Danny Smith
Still Life at the Highlines (Excerpt)
Everybody in town lived right down the road. At least, they did if the town you happened to be from was Dry Rock, Louisiana. When I was a kid, the only place for us to go was the highlines out on Highway 149. There under the bumblebee buzzing of those power lines that went across the fields on both sides and intersected the highway, we partied.
We drank beer, wine, whiskey, moonshine. We smoked Marlboros and Camels. Some smoked weed when they could find
it. We tried to bake our tires off
on the still spongy and almost melting asphalt. And, under the heat of an oppressive sun that still lingered
on long long after it had gone down and after the night and the chirp of the
crickets had come to take the place of the day, we listened to Swordfighter
Sammy run his overbearing mouth.
Well, some of us did anyway.
Swordfighter
Sammy was a red-eyed fool, one of those fellows that carefully orchestrated
everything to show everybody just exactly what a real badass he was. This was without, as I for one noticed,
anything ever being done on his part to actually back any of his blustering
up. As an unseen sign of his
badness to the deceived population of our little group, a tattoo of a skull
with crossed swords was said to be located somewhere near his groin. So they said. I don’t think I cared.
They were impressed. They
all talked.
“He’s
bad, that Sammy. He got shot.”
“The
guy that did it had just better watch out is all I can say.”
“Well,
if he’s so bad, what the hell’s he doing letting himself get all shot up in the
first damn place,” I would ask as everyone stood there with their mouths open
like a school of fish ready and eager to be reeled in by a bunch of bullshit
lies.
Truth be told, Swordfighter Sammy got shot for
mouthing off to some black guy.
They had been out in front of the Dry Rock Food Mart late one night at
around eleven or so. This was our
local and only convenience store, where everything had a huge markup from the
prices at the nearest Sam’s Club twenty miles away. The owner bought his stock at Sam’s, and he had to make a
profit. Sammy had Trisha with him
that night according to my uncle who had borne witness to the whole pathetic
scene just after purchasing a six pack of Budweiser and walking outside. Sammy was drunk, both off booze and off
ignorance.
“Hey,
boy,” Sammy bellowed, pulling out a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver and waving it
around in the air.
“You
just hang on a minute,” Black Guy said as he stood there and stared at Sammy
for a little while. “How about I go to my car and get my gun and we’ll see who
the better man is?”
Black
Guy got his gun. He shot, he
didn’t miss, and I was glad. Sammy
deserved his bad back that he received from that episode, one that he
exaggerated by walking with much more of a stoop than he really should
have. His mouth was a loose and
loaded cannon, firing off blanks in each and every direction known to man. I rose above all the hype. I knew he was a mouth, even if all the
people I partied with on the weekends didn’t. And I knew Sammy would never retaliate because he was
scared. They were impressed. They all talked.
“You
know why they call him Swordfighter Sammy?” They would quiz each other as some of them coughed out a
brand new rendition of those same old weekend reefer blues, as they gazed at
each other with unnaturally bright eyed and heavy lidded stares.
He was stupid for getting shot. He was stupid for being him. He didn’t impress me. Trisha, on the other hand, did. She was a short skinny girl with curly
black hair and eyes with pools of brown that you could get lost and drown in
forever, she wore Levis so tight that she could probably barely breathe in
them, and she seemed devoted to Sammy for no reason at all. Every time he would start saying he was
going to stomp this guy or that guy, go to his house and drag him outside and
beat him senseless, she rested her sweet little hand on his hairy shoulder like
that could somehow dam up the flood of stupidity that gushed from his brain. What a waste.
She then squeaked, “Sammy, baby, don’t” in a
breathy whisper as he would grab his keys like he was preparing for war. Then he’d always slide his keys back
into his faded, hole-ridden jeans, kiss Trisha with his thin lizard lips, and
then say something profound.
Profoundly retarded, that is.
“Only for you, baby” or “She keeps me calmed
down. She’s my keeper.”
The Followers would, after staring down at the
ground and being uncomfortable with the whole episode, nod through the
flickering heat of the fire that bent and distorted their faces and sent smoke
signals up to the stars that flickered above our world. Then they all sighed and smiled happy
and drank again, relieved that the king and queen of the highlines had made
their peace one with another.
* * * * * * *
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