Never before had I felt such aversion to a charge.
And, in truth, had begun to hate him.
—
As if drawn there by my presence, two figures of our ilk approached: a handsome black man and a rotund white woman who radiated a likable, perplexed kindness, as if, in life, her tendency to foul up the smallest thing had rendered her perpetually cheerful, placing her somehow permanently beyond humiliation.
He carried a rudimentary rifle and wore an outfit of rugged buckskin and moccasins marked by extensive wear and an almost unimaginable density of skillful stitching. She, in “flip-flops” and an immense, baggy “T-shirt” marked with a star and the words “Dallas Cowboys,” was continually and absent-mindedly slapping a bulging wallet against a pair of frayed “cutoffs.”
I got hit and killed justthere,she called out to me cheerfully.
It was “game day,” her friend added. Clyda here was making a “chip run.” She got distracted, and—
It was a eclipse, Clyda said. I had one of those “viewer thingies.”
There were “chips” positively everywhere, said her friend. And Clyda lying motionless there among them.
What’s funny, Clyda said, is that the place I’d just been? For the chips? Used to be right here. Little meat market. Manny’s.
That also sold chips, her friend added helpfully.
For your part, William, Clyda said. You died in a humble lean-to. Just there.
Near present-day Jiffy Lube, William said.
Brownstone Branch being, at the time of your death, Clyda said, not a proper paved road at all, but a narrow footpath through the woods, used by Comanche and Caddo.
I was making my way east, William said. To Louisiana. Hoping to reunite there with my sister. Suddenly falling ill, encountering the lean-to, I resolved to encamp there for the night.
But you never did leave that lean-to, said Clyda.
Never did, said William sadly.
William was a trapper, said Clyda. One of the best.
And Clyda was “between gigs,” he said.
But enough about us, said Clyda.
(But it would not be.
I knew their type:
Tormented, obsessive, grasping, decidedlynotelevated. Generally to be avoided.
And yet here I was again, as in life: held in place by politeness.)
You did not succeed in viewing the eclipse, said William.
My viewer thingy ended up over there in the weeds, said Clyda.
And is there still, said William. Albeit returned to dust.
You never reached your sister, said Clyda. Your corpse, partly devoured by coyotes, remained rotting in that lean-to, through the long, unseasonably cold winter that followed.
But enough about us, William said.
They turned to me with difficulty, doing their best to feign a modicum of interest.
