Chapter Eight

City Lady Country Killer

When a couple argues outside, under the eyes of God, it has a sweet quietness. I went to the window that faced the barn. Rita was yelling. David was up on a ladder. Rita threw a brush and it fell short. Her left arm was in a sling. They had started painting the far end of the barn and almost had it finished. The yelling turned to laughter, and David climbed down and embraced his wife.

The house was clean. The couch pillows were fluffed, and wildflowers filled a coffee can on the heavy wooden coffee table. I went out the door. The front walk was swept, the grass mowed, the plants watered. Rita screamed as David lashed her with red paint. She stuck her good hand in the paint and smeared it across his face.

I looked out at the corn.

After the truck hit Lalli and Ramone, I ran to the hospital. Outside Rita’s room I found security holding down a farmer’s boy who stank of corn-spray. I stayed with her until David showed up. When I left the building, it was morning and hot. The pavement steamed.

I went back to the intersection. The vultures swarmed. News vans lined the streets. Reporters flashed white teeth at the cameras as they held up grimy photos. City folk who had heard the news came and laughed at Polaroids, wiping the blood and grime off on their shirts.

Then police came, waved everybody off, and taped the area in yellow. Then the police left to attend other business. I went around picking up the remaining photos.

I offered the barn’s hayloft to the Yorks, on the condition that they cleaned it up. Nobody had been up there in years, since Lalli needed someplace to hide out with her kid. I thought of the little punk, who I went through all that trouble saving, and the mother she had lost to Dennis. I made a mental note to check in on her. She’d be turning twenty.

Last I heard, the Dennis was out west. He was going to stop by in winter to collect.

I looked up at the rooster weather vane. He wiggled but did not squeal.

8/12/2024