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Authors: Andrew Blossom
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down the interstate, Gaia felt only relief when she thought about Doo’s lifeless body wrapped in a sheet on the floor of the Cadillac. She had protected herself and taken control of what belonged to her. Doo had been right. She didn’t need Charlene. Charlene didn’t love her. And she could take care of herself. She didn’t need a play mother. She didn’t need any mother at all. She understood now how to keep away the bad things, the ghosts, the past, and it was not by fear. It was by force.
At 3 a.m., she stood in front of the abandoned group home. She waved at Doo, who was lying at peace in Gardener’s attic. An empty fuel can dangled from Gaia’s fingers.
Wrongs did not correct themselves. Someone had to make the decision to fix things. People could not live their lives the whole time expecting things to happen; people had to make things happen. Cold gasoline had to be spilled deliberately, dousing the ground, the walls. A match, struck in the dark, had to be dropped in a shallow puddle of fuel. And the girl, the one in the wrinkled black dress, would not run away yet. She had to watch as the scorching flames licked and devoured the home. Ladies Mile Road had been a haven, a place where women felt safest. This building had mocked that history and tainted the whole neighborhood.
TEXAS BEACH
BY D ENNIS D ANVERS
Texas Beach
H e lies sprawled facedown in the water just short of the beach as if he tried to swim across the James and came up short. I turn him over, pull his upper body out of the water, then discover his lower torso hasn’t quite turned with the rest of him. He couldn’t have been swimming anywhere like this. His pelvis is crushed. He’s dark, probably Mexican or Guatemalan. He has on one battered leather garden glove, on his right hand. His left hand is bent at an odd angle, and a bone protrudes from his left forearm.
I throw up in the river and call 911.
I’m at Texas Beach, I tell them, on the water. There’s a dead man here. They tell me to stay with him. I say I will. That’s what I need. To sit with a dead man. I’ve come down here to wallow in grief. My old dog whose favorite haunt this was when she was alive died a couple of days ago, and I’ve been pretty much useless ever since. I was almost on top of the dead man before I realized what I was looking at. It’s early Thursday, the sun just coming up. I haven’t slept much.
His feet are still in the water. He’s wearing heavy, oil-stained work boots, almost cracked. His jeans have ridden up on his oddly pale shins. Something floats out of the top of one of the boots, and I grab it before it drifts off. A wood chip. I put it in my pocket. It could be evidence of something. I pull him the rest of the way out of the water. More chips spill out as the jeans catch on the sand and unfurl, covering his shins.
When I moved to Richmond from Texas twenty years ago, I missed seeing brown faces. Richmond was a town in black and white. That’s changed since NAFTA, like the rest of the country. When I was a kid walking across the bridge into Juárez with my parents, there’d be kids my age standing in the tarnished water of the Rio Grande, their hands uplifted for pennies tossed from the bridge. This man, the dead man, has gray temples, crow’s feet. He could be my age, sixty. He could’ve been one of those kids half a century ago.
I wonder how he ended up here—not in Richmond, I understand those economic realities well enough—but here, washed up on the shore of Texas Beach, almost broken in half. I wonder if he was the victim of a hit and run. I wonder if he was murdered. When the sun shines upon his face, I take pictures of him from several angles.
I sit with him another fifteen minutes, absorbing what I can. I’ve probably disturbed the body too much already. I want to look in his pockets, but I resist. They appear to be empty.
Pretty soon there’s a crowd. I hear one of the guys tending to the body telling another to be
At 3 a.m., she stood in front of the abandoned group home. She waved at Doo, who was lying at peace in Gardener’s attic. An empty fuel can dangled from Gaia’s fingers.
Wrongs did not correct themselves. Someone had to make the decision to fix things. People could not live their lives the whole time expecting things to happen; people had to make things happen. Cold gasoline had to be spilled deliberately, dousing the ground, the walls. A match, struck in the dark, had to be dropped in a shallow puddle of fuel. And the girl, the one in the wrinkled black dress, would not run away yet. She had to watch as the scorching flames licked and devoured the home. Ladies Mile Road had been a haven, a place where women felt safest. This building had mocked that history and tainted the whole neighborhood.
TEXAS BEACH
BY D ENNIS D ANVERS
Texas Beach
H e lies sprawled facedown in the water just short of the beach as if he tried to swim across the James and came up short. I turn him over, pull his upper body out of the water, then discover his lower torso hasn’t quite turned with the rest of him. He couldn’t have been swimming anywhere like this. His pelvis is crushed. He’s dark, probably Mexican or Guatemalan. He has on one battered leather garden glove, on his right hand. His left hand is bent at an odd angle, and a bone protrudes from his left forearm.
I throw up in the river and call 911.
I’m at Texas Beach, I tell them, on the water. There’s a dead man here. They tell me to stay with him. I say I will. That’s what I need. To sit with a dead man. I’ve come down here to wallow in grief. My old dog whose favorite haunt this was when she was alive died a couple of days ago, and I’ve been pretty much useless ever since. I was almost on top of the dead man before I realized what I was looking at. It’s early Thursday, the sun just coming up. I haven’t slept much.
His feet are still in the water. He’s wearing heavy, oil-stained work boots, almost cracked. His jeans have ridden up on his oddly pale shins. Something floats out of the top of one of the boots, and I grab it before it drifts off. A wood chip. I put it in my pocket. It could be evidence of something. I pull him the rest of the way out of the water. More chips spill out as the jeans catch on the sand and unfurl, covering his shins.
When I moved to Richmond from Texas twenty years ago, I missed seeing brown faces. Richmond was a town in black and white. That’s changed since NAFTA, like the rest of the country. When I was a kid walking across the bridge into Juárez with my parents, there’d be kids my age standing in the tarnished water of the Rio Grande, their hands uplifted for pennies tossed from the bridge. This man, the dead man, has gray temples, crow’s feet. He could be my age, sixty. He could’ve been one of those kids half a century ago.
I wonder how he ended up here—not in Richmond, I understand those economic realities well enough—but here, washed up on the shore of Texas Beach, almost broken in half. I wonder if he was the victim of a hit and run. I wonder if he was murdered. When the sun shines upon his face, I take pictures of him from several angles.
I sit with him another fifteen minutes, absorbing what I can. I’ve probably disturbed the body too much already. I want to look in his pockets, but I resist. They appear to be empty.
Pretty soon there’s a crowd. I hear one of the guys tending to the body telling another to be
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