Writing Exercise #2 - Bryr

I thought for sure I'd posted this already. The bloodhound tied under the Airstream next door started barking ten minutes before his old man pulled into the driveway after the night shift. His hoarse voice cracked as the truck rumbled up the driveway and lurched to a stop. The door opened and slammed, a boot in the ribs silenced the dog’s bellows, and Ted Nugent soon poured out the horizontal window slats. The sun was just rising over Poppy Meadows trailer park and the man in #8 was the only one up. Next door, Colton came to, as always, to the sound of the Motor City Madman and Bubba’s soft grunts as he licked his bruises. 6:45am. As he felt himself sucked upwards, like a boot out of mud, from a dream of cat skins stretched over barb wire, Colton tried to keep his breath shallow in the soft fuzzy moments before the hangover tightened. He became aware of himself slowly: the brim of his black hat crushed beneath his cheek, sticky with chew spit, the wad spat onto the sheet in front of him, his pants half on with one leg pulled up and inside out, the leg with the boot still attached hanging over the edge of the bed, hyperextending his knee, and his shirtlessness. Breathe, breathe. But someone shoved thumbs into each of his eye sockets and punched him in the base of the skull and he rolled over to puke in the wastebasket. The kettle sputtered and whistled. Colton dumped in four packets of instant folgers, rubbing the bit of grounds that stuck to his fingers into his gums. He pulled the flowered curtains aside and lightly punched the window open to let in some air. From the ashtray in the sink, he rescued a butt. As he pulled out a lighter from his pocket, a folded napkin fell to the floor with the name and phone number face up. “Put a shirt on for chrissake,” Rhonda said as she shuffled into the kitchen, an oversized tweety night shirt stretched over her enormous belly. Her legs looked swollen and blueish above red Tasmanian devil slippers. Colton stepped on the napkin. She poured a cup of coffee and settled on the couch with a cold poptart. Her black hair was in tangled pigtails from the night before, the part showing the dirty blonde of her roots, and her makeup had slipped a half inch down her face. Someone opened the back door and ran down the front steps. Colton jerked toward the window. “It’s just Cordelia Jenner,” she said and it was. “She and Jack Figg got into it out at Rookie’s last night. He thought she was looking at this black guy who kept looking at her and then he says they went to the bathroom at the same time or something and then Jack dumped Cordy’s daiquiri down the back of the black guy’s shirt and then he like turns to push him, Jack I mean, and Cordy’s like ‘stop’ and jack’s like ‘bitch’ and the black guy’s like ‘my fucking shirt’ and I grab Cordy and we left.” Colton found a sweatshirt and sat down to pull on his boots. “But in the car, Cordy’s all ‘we did it in the stall’ and I’m like ‘whatever’ and she says they did and I’m like ‘no black guy’s gonna screw you in the bathroom with that fucking neck brace on.’ She’s not even supposed to be driving. Where you going?” “Hardware store.” “Get me some more smokes on your way home, kay?” Colton drove for an hour. He circled town twice, noticed whose cars were still in the bar parking lots, watched families trickle into the church for early mass, and stopped into Luvs for a can of chew. Joe Minsk behind the counter gave him a last month’s Hustler for a buck and counted back his change. “I told Sam that tractor watn’t worth a grand, let alone three…” Joe was saying. Colton fingered the napkin in his pocket and looked at the wanted signs pasted to the wall behind Joe’s grizzled head and thought the drawings were like some that Rhonda used to make in a notebook she’d carry with her. Portraits, she called them, and she made him sit for a few himself, telling him to raise his chin or look like he’s thinking really hard. She’d show them off afterwards and he’d look for himself in the single pencil lines, the blackened nostrils, wide-set eyes, but he thought they could be of anyone. “Anyway,” said Joe, “You know me. I don’t stick my nose…” In the truck Colton shoved the girlie magazine behind his seat and stuck in a chew. Behind him an old dodge pulled up for gas and Colton tilted the rear view mirror down to see the girls that got out. Younger than Rhonda, still thin and taut, like those flexible road reflectors you could run over and watch spring back up behind you. One wore jean shorts cut off in great upward arcs exposing the creases of her ass. She was laughing at something a friend had said when she noticed him, then she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips over her braces. Colton tipped the mirror back to look at himself, skin dark from working outdoors, eyes still blue even if the whites were beginning to yellow, only a couple of chipped teeth. The girl could do worse.