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We didn’t speak.
We just breathed.
Finally I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Okay, Joe. Okay.”
He nodded, and after a beat, we drove on.
Eventually, we passed a sign on the side of the road. It was in need of a paint job, the wood splintered and worn.
It said WELCOME TO GREEN CREEK.
“HIS NAME is Joe,” Mark whispered to me over the phone. “And he’s perfect.”
I blinked away the burn.
Later, I would hear from Curtis Matheson that they’d bought the blue house they’d been renting. Got it for real cheap too, or so he said.
WE DITCHED the SUV northwest of town. The summer air was sticky and warm.
Joe walked into the woods, hands outstretched, fingers brushing along tree trunks.
His brothers followed as they always did.
I brought up the rear.
The earth pulsed beneath my feet with every step I took.
My tattoos ached.
The raven’s wings fluttered wildly.
Eventually we found ourselves in a clearing.
Joe fell to his knees and bent forward, putting his forehead into the grass, hands on either side of his head.
We stood above him. Watching. Waiting.
THERE WAS a knock at the door.
I groaned, the early morning light filtering in through the window. It was my day off, and I could tell the hangover was going to be a bitch. My mouth felt rank, my tongue thick. I blinked up at the ceiling.
It was about that time I realized I didn’t know the name of the man snoring in the bed next to me.
I remembered bits and pieces. He’d been at the roadhouse the night before. I wasn’t legal to drink, but no one cared. I’d been four beers in, and I’d seen him eyeing me from the other end of the bar. He looked like a trucker, worn ball cap pulled low on his head, eyes hidden in shadow. He was the type that had a wife and two point five kids back home in Enid, Oklahoma, or Kearney, Nebraska. He’d smile at them and love them, and when he was on the road, he’d look for any willing thing with a warm hole. He needed to work his way up to it, though, and I waited for him to down his whiskey, making sure he was watching as I tilted my head back, exposing my neck as I took a long drink from the wet bottle. His eyes tracked the slow movement of my throat as I swallowed down the beer.
I left a few bills on the bar, rapping my knuckles against the wood before pushing my
way up from the stool. Things were hot and hazy. A trickle of sweat dripped down my hairline to my ear.
I was out the door, cigarette lit. I took maybe three steps before the door opened again.
He wanted to take me in the alley.
I told him I had a bed a few blocks away.
He gripped my hips as he mouthed at my neck, scraping his lips up until his tongue was in my ear.
He told me his name, and I told him mine, but it was lost.
