something tells me that when Saint starts getting some shine, good ol' boy gonna be big jealous
now we see where Beau gets his drinking habits from lol
Litany for Survival
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redsox907
- Posts: 5617
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
Litany for Survival
now we see where Beau gets his drinking habits from lol
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16255
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Litany for Survival
It's not easy living on the Basin for a young talented man.Captain Canada wrote: ↑20 Jun 2026, 09:43Beau getting the full Riggins treatment at home
Glad Saint got to shine and it is a little endearing that Saint and Beau have such a solid friendship where they compliment one another on the field rather than being displayed as rivals.
I'm sure you'll nerf that shit soon enough.
They can't just be boys for life?
See above
Runs in the family. The Stanton way.
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Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16255
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Litany for Survival
1.8 Hitch
The bell rang, chairs scraped against the floor, bags came up off the ground and bodies pushed toward the door. Saint finished the stroke he was on, the pencil pulling a line of shadow down the inside of the wrist he'd been working for the last twenty minutes, then lifted the tip off the page.
He closed the notebook, pressing the cover flat so the pages settled, and slid it into his bag. He gathered the pencils one at a time from the row along the top of his desk, each one worn to a different length, the shortest barely longer than his thumb, and put them back in the cardboard sleeve. The sleeve went into the bag beside the notebook. He stood, slung the bag over one shoulder and started for the door.
The last two kids were already through the frame, their voices carrying down the hall and fading into the noise of the building. The overhead fluorescents hummed against the quiet. Sunlight came through the windows along the east wall and fell across the tabletops in long warm slabs, catching flecks of dried paint and eraser dust on the surfaces.
“Saint, hold on a sec.”
He stopped, turned back toward her. Ms. Tierney sat at her desk with a folder open in front of her and a pen resting across the top of it. She reached down to the bag on the floor beside the desk, unzipped the front pocket and came up with a short stack of brochures, the pages glossy, photographs of studio spaces and gallery walls on the covers. She set them on the desk in front of her, tapped the top one with her finger.
“You’re taking art again next year, right?”
Saint nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.” She slid the stack toward him across the desk, her palm flat on top of them until they cleared the edge of the folder. “These are all over the summer. Exhibits, a couple of workshops, one portfolio intensive down in San Antonio. I want you to look through them.”
Saint picked them up, turning the top one over in his hand. The back had dates and locations printed in a column down the right side, a mailing address for a gallery in Lubbock at the bottom, a photograph of a woman standing in front of a canvas twice her height. He scanned the column, his thumb resting on the edge of the stack.
“Most of this ain’t close.”
“I know. But I’ve been thinking about what you said last time, about not having the money or the time.” She leaned forward on her elbows, her hands folded together on the desk. “Some of these have grants attached. They cover travel, materials, entry fees. I already looked into the eligibility and you’d qualify for most of them.”
Saint looked up from the brochures at her. She held his eyes, her fingers pressed together in front of her. The hallway noise came through the open door behind him, lockers closing, sneakers on linoleum, a voice calling someone’s name from the far end of the building.
“I’m not trying to pile something on you. But what you’re doing in here, the work you turn in, it’s not just good for a high school class. It’s good. And I think if you saw what’s out there, what other people are doing at your level, you’d see that too.”
Saint’s jaw worked once to the side. He shifted his weight against the strap on his shoulder. “I ain’t really at nobody’s level. I just draw.”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “You’re not just drawing. You’re doing things with value and composition that people don’t learn until college. You figured that out on your own with a pack of colored pencils from a convenience store.”
Saint looked down at the brochures in his hand. His thumb ran along the edge of the stack, the glossy paper catching the light from the window as it fanned under the pressure. He turned the second one over, a workshop listing in Marfa, the entry form printed on the inside flap. He turned it back.
“I’ll think about it.”
Kaitlyn watched him for a beat, her fingers resting on the edge of the folder in front of her. She nodded. “That’s all I’m asking. But I’m going to keep asking.”
Saint slid the brochures into the front pocket of his bag, the glossy covers bending against the fabric as he worked them in. He zipped the pocket shut, adjusted the strap on his shoulder and started for the door.
Brynn sat at a table along the windows in the cafeteria with Harper on her left and Harper’s friend Peyton across from them, the three of them halfway through lunch. The room was loud around them, voices, trays and the scrape of plastic chairs against the floor rising together under the fluorescents.
Harper had a full tray in front of her, a chicken sandwich still in its foil wrapper, a bag of Lay’s torn open at the top, an apple, a bottle of water. Peyton had a BLT cut in half on wax paper, a bag of pretzels and a Coke with the cap loosened. Brynn had a cup of applesauce she’d gotten with the last of what was on her lunch account and a granola bar she’d taken from a box in Linda’s office, the wrapper peeled halfway down, a single bite out of the top.
She ate the applesauce in small spoonfuls, scraping the plastic spoon along the inside of the cup between bites, turning the cup a quarter rotation in her hand each time she went back in so the spoon caught what had settled on the sides. Her eyes stayed on the table while Harper and Peyton talked about summer.
“We’re doing Destin again. Dad’s already rented the same house we had last year,” Peyton said. “That one with the balcony over the water.”
Harper shook her head. “I wish. My parents are talking about going up to fucking Colorado so my mom can see her aunt. I’m hoping it falls apart. I want to go to a beach, not to fucking Colorado.”
Harper pulled the foil back on her sandwich, tore it in half and took a bite from one of the halves. She chewed twice, swallowed, looked at Brynn.
“What about you? Y’all doing anything?”
Brynn shrugged, the spoon resting against the rim of the cup. “Probably not. We don’t really do trips.”
“You should come to Destin with Peyton.”
Peyton nodded, a pretzel pinched between her fingers. “You could. My mom wouldn’t care.”
Brynn shook her head. “I might be working.”
“Working where?”
“I don’t know yet. Somewhere.”
Harper looked at her for a beat, her sandwich held in both hands, her thumbs pressed into the foil.
She looked back at Peyton. “Have you ever been to Colorado? It’s just like weed and mountains everywhere. It’s worse than Austin.”
Peyton laughed, rolling her eyes as she brought her Coke up toward her mouth. “You just don’t think there’s going to be any cute boys up there.”
“I know. I know there won’t.”
Brynn took another small bite of the granola bar, the oats dry against her tongue, and set it back down on the table. Her fingers pressed the wrapper flat against the surface, smoothing it once, the foil crinkling under her thumb. She scraped the last of the applesauce from the bottom of the cup in two passes of the spoon, the plastic clicking against the plastic, and set the spoon inside the empty cup.
Peyton finished one half of the BLT, wiped her fingers on a napkin, balled the napkin up and dropped it on the tray. She picked up the other half, looked at it for a second, the bacon sticking out past the edge of the bread, the lettuce wilting where the tomato had soaked through it. She set it back down on the wax paper.
“I’m done. I had a huge breakfast.”
She started wrapping the wax paper around the half sandwich, folding the edges over, pulling it toward the edge of her tray.
“Can I have that?”
The words came out before Brynn heard them. Harper and Peyton both looked at her. The table between them held everything it had been holding a second ago, the trays, the wrappers, the empty cup with the spoon in it, the granola bar with its single bite, and Brynn sitting behind all of it with her hands flat on the surface.
Peyton held the half-wrapped sandwich in her hand, her eyebrows lifting a fraction. “It’s just a BLT.”
Brynn’s face held. “That’s my favorite.”
Peyton shrugged, unwrapped the wax paper and held the sandwich out across the table. Brynn took it, her fingers closing around the bread where Peyton’s had been. She set it down in front of her, smoothed the wax paper flat against the table and placed the sandwich on it, centering it on the square of paper. She picked it up, took a small bite, chewed it slow, her jaw working in measured circles, her eyes on the table between them.
Harper watched her for a second then turned back to Peyton.
“The last time we went, there was this kid who thought he was going to have one of those romcom summer flings with me.” Harper sighed, rolling her eyes. “The amount of times I had to tell him I like guys who aren’t afraid of cattle.”
Brynn took another bite of the sandwich, the bacon and the bread and the tomato pressing together between her teeth and chewed it the same way she’d chewed the first.
Beau drove west on Eighth Street with the windows down and the radio playing low through the speakers, one hand draped on top of the wheel, the other resting on the edge of the door where the paint had worn through to the primer.
The evening had flattened the light across the road ahead of them, the sun sitting low over the flats, the shadows of the pump jacks stretching long across the scrub on both sides of the highway. Gracie sat in the passenger seat with her feet tucked under her, her elbow on the door, her hair lifting and falling in the wind coming through the window.
They rode without talking for a while, the radio, wind and tires on the road filling the cab between them. Beau passed a gas station and a strip of fast food restaurants set back from the road, the drive-through lanes backed up with trucks, the parking lots full. He shifted in his seat, his boot adjusting on the gas pedal, his eyes on the road.
Gracie looked over at him. “You thought about doing any camps this summer?”
Beau shrugged, his hand turning once on the wheel. “If something’s close I’ll go.”
Gracie shook her head. “That’s not how it works. You go where the coaches are, not where’s convenient for you. You think those boys from Dallas and Houston are sitting around waiting for somebody to come to them?”
“I ain’t them.”
“That’s the problem.”
Beau glanced over at her, his jaw tightening for a second before it loosened again. He looked back at the road. A truck passed going the other direction, the headlights catching the dust hanging in the air between the lanes.
“I got Tarleton looking at me. I got people watching film. It’s gonna work out.”
Gracie pulled her feet out from under her, sat up straighter in the seat, her body turning toward him. “Tarleton’s in Texas, Beau. And you told me yourself you don’t even want to go there because of Mikey. So what’s the plan?”
His thumb tapped the wheel twice. He watched the road for a beat, his eyes moving across the flats where the pump jacks nodded against the sky. “I’ll figure it out.”
“And your grades?”
Beau snorted a laugh. “I’m passing.”
“Passing what? Passing everything?”
“I’m passing what I need to pass.”
Gracie’s voice dropped. “You’re not passing anything. Paisley is. You can’t fucking get to college relying on some girl who wants to trap you with a baby in hopes you take her out of Odessa. These schools are onto that shit.”
Beau shook his head, his hand lifting off the door and dropping back onto it. “You sound like my fucking guidance counselor.”
“Somebody needs to because you sure as shit ain’t listening to her either.”
“I’m doing fine, Gracie. Can you just chill?”
“No, I can’t chill. Because I’m the one who’s gonna be sitting here watching you waste this while you drink beer with Bailey and act like everything’s gonna figure itself out.” She pressed her back against the seat, her arms folding across her chest. “You got one more year. One. And you’re treating it like you got ten.”
Beau turned the wheel and pulled the truck into her driveway, the tires rolling over the concrete, the chassis rocking once as it settled. He put it in park, his hands resting on the wheel, his eyes straight ahead through the windshield at the garage door.
“I said I’ll figure it out.”
Gracie looked at him. She waited, her hands flat on her thighs, her eyes on the side of his face. He kept his eyes on the garage door. She reached down to the floorboard, grabbed her bag by the strap, pushed the door open and got out. She stood in the driveway with the door still open, one hand on the frame, looking back at him across the bench seat.
“You can’t just hit people harder than everybody else forever and expect that to be enough.”
She shut the door. Beau watched her walk up the path to the house through the passenger window, her bag swinging from her shoulder, her stride steady on the concrete. The porch light came on as she reached the steps.
He sat in the driveway with the engine running, the radio filling the cab, his hands still on the wheel.
The ball hit the concrete and came back up hard into Saint’s hands, the slap of it carrying past the Verrets’ driveway and into the dark of the street. The porch light threw a yellow cone across the concrete and up the face of the garage door where the hoop hung from a rusted bracket, the rim cocked slightly to the left from years of weight on it, the net below it unraveled to threads that barely held together at the bottom.
Rene checked the ball to Saint at the top of the driveway, bouncing it hard off the concrete. Saint caught it, squared his feet, set his hand under the ball and shot. The ball rattled around the rim twice, the metal ringing against the backboard, and dropped through.
Remy sucked his teeth. “Nigga, that ain’t go in.”
“It went in. That’s fifteen.”
Rene grabbed the rebound where it bounced off the concrete and checked it back. “Shoot it again.”
Saint caught it, brought the ball up to his chin and pump faked. Rene jumped, his feet leaving the concrete, his hand rising above the plane of the ball. Saint tucked it against his hip, drove past him on the left side, put the ball off the backboard and in. The rim shook once and the net swung.
Remy shook his head from the edge of the driveway, his arms hanging at his sides. “You just gonna let him walk by you like that?”
Rene turned on him. “Shut your ass up. You got eight points.”
“I got eight playing against both of y’all ’cause y’all been coming at me every possession ‘cause y’all know I’m gonna cook y’all asses if y’all don’t.”
Saint picked the ball up where it had rolled toward the grass. “You just the easiest one to get the ball from.”
Rene laughed and Remy flipped them both off, caught the ball when Saint bounced it to him and checked it in. He crossed left, tried to go right through Saint’s legs and Saint poked the ball loose with his right hand, the leather skipping off Remy’s shin and rolling off the edge of the driveway into the grass. Saint chased it down, scooped it up, turned and hit a jumper from the side of the driveway, his feet set on the line where the concrete met the yard. The ball arced through the porch light and dropped clean through the net.
“Twenty-one.”
Rene waved him off. “You ain’t have twenty-one. You had seventeen.”
“I had nineteen.”
Remy stood at the edge of the driveway with his hands on his hips, his chest working. “He had nineteen.”
Rene looked at him. “Now you on his side? Ain’t I your brother?”
The front door opened, the hinges creaking once, and Jolie stepped out onto the porch with a dish towel draped over her shoulder. The smell of food pushed through the screen behind her, onions, garlic and something with heat to it, the warmth of the kitchen reaching the porch before it mixed with the night air. She leaned her hip against the railing and looked down at the three of them on the driveway.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Y’all got about thirty minutes.”
She came down the steps and crossed the yard to the driveway, her sandals scuffing the concrete as she stopped in front of Saint. Her eyes moved across him, his arms, his face, his frame. She reached up and took hold of his forearm, turning it once in her hand.
“Saint, when’s the last time you had a real meal? You looking thin, baby.”
Saint shrugged. “I’m making do, Miss Jolie.”
Jolie shook her head, the dish towel shifting on her shoulder. “Making do. Boy, you need to tell me when you need something. Food, clothes, somewhere to be. I don’t care what it is. You come to me. Don’t have me find out you out here hungry and ain’t said nothing.”
Saint nodded. “Yes ma’am. I will.”
Jolie looked at him for another second, her hand still on his forearm. She squeezed it once, let go, turned back toward the house. “Thirty minutes. And wash your hands before you come in my kitchen.”
The screen door shut behind her. The smell from the kitchen hung in the air for a beat before the breeze pulled it apart. Remy and Rene stood on the driveway with the ball between them, their breathing settling.
Remy grabbed the ball out of the grass where it had rolled after the last shot, bounced it to Rene. “Run it back.”
Rene checked it in, dribbled once, looking at Saint. “I might have to start charging you for all this food, bruh.”
Saint poked the ball out of his hands before he finished his first dribble, the leather spinning off his fingertips. He caught it on the bounce, stepped back to the edge of the concrete, leaned away from Rene’s reach and put up a fadeaway. The ball turned once against the dark above the porch light and dropped through the net.
“Just gonna start putting money on this shit then.”
Dusk sat on the houses along the street in a flat orange band that ran across the rooflines and the tops of the fences, the yards already in shadow, the porches dark. Keen walked the sidewalk with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, his stride loose, his eyes moving across the house numbers as he counted them down. A dog barked from behind a chain-link two houses ahead and he crossed to the other side of the street, his sneakers quiet on the asphalt, and crossed back when he’d passed it.
Three doors from the corner he turned off the sidewalk and cut along the side of the house, dropping low as he passed the front windows where a lamp threw light across the blinds. The dry grass along the foundation crunched once under his foot and he stopped, held, then kept moving. He reached the back fence, grabbed the top rail with both hands, pulled himself up and over the boards and dropped into the backyard with his knees bending under him as he landed. The yard was small, a concrete patio with a rusted grill pushed against the house, a garden hose coiled on its bracket, the grass patchy and brown.
He stayed low and moved along the back wall, passing under a window where the blue light of a television pulsed against the glass. A man’s shape sat in a recliner on the other side of the curtain, the back of his head visible above the headrest, the light from the screen moving across the fabric. Keen ducked beneath the sill, his shoulder brushing the stucco, and kept going. He rounded the corner to the far side of the house where a second window sat dark and closed, the blinds drawn. He straightened up, checked over his shoulder once at the empty yard behind him, turned back to the glass and knocked twice.
The curtain pulled back and Yesenia’s face appeared behind the glass, her eyes going wide. Her mouth tightened. She pushed the window up a few inches, leaning into the gap, her voice barely above a breath.
“Keen, you can’t be here. My dad’s right in the living room.”
Keen grinned at her, his hands finding the edges of the window frame. “I know. I seen him. He watching that novela again?”
Yesenia shook her head. “I’m serious. If he catches you back here he’s gonna lose his shit.”
“I just wanted to see you. And I got you something.”
He reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small jewelry box, the velvet worn soft at the corners. He opened it and held it up in front of the window. A necklace sat inside on a square of cotton, a thin chain with a small pendant that caught the last of the light still sitting on the roofline above them.
Yesenia’s eyes widened, her hand coming up to her mouth for a second. Her expression shifted, her eyes narrowing as they moved from the necklace to his face. “Where’d you get that?”
Keen shrugged. “Where people get necklaces.”
“Keen.”
“What? I got it for you. You want it or not?”
Yesenia looked at the box in his hand, her fingers resting on the windowsill, her thumbnail pressing into the paint. She held her hand out through the gap. “Give it here.”
Keen pulled the box back an inch. “Let me in so I can put it on you.”
Yesenia rolled her eyes, looking over her shoulder toward the door of her room. She held there, listening. The television murmured from the other side of the house, the volume low, a woman’s voice rising and falling in Spanish. Yesenia turned back to the window, pushed it up the rest of the way and stepped back from the frame.
Keen pulled himself up and through, one knee on the sill, then the other, his hands gripping the frame as he swung his legs down and landed on the carpet. The room was small, a bed pushed against one wall, a desk with schoolwork spread across it, a closet door open with clothes hanging in a tight row.
He took the necklace out of the box, unclasped it, set the empty box on the edge of her desk and stepped behind her. He draped the chain around her neck, his fingers working the clasp at the back, fumbling it once before it caught. He let go and the chain settled against her skin.
Yesenia looked down at the pendant resting against her collarbone, her fingers coming up to touch it, turning it once in the candlelight. A smile spread across her face, slow. Keen leaned to the side to see it, the grin still sitting on his.
Brynn came down the hallway with her jacket zipped to the chest and her phone in her back pocket. In the living room Tyler and Brandon sat on the couch with controllers in their hands, the volume on their game turned low for once, the gunfire coming through the speakers in tinny pops. Tyler glanced up at her as she passed and his eyes went back to the screen.
She passed the kitchen. Linda stood at the counter with a mug held in both hands, the steam rising off it into the overhead light. A paper plate with a few crackers and a smear of peanut butter sat on the counter beside her elbow. She looked up at Brynn over the rim.
“Where you headed?”
Brynn stopped in the doorway, her hand resting on the frame. “Out.”
Linda nodded, took a sip from the mug, set it back down on the counter. “Don’t get into no trouble, Brynn. I’d hate to have to write something up and then they move you to another home.”
“I know.”
“You got your phone?”
“Yeah.”
Linda looked at her for a second, her thumb turning the handle of the mug on the counter. She picked it back up, took another sip and turned toward the office, her free hand already reaching for the doorframe. Brynn pushed through the front door and walked down the steps into the yard.
The air had cooled from the day but the concrete under her shoes still held warmth. The street was quiet, a few porch lights on along the block, a television flickering blue behind a window two houses down. She could smell the dust and the faint chemical edge of the plants carried on the breeze from the east.
Wess truck sat along the curb with the engine running, the exhaust coughing once against the still air, the headlights off. The cab glowed faint from the phone screen Wes held against the steering wheel, his new Twister pulled low, the toothpick pinched between his teeth. Brynn walked around the front of the truck to the passenger side, grabbed the handle and pulled. The hinges groaned as the door swung wide.
Dakota looked up at her from the middle of the bench seat, her legs folded to one side, a smile already on her face. She scooted toward Wes, the vinyl squeaking under her thighs, her shoulder pressing into his arm. Brynn climbed in, pulled the door shut. The latch missed and she pulled it again, harder, the metal catching on the second try. She settled against the passenger door, her shoulder finding the window frame, her knees drawn together.
She set her elbow on the frame, leaning her head against her hand. “Where we going?”
Wes dropped the truck into drive, his hand pulling the wheel as he checked over his shoulder through the back glass. “Got a rodeo over in McCamey. I’m riding tonight.”
Dakota tilted her head back against the seat. “I’m only going because he said he’d pay for everything.”
“I said I’d buy you a beer.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“That’s what I’m saying now.”
Dakota looked at Brynn and rolled her eyes. Brynn shook her head.
Wes pulled away from the curb, Ol’ Betty rattling once over a seam in the asphalt, the houses along the street sliding past the window. He reached for his phone in the cup holder and thumbed at the screen until music came through the speakers, the bass settling into the door panels and the floorboards under their feet.
“How far is McCamey?” Brynn asked.
“About an hour,” Wes said. “Give or take.”
Dakota pulled her feet up onto the bench seat. “Last time we went to one of these things with you, you got thrown in two seconds.”
“Three seconds,” Wes said. “And that bull was rank. Ask anybody.”
“I’m just saying, it’s a lot of driving for not a lot of riding.”
Wes reached over and flicked the side of her knee with his finger. “You ain’t gotta come if you don’t want to.”
“I’m already in the truck.”
“Then quit bitching.”
Dakota kicked his leg and Wes laughed, the toothpick shifting between his teeth. The street gave way to the highway and Midland opened up around them, the gas stations and the strip malls falling behind, the darkness of the basin spreading out on both sides of the road.
Brynn rested her head against the window, the glass warm against her temple, the music vibrating through the door panel into her cheekbone. The flats stretched ahead of them in the last of the light, the road cutting through them in a straight line that ran until it disappeared.
The bell rang, chairs scraped against the floor, bags came up off the ground and bodies pushed toward the door. Saint finished the stroke he was on, the pencil pulling a line of shadow down the inside of the wrist he'd been working for the last twenty minutes, then lifted the tip off the page.
He closed the notebook, pressing the cover flat so the pages settled, and slid it into his bag. He gathered the pencils one at a time from the row along the top of his desk, each one worn to a different length, the shortest barely longer than his thumb, and put them back in the cardboard sleeve. The sleeve went into the bag beside the notebook. He stood, slung the bag over one shoulder and started for the door.
The last two kids were already through the frame, their voices carrying down the hall and fading into the noise of the building. The overhead fluorescents hummed against the quiet. Sunlight came through the windows along the east wall and fell across the tabletops in long warm slabs, catching flecks of dried paint and eraser dust on the surfaces.
“Saint, hold on a sec.”
He stopped, turned back toward her. Ms. Tierney sat at her desk with a folder open in front of her and a pen resting across the top of it. She reached down to the bag on the floor beside the desk, unzipped the front pocket and came up with a short stack of brochures, the pages glossy, photographs of studio spaces and gallery walls on the covers. She set them on the desk in front of her, tapped the top one with her finger.
“You’re taking art again next year, right?”
Saint nodded. “Yeah.”
“Good.” She slid the stack toward him across the desk, her palm flat on top of them until they cleared the edge of the folder. “These are all over the summer. Exhibits, a couple of workshops, one portfolio intensive down in San Antonio. I want you to look through them.”
Saint picked them up, turning the top one over in his hand. The back had dates and locations printed in a column down the right side, a mailing address for a gallery in Lubbock at the bottom, a photograph of a woman standing in front of a canvas twice her height. He scanned the column, his thumb resting on the edge of the stack.
“Most of this ain’t close.”
“I know. But I’ve been thinking about what you said last time, about not having the money or the time.” She leaned forward on her elbows, her hands folded together on the desk. “Some of these have grants attached. They cover travel, materials, entry fees. I already looked into the eligibility and you’d qualify for most of them.”
Saint looked up from the brochures at her. She held his eyes, her fingers pressed together in front of her. The hallway noise came through the open door behind him, lockers closing, sneakers on linoleum, a voice calling someone’s name from the far end of the building.
“I’m not trying to pile something on you. But what you’re doing in here, the work you turn in, it’s not just good for a high school class. It’s good. And I think if you saw what’s out there, what other people are doing at your level, you’d see that too.”
Saint’s jaw worked once to the side. He shifted his weight against the strap on his shoulder. “I ain’t really at nobody’s level. I just draw.”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “You’re not just drawing. You’re doing things with value and composition that people don’t learn until college. You figured that out on your own with a pack of colored pencils from a convenience store.”
Saint looked down at the brochures in his hand. His thumb ran along the edge of the stack, the glossy paper catching the light from the window as it fanned under the pressure. He turned the second one over, a workshop listing in Marfa, the entry form printed on the inside flap. He turned it back.
“I’ll think about it.”
Kaitlyn watched him for a beat, her fingers resting on the edge of the folder in front of her. She nodded. “That’s all I’m asking. But I’m going to keep asking.”
Saint slid the brochures into the front pocket of his bag, the glossy covers bending against the fabric as he worked them in. He zipped the pocket shut, adjusted the strap on his shoulder and started for the door.
Brynn sat at a table along the windows in the cafeteria with Harper on her left and Harper’s friend Peyton across from them, the three of them halfway through lunch. The room was loud around them, voices, trays and the scrape of plastic chairs against the floor rising together under the fluorescents.
Harper had a full tray in front of her, a chicken sandwich still in its foil wrapper, a bag of Lay’s torn open at the top, an apple, a bottle of water. Peyton had a BLT cut in half on wax paper, a bag of pretzels and a Coke with the cap loosened. Brynn had a cup of applesauce she’d gotten with the last of what was on her lunch account and a granola bar she’d taken from a box in Linda’s office, the wrapper peeled halfway down, a single bite out of the top.
She ate the applesauce in small spoonfuls, scraping the plastic spoon along the inside of the cup between bites, turning the cup a quarter rotation in her hand each time she went back in so the spoon caught what had settled on the sides. Her eyes stayed on the table while Harper and Peyton talked about summer.
“We’re doing Destin again. Dad’s already rented the same house we had last year,” Peyton said. “That one with the balcony over the water.”
Harper shook her head. “I wish. My parents are talking about going up to fucking Colorado so my mom can see her aunt. I’m hoping it falls apart. I want to go to a beach, not to fucking Colorado.”
Harper pulled the foil back on her sandwich, tore it in half and took a bite from one of the halves. She chewed twice, swallowed, looked at Brynn.
“What about you? Y’all doing anything?”
Brynn shrugged, the spoon resting against the rim of the cup. “Probably not. We don’t really do trips.”
“You should come to Destin with Peyton.”
Peyton nodded, a pretzel pinched between her fingers. “You could. My mom wouldn’t care.”
Brynn shook her head. “I might be working.”
“Working where?”
“I don’t know yet. Somewhere.”
Harper looked at her for a beat, her sandwich held in both hands, her thumbs pressed into the foil.
She looked back at Peyton. “Have you ever been to Colorado? It’s just like weed and mountains everywhere. It’s worse than Austin.”
Peyton laughed, rolling her eyes as she brought her Coke up toward her mouth. “You just don’t think there’s going to be any cute boys up there.”
“I know. I know there won’t.”
Brynn took another small bite of the granola bar, the oats dry against her tongue, and set it back down on the table. Her fingers pressed the wrapper flat against the surface, smoothing it once, the foil crinkling under her thumb. She scraped the last of the applesauce from the bottom of the cup in two passes of the spoon, the plastic clicking against the plastic, and set the spoon inside the empty cup.
Peyton finished one half of the BLT, wiped her fingers on a napkin, balled the napkin up and dropped it on the tray. She picked up the other half, looked at it for a second, the bacon sticking out past the edge of the bread, the lettuce wilting where the tomato had soaked through it. She set it back down on the wax paper.
“I’m done. I had a huge breakfast.”
She started wrapping the wax paper around the half sandwich, folding the edges over, pulling it toward the edge of her tray.
“Can I have that?”
The words came out before Brynn heard them. Harper and Peyton both looked at her. The table between them held everything it had been holding a second ago, the trays, the wrappers, the empty cup with the spoon in it, the granola bar with its single bite, and Brynn sitting behind all of it with her hands flat on the surface.
Peyton held the half-wrapped sandwich in her hand, her eyebrows lifting a fraction. “It’s just a BLT.”
Brynn’s face held. “That’s my favorite.”
Peyton shrugged, unwrapped the wax paper and held the sandwich out across the table. Brynn took it, her fingers closing around the bread where Peyton’s had been. She set it down in front of her, smoothed the wax paper flat against the table and placed the sandwich on it, centering it on the square of paper. She picked it up, took a small bite, chewed it slow, her jaw working in measured circles, her eyes on the table between them.
Harper watched her for a second then turned back to Peyton.
“The last time we went, there was this kid who thought he was going to have one of those romcom summer flings with me.” Harper sighed, rolling her eyes. “The amount of times I had to tell him I like guys who aren’t afraid of cattle.”
Brynn took another bite of the sandwich, the bacon and the bread and the tomato pressing together between her teeth and chewed it the same way she’d chewed the first.
Beau drove west on Eighth Street with the windows down and the radio playing low through the speakers, one hand draped on top of the wheel, the other resting on the edge of the door where the paint had worn through to the primer.
The evening had flattened the light across the road ahead of them, the sun sitting low over the flats, the shadows of the pump jacks stretching long across the scrub on both sides of the highway. Gracie sat in the passenger seat with her feet tucked under her, her elbow on the door, her hair lifting and falling in the wind coming through the window.
They rode without talking for a while, the radio, wind and tires on the road filling the cab between them. Beau passed a gas station and a strip of fast food restaurants set back from the road, the drive-through lanes backed up with trucks, the parking lots full. He shifted in his seat, his boot adjusting on the gas pedal, his eyes on the road.
Gracie looked over at him. “You thought about doing any camps this summer?”
Beau shrugged, his hand turning once on the wheel. “If something’s close I’ll go.”
Gracie shook her head. “That’s not how it works. You go where the coaches are, not where’s convenient for you. You think those boys from Dallas and Houston are sitting around waiting for somebody to come to them?”
“I ain’t them.”
“That’s the problem.”
Beau glanced over at her, his jaw tightening for a second before it loosened again. He looked back at the road. A truck passed going the other direction, the headlights catching the dust hanging in the air between the lanes.
“I got Tarleton looking at me. I got people watching film. It’s gonna work out.”
Gracie pulled her feet out from under her, sat up straighter in the seat, her body turning toward him. “Tarleton’s in Texas, Beau. And you told me yourself you don’t even want to go there because of Mikey. So what’s the plan?”
His thumb tapped the wheel twice. He watched the road for a beat, his eyes moving across the flats where the pump jacks nodded against the sky. “I’ll figure it out.”
“And your grades?”
Beau snorted a laugh. “I’m passing.”
“Passing what? Passing everything?”
“I’m passing what I need to pass.”
Gracie’s voice dropped. “You’re not passing anything. Paisley is. You can’t fucking get to college relying on some girl who wants to trap you with a baby in hopes you take her out of Odessa. These schools are onto that shit.”
Beau shook his head, his hand lifting off the door and dropping back onto it. “You sound like my fucking guidance counselor.”
“Somebody needs to because you sure as shit ain’t listening to her either.”
“I’m doing fine, Gracie. Can you just chill?”
“No, I can’t chill. Because I’m the one who’s gonna be sitting here watching you waste this while you drink beer with Bailey and act like everything’s gonna figure itself out.” She pressed her back against the seat, her arms folding across her chest. “You got one more year. One. And you’re treating it like you got ten.”
Beau turned the wheel and pulled the truck into her driveway, the tires rolling over the concrete, the chassis rocking once as it settled. He put it in park, his hands resting on the wheel, his eyes straight ahead through the windshield at the garage door.
“I said I’ll figure it out.”
Gracie looked at him. She waited, her hands flat on her thighs, her eyes on the side of his face. He kept his eyes on the garage door. She reached down to the floorboard, grabbed her bag by the strap, pushed the door open and got out. She stood in the driveway with the door still open, one hand on the frame, looking back at him across the bench seat.
“You can’t just hit people harder than everybody else forever and expect that to be enough.”
She shut the door. Beau watched her walk up the path to the house through the passenger window, her bag swinging from her shoulder, her stride steady on the concrete. The porch light came on as she reached the steps.
He sat in the driveway with the engine running, the radio filling the cab, his hands still on the wheel.
The ball hit the concrete and came back up hard into Saint’s hands, the slap of it carrying past the Verrets’ driveway and into the dark of the street. The porch light threw a yellow cone across the concrete and up the face of the garage door where the hoop hung from a rusted bracket, the rim cocked slightly to the left from years of weight on it, the net below it unraveled to threads that barely held together at the bottom.
Rene checked the ball to Saint at the top of the driveway, bouncing it hard off the concrete. Saint caught it, squared his feet, set his hand under the ball and shot. The ball rattled around the rim twice, the metal ringing against the backboard, and dropped through.
Remy sucked his teeth. “Nigga, that ain’t go in.”
“It went in. That’s fifteen.”
Rene grabbed the rebound where it bounced off the concrete and checked it back. “Shoot it again.”
Saint caught it, brought the ball up to his chin and pump faked. Rene jumped, his feet leaving the concrete, his hand rising above the plane of the ball. Saint tucked it against his hip, drove past him on the left side, put the ball off the backboard and in. The rim shook once and the net swung.
Remy shook his head from the edge of the driveway, his arms hanging at his sides. “You just gonna let him walk by you like that?”
Rene turned on him. “Shut your ass up. You got eight points.”
“I got eight playing against both of y’all ’cause y’all been coming at me every possession ‘cause y’all know I’m gonna cook y’all asses if y’all don’t.”
Saint picked the ball up where it had rolled toward the grass. “You just the easiest one to get the ball from.”
Rene laughed and Remy flipped them both off, caught the ball when Saint bounced it to him and checked it in. He crossed left, tried to go right through Saint’s legs and Saint poked the ball loose with his right hand, the leather skipping off Remy’s shin and rolling off the edge of the driveway into the grass. Saint chased it down, scooped it up, turned and hit a jumper from the side of the driveway, his feet set on the line where the concrete met the yard. The ball arced through the porch light and dropped clean through the net.
“Twenty-one.”
Rene waved him off. “You ain’t have twenty-one. You had seventeen.”
“I had nineteen.”
Remy stood at the edge of the driveway with his hands on his hips, his chest working. “He had nineteen.”
Rene looked at him. “Now you on his side? Ain’t I your brother?”
The front door opened, the hinges creaking once, and Jolie stepped out onto the porch with a dish towel draped over her shoulder. The smell of food pushed through the screen behind her, onions, garlic and something with heat to it, the warmth of the kitchen reaching the porch before it mixed with the night air. She leaned her hip against the railing and looked down at the three of them on the driveway.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Y’all got about thirty minutes.”
She came down the steps and crossed the yard to the driveway, her sandals scuffing the concrete as she stopped in front of Saint. Her eyes moved across him, his arms, his face, his frame. She reached up and took hold of his forearm, turning it once in her hand.
“Saint, when’s the last time you had a real meal? You looking thin, baby.”
Saint shrugged. “I’m making do, Miss Jolie.”
Jolie shook her head, the dish towel shifting on her shoulder. “Making do. Boy, you need to tell me when you need something. Food, clothes, somewhere to be. I don’t care what it is. You come to me. Don’t have me find out you out here hungry and ain’t said nothing.”
Saint nodded. “Yes ma’am. I will.”
Jolie looked at him for another second, her hand still on his forearm. She squeezed it once, let go, turned back toward the house. “Thirty minutes. And wash your hands before you come in my kitchen.”
The screen door shut behind her. The smell from the kitchen hung in the air for a beat before the breeze pulled it apart. Remy and Rene stood on the driveway with the ball between them, their breathing settling.
Remy grabbed the ball out of the grass where it had rolled after the last shot, bounced it to Rene. “Run it back.”
Rene checked it in, dribbled once, looking at Saint. “I might have to start charging you for all this food, bruh.”
Saint poked the ball out of his hands before he finished his first dribble, the leather spinning off his fingertips. He caught it on the bounce, stepped back to the edge of the concrete, leaned away from Rene’s reach and put up a fadeaway. The ball turned once against the dark above the porch light and dropped through the net.
“Just gonna start putting money on this shit then.”
Dusk sat on the houses along the street in a flat orange band that ran across the rooflines and the tops of the fences, the yards already in shadow, the porches dark. Keen walked the sidewalk with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, his stride loose, his eyes moving across the house numbers as he counted them down. A dog barked from behind a chain-link two houses ahead and he crossed to the other side of the street, his sneakers quiet on the asphalt, and crossed back when he’d passed it.
Three doors from the corner he turned off the sidewalk and cut along the side of the house, dropping low as he passed the front windows where a lamp threw light across the blinds. The dry grass along the foundation crunched once under his foot and he stopped, held, then kept moving. He reached the back fence, grabbed the top rail with both hands, pulled himself up and over the boards and dropped into the backyard with his knees bending under him as he landed. The yard was small, a concrete patio with a rusted grill pushed against the house, a garden hose coiled on its bracket, the grass patchy and brown.
He stayed low and moved along the back wall, passing under a window where the blue light of a television pulsed against the glass. A man’s shape sat in a recliner on the other side of the curtain, the back of his head visible above the headrest, the light from the screen moving across the fabric. Keen ducked beneath the sill, his shoulder brushing the stucco, and kept going. He rounded the corner to the far side of the house where a second window sat dark and closed, the blinds drawn. He straightened up, checked over his shoulder once at the empty yard behind him, turned back to the glass and knocked twice.
The curtain pulled back and Yesenia’s face appeared behind the glass, her eyes going wide. Her mouth tightened. She pushed the window up a few inches, leaning into the gap, her voice barely above a breath.
“Keen, you can’t be here. My dad’s right in the living room.”
Keen grinned at her, his hands finding the edges of the window frame. “I know. I seen him. He watching that novela again?”
Yesenia shook her head. “I’m serious. If he catches you back here he’s gonna lose his shit.”
“I just wanted to see you. And I got you something.”
He reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small jewelry box, the velvet worn soft at the corners. He opened it and held it up in front of the window. A necklace sat inside on a square of cotton, a thin chain with a small pendant that caught the last of the light still sitting on the roofline above them.
Yesenia’s eyes widened, her hand coming up to her mouth for a second. Her expression shifted, her eyes narrowing as they moved from the necklace to his face. “Where’d you get that?”
Keen shrugged. “Where people get necklaces.”
“Keen.”
“What? I got it for you. You want it or not?”
Yesenia looked at the box in his hand, her fingers resting on the windowsill, her thumbnail pressing into the paint. She held her hand out through the gap. “Give it here.”
Keen pulled the box back an inch. “Let me in so I can put it on you.”
Yesenia rolled her eyes, looking over her shoulder toward the door of her room. She held there, listening. The television murmured from the other side of the house, the volume low, a woman’s voice rising and falling in Spanish. Yesenia turned back to the window, pushed it up the rest of the way and stepped back from the frame.
Keen pulled himself up and through, one knee on the sill, then the other, his hands gripping the frame as he swung his legs down and landed on the carpet. The room was small, a bed pushed against one wall, a desk with schoolwork spread across it, a closet door open with clothes hanging in a tight row.
He took the necklace out of the box, unclasped it, set the empty box on the edge of her desk and stepped behind her. He draped the chain around her neck, his fingers working the clasp at the back, fumbling it once before it caught. He let go and the chain settled against her skin.
Yesenia looked down at the pendant resting against her collarbone, her fingers coming up to touch it, turning it once in the candlelight. A smile spread across her face, slow. Keen leaned to the side to see it, the grin still sitting on his.
Brynn came down the hallway with her jacket zipped to the chest and her phone in her back pocket. In the living room Tyler and Brandon sat on the couch with controllers in their hands, the volume on their game turned low for once, the gunfire coming through the speakers in tinny pops. Tyler glanced up at her as she passed and his eyes went back to the screen.
She passed the kitchen. Linda stood at the counter with a mug held in both hands, the steam rising off it into the overhead light. A paper plate with a few crackers and a smear of peanut butter sat on the counter beside her elbow. She looked up at Brynn over the rim.
“Where you headed?”
Brynn stopped in the doorway, her hand resting on the frame. “Out.”
Linda nodded, took a sip from the mug, set it back down on the counter. “Don’t get into no trouble, Brynn. I’d hate to have to write something up and then they move you to another home.”
“I know.”
“You got your phone?”
“Yeah.”
Linda looked at her for a second, her thumb turning the handle of the mug on the counter. She picked it back up, took another sip and turned toward the office, her free hand already reaching for the doorframe. Brynn pushed through the front door and walked down the steps into the yard.
The air had cooled from the day but the concrete under her shoes still held warmth. The street was quiet, a few porch lights on along the block, a television flickering blue behind a window two houses down. She could smell the dust and the faint chemical edge of the plants carried on the breeze from the east.
Wess truck sat along the curb with the engine running, the exhaust coughing once against the still air, the headlights off. The cab glowed faint from the phone screen Wes held against the steering wheel, his new Twister pulled low, the toothpick pinched between his teeth. Brynn walked around the front of the truck to the passenger side, grabbed the handle and pulled. The hinges groaned as the door swung wide.
Dakota looked up at her from the middle of the bench seat, her legs folded to one side, a smile already on her face. She scooted toward Wes, the vinyl squeaking under her thighs, her shoulder pressing into his arm. Brynn climbed in, pulled the door shut. The latch missed and she pulled it again, harder, the metal catching on the second try. She settled against the passenger door, her shoulder finding the window frame, her knees drawn together.
She set her elbow on the frame, leaning her head against her hand. “Where we going?”
Wes dropped the truck into drive, his hand pulling the wheel as he checked over his shoulder through the back glass. “Got a rodeo over in McCamey. I’m riding tonight.”
Dakota tilted her head back against the seat. “I’m only going because he said he’d pay for everything.”
“I said I’d buy you a beer.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“That’s what I’m saying now.”
Dakota looked at Brynn and rolled her eyes. Brynn shook her head.
Wes pulled away from the curb, Ol’ Betty rattling once over a seam in the asphalt, the houses along the street sliding past the window. He reached for his phone in the cup holder and thumbed at the screen until music came through the speakers, the bass settling into the door panels and the floorboards under their feet.
“How far is McCamey?” Brynn asked.
“About an hour,” Wes said. “Give or take.”
Dakota pulled her feet up onto the bench seat. “Last time we went to one of these things with you, you got thrown in two seconds.”
“Three seconds,” Wes said. “And that bull was rank. Ask anybody.”
“I’m just saying, it’s a lot of driving for not a lot of riding.”
Wes reached over and flicked the side of her knee with his finger. “You ain’t gotta come if you don’t want to.”
“I’m already in the truck.”
“Then quit bitching.”
Dakota kicked his leg and Wes laughed, the toothpick shifting between his teeth. The street gave way to the highway and Midland opened up around them, the gas stations and the strip malls falling behind, the darkness of the basin spreading out on both sides of the road.
Brynn rested her head against the window, the glass warm against her temple, the music vibrating through the door panel into her cheekbone. The flats stretched ahead of them in the last of the light, the road cutting through them in a straight line that ran until it disappeared.
-
Caesar
Topic author - Chise GOAT
- Posts: 16255
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 10:47
Litany for Survival
1.9 Dogleg
Holt’s truck eased to the curb in front of Kendrick’s house, the tires rolling slow over the asphalt, the engine settling to an idle before he killed it. The house sat single-story on a quiet street, the yard trimmed close, a sprinkler head ticking in slow circles near the edge of the driveway, the water darkening the concrete where it reached. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the passenger seat, checked the label once with his thumb across the glass and stepped out.
The walkway was clean concrete, the hedges along the foundation cut square, a welcome mat at the front door with the edges worn down. He knocked twice. Footsteps came from inside the house and Donna opened the door with a dish towel in her hand, her reading glasses pushed up on her head, the kitchen behind her warm with light and the faint smell of something baking.
She looked at him, then at the bottle. “Holt. I should’ve known when Dale went and sat out back an hour ago.”
Holt smiled, holding the bottle up between them. “I brought the good stuff this time.”
Donna shook her head, taking the bottle from his hand, turning it once to look at the label. “Y’all are gonna drink my husband into retirement.”
“No, ma’am. That man’s gonna die on that sideline and we both know it.”
Donna laughed, her hand already waving him through the door. “He’s out back with Buck. You want some tea?”
“I’d take a glass.”
He walked through the living room, his boots quiet on the carpet. The shelves along the wall were lined with team photos going back decades, the early ones faded, the colors shifting toward yellow at the edges. A signed football sat in a glass case on the mantle beside a framed photograph of Kendrick on the sideline at Ratliff Stadium, younger, thinner, his arm raised above his head.
Kendrick sat in a wooden chair with his boots flat on the deck and his cap pulled low, a glass of iced tea sweating on the rail beside his elbow. Buck lay stretched across the boards at his feet, his ribs rising and falling, his chin resting flat on his paws. The backyard ran to a wooden fence at the back, the grass cut short, a pecan tree standing in the far corner with its branches spreading over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.
Kendrick kept his eyes on the yard. “Holt.”
Holt sat down in the chair beside him, the wood creaking once under his weight, and settled back into it. The sprinkler ticked around the side of the house, the water hissing against the grass. Buck’s ribs moved in and out on the boards.
“Dog’s getting fat.”
Kendrick looked down at Buck. “He’s retired.”
“So, I know that you’ll be fat one day, too.”
They sat for a while, the two chairs angled toward the yard, the glasses on the rail between them. A mockingbird called from the pecan tree and went quiet.
Holt said, “How you feeling about camp?”
Kendrick took a sip from his tea, set it back on the rail. “Defense is ahead of where it was this time last year. Secondary’s young but Cruz is gonna hold it together. Offense is Beau.”
Holt nodded. “Beau’s the best running back in West Texas.”
“Beau’s the best running back in the state.”
Holt let that sit for a second, his fingers resting on the arm of the chair. “Teams are gonna figure that out. They’re gonna load that box up and dare Tanner to throw.”
Kendrick’s eyes stayed on the yard.
Holt said, “You’re gonna have to let Saint run, Dale. Not as a change of pace. Let him run.”
Kendrick’s jaw shifted once. “That boy’s got to learn to run the way we tell him to run.”
“You can’t put reins on how they play ball. That boy runs the way he runs because that’s in his DNA, how they run. You try to make him Beau and you lose what makes ‘em dangerous.”
Kendrick shook his head. “I didn’t get to thirty years doing this by letting players freelance out there. You give one of them the green light and the whole offense starts thinking they know better.”
“I’m not saying give him the green light. I’m saying the play can have a longer leash.”
Kendrick looked at him for the first time, turning his head slow, his eyes level under the brim of his cap. “I’ll run my offense.”
Holt held his hands up off the arms of the chair. “And nobody does it better. I’m just telling you what I see.”
The screen door pushed open and Donna came through with a glass of tea in her hand, the ice clinking as she crossed the porch. She handed it to Holt and stood for a second, looking out at the yard, her arms folding across her chest.
“Y’all solved the world’s problems yet?”
“Working on it.”
She went back inside and the screen door settled shut behind her, the spring stretching once and going still. Buck shifted his weight on the boards, his back legs straightening, his eyes staying closed. The sky went darker, the color draining out of it from the top.
Holt took a sip of the tea, set it on the rail next to Kendrick’s. “Wade’s been watching a kid in Monahans. Left tackle. Family might be open to a move.”
Kendrick nodded once, his eyes on the yard. “Don’t start no trouble around my team.”
“I’d never do that.”
Kendrick picked up his tea and drank from it, his other hand resting on the arm of the chair. Buck breathed on the boards between them.
The vendor tents ran in two rows along the dirt behind the arena, tarps and canvas stretched over folding tables lit from underneath by clip-on lamps and the spill from the arena lights beyond the fence. Brynn and Dakota moved through the crowd between them, the dust kicked up from the foot traffic hanging waist-high in the light, the smell of livestock, funnel cake and hot metal carrying across the grounds. Families passed with kids on their shoulders, the children’s hands sticky, their faces turned toward the arena where the PA crackled. Men in boots and hats stood in clusters with beers, and a few women in jeans and turquoise jewelry stopped at tables laid out with belt buckles, leather wallets, bolo ties on velvet boards.
Dakota grabbed Brynn by the elbow and pulled her toward a tent where a man had hats displayed on wooden stands in rows, felts on one side, straws on the other, the brims fanning out at different heights. Tools, hat forms and a small steamer sat on a folding table behind him, a hand-painted sign propped against the leg of the table reading CUSTOM SHAPING $15.
Dakota picked up a burgundy felt off the nearest stand, turned it over once in her hands and put it on. She faced Brynn with her chin tilted up, one hand on the crown, her weight shifting to her back foot.
“How do I look?”
Brynn looked at her, shook her head. “Black’s more my color.”
Dakota scrunched her nose, lifted the burgundy off her head and set it back on the stand. She reached for a black one on the row behind it, her fingers closing around the brim, then stopped when the price tag swung into view. She let go of it and the tag settled back against the crown.
The vendor leaned forward on his stool, his arms resting on his knees, a can of Cope visible in the front pocket of his pearl snap. “I can shape one to fit you right here if you want. Take me about ten minutes.”
Brynn ran her finger along the brim of a straw hat on the stand closest to her, the weave rough under her fingertip. “I don’t have the money for it.”
Dakota elbowed her in the side. “Just come back after Wes wins and get it from him.”
Brynn shrugged. “Maybe.”
They walked out of the tent and started back toward the arena, the announcer’s voice breaking over the PA in the distance, calling a score from the bareback riding. The crowd thickened as they got closer to the gate, bodies funneling between the fence and the last row of vendor tables, the dirt packed down to hardpan under the traffic. A woman sold tamales out of a cooler near the gate, a cardboard sign taped to the lid with the price written in marker.
Three men passed them going the other direction, older, early twenties, beers in their hands, their boots scuffed white at the toes. The one closest to Dakota wore a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, the frayed edges hanging loose. He looked back over his shoulder at her as they passed, said something to the other two that Brynn couldn’t hear. The second one laughed.
Dakota leaned into Brynn, her mouth close to her ear. “Get one of them to buy you the hat.”
Brynn rolled her eyes. “They’re gonna expect something.”
“So?”
Dakota was already turning around, her body shifting, her smile pulling into place as she slowed her walk enough for the three of them to notice. She called back over the noise of the crowd.
“Y’all from around here?”
The one in the denim jacket stopped, turning. “Born and raised. Y’all ain’t though.”
“What gave it away?”
The second one shifted his beer to his other hand. “Y’all ain’t dusty enough.”
Dakota laughed, louder than the joke earned, her hand coming up to touch the side of her neck. She looked at Brynn. Brynn looked at the three of them, her hands in her back pockets, her weight settled on one hip. She pulled a small smile.
“We’re just here for the bulls.”
The third one grinned at her. “Y’all don’t look very rodeo ready without hats.”
Dakota tilted her head. “Funny you say that. We were just looking to buy a couple.”
Brynn nodded. “Couldn’t decide on a color.”
The one in the denim jacket looked at his friends, shrugged, his beer hanging loose from his fingers. He started walking back toward the vendor tent. The other two followed, one of them finishing his beer and dropping the can in a trash barrel as he passed it.
Dakota and Brynn hung back a few steps, the gap opening between them and the men. The crowd moved around them on both sides, the arena lights throwing their shadows long and thin across the dirt. Dakota kept her smile until the men were far enough ahead, then dropped it. She leaned into Brynn, her voice low.
“We’re leaving tonight anyway.”
Brynn shook her head. “McCamey ain’t that big.”
The two of them walked back into the tent.
Kaitlyn’s car rolled to a stop along the curb in front of a single-story house on a residential street on the south side of Odessa, the yard flat and dry, the grass gone to seed along the edges of the walkway. A chain-link fence ran across the front of the property, the gate standing open, a pair of bikes leaning against the siding near the side of the house, one of them missing its front wheel. She put the car in park, grabbed her phone out of the cup holder and checked the address she’d copied from her gradebook against the GPS on the screen. The numbers matched. She looked at the house through the windshield, the blinds drawn on the front windows, a sprinkler head sitting crooked in the dirt near the driveway.
She got out, locked the car behind her and walked up to the front door. The screen door rattled in its frame when she knocked, the aluminum vibrating against the latch. She waited, her keys in her hand, the heat pressing against her shoulders and the back of her neck.
The front door opened and a white boy stood in the gap, twelve years old, his hair cut short, a Kool-Aid stain on the collar of his shirt. His eyes moved up to her face. His hand stayed on the knob.
Kaitlyn shifted her weight. “Hi. Does Toussaint Bazile live here?”
The boy stared at her for a second. “Ain’t no Toussaint here.”
Kaitlyn nodded. “Saint maybe?”
The boy nodded. “Got a Saint.”
“Is he home?”
The boy shook his head. A white man appeared behind him in the hallway, his hand coming down on the boy’s shoulder, pulling him back from the door. He looked down at him.
“Colton, I told you not to answer the door without asking me first.”
Colton stepped back from the door and disappeared into the house, his bare feet quiet on the carpet. The man filled the doorway, his arms thick, his polo tucked into his jeans, a ring of keys clipped to his belt loop. He looked at Kaitlyn, his eyes moving across her, the lanyard hanging from her pocket, the car in the driveway behind her.
“You with CPS?”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “No. I’m a teacher at the high school.”
The man nodded, his hand resting on the doorframe. “Which one are you looking for? Saint, Dani or Joaquin?”
Kaitlyn paused. Her mouth opened, closed. “Saint.”
The man stepped aside, holding the screen door open with his shoulder. “Come on in.”
Kaitlyn stepped inside. The hallway was dim, the overhead light off, the afternoon coming through the gaps in the blinds in thin slats across the carpet. The carpet was flat and beige, the walls bare except for a chore chart tacked up near the kitchen entrance, names written in marker next to tasks in a grid, checkmarks and X’s filling the squares. A television played low in the living room at the end of the hall, the blue light of it moving across the ceiling, the couch empty.
The man walked into the kitchen and she followed. The kitchen was small, the counters clear, a dish rack beside the sink with plates stacked in it, a box of cereal sitting on top of the refrigerator. He pulled a glass from the cabinet, filled it from the tap, set it down on the table in front of an empty chair. He pulled the chair across from it out and sat down, his hands coming together on the surface.
“Gary Pruitt.”
Kaitlyn sat down, her fingers wrapping around the glass. “Kaitlyn Tierney. I teach art at Permian.” She looked at him, her eyes moving to the chore chart visible through the kitchen doorway then back to Gary. “You’re not what I was expecting.”
Gary leaned back in the chair, his arms folding across his chest. “You know Saint’s a foster kid, right?”
Kaitlyn held the glass in both hands. “I didn’t.”
Gary nodded. “I got four kids with me right now. Saint, Dani, Joaquin, and Colton.” He tilted his head toward the living room where Colton had gone. “He in trouble?”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “No. He’s not in any trouble. I’m his teacher and he’s talented. Really talented. I gave him some brochures for exhibits and workshops over the summer and I wanted to talk to his —”
She stopped. Gary watched her, his arms still crossed, his weight settled back in the chair.
She said, “I wanted to see if I could convince someone to help him get to some of them.”
Gary rubbed his jaw with his thumb, his eyes on the table for a second before they came back up. “It’s tough to do a lot with what the state gives me. There’s four of them and one of me and the money don’t stretch.”
“Some of the programs have grants. They cover travel, materials, registration. He wouldn’t need much beyond getting the applications in.”
“He know how to do all that?”
“I told him I’d help him with them.”
Gary nodded, his thumb still resting against his jaw. “That’s good of you. Most of their teachers don’t care. They ain’t the easiest kids to deal with. Definitely don’t come out here.”
“I didn’t know there was an out here to come to.”
Gary looked at her for a beat. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
Kaitlyn took a sip from the water, set the glass back down on the table. The ice settled. From the living room the television shifted to a commercial, the volume rising a notch, Colton’s weight shifting on the floor.
“Anything you think that he could get there on his own? If the grants come through?”
“Depends on what you mean by close. I can get him to Odessa, Midland. Anything past that and I’d need more notice than these kids usually give me.”
“The one in Lubbock is in July. The San Antonio one is later in the summer.”
“Lubbock I could maybe do. San Antonio’s a different conversation.” He unfolded his arms, set his hands flat on the table. “I’ll tell him to fill the applications out. If the money comes through, we’ll figure the rest out.”
Kaitlyn nodded. “How long has Saint been with you?”
“Few years now. He bounced around before that, from what I was told.”
“Do you know where he’s from? What happened to his parents?”
Gary looked at her for a beat, his arms crossing again. “Louisiana. And I ain’t ask. I learned a long time ago not to make these kids relive something they already lived through once.”
Kaitlyn nodded. She stood, pushed the chair back from the table, the legs scraping the linoleum. “Thank you for the water, Mr. Pruitt. And for your time.”
Gary stayed in his chair, his hands resting on the table. “I’ll let Saint know you came by.”
Kaitlyn walked back through the house, past the chore chart with its grid of names and checkmarks, past the living room where Colton sat on the carpet with his legs crossed, his face lit by the television, and out the front door. The screen door clapped shut behind her. She walked to her car, got in, pulled the door closed.
She sat with her hands on the steering wheel, her eyes on the house. The chain-link fence. The bikes against the siding. The blinds drawn on every window. The sprinkler head sitting crooked in the dirt. She sat there for a while before she started the car.
Beau’s truck sat at the end of a dirt track on the outskirts of Odessa where the houses gave out and the scrub took over, the tailgate down, two shotguns leaning against it, a couple cases of Keystone and a few boxes of shells sitting in the bed. A line of empty beer cans stood on a rusted fence rail twenty yards out, the cans spaced unevenly, some dented from earlier rounds, the rail orange with scale.
Saint stood at the tailgate with his hip against the bumper, a beer resting beside his hand. Cruz sat on the open tailgate with his shoes hanging off the edge. Beau picked up one of the shotguns, racked a shell into the chamber, the action clicking hard, brought the stock up to his shoulder, settled his cheek against the wood and fired. The report cracked across the flats and rolled out into the empty distance beyond the fence. The can on the far left jumped off the rail, spun once in the air and landed in the dirt.
Beau lowered the shotgun, the barrel trailing smoke. “Looks like I got a future in being a sharpshooter, boys.”
Cruz reached behind him into the bed of the truck, grabbed a beer from the case and cracked it open, the foam running over his knuckle. “You’re shooting the one closest to you. You ducking the harder ones.”
“I ain’t ducking shit. I’m warming up. And pause.”
Saint snorted a laugh, reached into the box of shells on the tailgate, pulled two out and loaded the other shotgun, sliding them in one at a time, the brass clicking against the receiver. He brought it up, sighted down the barrel, the bead settling on the can at the far right of the rail, and squeezed. The can pinged off the rail and disappeared into the brush behind the fence, the sound of it landing somewhere in the saltbush.
Saint lowered the gun, picked up his beer off the tailgate and took a sip.
Cruz said, “So I got a call from UTEP.”
Beau looked at him. “Yeah?”
Cruz nodded, his beer resting on his thigh. “Yeah. Asking me to come down and check it out over the summer.”
Beau racked another shell into the chamber, brought the shotgun up. “They called me too.” He fired. A can flew off the rail, the metal catching the light as it tumbled. He lowered the gun. “But I’d just leave Texas if I was gonna live on the tip of it. Don’t make a lick of sense to half ass it.”
Saint shook his head, a grin pulling at the side of his mouth. “Bro, you wouldn’t leave Texas if somebody paid you a million dollars.”
“Because it’s got everything you could want. Why would I leave?”
Cruz took a sip from his beer. “Because you ain’t been nowhere else.”
Beau pointed the shotgun at the fence, his eye closing over the bead. “I ain’t never lived nowhere else. I been plenty places.”
A truck passed on the road behind them, the headlights sweeping across the brush for a second before it was gone. The dust it kicked up drifted over the track and settled. Saint picked up a handful of shells from the box, loading them into the shotgun one at a time, each one sliding in with a click.
“I got a letter from Texas Southern.” He slid another shell in. “And one from Central Arkansas.”
Beau nodded, cracked open a beer, the can hissing against his palm. “The calls gonna start coming then. Especially Texas Southern. Get you away from all these crackers.” He gestured the beer at the brush around them, the flats, the sky.
Cruz laughed from the tailgate.
Saint brought the shotgun up and fired. The can in the middle popped off the rail, the report rolling out across the scrub and fading. He lowered the gun.
“Me and Brynn always said we gonna leave together. Go somewhere up north or some shit.”
Cruz looked at him over the rim of his beer. “What’s Brynn’s deal anyway? Like, y’all together or what?”
Beau shook his head. “Mind your fucking business, Cruz.”
Cruz held his free hand up, the beer still in the other. “I’m just asking, bro.”
“And I’m just telling you to shut the fuck up.”
Saint lowered the shotgun, the stock resting against his thigh. “It’s cool.” He racked another shell, his eyes on the fence, the remaining cans sitting still on the rail in the last of the light. “I been trying to get somewhere in Illinois or some shit. Get out of here.”
Beau took a long pull from his beer, shaking his head. “Illinois? Bro, at least pick somewhere that ain’t gonna freeze your dick off if you gonna leave Texas.”
Cruz set his beer on the tailgate, hopped down, picked up the other shotgun and loaded it, the shells clicking into the tube. “I’m surprised you don’t want to go back to Louisiana.”
Saint brought his shotgun up and fired. The last can on the rail kicked off into the dirt, the sound of it hitting the ground lost under the report. He lowered the gun, the barrel still trailing a thin line of smoke into the evening air.
“Ain’t nothing there for me.”
Holt’s truck eased to the curb in front of Kendrick’s house, the tires rolling slow over the asphalt, the engine settling to an idle before he killed it. The house sat single-story on a quiet street, the yard trimmed close, a sprinkler head ticking in slow circles near the edge of the driveway, the water darkening the concrete where it reached. He grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the passenger seat, checked the label once with his thumb across the glass and stepped out.
The walkway was clean concrete, the hedges along the foundation cut square, a welcome mat at the front door with the edges worn down. He knocked twice. Footsteps came from inside the house and Donna opened the door with a dish towel in her hand, her reading glasses pushed up on her head, the kitchen behind her warm with light and the faint smell of something baking.
She looked at him, then at the bottle. “Holt. I should’ve known when Dale went and sat out back an hour ago.”
Holt smiled, holding the bottle up between them. “I brought the good stuff this time.”
Donna shook her head, taking the bottle from his hand, turning it once to look at the label. “Y’all are gonna drink my husband into retirement.”
“No, ma’am. That man’s gonna die on that sideline and we both know it.”
Donna laughed, her hand already waving him through the door. “He’s out back with Buck. You want some tea?”
“I’d take a glass.”
He walked through the living room, his boots quiet on the carpet. The shelves along the wall were lined with team photos going back decades, the early ones faded, the colors shifting toward yellow at the edges. A signed football sat in a glass case on the mantle beside a framed photograph of Kendrick on the sideline at Ratliff Stadium, younger, thinner, his arm raised above his head.
Kendrick sat in a wooden chair with his boots flat on the deck and his cap pulled low, a glass of iced tea sweating on the rail beside his elbow. Buck lay stretched across the boards at his feet, his ribs rising and falling, his chin resting flat on his paws. The backyard ran to a wooden fence at the back, the grass cut short, a pecan tree standing in the far corner with its branches spreading over the fence into the neighbor’s yard.
Kendrick kept his eyes on the yard. “Holt.”
Holt sat down in the chair beside him, the wood creaking once under his weight, and settled back into it. The sprinkler ticked around the side of the house, the water hissing against the grass. Buck’s ribs moved in and out on the boards.
“Dog’s getting fat.”
Kendrick looked down at Buck. “He’s retired.”
“So, I know that you’ll be fat one day, too.”
They sat for a while, the two chairs angled toward the yard, the glasses on the rail between them. A mockingbird called from the pecan tree and went quiet.
Holt said, “How you feeling about camp?”
Kendrick took a sip from his tea, set it back on the rail. “Defense is ahead of where it was this time last year. Secondary’s young but Cruz is gonna hold it together. Offense is Beau.”
Holt nodded. “Beau’s the best running back in West Texas.”
“Beau’s the best running back in the state.”
Holt let that sit for a second, his fingers resting on the arm of the chair. “Teams are gonna figure that out. They’re gonna load that box up and dare Tanner to throw.”
Kendrick’s eyes stayed on the yard.
Holt said, “You’re gonna have to let Saint run, Dale. Not as a change of pace. Let him run.”
Kendrick’s jaw shifted once. “That boy’s got to learn to run the way we tell him to run.”
“You can’t put reins on how they play ball. That boy runs the way he runs because that’s in his DNA, how they run. You try to make him Beau and you lose what makes ‘em dangerous.”
Kendrick shook his head. “I didn’t get to thirty years doing this by letting players freelance out there. You give one of them the green light and the whole offense starts thinking they know better.”
“I’m not saying give him the green light. I’m saying the play can have a longer leash.”
Kendrick looked at him for the first time, turning his head slow, his eyes level under the brim of his cap. “I’ll run my offense.”
Holt held his hands up off the arms of the chair. “And nobody does it better. I’m just telling you what I see.”
The screen door pushed open and Donna came through with a glass of tea in her hand, the ice clinking as she crossed the porch. She handed it to Holt and stood for a second, looking out at the yard, her arms folding across her chest.
“Y’all solved the world’s problems yet?”
“Working on it.”
She went back inside and the screen door settled shut behind her, the spring stretching once and going still. Buck shifted his weight on the boards, his back legs straightening, his eyes staying closed. The sky went darker, the color draining out of it from the top.
Holt took a sip of the tea, set it on the rail next to Kendrick’s. “Wade’s been watching a kid in Monahans. Left tackle. Family might be open to a move.”
Kendrick nodded once, his eyes on the yard. “Don’t start no trouble around my team.”
“I’d never do that.”
Kendrick picked up his tea and drank from it, his other hand resting on the arm of the chair. Buck breathed on the boards between them.
The vendor tents ran in two rows along the dirt behind the arena, tarps and canvas stretched over folding tables lit from underneath by clip-on lamps and the spill from the arena lights beyond the fence. Brynn and Dakota moved through the crowd between them, the dust kicked up from the foot traffic hanging waist-high in the light, the smell of livestock, funnel cake and hot metal carrying across the grounds. Families passed with kids on their shoulders, the children’s hands sticky, their faces turned toward the arena where the PA crackled. Men in boots and hats stood in clusters with beers, and a few women in jeans and turquoise jewelry stopped at tables laid out with belt buckles, leather wallets, bolo ties on velvet boards.
Dakota grabbed Brynn by the elbow and pulled her toward a tent where a man had hats displayed on wooden stands in rows, felts on one side, straws on the other, the brims fanning out at different heights. Tools, hat forms and a small steamer sat on a folding table behind him, a hand-painted sign propped against the leg of the table reading CUSTOM SHAPING $15.
Dakota picked up a burgundy felt off the nearest stand, turned it over once in her hands and put it on. She faced Brynn with her chin tilted up, one hand on the crown, her weight shifting to her back foot.
“How do I look?”
Brynn looked at her, shook her head. “Black’s more my color.”
Dakota scrunched her nose, lifted the burgundy off her head and set it back on the stand. She reached for a black one on the row behind it, her fingers closing around the brim, then stopped when the price tag swung into view. She let go of it and the tag settled back against the crown.
The vendor leaned forward on his stool, his arms resting on his knees, a can of Cope visible in the front pocket of his pearl snap. “I can shape one to fit you right here if you want. Take me about ten minutes.”
Brynn ran her finger along the brim of a straw hat on the stand closest to her, the weave rough under her fingertip. “I don’t have the money for it.”
Dakota elbowed her in the side. “Just come back after Wes wins and get it from him.”
Brynn shrugged. “Maybe.”
They walked out of the tent and started back toward the arena, the announcer’s voice breaking over the PA in the distance, calling a score from the bareback riding. The crowd thickened as they got closer to the gate, bodies funneling between the fence and the last row of vendor tables, the dirt packed down to hardpan under the traffic. A woman sold tamales out of a cooler near the gate, a cardboard sign taped to the lid with the price written in marker.
Three men passed them going the other direction, older, early twenties, beers in their hands, their boots scuffed white at the toes. The one closest to Dakota wore a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, the frayed edges hanging loose. He looked back over his shoulder at her as they passed, said something to the other two that Brynn couldn’t hear. The second one laughed.
Dakota leaned into Brynn, her mouth close to her ear. “Get one of them to buy you the hat.”
Brynn rolled her eyes. “They’re gonna expect something.”
“So?”
Dakota was already turning around, her body shifting, her smile pulling into place as she slowed her walk enough for the three of them to notice. She called back over the noise of the crowd.
“Y’all from around here?”
The one in the denim jacket stopped, turning. “Born and raised. Y’all ain’t though.”
“What gave it away?”
The second one shifted his beer to his other hand. “Y’all ain’t dusty enough.”
Dakota laughed, louder than the joke earned, her hand coming up to touch the side of her neck. She looked at Brynn. Brynn looked at the three of them, her hands in her back pockets, her weight settled on one hip. She pulled a small smile.
“We’re just here for the bulls.”
The third one grinned at her. “Y’all don’t look very rodeo ready without hats.”
Dakota tilted her head. “Funny you say that. We were just looking to buy a couple.”
Brynn nodded. “Couldn’t decide on a color.”
The one in the denim jacket looked at his friends, shrugged, his beer hanging loose from his fingers. He started walking back toward the vendor tent. The other two followed, one of them finishing his beer and dropping the can in a trash barrel as he passed it.
Dakota and Brynn hung back a few steps, the gap opening between them and the men. The crowd moved around them on both sides, the arena lights throwing their shadows long and thin across the dirt. Dakota kept her smile until the men were far enough ahead, then dropped it. She leaned into Brynn, her voice low.
“We’re leaving tonight anyway.”
Brynn shook her head. “McCamey ain’t that big.”
The two of them walked back into the tent.
Kaitlyn’s car rolled to a stop along the curb in front of a single-story house on a residential street on the south side of Odessa, the yard flat and dry, the grass gone to seed along the edges of the walkway. A chain-link fence ran across the front of the property, the gate standing open, a pair of bikes leaning against the siding near the side of the house, one of them missing its front wheel. She put the car in park, grabbed her phone out of the cup holder and checked the address she’d copied from her gradebook against the GPS on the screen. The numbers matched. She looked at the house through the windshield, the blinds drawn on the front windows, a sprinkler head sitting crooked in the dirt near the driveway.
She got out, locked the car behind her and walked up to the front door. The screen door rattled in its frame when she knocked, the aluminum vibrating against the latch. She waited, her keys in her hand, the heat pressing against her shoulders and the back of her neck.
The front door opened and a white boy stood in the gap, twelve years old, his hair cut short, a Kool-Aid stain on the collar of his shirt. His eyes moved up to her face. His hand stayed on the knob.
Kaitlyn shifted her weight. “Hi. Does Toussaint Bazile live here?”
The boy stared at her for a second. “Ain’t no Toussaint here.”
Kaitlyn nodded. “Saint maybe?”
The boy nodded. “Got a Saint.”
“Is he home?”
The boy shook his head. A white man appeared behind him in the hallway, his hand coming down on the boy’s shoulder, pulling him back from the door. He looked down at him.
“Colton, I told you not to answer the door without asking me first.”
Colton stepped back from the door and disappeared into the house, his bare feet quiet on the carpet. The man filled the doorway, his arms thick, his polo tucked into his jeans, a ring of keys clipped to his belt loop. He looked at Kaitlyn, his eyes moving across her, the lanyard hanging from her pocket, the car in the driveway behind her.
“You with CPS?”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “No. I’m a teacher at the high school.”
The man nodded, his hand resting on the doorframe. “Which one are you looking for? Saint, Dani or Joaquin?”
Kaitlyn paused. Her mouth opened, closed. “Saint.”
The man stepped aside, holding the screen door open with his shoulder. “Come on in.”
Kaitlyn stepped inside. The hallway was dim, the overhead light off, the afternoon coming through the gaps in the blinds in thin slats across the carpet. The carpet was flat and beige, the walls bare except for a chore chart tacked up near the kitchen entrance, names written in marker next to tasks in a grid, checkmarks and X’s filling the squares. A television played low in the living room at the end of the hall, the blue light of it moving across the ceiling, the couch empty.
The man walked into the kitchen and she followed. The kitchen was small, the counters clear, a dish rack beside the sink with plates stacked in it, a box of cereal sitting on top of the refrigerator. He pulled a glass from the cabinet, filled it from the tap, set it down on the table in front of an empty chair. He pulled the chair across from it out and sat down, his hands coming together on the surface.
“Gary Pruitt.”
Kaitlyn sat down, her fingers wrapping around the glass. “Kaitlyn Tierney. I teach art at Permian.” She looked at him, her eyes moving to the chore chart visible through the kitchen doorway then back to Gary. “You’re not what I was expecting.”
Gary leaned back in the chair, his arms folding across his chest. “You know Saint’s a foster kid, right?”
Kaitlyn held the glass in both hands. “I didn’t.”
Gary nodded. “I got four kids with me right now. Saint, Dani, Joaquin, and Colton.” He tilted his head toward the living room where Colton had gone. “He in trouble?”
Kaitlyn shook her head. “No. He’s not in any trouble. I’m his teacher and he’s talented. Really talented. I gave him some brochures for exhibits and workshops over the summer and I wanted to talk to his —”
She stopped. Gary watched her, his arms still crossed, his weight settled back in the chair.
She said, “I wanted to see if I could convince someone to help him get to some of them.”
Gary rubbed his jaw with his thumb, his eyes on the table for a second before they came back up. “It’s tough to do a lot with what the state gives me. There’s four of them and one of me and the money don’t stretch.”
“Some of the programs have grants. They cover travel, materials, registration. He wouldn’t need much beyond getting the applications in.”
“He know how to do all that?”
“I told him I’d help him with them.”
Gary nodded, his thumb still resting against his jaw. “That’s good of you. Most of their teachers don’t care. They ain’t the easiest kids to deal with. Definitely don’t come out here.”
“I didn’t know there was an out here to come to.”
Gary looked at her for a beat. “There’s a lot of that going around.”
Kaitlyn took a sip from the water, set the glass back down on the table. The ice settled. From the living room the television shifted to a commercial, the volume rising a notch, Colton’s weight shifting on the floor.
“Anything you think that he could get there on his own? If the grants come through?”
“Depends on what you mean by close. I can get him to Odessa, Midland. Anything past that and I’d need more notice than these kids usually give me.”
“The one in Lubbock is in July. The San Antonio one is later in the summer.”
“Lubbock I could maybe do. San Antonio’s a different conversation.” He unfolded his arms, set his hands flat on the table. “I’ll tell him to fill the applications out. If the money comes through, we’ll figure the rest out.”
Kaitlyn nodded. “How long has Saint been with you?”
“Few years now. He bounced around before that, from what I was told.”
“Do you know where he’s from? What happened to his parents?”
Gary looked at her for a beat, his arms crossing again. “Louisiana. And I ain’t ask. I learned a long time ago not to make these kids relive something they already lived through once.”
Kaitlyn nodded. She stood, pushed the chair back from the table, the legs scraping the linoleum. “Thank you for the water, Mr. Pruitt. And for your time.”
Gary stayed in his chair, his hands resting on the table. “I’ll let Saint know you came by.”
Kaitlyn walked back through the house, past the chore chart with its grid of names and checkmarks, past the living room where Colton sat on the carpet with his legs crossed, his face lit by the television, and out the front door. The screen door clapped shut behind her. She walked to her car, got in, pulled the door closed.
She sat with her hands on the steering wheel, her eyes on the house. The chain-link fence. The bikes against the siding. The blinds drawn on every window. The sprinkler head sitting crooked in the dirt. She sat there for a while before she started the car.
Beau’s truck sat at the end of a dirt track on the outskirts of Odessa where the houses gave out and the scrub took over, the tailgate down, two shotguns leaning against it, a couple cases of Keystone and a few boxes of shells sitting in the bed. A line of empty beer cans stood on a rusted fence rail twenty yards out, the cans spaced unevenly, some dented from earlier rounds, the rail orange with scale.
Saint stood at the tailgate with his hip against the bumper, a beer resting beside his hand. Cruz sat on the open tailgate with his shoes hanging off the edge. Beau picked up one of the shotguns, racked a shell into the chamber, the action clicking hard, brought the stock up to his shoulder, settled his cheek against the wood and fired. The report cracked across the flats and rolled out into the empty distance beyond the fence. The can on the far left jumped off the rail, spun once in the air and landed in the dirt.
Beau lowered the shotgun, the barrel trailing smoke. “Looks like I got a future in being a sharpshooter, boys.”
Cruz reached behind him into the bed of the truck, grabbed a beer from the case and cracked it open, the foam running over his knuckle. “You’re shooting the one closest to you. You ducking the harder ones.”
“I ain’t ducking shit. I’m warming up. And pause.”
Saint snorted a laugh, reached into the box of shells on the tailgate, pulled two out and loaded the other shotgun, sliding them in one at a time, the brass clicking against the receiver. He brought it up, sighted down the barrel, the bead settling on the can at the far right of the rail, and squeezed. The can pinged off the rail and disappeared into the brush behind the fence, the sound of it landing somewhere in the saltbush.
Saint lowered the gun, picked up his beer off the tailgate and took a sip.
Cruz said, “So I got a call from UTEP.”
Beau looked at him. “Yeah?”
Cruz nodded, his beer resting on his thigh. “Yeah. Asking me to come down and check it out over the summer.”
Beau racked another shell into the chamber, brought the shotgun up. “They called me too.” He fired. A can flew off the rail, the metal catching the light as it tumbled. He lowered the gun. “But I’d just leave Texas if I was gonna live on the tip of it. Don’t make a lick of sense to half ass it.”
Saint shook his head, a grin pulling at the side of his mouth. “Bro, you wouldn’t leave Texas if somebody paid you a million dollars.”
“Because it’s got everything you could want. Why would I leave?”
Cruz took a sip from his beer. “Because you ain’t been nowhere else.”
Beau pointed the shotgun at the fence, his eye closing over the bead. “I ain’t never lived nowhere else. I been plenty places.”
A truck passed on the road behind them, the headlights sweeping across the brush for a second before it was gone. The dust it kicked up drifted over the track and settled. Saint picked up a handful of shells from the box, loading them into the shotgun one at a time, each one sliding in with a click.
“I got a letter from Texas Southern.” He slid another shell in. “And one from Central Arkansas.”
Beau nodded, cracked open a beer, the can hissing against his palm. “The calls gonna start coming then. Especially Texas Southern. Get you away from all these crackers.” He gestured the beer at the brush around them, the flats, the sky.
Cruz laughed from the tailgate.
Saint brought the shotgun up and fired. The can in the middle popped off the rail, the report rolling out across the scrub and fading. He lowered the gun.
“Me and Brynn always said we gonna leave together. Go somewhere up north or some shit.”
Cruz looked at him over the rim of his beer. “What’s Brynn’s deal anyway? Like, y’all together or what?”
Beau shook his head. “Mind your fucking business, Cruz.”
Cruz held his free hand up, the beer still in the other. “I’m just asking, bro.”
“And I’m just telling you to shut the fuck up.”
Saint lowered the shotgun, the stock resting against his thigh. “It’s cool.” He racked another shell, his eyes on the fence, the remaining cans sitting still on the rail in the last of the light. “I been trying to get somewhere in Illinois or some shit. Get out of here.”
Beau took a long pull from his beer, shaking his head. “Illinois? Bro, at least pick somewhere that ain’t gonna freeze your dick off if you gonna leave Texas.”
Cruz set his beer on the tailgate, hopped down, picked up the other shotgun and loaded it, the shells clicking into the tube. “I’m surprised you don’t want to go back to Louisiana.”
Saint brought his shotgun up and fired. The last can on the rail kicked off into the dirt, the sound of it hitting the ground lost under the report. He lowered the gun, the barrel still trailing a thin line of smoke into the evening air.
“Ain’t nothing there for me.”
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Captain Canada
- Posts: 7385
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
Litany for Survival
Can already smell the trouble Brynn and Dakota are going to get themselves into fucking with these men all the time 
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Soapy
- Posts: 15723
- Joined: 27 Nov 2018, 18:42
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redsox907
- Posts: 5617
- Joined: 01 Jun 2025, 12:40
Litany for Survival
hopefully for Brynn, no matter who much trouble she gets into, she'll never be the cum dumpster that Mireya Rosas has become 
Teacher showing she cares is cool, Pruitt showing he flexible is also cool. At least everything isn't shit for Saint, at least for now
also, thought I'd commented on the previous chapter. Wes coercing Brynn and Dakota to go with him screams future PDF
Teacher showing she cares is cool, Pruitt showing he flexible is also cool. At least everything isn't shit for Saint, at least for now
also, thought I'd commented on the previous chapter. Wes coercing Brynn and Dakota to go with him screams future PDF