Excerpts from "How Prince Eldridge Got His Own"

I wrote this back in college after reading William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying".  I had never heard of "stream of consciousness" before, and I had to try it.  These are a few of my favorite characters.  The story is of violence, race, and redemption in a small southern town.

Amos Lackey

This morning the sun was as bright as fire.  It seared the sky coming up and burned into the clouds, frying them white and black.  Never had I seen a sun so fine, so perfect, with the colors of temptation and purity roiling and twisting together so that the intensity hurt the eyes.  

Never had I seen a day so hot, so fine.

The dust was beginning to crust up around the bean plants so I took the watering can to them, in accordance to what my Betty instructed.  I always do what Betty instructs because she knows how to work the garden.  Sometimes I'd have to say the Lord himself would come down and take up some of the work of her hands, if He ever did taste anything from that plot.  Her beans are like candy, so sweet and crisp; if you pick just one from the vine and break it in two you can smell the crispness and hear the life the water provides in that one strong snap.

Water provides for us all.  It chases the thoughts of struggle from the mind, it cools the body as it floats from the skin and it distracts from the problems of the farm, from the dryness of earth and of heat.

Here in the middle of summer the dogs pant for a respite from the aching pulse of this devil season.  My babies do too, in their own way; my oldest, James, he lays without a shirt on the field grass in the mornings, soaking in the coolness of the night before, waiting with me for the sun to rise and burn the dew from the leaves.  You can see Will with his head under the pump at any time of day, squinting his eyes shut against the cool flow on his neck and the back of his head, his hand and long arm working at the pump with the smoothness of a heron's wing...pump...pump...pump.   

Keesha sips sun tea with her mama on the porch.  They cut the lemons into slices and float them thick on the brown and amber liquid that sloshes against the sides of our cut glass pitcher.  I know when both are coming back into the kitchen when I hear the clink of ice against glass, and if I listen closely I can hear the crunch of the stinging hard water between teeth, and I smile because I know the feeling of a cold mouth on a hot summer day.

Little Kitty is the anomaly.  She doesn't run to the water, if anything, she runs away from it.  She drags her feet through the dust of our road, she chases the chickens with Red and Temperance, the dogs, until sweat beads up and shines on her face.  I hear myself tell her, over, and over, that the heat will keel her down, but she just likes to look at me with her baby browns and say, "I don't care, Daddy, I like the sun, I do."  And then she runs again.

So when my eyes fell upon Little Kitty dragging only her left foot through the dust of our road behind her like some fallen angel, the brown bag heavy in her hand and her head crooked to one side like it was too heavy to keep up straight, you might want to believe I felt that cold, itching drop of uneasiness trickle up in the back of my throat.  I waited for her to come closer, and sent the dogs up to meet her, and when Red's tail drooped between his legs I knew only the worst must have happened to my Little.

Betty knows I don't stand stock still in the middle of the day for no good reason so she came out of the kitchen, actually leaving the canning jars empty and the boiling pots unattended to stand next to me in the white hot heat of the summer afternoon to whisper in my ear, "What is it?  Amos, what's happened?"

And I was thinking the same thing in my head, what is it?  Amos, what's happened?

And when I saw the white kerchief with the dark red stains I didn't do anything for the space of a moment.  Then what I did finally do is burned into the canvas of my brain like a wicked spell, clear and terrible, a beautiful song not sung in tune.

I turned my back to her and stepped across the field grass to the barn.  I left her there, too selfish and weak to show my own broken heart to the girl, trusting my Betty to comfort and cradle the poor baby in her strong, black, capable arms, leaving my littlest to fight her fight alone and sad in the dusty heat of that fine, red summer day.