Litany for Survival

[Caesar]

Prologue

The yard ran flat from the porch steps out to the chain-link at the road, grass burned brown at the edges where the sun caught it longest, the rest holding green in patches where Alcide’s hose had reached. Behind the back of the house the levee climbed in its long earthen wall, the grass on its slope mowed tight against the slope, the Mississippi sliding past on the other side. The afternoon had the wet heat of late summer pressed down on everything, the air thick with cut grass and the mixed smell of sulfur and polyols in the air from the plants down the road.

Toussaint had the football tucked against his ribs, the laces under his palm, his arm bent. He took off across the yard at a dead sprint, his legs working short and quick, his bare feet slapping the dirt where the grass had worn down to dust. The ball bounced against his side with each step.

Alcide stood near the middle of the yard with the switch held loose at his hip. He’d cut it off the chinaberry tree by the fence not five minutes ago, stripped the leaves with two pulls of his thumb, and tested the give of it against his own palm before he’d called Toussaint out from the porch. Now he watched the boy come at him in a straight line, no cut, no plan, and he stepped once into Toussaint’s path and brought the switch around in a flat arc that caught him on the meat of his upper arm.

Toussaint yelped and kept running.

“You keep running straight like that, you gonna get more than a lil’ sting on your arm,” Alcide said. He let the switch hang at his side. “These young boys out here these days can’t block cold air coming in the house.”

Toussaint slowed at the far end of the yard and turned around, his hand rubbing the spot on his arm where the sting had risen pink under the brown of his skin. “They ain’t gonna have no sticks on a football field.”

Alcide chuckled, the laugh low in his chest, his shoulders moving once. “No, they gonna have some big white boys ready to smear your Black ass ‘cross the field.”

From the porch Cee-Cee’s voice came through the screen before her body did. She pushed the door open with her hip, a dish towel in one hand, the other braced against the frame. “Don’t tell that boy that, Alcide. Ain’t nothing but niggas up and down this river.”

Alcide kept his eyes on Toussaint, the switch still hanging at his side, and tipped his chin up a fraction. “You wanna play in high school, college?”

“The NFL, pawpaw.”

“Then you better learn how to not get your lil’ ass hit. Stay light on your feet so you can cut. Gone over there and do it again.”

Toussaint jogged back across the yard, the ball still tucked, his free hand swiping once across his nose. He set himself near the fence on the far side and crouched down into something that wasn’t quite a stance, his weight forward on the balls of his feet, one hand reaching down to touch the dirt. He held there for a beat, his eyes coming up at Alcide standing in the middle of the yard with the switch raised now to his shoulder.

He took off.

Alcide stepped to his right, the switch already moving, and Toussaint saw the step and saw the switch and felt his own foot find the ground. He planted his right foot and pushed himself off it and to the left, his shoulders turning sideways to the swing, his body narrowing past where the switch came through the air. The tip of it caught in the loose cotton of his t-shirt and snagged for half a beat before it pulled free.

He ran the rest of the way to the fence on the other side and slapped his hand against the chain-link and turned around with a smile already cutting across his face.

Alcide was smiling too. He’d let the switch fall back to his side and he stood with his weight settled on his back foot, his head tilted a little, watching Toussaint across the yard.

“Now that’s more like it,” he said. “That’s how we used to play at Bethune over there in Norco. They used to let them crackers from ‘cross the river in Destrehan cheat so we couldn’t let ‘em touch us. Never let anyone touch you, boy. On that football field or off it. Long careers ain’t made by getting beat on.”

Toussaint nodded, the smile still pulling at his mouth.

“Gone over there and do it again. You ain’t Tank Younger ‘cause you do it once.”

Toussaint scrunched his nose up, his head ticking back half an inch. “Who that? I’m trying to be Reggie Bush, pawpaw.”

Cee-Cee’s voice came from the porch again, closer to the screen now. “You ain’t gotta be no one but yourself, made from this here mud where all our people come up and died right here long this river.”

“Alright, mawmaw.”

Alcide rolled the switch once between his thumb and his fingers. “Gone on now. I ain’t got all day. My show ‘bout to come on.”

Toussaint took off back across the yard, the ball tucked again, his feet finding the same dust-worn line he’d cut into the grass over the last hour. He came at Alcide the same way he had the first time, head down, legs working, and watched the old man’s body for the cue. Alcide stepped to his left this time.

Toussaint planted and tried to spin back to his right, the move sloppy, his hips ahead of his feet, his shoulder dipping down. The ball came loose against his ribs and he scrambled for it with his free hand and caught it before it dropped. The switch came through the air behind him and missed by inches.

He kept running. The fence on the far side came up faster than he expected and he slapped it open-palmed with the hand not holding the ball, the metal singing once under the strike. He turned around breathing hard, the heat sitting heavy in his chest, the sting on his arm from the first pass forgotten now, the smile coming back as soon as he saw Alcide nodding once at him from the middle of the yard.

Behind the house the levee held the river back the way it had held it back for a hundred years before any of them. The sun pressed down on the grass and the dust and the back of Toussaint’s neck where his hair had grown out. Somewhere on the road a truck rolled past and its engine carried a long way before it faded.

“Again,” Alcide said.

The TV threw the room in shifting blue, the rest of the house dark behind Toussaint where the hallway ran back to the bedrooms. He sat on the carpet a foot off the screen with his legs crossed under him and the bowl of cereal balanced in his lap, the milk gone gray around the edges of the flakes, the spoon held loose in his hand. His chin was up, his eyes never leaving the picture.

Boobie Miles came up on the screen with his chest out and his finger raised at Chris, his voice climbing through the speakers. Toussaint’s mouth moved with him.

“You got on white Adidas. Everybody know the shoe is Nikes. Nothing hold a nickel next to Nikes. Ask Ivory. Ask preacher man.”

He paused, his spoon hanging over the bowl, his lips parted for the next line. Ivory came in on the screen and Toussaint mouthed along without sound. Then he said the next part out loud, soft, the words pulled back into himself.

“Come on, preacher. Bullshit.”

Another pause. He brought the spoon up to his mouth and took a bite, chewing twice, his eyes still on the screen. He swallowed.

“You know God made Black beautiful. God made Boobie beautiful. Black and strong. And when Boobie knocks fools out, Boobie gonna knock them out with black Nikes on his feet.”

The key came at the front door in the second it took for him to finish the line. The lock turned twice before it caught, the deadbolt knocking once against the frame, and then the door swung inward and the smell hit the room before the bodies did. Whiskey and tequila under it, perfume gone sour against skin, smoke pressed into clothing. Reece came through the doorway with a white woman half-hung on him, his arm under her shoulders, her hand wadded in the front of his shirt. They were laughing at something neither one of them had finished saying, the laughter coming up between them in pieces, their feet uneven on the threshold.

Toussaint turned his head over his shoulder and looked at them past the back of the couch.

Reece had his other hand up the front of the woman’s shirt already, the fabric pushed up against her ribs, the skin showing pale where his fingers worked. She had her eyes closed and her chin tipped up against his shoulder. Then her eyes opened and they went past Reece to the TV first, the blue light catching her face, and then they came down to where Toussaint was sitting on the floor.

She pushed Reece back off her with both hands flat against his chest, her body straightening, the shirt dropping back down her stomach. “I thought you said you ain’t got no kids.”

Reece blinked twice, his hand still hovering where she’d shoved him out of. “I ain’t got no damn kids.”

The woman lifted her arm and her finger came up at Toussaint where he sat with the bowl in his lap. “That’s your kid, ain’t it, asshole?”

Reece sucked his teeth. He looked at Toussaint and his jaw worked once. “That’s just my nephew.”

She shoved him again, harder this time, her palms flat against his chest, and Reece’s heels caught on the rug and he stumbled half a step. She turned and went for the door, her hand finding the knob and yanking it open hard enough that the wood knocked back against the wall.

“C’mon, baby.” Reece’s hand came up after her. “He can just go to the room. On my mama, it’s just my nephew.”

She was already through the door. Reece turned his head and looked down at Toussaint on the floor and his arm came up again, his finger pointing past Toussaint at the open doorway and the woman moving through it.

“Toussaint tell her you just my fucking nephew.”

A car door slammed somewhere on the other side of the yard. The engine turned over and caught and the tires bit into gravel, the sound of it climbed then started to fade as the car pulled away from the house.

Reece stood in the open doorway with the night air pushing in past him, his hand still half-raised. He let it drop.

“Well fuck you then Ashley! You got shit pussy anyway! Shit looser than a motherfucker!”

He slammed the door shut behind him hard enough that the frame moved in the wall and something on the kitchen counter rattled and settled. He stood there for a beat with his back to the room. Then he turned and came forward into the living room, his eyes finding Toussaint on the floor where he hadn’t moved.

Reece stopped over him. He looked at the TV then he looked at the bowl in Toussaint’s lap and then he looked at Toussaint.

“Fuck is you watching this shit again for? And why you ain’t do it in your fucking room?”

Toussaint shrugged.

Reece bent at the waist and snatched the bowl out of his lap. The milk sloshed up the side and a wave of it came over the rim and dropped onto the carpet next to Toussaint’s knee, a pale spreading circle that soaked into the fibers and darkened. A flake or two rode the spill out and settled on the carpet.

Reece straightened with the bowl in his hand and started for the kitchen. He spoke over his shoulder without looking back.

“And you ain’t pay for this shit. You supposed to be eating these fucking food stamp flakes. Not my shit.”

Toussaint watched him cross the room and disappear through the doorway into the kitchen. The light over the sink clicked on and threw a yellow rectangle into the hall. Toussaint looked back at the TV.

The scene had moved on past him. Toussaint leaned forward on the carpet, his hand finding the remote where he’d set it down on the rug beside him. He picked it up and pointed it at the screen and pressed rewind and watched the picture run backward until he found the spot he wanted. He pressed play.

The milk was still spreading next to his knee.

He sat up straight again and his mouth moved with the screen.

The grass behind the building had been worn down to dirt in patches where the kids ran across it, the rest of it patchy and yellow in the heat, a strip of weeds growing tall along the bottom of the brick wall where the mower never reached. The building threw its shade out about ten feet from the back door and Toussaint sat at the edge of that shade where it broke into the sun, his legs crossed under him, the notebook flat on the dirt between his knees.

He had three pencils laid out next to him in the grass, each one a different length, the shortest one barely longer than his thumb where it had been sharpened down to almost nothing. The fourth he held in his hand. He worked it across the page in short careful strokes, building up the dark along the snout of the alligator. He set the pencil down and picked up one of the others, a lighter gray, and laid it against the page where the scales caught what light he was pretending was on them.

Behind him the other kids ran in long loops across the open grass, one of them yelling something about being it, two girls shrieking through laughter as they cut around a tree. Toussaint heard them the way he heard the cars on the road past the fence, none of it lining up with what his hand was doing on the page.

A pair of sneakers came into the edge of his sight. He kept working the gray pencil into the scales above the eye.

“What you doing?”

He looked up. A white girl stood there with her hair dark and pulled back at the sides and her hands at her sides, her shadow falling across half the notebook. He looked back down at the page and worked the pencil through one more stroke then he looked up at her again.

“You can’t talk or something?”

“I can talk.”

“My name’s Brynn. Brynn Collier.”

She squatted down across from him, her knees coming up by her ears, her hand reaching out and picking one of the pencils from the grass. She turned the notebook a quarter rotation to face her and pressed the tip of the pencil to the open page on the other side, where Toussaint had drawn the half-dead flower bed that ran along the side of the building, the stems bent and the leaves curling brown at the edges. She wrote her name in the white space above the drawing, her letters big and round, the B drawn in two halves.

She turned the notebook back toward him and tapped the page with the pencil.

“Like that, so you know how it’s spelled and don’t call me Briana.”

Toussaint pulled his eyebrows together. He brought his finger down on her last name and looked up at her.

“You ain’t say this right.”

“Yes, I did. It’s my name.”

He shook his head. “You said Coll-e-er or something dumb. It’s Coll-yay.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “I said it right. What’s your name then since it’s so cool?”

“Toussaint Bazile.”

“That don’t sound like no name I ever heard. You made that up.”

He sucked his teeth. He leaned over the notebook and took the pencil from her hand without looking up, his fingers brushing hers, and wrote his name in his own hand below where she’d written hers. The letters came out smaller than hers, neater, the T crossed clean and the s’s looped tight. He set the pencil down and pointed at it.

“I ain’t make up nothing. Toussaint Bazile. You see it right there.”

Brynn leaned over the page. Her lips moved as she worked at it, her finger coming down on the first letter and dragging across the rest, the sound of it coming out of her mouth in pieces that didn’t fit together. Too. Too-suh. Too-suh-saint. She tried it twice more and shook her head. She looked up at him.

“I’m just gonna call you Saint.”

“My name Toussaint, not no Saint.”

“I can’t say that. Can I call you Saint?”

He shrugged. He picked the pencil back up and brought the point against the page above the alligator’s eye. “I’m gonna say your last name the right way.”

“I say it right.”

“My name ain’t Saint.”

She shrugged, pushed up off her heels and stood. She brushed her palms against the front of her jeans where the dirt had caught and turned and started across the grass toward where the other kids were running. Toussaint watched her go for one second and then he looked back down at the page. He moved the pencil through the line of the alligator’s mouth, working the shadow where the upper jaw met the lower, the curve of it coming up slow under his hand.

She stopped a few feet out. He didn’t see her stop, but he heard her voice come back across the grass.

“You just gonna sit over there drawing?”

He nodded without looking up. He went back to the alligator.

A beat passed and then the sneakers came back into the edge of his sight and stopped, and then they folded and she sat down in the grass next to him, closer this time than she’d been when she squatted, her shoulder almost touching his. She tucked her legs up under her the way he had his tucked under him and she leaned over the notebook and watched.

He worked the pencil into the row of teeth along the upper jaw, each one coming up out of the gum line in a small careful curve, the shading laid in light at first and then darker where the teeth met. He picked up the shortest pencil for the dark and put it back down and picked up the longer one again.

“I’m gonna call you Saint.”

“Coll-yay.”

She shook her head, her eyes still on the page. He shaded in the next tooth and then the one after it, his hand moving in the same short careful strokes.

[Captain Canada]

Two people already calling eachother out of their names huh? A classic Caesar project.

[Caesar]

Two people already calling eachother out of their names huh? A classic Caesar project.

Youthful disagreement.

[Caesar]

1.1 Worm

The store sat at the far end of a strip center on the east side of town, the kind of place that sold loose cigarettes from behind the counter and kept the beer cooler padlocked after ten. A cardboard cutout of a woman holding a bottle of Fabuloso stood next to the door with one corner of her face peeled back from the sun. The parking lot had three cars in it and a shopping cart turned on its side near the curb, one wheel still turning in the wind that came across the flats carrying dust and the faint sulfur smell of the oil patch.

Saint walked the aisle with two loaves of white bread held in one hand by the twist ties, the plastic swinging against his thigh as he moved. In his other hand he had a pack of colored pencils, the cardboard backing bent where he'd pulled it off the hook. He turned the pack over once and looked at the color chart printed on the back, the row of swatches running from a pale yellow down through burnt sienna and raw umber to a black that wasn't really black but close enough.

Dani moved ahead of him with a jug of milk hooked on two fingers, two packets of cold cuts pressed flat against her chest with her forearm, and a bag of apples swinging from the other hand. Her eyes scanned the prices taped to the shelf edges, her mouth working through math. Keen trailed behind them both with a bunch of bananas gripped by the stem and a handful of chip bags fanned out between his fingers, the foil crinkling every time he shifted his grip.

The clerk, maybe fifty, thin through he shoulders, stood behind the register with his arms folded over the front of his vest, his chin lifted, his eyes tracking them down the aisle, his head turning with them as they walked.

Dani stopped at the end of the aisle and turned around to face them. She looked at what they were carrying then she looked at their faces.

"Y'all got money, right?"

Saint shifted the bread to his other hand. "I got like six bucks."

"Guess you better put them colors back, bro," Keen said.

Dani's eyes moved to Keen. "You didn't answer if you got money, nigga."

Keen sucked his teeth and held up the bananas and the chip. "I got like a dollar if I'm being real with you."

Dani looked down at the milk jug hanging from her fingers, then at the cold cuts pressed against her chest, then at everything the three of them were holding between them. Her jaw shifted once to the side.

"We gonna have to put shit back."

"We wasted gas getting out here so we're still fucked if we put shit back," Keen said. He adjusted the chip bags in his hand, the foil catching the fluorescent light. "Might as well get what we picked up."

The clerk's voice came from the front of the store, pitched to carry. "Y'all need some help?"

Saint shook his head without turning around. "Nah, we good."

"I can take y'all up here when you're ready then."

Keen looked at Saint. His eyes held for a beat and then his chin dipped toward the door, a small motion.

Dani caught it. "C'mon. Y'all not doing that shit again today. Gary still pissed from the last time."

Keen kept his eyes on Saint. Then he turned his head toward the register and nodded that direction, his shoulders dropping, his face smoothing out. "Nah, c'mon. We gonna figure it out up there."

Saint shook his head, but he started walking. The three of them came up the aisle together, Dani in front, Saint behind her, Keen bringing up the back with his sneakers dragging on the tile in a slow shuffle that didn't match his eyes.

Dani set her things on the counter first. The milk jug landed heavy and she stacked the cold cuts on top of each other next to it and set the bag of apples beside that. She reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small wad of cash folded once lengthwise, the bills soft and creased from being carried.

Keen put the bananas down on the counter. Then he looked past the clerk at the back wall where the vapes hung on a pegboard display behind a sheet of plexiglass.

"How much them is?"

The clerk turned his body to follow where Keen was pointing, his hand coming up to adjust his glasses as he squinted at the display behind him.

Saint went for the door.

He dropped his shoulder into the push bar and the door swung open hard enough that the hinges barked and the electronic chime fired twice in quick succession. The air hit his face, the light his eyes and he was already three steps into the parking lot before the door had finished its swing. The bread swung from his hand and the pencils he shoved down the front of his jeans as he ran, the cardboard scraping his skin before it settled flat against his hip.

Behind him Keen's sneakers slipped against the tile, the rubber squealing once before they caught, and then he was through the door too, the chime going off again, his laughter already starting somewhere in his chest as he cleared the threshold and hit daylight.

The clerk spun around from the vape display. His hand slapped the counter and he came forward, his body hitting the door a second after it had swung shut.

"Hey! Come back here!"

Saint reached the edge of the parking lot and pulled up, his chest working, the bread tucked in the crook of his arm now. He looked over his shoulder and saw Keen running toward him across the asphalt, his face split open with a grin, and behind Keen the clerk trying to keep up, his finger pointed at Keen.

The cruiser turned into the lot from the street.

It came in slow,, rolling over the speed bump at the entrance without stopping, the Odessa Police Department seal on the door catching the sun as the car angled toward them. The clerk saw it before Saint did. He slowed down and his voice carried across the parking lot.

"They're stealing!"

The door opened and the officer stepped out with one hand on the roof of the car, his belt heavy on his hips. He looked at Saint across the hood, took a breath that lifted his chest and let it go through his nose.

"Don't make me fucking chase you today, Saint."

Dani came through the store's front door behind the clerk, the milk jug, the cold cuts, the bananas and the apples gathered against her body, her receipt balled in her fist. She saw the cruiser, the officer standing beside it, and her head dropped then she turned and walked the other way along the front of the strip center, her stride measured, her eyes on the sidewalk in front of her feet.

Saint shifted the bread tighter into the crook of his arm. The officer stepped around the front of the cruiser and started toward him, one hand reaching up for the radio on his shoulder.

Saint took off.

He cut to the right, away from Keen, his feet finding the asphalt and pushing off it in short quick steps. The officer changed direction and angled to cut him off before he could clear the far end of the lot, his boots heavy on the pavement, his hand keying the radio as he ran.

Saint saw the angle and saw the officer's weight commit to it, his body leaning forward, his center already moving. Saint hit him with a stutter step, both feet chopping the ground in three fast beats, his shoulders dipping left. The officer lunged. Saint planted his right foot and pushed back to the left, his hips turning, his body narrowing past the outstretched arm, and then he was past him. The officer's momentum carried him forward and down, his boots sliding on the asphalt, his knee hitting first and then his palms, the radio squawking once against the pavement.

Saint ran. The bread bounced against his ribs, the pencils pressed flat and warm against his hip. He ran across the lot and into the street beyond it, his feet carrying him, light and quick.

Tanner took the snap and turned his hips and held the ball out in the space between them. Saint pulled it in against his ribs with both hands and cut behind Danny as he came pulling across the formation, Danny's shoulder pads low, his feet chopping the turf in short heavy steps. Saint got behind him and read the hole forming to the left, Trevon sealing his man to the inside, Danny driving around to push Damion back and widen the lane.

The lane opened for a beat and then Wyatt read it from the second level and crashed down into the backfield, his body angled low, his arms already spread to cut off the outside.

Saint chopped his feet. Three quick steps, his weight settling, his hips still, his eyes on Wyatt's hips. Wyatt hesitated. A half second, maybe less, his cleats biting the turf. Saint kicked back onto his left foot and spun to his right, his shoulder dropping past Wyatt's outstretched arm, the fabric brushing against his hand but never catching. He came out of the spin with his eyes already upfield and saw Damion shedding the block, his hands shoving Danny aside, his body filling the space Saint was running toward. Saint planted his left foot and cut back across Damion's angle, his hips turning the other way, his feet finding the seam.

He picked up four yards before Lane closed from the outside and got his arms around Saint's waist, driving him down into the turf.

The whistle blew.

Travis Meeks, Permian’s offensive coordinator, ripped the visor off his head and slammed it into the turf. It bounced once on the rubber pellets and settled face down.

"God damn it, Bazile!" His voice carried across Ratliff Stadium, past the empty bleachers and the press box and the goalposts standing at the far end of the field. "Stop all that fucking dancing in the backfield and you could've gotten ten or twelve. Plant your fucking foot and get up the fucking field!"

Saint pushed himself up off the turf and brushed the rubber pellets off his forearm. He shook his head, a small motion, his facemask hiding most of it. His eyes went to the far sideline where Dale Kendrick, the head coach, stood with his arms folded across his chest, his whistle hanging from his neck, his hat pulled low. He watched with the stillness of a man who had already decided what he thought.

"Beau!" Meeks picked his visor up off the turf and slapped it against his thigh. "Get back in there and show his ass how you run the fucking ball, please."

Beau pulled his helmet down onto his head with both hands, the chinstrap already buckled, his mouth working a piece of gum behind his facemask. He jogged onto the field, his shoulders loose, his arms swinging easy at his sides. Saint walked off the field toward the sideline and Beau passed him going the other direction, reached out and slapped the back of Saint's helmet with his palm, the sound flat and brief, his eyes already on the huddle forming ahead of him.

The offense lined up. Single back, Beau alone in the backfield behind Tanner, his hands on his knees, his weight forward. Tanner barked the cadence, took the snap. turned and put the ball into Beau's stomach, the leather pressed flat against his pads. Beau took it with both hands and hit the line.

Beau plunged forward. He put his helmet into the gap between the guard and the center and drove his legs and the pile moved with him, bodies grinding forward a yard before Hector slipped off his block and came at Beau from the side. Beau dropped his shoulder into Hector's chest and blew through him, Hector's feet leaving the turf for a second before his back hit it, his helmet bouncing once on the rubber. Wyatt came up from the second level on a dead run and Beau met him with a stiff arm that caught him under the chin, drove his head back and slammed him down into the turf, his body bouncing as his arm grasped at Beau’s legs.

Andres came from one side and Cruz from the other, both of them breaking down into tackling position, their feet chopping, their arms out. Beau dropped his shoulder again and ran through the point where they met. The pop of pads carried across the field and into the empty stands. The three of them went down together, Beau rolling over both of their bodies, his legs still driving, only stopping because his feet tangled with theirs and the ground took all of them at once.

Beau was up before the whistle finished, jumping to his feet and throwing his arms out wide, his chest open to the sky, his voice ripping across the field.

"Woooo!"

Meeks turned his head and found Saint on the sideline. He lifted his hand and pointed at the field where Beau was still standing with his arms spread and half the defense picking themselves up off the turf around him.

"Is that so hard for you to do?" He let the hand drop. "Just run through the damn contact."

Saint stood on the sideline with his helmet in his hand and his mouthpiece clenched between his teeth, his jaw working it in slow circles, his eyes on the field where the offense was breaking the huddle again.

Lane came walking back down the field from where the play had ended, his helmet propped up on the top of his head, his chinstrap hanging loose. He'd chased behind the play without getting close to it and his breathing was easy. He passed behind Saint and his voice came low, barely above the sound of the wind moving across the turf.

"Should've told him you can't do that because Beau run like a white man and you run like a scared nigger."

Saint's right hand came around before the last word had finished settling in the air between them. The fist connected with the bridge of Lane's nose, the knuckle finding the cartilage and the cartilage giving under it. Lane's head snapped back and his eyes went wide and wet, blinking fast, his hands coming up too late.

Lane dropped his chin and charged forward. His shoulder caught Saint in the chest and they went down together, Saint's helmet falling from his other hand and bouncing on the turf beside them. They rolled in the grass and the rubber pellets, Saint getting an arm free and swinging it into the side of Lane's head, Lane driving his knee up into Saint's ribs. Bodies from the sideline started moving toward them, some running, some walking, voices rising and overlapping.

On the far sideline Kendrick stood where he'd stood for the last hour, his arms folded, his hat pulled low. He watched the two of them rolling in the turf afternoon. He shook his head once, the motion so small it barely moved the brim of his hat, and his arms remained crossed.

Holt Breckenridge stood at the chain-link fence that ran along the visitors' side of Ratliff Stadium with his boots planted wide and his arms resting on the top rail, his sunglasses pushed up into the hair above his forehead, graying at the temples. He watched the coaches let them go. Saint and Lane rolled in the turf and swung at each other, the players standing in a loose ring around them, some with their helmets off, some still wearing them, all of them watching. A whistle blew, Meeks waved his arm and bodies moved in and pulled them apart.

Car doors closed behind him, two of them, the sounds spaced a second apart. Holt turned around to see two Odessa police officers walked across the track toward him, their boots crunching the rubber surface, their belts heavy at their hips.

"Scott, Allen." Holt pushed off the fence and met them with his hand out. "How are you boys doing today?"

Scott took his hand first, then Allen. Holt kept his weight easy, his shoulders open, his eyes moving between the two of them.

"What brings y'all out this way?"

Scott shifted his jaw to one side. "Saint Bazile again."

"Shoplifting and evading," Allen said.

Holt waved his hand, the motion small and loose. He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a roll of bills held together with a gold money clip. He turned the roll in his fingers.

"Where was it?"

Scott's chin came up a fraction. "We got an officer who's going to be limping for the next three weeks because he tried to chase the kid."

Holt worked the money clip free with his thumb and started peeling bills from the outside of the roll, his eyes still on Scott. "You know that boy's fast. I don't know why y'all try to chase him." He folded three twenties together and held them out between two fingers. "I'm guessing it was out at Willie's."

Allen looked at the money then looked at Scott.

"I'm sure that more than covers it, and we'll just ignore that other thing," Holt said. He pushed the bills forward another inch. "Bring that over to Willie."

"That's not going to deal with the evading," Allen said.

Holt let his hand hang in the air with the money pinched between his fingers. His voice stayed where it had been, easy and level. "If he didn't steal, he wasn't evading arrest because there was no reason to arrest him."

He looked at Scott. Then he looked down at the money in his own hand. Then he looked back at Scott.

Scott let a breath go through his nose,. He reached out and took the bills from Holt's fingers, folded them once and put them in his breast pocket.

"If you're just going to pay for whatever the kid steals, can you tell him so he can stop fucking stealing?"

Holt slid the money clip back onto the roll and put it in his pocket. "I'll talk to coach and see if we can set something aside for him."

Scott held up the pocket where he'd put the cash, tapping it once with two fingers. "Willie's going to be pissed either way."

Holt shrugged, one shoulder lifting and dropping. "Tell him that I'll let him come hunt pronghorn at Chalk Draw if he lets it go."

Scott shook his head. He turned and started back across the track toward the cruiser. Allen stood there a beat longer, his hand resting on his belt, his eyes going past Holt to the field where the team was lining up again.

"We're really not going to arrest this kid?" Allen said.

Scott kept walking. "C'mon. We got other shit to do."

Allen looked at Holt one more time then turned and followed his partner across the track, his stride lengthening to close the gap.

"Y'all have a good day now, gentlemen," Holt said.

He turned back to the fence, set his arms on the top rail and watched the practice.

Beau pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. The truck ticked under the hood as it cooled, the light catching the windshields of the other vehicles crowded into the driveway and the yard, two trucks and a sedan parked at angles that left barely enough room to walk between them, one of the trucks up on the curb with its front tire sunk into the grass.

He pushed his door open and stepped down and reached into the bed for his duffel bag, swinging it up over his shoulder by the strap. He snaked between the vehicles with his free hand trailing along a fender, a side mirror, the edge of a tailgate, until he reached the front door.

He unlocked it, pushed it open and stepped inside.

The house was warm and close, the air conditioner running somewhere in the back of the house with a rattle in its cycle. Beer cans lined the windowsill behind the couch, some of them crushed and some of them standing upright with the tabs bent back. A plate sat on the carpet near the wall with something dried to it that had gone dark at the edges.

Bailey sat in the recliner in his underwear with a beer balanced on the armrest, his bare feet crossed at the ankles on the footrest. He looked up at Beau over the top of the can.

"You bought some more beer?"

Beau dropped his duffel bag by the door. "I ain't have time to. I'm gonna go out later. I'll do it then."

Bailey lifted his chin toward the TV. A college football game played on the screen, Tarleton State and Mississippi Valley State, the footage from the previous season, the scoreboard graphics already dated. Bailey gestured at it with the hand holding the beer, a lazy arc that sloshed the liquid against the inside of the can.

"Been watching these highlights from Mikey's games. That boy's going to be at UT after next year."

Beau snorted a laugh as he crossed to the kitchen. He pulled the fridge open and leaned into it, his hand moving through the wreckage inside. He slid a pizza box to the side, pushed past a cluster of empty beer bottles standing in the door shelf, reached over a plate with something green growing along the edge of whatever had been left on it. His fingers found the neck of a bottle near the back wall of the fridge, second to last, the glass cold against his skin. He pulled it out and let the door swing shut.

He set the cap against the edge of the counter and brought the heel of his palm down on it. The cap popped free and spun on the linoleum and settled. He leaned back against the counter and took a long pull from the bottle, his throat working twice before he brought it down.

Vickie came out of the hallway at the back of the house, putting an earring in with her fingers working the post through the hole, her head tilted to one side. She had her work uniform on, the polo tucked in, a name tag clipped to the front pocket. Her foot caught a plate on the floor and she kicked it aside, the plate scraping across the linoleum and coming to rest against the baseboard. She shook her head and looked at Beau.

"Mama want you. She need someone to go cash her draw."

Beau took another pull from the beer and held the bottle against his thigh. "Looks like you going out."

"I'm fucking going to work." Vickie's hand dropped from her ear, the earring in. "Something y'all need to do instead of sitting in here destroying mama house."

"So, you can go cash the draw."

Vickie sucked her teeth. "Just fucking do it, Beau."

She grabbed her keys off the counter and went for the front door, her ponytail swinging behind her as she pulled it open and stepped through. The door closed and a few seconds later an engine started in the driveway and tires rolled over gravel and she was gone.

Beau shook his head. He pushed off the counter and walked down the hallway, the carpet worn flat in the center where the traffic pattern ran, the walls bare except for a few nail holes where something had hung once. He stopped at the last door, knocked twice with his knuckle and pushed it open.

"Mama."

Kim sat in a recliner wedged between the bed and the window, the curtains drawn, the room lit by the TV bolted to the wall across from her. She wore a robe that had gone gray at the collar and the cuffs, the terrycloth pilled along the front where her arms rested. She looked over at him, her eyes taking a second to find him in the doorway and reached for the tray balanced on the arm of the recliner. Her fingers found an envelope and she held it out toward him.

"Go on and cash my draw for me, baby. And get me a carton of Marlboro Lights. I'm out."

Beau took a drink from the beer, stepped into the room and took the envelope from her hand. He turned it over once, feeling the check through the paper.

"We need some groceries, too."

Kim looked at him again, her head turning on the headrest of the recliner. "Take like twenty out that."

Beau nodded. "Alright."

He walked out of the room and pulled the door shut behind him,. He went down the hall to his own room and closed that door behind him too.

He crossed to the closet and pulled the door open. A Cowboys footlocker sat on the floor against the back wall, the star on the lid faded and scratched. He grabbed it by the handles and slid it to the side, the weight of it dragging across the carpet. Behind where it had been, a section of drywall sat loose in the frame, the edges cut clean.

He pressed it to the side with the flat of his hand and reached into the gap in the wall. His fingers found the stack and he peeled a few bills off the top, pulled them out, folded them once and put them in his back pocket. He slid the drywall back into place, pulling the footlocker over it then stood up and walked out of his room.

Brynn sat in the back corner of the McDonald's with her spine against the wall and her shoulders angled so she could see the door and the parking lot through the window at the same time. The dining room was mostly empty, two old men sharing a table near the front with coffee cups and folded newspapers, a woman with a toddler standing at the counter waiting on an order.

A McDouble, a small fry, four chicken nuggets, and a small drink sat on the flattened burger wrapper in front of her. She pulled the fries from the sleeve one at a time and laid them down next to each other on the wrapper in a row, each one parallel to the last, the way someone else might lay out tools or pencils or cards. She scanned the row and found the longer ones and pulled them apart with her fingers, tearing them at the midpoint until they matched the length of the others then set the torn halves back in line.

She picked the burger up with both hands and pressed her thumbs into the center of the bun and pulled it apart, working it slow so the meat stayed and the cheese stretched and broke clean between them. She set both halves down on the wrapper.

She counted the fries by eye, divided the row at the center, and swept half of them back into the paper sleeve. She picked up two of the nuggets and dropped them in on top of the fries and slid the sleeve into the bag, folding the top of the bag down once, then again, pressing the crease flat with her thumbnail.

She took a breath that lifted her shoulders and let it go.

She picked up one half of the burger and brought it to her mouth and bit off a small piece, the size of a dime, and chewed it slowly, her jaw working in measured circles, her eyes on the table in front of her. She set the burger down and picked up a fry and bit the end off it, the same small careful bite, and chewed that the same way. She set the fry down and picked up one of the two remaining nuggets and tore a piece off the corner with her front teeth, chewed it, swallowed and set the nugget down. She reached for the drink and brought the straw to her lips and took a pull that lasted a second, the liquid barely rising in the straw before she set it back on the table.

She went around again. Burger. Fry. Nugget. Drink. The same order, the same pace, each bite small enough that the food in front of her seemed to shrink by fractions, the pile diminishing so slowly that someone watching from across the room might think she was just picking at it.

She kept going until the wrapper held one thing, the other half of the burger sat where she'd set it down, the bun slightly flattened where her thumbs had pressed it apart, the cheese hardening along the torn edge. She stared at it with her hand resting on top of it, her fingers curled over the bun. Her jaw shifted once to the side. She shook her head, picked it up and wrapped it in the paper, folding the edges tight then put it in the bag with the rest.

Her phone buzzed against the table, the vibration turning it a quarter inch on the laminate. Her eyes went to the window. An old truck swung into the parking lot, the body sun-faded and the front bumper wired on at one corner, the exhaust coughing once as it rolled past the drive-through lane and nosed into a spot near the door.

Brynn grabbed the bag and the drink and slid out of the booth. She stopped at the drink machine on her way to the door and held the cup under the nozzle and filled it to the top, the ice crackling as the soda climbed over it. She pressed the lid back on and pushed through the glass door into the parking lot.

Wes leaned out of the driver's window with his elbow hooked over the door, his other hand draped on the top of the steering wheel. He had a toothpick pinched in the corner of his mouth and a Twister pulled low enough that his eyes sat in the shadow of the brim.

"Hey, Brynny Brynn." The toothpick shifted as he spoke. "You coming with us, right?"

Brynn nodded. "Yeah."

Wes reached up and slapped the roof of the truck with his palm, the metal ringing once under the hit.

Brynn walked around the front of the truck to the passenger side and pulled the door open. The hinges groaned, the door swinging wide, and Dakota looked up at her from the middle of the bench seat, her legs folded to one side, a smile already spreading across her face.

"What's up?"

"Same shit, different day."

Dakota scooted across the bench seat toward Wes, the vinyl squeaking under her thighs, and Brynn climbed in, pulling the door shut. The latch caught on the second try, the handle loose in its housing. Brynn set the drink between her knees and held the McDonald's bag in her lap, her fingers working the folded top one more time, pressing the crease tighter, rolling the edge down until the bag sat compact and sealed in her hands.

Dakota watched her do it, her eyes tracking Brynn's fingers as they moved over the paper.

Brynn looked over at her. "Don't let me forget that."

Dakota nodded. "Alright."

Brynn looked past her at Wes. "Where we going?"

Wes dropped the truck into reverse and shrugged, his hand pulling the wheel to the right as he looked over his shoulder through the back glass. "Wherever Ol' Betty take us."

Dakota scrunched her nose, her upper lip pulling back. "It's so fucking cringe that you named this truck."

Wes slapped the dashboard with the flat of his hand, the plastic rattling under the hit. "It's good luck."

He reached over, grabbed his phone from the cup holder and thumbed at the screen until music came through the aux, the speakers crackling for a second before the sound filled the cab, bass vibrating in the door panels, the floorboards and the bench seat under them.

Brynn rested her head against the window. The glass was warm from the sun and it pressed against her temple and her cheekbone and she let her eyes go soft as Wes pulled out of the parking lot and Midland started whipping past outside, the strip malls and the gas stations and the pump jacks nodding slow in the fields beyond the last row of buildings, all of it sliding by in the long flat light of a West Texas afternoon.

The fire sat low in a ring of cinder blocks behind Beau's house, the flames working through a stack of mesquite branches that popped and sent sparks up into the dark. The brush stretched out past the firelight in every direction, clumps of creosote, saltbush and the silhouettes of pump jacks scattered across the flats, their heads nodding slow against a sky that held more stars than the town's lights could reach.

Beau sat on the far side of the fire with his back against a cooler, Gracie settled in his lap with her legs draped over one of his thighs, a beer bottle dangling from her fingers. Cruz leaned back in a lawn chair with his knees spread wide and his boots pointed to the sky, his beer resting on the arm of the chair. Saint sat on a mesquite log across from them, his elbows on his knees, the firelight catching the swelling along his lower lip where Lane's forehead had split it open.

Saint tapped his lip with his finger, pulled it away and looked at it, checking the pad for blood. A faint streak of it caught the light and he wiped it on his jeans.

"I should've killed that bitch."

Cruz tilted his beer toward Saint, the bottle catching the firelight. "You know all them white boys on the team a little racist." His eyes moved to Beau and Gracie across the fire. "No offense."

Beau laughed, his chest moving under Gracie's weight. "I ain't take none. I might be a white Texan but I ain't that brand of white Texan."

Gracie shook her head, her hair shifting against Beau's shoulder as she leaned back into him. "I so hope that you leave this God-forsaken shithole next year so you can stop making it your whole fucking identity."

"Hey, now." Beau wrapped his arm tighter around her waist. "I ain't gonna apologize because God made me a Texan."

"You mean because your ancestors came here and stole this shit from Cruz's ancestors," Saint said.

Cruz raised his beer an inch off the armrest. "Some of 'em. Don't forget a few of them came from across the ocean."

Beau shook his head and reached behind him into the cooler, his hand plunging into the ice water. He pulled a bottle out and threw it across the fire to Saint, the glass spinning in the air, the firelight catching it once before Saint snagged it with one hand. Beau reached back in and threw another to Cruz, who caught it against his chest with his free hand.

"Y'all need to drink so y'all aren't ganging up on the poor white boy."

Saint laughed as he fished his key out of his pocket and hooked the cap with the edge of it and popped it off. He brought the bottle to his mouth and took a pull, his eyes pinching tight as the taste hit him. He swallowed, looked at the label and took another sip anyway.

He looked over at Beau. "You mind if I crash on your couch tonight?"

Beau shrugged, his shoulder lifting under Gracie. "Yeah, that's cool. You just gotta worry about Bailey wandering in there with his little tighty whiteys on in the middle of the night."

Gracie turned her head toward Saint. "Just be glad he won't randomly grab a boob pretending he's too drunk to know what he's doing."

Beau rolled his eyes, his head tipping back. "That happened once."

"Once is a lot for that, bro," Cruz said.

Gracie threw her hands up, the beer in her hand tipping as her arm swung and a splash of it arcing out of the bottle and just missing Beau's face on its way to the dirt. "Exactly."

Saint took another sip and held the bottle between his knees. "It's either that or Cruz's and every time I'm over there, his fucking grandma tries to drag me to church."

Cruz pointed his bottle at him. "Your bad for calling yourself Saint when talking to a Mexican woman."

Saint shook his head, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth and catching on the split in his lip. He heard footsteps on the grass behind him, the sound soft and uneven on the dry ground. He turned on the log and saw Brynn walking toward them out of the dark, a McDonald's bag held in one hand and a drink in the other, her face finding the firelight as she came closer.

Beau lifted his chin. "What's up?"

Gracie gave her a small wave, her fingers lifting off the beer bottle and curling back around it.

Brynn gave them both a smile, brief and quiet, and kept walking toward the log where Saint sat. Cruz watched her over the rim of his beer, drinking.

Saint scooted to the side on the log, the bark rough under his palms. Brynn sat down next to him, the bag settling in her lap, the drink held in the hand closest to him.

"Hey." Her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.

Saint smiled at her. She held the bag out and he took it, the paper crinkling under his fingers where she'd folded and rolled the top. He set his beer in the dirt and the drink she'd brought him beside it, opened the bag and pulled out the wrapped half of the burger. He peeled the paper back and tore the half in two, the bun compressing under his thumbs, the meat and cheese pulling apart between the pieces. He held one of the quarters out to Brynn.

"No, that's for you."

Saint kept his hand where it was, the piece of burger extended toward her. "Beer's like a meal."

Beau raised his bottle across the fire. "That's fucking right."

Brynn looked at the piece in his hand. She took it, her fingers brushing his as she pulled it away. Saint set the wrapper flat across his lap, reached into the bag and pulled out the sleeve of fries and the two chicken nuggets and poured them out onto the wrapper, the fries fanning across the paper, the nuggets tumbling out after them. He slid the wrapper toward her on the log until it sat in the space between his thigh and hers.

She looked at him. He was looking at the burger in his hand, eating, his jaw working through the first bite, his eyes on the fire.

Cruz drained the last of his beer and set the empty bottle in the dirt under his chair. "I need to get a fucking girlfriend, man. I can't be fifth wheeling."

Gracie shifted in Beau's lap, turning her body toward Cruz. "I tried to set you up with my friend Julia."

"She's like three-fifty!" Cruz said.

Beau's laugh cracked across the fire. "Kendrick would put her ass at right guard if he saw her." He dropped his voice low and squared his jaw. "'Get your fat ass out there and clear a path for Beau!'"

Gracie smacked him on the chest, her palm flat against his sternum. "That's mean."

Beau held his hand up, his fingers spread. "I'm including her. What the fuck you mean?"

"You're going to be including your hand later."

Cruz laughed at them, his head tipping back in the lawn chair, his throat catching the firelight. Beau pulled Gracie tighter and said something into her ear that made her shove his face away with her palm.

Saint smiled. The fire popped once and sent a coil of sparks up into the dark above them. He looked over at Brynn. She looked back at him, a small smile sitting on her lips, a fry pinched between her fingers with a bite taken out of the end.

He picked up the drink and held it out to her. She took it, bringing it to her lips and taking the tiniest sip.

[Captain Canada]

EDIT: Beau's racism accusation has been rescinded upon further review.

Of course the protagonist is already riddled in a life of crime.

And there's Brynn on the spectrum as well (yes, I'm aware of what is actually going on with her, I'm choosing to plead ignorance). Here we go

[redsox907]

And there's Brynn on the spectrum as well

that boy Saint most definitely on it. Rewatching old movies and rehearsing each word, sitting in the grass drawing obsessively. Most definitely part of the rainbow

Holt out here trying to get him a Blindside type story with Saint?

[Caesar]

EDIT: Beau's racism accusation has been rescinded upon further review.

Of course the protagonist is already riddled in a life of crime.

And there's Brynn on the spectrum as well (yes, I'm aware of what is actually going on with her, I'm choosing to plead ignorance). Here we go

Stealing bread is hardly a life of crime.

Don't let nothing get in the way of a narrative.

And there's Brynn on the spectrum as well

that boy Saint most definitely on it. Rewatching old movies and rehearsing each word, sitting in the grass drawing obsessively. Most definitely part of the rainbow

Holt out here trying to get him a Blindside type story with Saint?

So you don't know any lines from old moves?

More Buddy Garrity Holt is.

[Caesar]

1.2 Cap Rock

Saint sat in the back row of the room with his notebook open on the desk in front of him, his body angled forward over the page, his left arm curled around the top of the notebook. He worked a colored pencil across the paper in short strokes, building the red into the feathers of the headdress one plume at a time, each one curving up and away from the man's face in a fan that spread across the top third of the page.

The Mardi Gras Indian stood in the center of the composition with his chest out and his arms lifted, the suit beaded in patterns that ran in diamonds and zigzags down the front. Behind him a second line stretched down a narrow street, the bodies loose and moving, a trombone raised above the crowd, the buildings on either side sketched in just enough.

The pencils were laid out along the top of his desk in a row, the colored ones still in the cardboard sleeve with a few pulled free and set beside it, the regular graphite ones worn down to different lengths, the shortest one barely longer than his thumb. The colors he was using were cheap, the pigment thin on the page, but he'd layered them, red over orange over yellow in the feathers, blue into purple in the suit's beadwork, until the depth was there.

Two rows ahead of him a girl held her sketchpad up to the boy next to her and they both laughed, the girl pulling it back and adding something to it that made them laugh harder. Across the room someone balled up a piece of paper and threw it at a kid who was sleeping with his head on his desk.

The bell rang, chairs scraped against the floor, bags came up off the ground and bodies moved toward the door in a wave. Ms. Tierney stood at the front of the room with a stack of papers in her hand, her voice rising over the noise.

"Remember, your color studies are due Thursday. Thursday, not Friday, not next week. Thursday."

Most of them were already through the door. Saint finished the shading on the left side of the headdress, the pencil moving through three more strokes before he lifted it off the page. He closed the notebook carefully, pressing the cover down flat so the pages settled, and slid it into his bag. He gathered the pencils one at a time, put them back in the sleeve and put the sleeve in the bag beside the notebook. He stood, slung the bag over his shoulder and walked toward the front of the room.

"Saint, can you wait up a minute?"

He turned back and walked over to her desk where she was sitting on the edge of it with her legs crossed at the ankle, a folder open in her hands. She reached into it and pulled out a sheet of paper and held it up so he could see it. The portrait he'd turned in for the last assignment. Brynn's face looked back at him from the page, her hair dark and falling past her jaw, her eyes caught in a three-quarter angle, the shading under her cheekbone laid in with a precision that made the light source feel real.

Ms. Tierney looked down at the portrait then back up at Saint.

"You've got a real talent for art."

Saint nodded. "Yeah, I like it."

She held the portrait up higher, turning it so the light from the window caught the graphite. "This is more than you just like it, Saint. Everyone else either gave me some junk for this assignment or traced something. You?" She tapped the edge of the paper with her finger. "I'd believe you if you told me you did this on Photoshop."

Saint shrugged, his bag shifting on his shoulder. "Anyone could do that if they really worked at it."

Ms. Tierney shook her head. "I think you're selling yourself short." She put the portrait down on the desk and leaned forward on her elbows, her hands folded together in front of her. "Saint, you have a real gift. The Lubbock Art Festival is coming up. I think you should enter some pieces."

Saint shook his head. "I ain't got the money for that, time neither."

"It's only one Saturday out of your schedule next month."

"We gonna be conditioning next month for the summer."

Ms. Tierney's eyes moved to the letterman's jacket he was wearing, the big P on the chest, the football patch on the sleeve. She looked at it for a beat then nodded.

"Right. Go Mojo and all that."

She tapped the folder with her fingertips, her eyes dropping to the portrait sitting on the desk. She looked back up at him.

"Will you at least think about it?"

Saint nodded. "Yeah, I'll think about it."

Saint walked the hall from the cafeteria with a cup of fruit held in one hand, his thumb hooked over the rim, the other hand carrying a textbook flat against his thigh. He tipped the cup back every few steps and let a few pieces of fruit slide into his mouth, chewing as he walked, his eyes on the hall ahead of him where the traffic thinned out past the science wing.

He stopped at his locker, grabbed the lock, spun the dial through the combination, three turns, and pulled it open. He set the cup on the top shelf and reached for a book on the second one, sliding it out from under a binder.

Remy walked up to the locker beside his, grabbed his own lock and started turning the code in. He spoke without looking over.

"You trying to come through this weekend? My mama and pops gonna be having a cookout."

Saint reached for the cup again, fished out a grape, put it in his mouth and chewed it once before he nodded. "Yeah, I'll come. You gotta come pick me up though."

Remy snorted a laugh. "Nigga, I ain't think you suddenly got a car since yesterday."

Saint shook his head, the grape still working between his teeth. "How many people gonna be over there?"

"Probably like ten. People they work with and they kids mostly."

"They be eating a lot?"

Remy pulled his locker open and looked over at Saint, his eyebrow lifting a fraction. "You know my mama gonna set something aside for you, bruh. C'mon, now."

"I don't know why you just assumed I was asking about food."

"Because you always asking about food."

Saint held a hand up. "I can't help it if I gotta eat."

Remy laughed, his head shaking as he reached into his locker for a spiral notebook. A girl came up the hall toward them and placed herself in the space between their two lockers, her shoulder against the row of metal, her body angled toward Saint.

"Hey, Saint."

Saint nodded to her. "What's up, Addison?"

"The usual." She lifted her hand. She was holding a research paper bound in a clear folder, the pages crisp, the cover sheet typed and centered. "You said a thousand words on Catcher in the Rye, right?"

Saint looked at the folder then back at her. "Yeah."

She smiled. "Good. I had Rollins last year so I'd already done this."

Saint took the folder from her hand. "Appreciate it."

Addison shook her head. "I was glad to help."

Behind her Remy raised an eyebrow, his eyes moving between the two of them as he leaned against his open locker door.

Addison glanced over her shoulder at Remy then turned back to Saint. "We're having a party this weekend. At Shelby's. You should come."

"Maybe so."

She smiled again, her weight shifting off the lockers and back onto her feet. "Alright. I'll text you."

She walked off down the hall, her ponytail swinging behind her. Saint flicked through the pages of the report, his thumb bending the corner of the folder back, scanning the first paragraph. He shrugged to himself and slipped it into his locker on top of the binder.

Remy watched her go then looked at Saint. "Bro, that shit mad weird."

Saint looked at him. "What is?"

"The Pepettes. All that shit."

Saint snorted a laugh and grabbed his fruit cup off the shelf, tipping the last of it into his mouth. He closed the locker and spun the lock. "You can just get on the team and you'd have one, too, bruh."

Remy shook his head, pulling his notebook out and shutting his own locker. "And be called nigga all the time? I'm straight on that."

"Gonna get called that around here anyway." Saint tossed the empty cup into the trash can at the end of the row as they started down the hall. "Might as well get some perks from it."

Remy sucked his teeth. The two of them walked the hall together, the noise of the school rising around them as the next bell got closer.

Brynn walked the sidewalk with her backpack straps pulled tight on both shoulders and her earbuds in, the music loud enough that the bass sat in her jaw. The sun pressed down on the concrete and the yards and the roofs of the houses along the street, the heat already building, the air dry and still.

She turned in at the yard, pushed the gate open and closed it behind her, the latch catching on the second try. Two younger kids came tearing across the grass in front of her, one chasing the other, their feet bare, their voices high and sharp. Brynn stepped to the side, let them pass, walked up the steps to the front door and pushed it open.

The sound of gunfire and explosions hit her before she was through the threshold. Tyler and Brandon sat on the sofa in the living room with controllers in their hands, Call of Duty filling the TV screen, the volume pushed to the top. They leaned and jerked with the action, their mouths running at each other without their eyes ever leaving the screen.

"You're ass, bro."

"Watch, watch, watch—"

"You're literally ass."

Brynn glanced over at them and kept walking. She went into the kitchen where a list of chores hung from the fridge under a magnet, each name written in marker with a task beside it. She scanned down the list until she found hers. Laundry. She looked at it for a second then raised her finger and dragged it across the dry-erase surface, wiping her name clean off the line. The ink smeared under her fingertip and she rubbed it against the side of her jeans.

"I did laundry last week," she said, her voice low enough that only she heard it.

She turned and walked down the hall, past the office with the door half open and the desk lamp on inside, past the bedroom next to it with the door pulled shut, and kept going to the end of the hall where the last door stood closed. She pushed it open.

Alma sat at the desk with her homework spread out in front of her, a textbook open to one side and a spiral notebook on the other, her pencil moving across the page in small careful handwriting. She looked up and waved.

"Hey."

Brynn smiled at her and closed the door behind her, easing it shut until the latch clicked soft in the frame. She crossed to her bed, sat down on the edge and bent forward to untie her shoes, pulling them off one at a time and setting them on the floor next to the frame.

"Did Linda get your check yet?" Alma asked.

Brynn shook her head. "Next week, probably. If it's not late. Why?"

Alma set her pencil down and turned in the chair, her knees drawing together. "I had to spend a lot of mine because I needed new clothes, but this boy in my class asked me on a date and I don't want him to know that I live here so I was going to Uber, like, across town."

"Just meet him at his house or something."

Alma's fingers found the edge of her notebook and she bent the corner back and forth. "I don't want to do that either so he doesn't think... you know."

Brynn pulled her other shoe off and set it beside the first. "Yeah."

"Do you worry about that?" Alma looked at her. "Like when you go out with a guy?"

Brynn snorted a laugh. "When I go see Saint?"

Alma nodded.

"No, but I've known him since we were nine."

"But do y'all, you know?"

Brynn nodded.

"Oh." Alma looked back at her notebook then back at Brynn, her fingers still working the corner of the page. "Well, can you loan me like forty dollars until my next check? I can get an Uber." She paused. "If you have it?"

"Turn around."

Alma turned in her chair and brought her hands up over her eyes, her elbows resting on the back of the seat. Brynn waited a beat, her eyes on Alma's back, then leaned forward and reached under Alma's bed, her arm stretching across the gap between the two frames. Her fingers found the loose piece of wood on the underside of the bed frame and she worked it to the side and reached into the gap. The bills were folded tight against the wood. She pulled the fold out and peeled off five fives, counting them with her thumb, then tucked the rest back into the gap and slid the wood back into place.

"Okay, you can look now."

Alma turned back around. Brynn held the money out to her, the five bills fanned between her fingers.

"Make the boy give you the rest."

Alma took it, pressing the bills together in her palm. "Thanks, Brynn."

"You're welcome." Brynn leaned back, swung her legs up onto the bed and lay down flat, her head finding the pillow, her arms crossing over her stomach. She closed her eyes. "Wake me up if you hear Linda."

Beau came out of the gas station with a six-pack of beer hanging from his fingers, the cardboard handle bending under the weight of the bottles. Paisley followed a step behind him, her purse strap pulled across her chest, her eyes scanning the parking lot as they walked.

"You sure Gracie ain't gonna say nothing?"

Beau kept walking toward the truck. "Gracie don't have to know nothing so you don't have to worry about her saying nothing."

"You acting like we live in Dallas or something." Paisley stopped at the front of the truck and looked at him across the hood. "Gracie lives down the street from my aunt."

"You killing the vibe, Pais. Just get in the truck."

Paisley shook her head and walked around to the passenger side, pulling the door open and climbing in. Beau set the six-pack on the hood of the truck and reached into his pocket for his phone. He thumbed the screen on, read Gracie's last text, and typed back a response with one hand, his thumb moving quick across the glass.

The cruiser pulled up alongside him, the tires rolling slowly over the concrete, the engine idling. The door opened and the officer stepped out, settling his hands on his belt as he stood.

Beau looked up from his phone and turned around.

The officer looked at Beau. His eyes dropped to the six-pack sitting on the hood then came back up.

"Beau."

Beau pocketed his phone. "Officer."

"You boys gonna win state this year? It's been a long time since Permian got one."

"I think we got a shot."

The officer nodded, his thumbs hooking into his belt. "I hope so because I'm getting sick and tired of seeing all these boys from Houston, Austin and Dallas winning everything. Between us and Midland Lee, someone gotta do it eventually."

"Well, I hope it ain't Midland before us."

"That's what I like to hear." The officer leaned to the side and looked past Beau through the windshield at Paisley sitting in the passenger seat. "Ma'am." He straightened up and looked back at Beau and patted him once on the shoulder, his palm flat and firm. "Make sure you don't do nothing stupid. We gonna need you in the fall."

"Yes, sir. I'll do that."

The officer glanced once more at the six-pack on the hood, his eyes resting on it for a beat, then he turned and walked toward the gas station, his keys swinging from his hand.

Beau watched him go. He grabbed the beer off the hood, got into the truck and pulled his door shut and started the engine. He set the six-pack on the seat between them.

Paisley looked over at him. "You got rubbers?"

Beau snorted a laugh as he dropped the truck into reverse. "Hope you on the pill."

Saint got out of Cruz's car, shut the door and stood on the curb for a second as the taillights pulled away down the street. The house sat back from the sidewalk behind a yard that had been mowed recently, the porch light on, the glow of a TV moving behind the front window.

He walked up the path, got his key out of his pocket and unlocked the door and pushed it open. Keen was stretched out on the couch with one arm behind his head and one foot up on the armrest, the TV playing in front of him, the remote balanced on his chest. He lifted two fingers off the remote at Saint and let them drop back down.

In the kitchen Dani stood at the stove with a spatula in her hand, something popping in a skillet in front of her. She turned at the sound of the door and nodded. Saint nodded back.

He started down the hall toward his room. A voice came from the first room on the left, the door open, the desk lamp on inside.

"Saint, come here."

Saint turned into the room. Gary sat behind his desk with a pen in his hand and a stack of papers in front of him, his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead. He set the pen down and leaned back in his chair.

"What's up?"

"You gotta stop stealing, kid." Gary's voice was level. "They're going to assign you a different placement if you keep doing all that."

"At sixteen?"

"At sixteen. Either that, or they're going to kick you out of the system and let you fend for yourself on the street."

Saint shifted his weight against the door frame. "Alright, I hear you."

"Do you?"

Saint nodded. "Yeah, I got you."

Gary looked at him for a beat then shook his head, his eyes dropping back to the papers on his desk. "Carry on then."

Saint pushed off the frame and pulled the door closed behind him. He started down the hall again, his bag hanging from one shoulder, his hand trailing along the wall. Sniffling came through one of the doors ahead of him, small and tight.

Saint looked to the side as he passed. Through the gap where the door sat ajar Colton sat on the floor next to his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, his face pressed into his arms, his shoulders hitching with each breath.

Saint kept walking.

He reached his room at the end of the hall, closed the door behind him and turned the lock until it clicked. He dropped his bag on the floor, sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled his shoes off, setting them against the wall. He reached down and dragged the bag over to him by the strap and unzipped it and pulled out a plate of chocolate chip cookies wrapped in cellophane, Addison's handwriting on a small card tucked under the plastic. He set the plate on the desk, peeled the cellophane off the top, picked up a cookie and bit into it, chewing as he looked around the room.

A knock came at the window, two quick taps against the glass. Saint pushed the curtain back. Brynn stood outside in the dark, her face pale in the light coming through the glass, her hand still raised.

He stood, unlocked the window and slid it up.

"Gary still awake?" she asked.

Saint nodded. "Just gave me shit for stealing again."

Brynn shook her head. "He's gonna get tired of that eventually."

Saint snorted a laugh and held his hands out to her. She took them. He pulled her up and she climbed through the window, one knee on the sill, then the other, her body folding through the frame. She swung her legs down, her feet found the floor and she straightened up inside the room.

She started to sit on the bed and her eyes caught the plate on the desk. She reached out and snatched a cookie off the top of the pile.

"They ain't that good," Saint said.

Brynn shrugged and took a small bite, her jaw working it slowly. Saint sat down on the bed next to her. She toed her shoes off and let them drop to the floor then lay down, scooting over toward the wall, turning to face it. Saint lay down behind her, his arm going around her waist, his chest against her back, the two of them fitting into the narrow bed.

"Remy's finished redoing his parents' shed."

"With all the studio stuff?"

Saint nodded against her shoulder. "Yeah."

"That's cool."

"I can ask him if he'll let you use the new shit if you want."

Brynn took another small bite of the cookie. "I don't know. I can't go over there without you."

"I know. I can make time."

"Okay."

She looked back at him over her shoulder. "Where's your notebook?"

Saint sat up and leaned over the edge of the bed and reached into his bag and pulled the notebook out. He handed it to her and lay back down, his arm going back around her waist. She opened it and turned to the last page. A man stood at a fence, his back to the viewer, his hands resting on the top rail, a pump jack in the field beyond him, the arm of it drawn mid-stroke against an empty sky. She traced her fingers along the lines, her touch light enough that it barely pressed the paper. She turned back a page to the next set of drawings and took another bite of the cookie.

Saint watched her look through them, his chin resting against her shoulder, his breath settling into the rhythm of hers.

[Captain Canada]

Twin flame shit huh? Putting these people threw the poverty blender from the get-go.

[redsox907]

Beau on some good ol boy type shit eh

gonna have them beefing eventually like Jenkins and King