and Florence ate her chicken sandwich like she aint eaten in days and ever time she took a bite mayonnaise would drip out the back and onto her plate.

You know how to diagram sentences, I say, and she look at me and chew and then she says, what? And I said, sentences. You know, how they cut up the words and put em on lines and things comin off rockets. And she goes no. I aint seen that. And I tell her I diagramed her name once. I went through my purse and got a pen out and drew a rocket on a Huddle House napkin and wrote FLORENCE on it. See, I say. I showed her the napkin. Just like that. Do you like the way it look? I guess so, she says. We sat quiet and Mr Bix come out the back and met first with Florence and I hear him ask you go by Flo and I aint able to hear what she answer.

It was quiet. I tried to think about how a Nightingale's song would sound. I thought maybe it would sound like God's voice when he call on you. Like it aint words sayin somethin. It just sound but you known what He meant. No ways about it. I wondered if I aint missed my song. Like I wonder if He already sung to me and I aint picked up on it. Maybe I aint ready to hear no song. Maybe He only call on those who ready. Wonder when I gone be ready.

Florence squealed all loud and did this karate kick in the air right there in Huddle House and half folks in there jumped when she did. I jumped and I seen it comin. I got the job, she says, her face all red like she overheated. Mr Bix tells me he gone keep my application on file. That's what they do. And I hear him and it's words and not a song, long and sweet and slow so I known that I aint called on to do this and that I just got to keep lookin and listenin out so as I aint missed it again.