Werewolves are the best monster. Savage, primal and powerful they rend flesh, break bone and leave a bloody mess to horrify those that pass after. The deep south - The Deep South - is a place full of historical horrors from the obvious pre-Civil War civilization to the post-Reconstruction horrors of Jim Crow and lynching. Monsters and country folk go together. So why not a more contemporary story of a soldier who comes home to find that a cadre of his friends and enemies are being noshed upon by a supernatural black beast? Throw in a couple of family secrets and a solitudinous writer and stir.

The bus ride from San Francisco, California to Bradley, Georgia ended two days later at noon.  
Summer had come with  the silver behemoth, a rude, sticky wind bearing humming insects and lassitudinous 
yearnings. Most of the insects were plastered to the grille and the places on the windscreen out of the 
swipe of the wiper. The yearnings were from the four travelers who had borne the voyage from the west 
coast through two bus changes, one in Denver another in St. Louis. One of them descended the narrow stairs. 
Bradley, a town undistinguished from it's surrounding fields of corn bean and cotton except for the burp 
of a strip mall. It crowded against the road on both sides. Its  threat of urban sprawl had all the 
seriousness of a fish going to ride a bicycle.
     The man who got off the bus was thirty. He was average height and weight. He wore a pair of white 
shorts and carried a backpack, his navy blue tee shirt was stuck to his chest and back with sweat. 
He looked at the world around him, this little Bradley place, with the condescending aggravation of 
a visiting journalist. He breathed heavily, exhausted, his posture cried out for a scotch and soda. 
He said aloud, to no one in particular, "Well, I'm home." But he said it without meaning it.
     And at the same time it was true, he was home. The operational word was safe, like in baseball.  
And third base was the Belle Diner where the entire Bell family worked, Ma, Pa and Jessie. 
Every turn in the road, before that was anticipated the trail from second base, to his own chagrin 
he'd told his traveling companions, excitedly yet, where each turn in the road lead to some childhood 
embarrassment. All of childhood is an embarrassment once you realize you were supposed to be learning 
something but thought you were only supposed to have been having fun. To the others, he knew, it was 
only so much dust and fields and empty sky. He knew though, that forest on the horizon could be chased 
and entered. That the wholeness of its black self would swallow him up and keep him in its dark, guarded, 
security.
      Again the strip mall called attention to itself. The bus hissed away in an explosion of dust, happy 
to be escaping this  little town that fantasized about being a city. He waved at the dust and  hacked slightly, 
looking around. People came to this strip mall of a village downtown to buy hardwares and electronics and fabrics. 
They came here to drop off their mail and pick up their seed orders. They came to drink their alcohol and to piss 
it out again. To rendezvous with people who'd never seen the inside of a church and to find reasons to stumble 
into one next Sunday themselves. 
And they came here to run away; when the Hardware Store and the Feed Store and the Bar and the Post Office  
weren't enough. Then they came to wait out the hottest days or the chilliest nights to catch a bus to Atlanta. 
And if they were really adventurous they would take the bus to New York or even one going out to California. 
They ran to places where insanity was so common Bradley became Eden.
      -You gonna stand there staring, Tony, or you gonna say hi?
     His cousin, as tall as he was. She was thinner, lighter and therefore prettier. She was a true lady, 
in a floral sundress and dark glasses. He hugged her, she was excited, but in the way that said she would 
be just as excited if she were in town picking up groceries. That made him more comfortable, and his relaxed  
easy going hug was less forced than in the past. Then he felt the chill, a goose stepping on his grave, 
a gross unease that made him look around again to see who all was watching. 
Like he could hear the whispers already.
     -What's wrong?
     -Nothing, just tired I guess.
     -Come on; is that the best you can do?
     -Yeh.  And he kept looking as though he might match the moving lips to the voices.
     -You sure?
     She took his backpack and crossed the dirt lot to a red pick up. He listened, the whispers had dissolved 
into the sound of the escaping bus. They got in the truck. -Aunt Phoebe bought a new truck. She said it without 
feeling but her own exuberance was still present, a cat in a lap, purring. The few people out in the noon sun, 
risking heat stroke or insanity, watched them leave.
     She drove with the fury of  possession, rocking the truck over backroads like a boat in rough water. Every 
turn she made, though, he knew, every hump of earth, every dip. They were all places where he'd sloshed through 
puddles or tossed clods of dirt. Trees he'd climbed or planned to, ditches for hiding in when the big ones came 
after him. He let himself smile then fearing she might see it, swallowed it to a grin.
     -Floyd lost a cow the other night. She said it also without inflection and that forced him to press himself 
up against the statement, decipher each word and pick at the context. Floyd; a man, the farmer two or three fields 
down from them. Lost; no longer in the possession of someone, that someone being Floyd. A; now that was an article, 
and indefinite to boot. Cow; that would be Bos taurus, the American domesticated bovine. 
They were barreling past a pasture at that moment, in the distance on a rise was a tree, caught in the barb wire 
fence that separated the helpless cattle from freedom. 
It was an apple tree, its trunk all gnarled and thickened leaned into heaven unassumingly. He saw himself at seven, 
standing on another boy's shoulders to pick the sweetest, reddest fruit. The cows had at least made good use of 
their manure. 
     -Where's Del? He said peremptorily. She smiled and flexed her left hand ring finger, the diamond sparkled, 
she was trying to either blind him or solicit a compliment.
     -Out at his Daddy's. She was still fishing for that comment, he ignored her. -You want to stop by later and 
see him? I'll be going out there in about another hour or so.
     -I will. And then he gulped, because it had sounded defensive and she didn't deserve defensive. She still 
carried that halo, though, the winsome air headedness of  the soon to be Mrs. Del Wilson.
     The first thing he noticed about the house was that it had been painted white. That was the only significant 
change to the exterior. The yard was still bare earth, unwilling to grow grass and populated by a tribe of surly 
looking canines. On the wide porch sat the matronly Aunt Lydia snapping beans in a large bowl. She stood up when 
they approached and called out to her sister.
     -Come here Phoebe, come see what Zeena brought home!
     From inside the house came Phoebe, as matronly as her sister. She was the eldest yet they might have been 
twins, same snuff brown skin, same Cherokee eyes, same high cheekbones, same flat lips. Only Phoebe was slimmer, 
not much but noticeably so, and she didn't smile. Ever. Instead her eyes would brighten, the brows would raise 
and the lips would part as if to smile, but it never came. Hugs. He did not collapse into their embraces but 
surrendered to the necessity of committing the act and being done with it.
     -Look at you, look at you, Lydia said, tears came to her eyes  that she didn't dare release. 
     -He has grown something, ain't he? Phoebe said, sporting blatant disapproval. Well, what could she do, chop 
off his legs? He didn't laugh, the image of her swiping at him with an ax seemed too probable.
     -Careful, Phoebe, he got his claws on.
     -Like I ever been scared of  a kitty cat's claws, and that's still 'Aunt Phoebe' to you.
     -Did I do that again?
     -Getting there ain't she? Lydia chimed in, always in agreement with her sister if not beating her to her 
own point. -But what's with the San Franciscan? You don't talk much do you?
     -He never was much of a talker. Phoebe's assessments were total.
     -But you must talk, you have to tell us what it's like out there. Lydia enthused about travel.
     -I'll bet it's hot as Hell. And austere.
    -But not as hot as here, right, Tony?
    -Yeh, it's hot. He said, thinking, I wouldn't know from Hell, eh, Satan?
     -Is it true they let two men adopt a baby? Lydia said, readying herself for her Sunday ladies after church 
meetings. Phoebe rolled her eyes, unseen by Lydia, but Tony caught it, and Zeena, already heading in the house 
with his pack stopped to roll her eyes as well. He followed her, flanked by their Aunts. She dropped his pack 
in the living room and kept going towards the kitchen. He was alternately comforted and disgusted by the fact 
that not a thing had changed in the living room since he'd walked out of it over ten years prior. Lydia was 
still going on about the same sex angle, trying to frenzy herself into some state of  joy or amazement. 
-You know Emma Wilson's boy went out there with his wife and lost her to another woman.
     -Please, Phoebe said, -don't you think that little slut took him out there with the intention of finding 
herself another woman?
     -I don't know.
     -Stop being foolish, that sort of nonsense has nothing to do with Tony's work, right Tony?
     -Unh, I guess.
     -God. Zeena had had enough and threw her sunglasses aside like a Hollywood starlet about to go  on a rampage. 
-You'd think the only gene that was pervasive in this family was the ignorance gene. Ask the man some sensible 
questions about his travels!
     -Listen at that one, two days in town itself and already trying to be the great big Missus.
     -Listen at her. Lydia said, echoing her sister because that had been what she always did. Every family has 
a set of siblings that, no matter what gender or years separate them, they are more alike than all the other 
members. The Wells had been five girls, only two lived still. Fortune, playing her inscrutable games had seen fit 
to deprive Zeena, Tony and their other cousin, Alice, of  their biological mothers.
     -She takes after her mother. Phoebe said, and that was her way of making concessions, no  true orphan can  
feel anything but egotistical pride when being told that it follows a pattern after all. And it satisfies observers 
as well to know that the wild or outlandish behavior of some person is only an echo of a wilder, more outlandish 
parent.
     -Where's Alice? Tony asked.
     - 'Where's Del', 'Where's Alice', Zeena mocked from the kitchen. -Can't you be happy with the ones you're with?
     -Where is that girl? Phoebe wondered aloud, suddenly. - I sure do hope she didn't go into town with that good for 
nothing Jessie-Bell. And she said it as though she meant to say Jezebel. -Lydia? Have you seen your niece?
     -No. Neat, too neat. Tony felt guilty suddenly, his first five minutes back and he felt guilty.
     -Well go ahead and unpack, since you don't want to talk, dinner's at six as...
     -As usual, he said. She was watching Lydia though, so his insolence was allowed to pass.
     He'd called it the House of the Damned once. It's wood creaked even when there was no wind, lights blinked on and 
off, no matter the changes in wiring, no matter the newness of the lightbulbs, there was a cold room, the back bed room 
where his grandparents had slept, now a giant closet of sorts, since he was of toddling age. His room was above the cold
 room, Grandpa and Grandma's room. Sometimes their ghosts came up through the floorboards.  He woke one night to a weighty 
presence on his bed. He kicked at it instinctively then drowsily opened one eye to find them staring at him. Amazingly, 
he did not piss himself. Today, he unpacked his backpack and was surprised to see how temporary he looked.
     -'I am the temporary man I does as temporary can'. He sang, the lines of a song by a reggae/ska group he did work 
for back in the City. But Phoebe had stopped bitching Lydia out already about the truant Alice and they were whispering 
about him. Reassuring themselves of their superior humanity they were saying that it wasn't their fault, that he'd always 
been an odd sort of child. They speculated on his proclivity for alcohol, wasn't his father one of those Palmer boys who 
took women for play and liquor for serious?
After the mention of the family name Palmer he stopped listening, fought with the clothes in the backpack to give him the 
laptop computer he'd scrimped and starved for. Rage, he reasoned, served its own ends; but it destroyed everything between
 them. 
     The Invitation, a pink and cream envelope made heavy by gilding glue on the card inside fell off the bed, freed from 
the bundle of clothing that had cushioned his  two thousand dollar computer. He picked  it up and turned it over. Oh happy
 us, oh joyous day, callou callay. Come see the Wedding, it begged, in language as gilded as the card, come see the pairing
 off of two prize breeders. Watch as the amazing Heterosexualwoman and her mate are made into a legitimate reproductive 
couple. Yuck. And now he could hear Phoebe and Lydia saying something along the lines of 'corruption' and 'sin' which meant
 they'd gone back to talking about California. He had no hope of sanitizing his experiences for their liking, so he tried 
to think of a way to make it so offensive as to be funny. It wouldn't work on Phoebe, but if Lydia was distracted, Phoebe 
was less, well, Phoebe-ish.
He walked to Del Wilson's house the way he'd always gone since childhood, still amazed at the tenacity of childhood habit.
 Through the cornfield, past the cow pasture and the crook'd apple tree, into a second smaller wood that sheltered an 
ante-bellum cemetery and suddenly a stagnant pool bleeding into the river. And as dead as that pond of black water was 
he'd still allowed Del to lead him into that water. Del, brown and tall, even at eight. Del, who just got taller and 
bigger and more beautiful...
     The Geechie boys had chased him from school, making him rip his shirt and drop his books, screaming out to him in 
that ugly language of theirs about how they were going to beat him senseless. And he, scared, his heart beating so hard, 
so fast, went the wrong way. He beat at the trees with a blindness that would have amused him otherwise. All around him 
he heard their voices, -We comin da gitchew! Git chew! Git chew! And Del, all red-coppery colored and nappy hair; wearing 
just his coveralls because his daddy wouldn't buy socks or drawers and shoes were only for school, appeared. This feral boy
 burst out of the hot gluey green, looking at Tony like his next meal. Tony sniveled, he thought at first it was one of his
 pursuers. When he saw it wasn't he looked hopefully into the red eyes, wanting help.
     But Del didn't pity him at all. It was only when he saw the Geechies that he sneered and pushed the trembling Tony 
aside. This for the convenience of getting at the biggest of the Geechie boys, nine year old Cheena. Del crushed Cheena's 
nose with his head, butting him like a goat. The other two, upon seeing blood gush out of their brother's nose were set to 
jump Del but hurricane that he was he snatched up a stick without breaking pace to flail the next closest one.
     -You git tha fuck offa my propity you nasty-ass goddamn sonsabitches, y'hear? Take your sorry motherfucking asses back
 to goddamn Geechie-town!
     The Geechie boys ran off, screaming and crying. Tony sniffled and Del walked past him, going back to his house, he had
 been fishing and was looking around for his rod.
     -They're gon come back. Tony warned, his voice abnormally high.
     -So? You scared of that shit?
     -No.
     -Liar, how cum you cryin then?
     Tears from Tony. Del located the rod and gave him another sneer. -You're such a baby, maybe next time I'll let em git
 cha.
     -No. Tony pleaded.
     -Oh quit cryin, they Ain't comin' back. But when Del moved, Tony followed, and he let him follow right up to the house

. -Now wait right here. He said, fully aware of Tony's absolute dependence upon him. Before he got in the house out burst 
his older brother T.John, all of thirteen and already in possession of the psychopathic personality that would lead a group 
of white boys to try  to cave his skull in some twenty years later.
     -Whatcha got there Del? Is that one a them Geechies?
     -Naw he ain't Geechie, some of em was chasin him and I run em off.
     T.John pinched Tony's nipple, through his school shirt, as hard as possible, grinning. Tony whimpered and looked to Del 
for help once again. Then, surprisingly, T.John stroked the sore teat. It was like penitence. Then he took off into the woods. 
Del, who had been dispassionately watching the mini-event, went into the house.
     Even  at six Tony saw Oldman Wilson as just that - old. Staggering forever on a drunken edge, the man hunched over , 
peering at the world with dark rimmed red eyes. People said he was abusing both his boys, Tony only once saw any overt 
evidence of abuse. Del was a rude prince, not a beaten one. And T.John, who did turn out to be a true freak, was most likely 
a product of  genetics as Zeena, forever the nurse, would say. Oldman Wilson, the widowed patriarch, presided over a wounded 
clan but he leant it few scars and offered it no apologies. That first day of Tony's knowing him he stood on the dilapidated 
porch in nothing but a bathrobe, embarrassingly open, like a deposed czar.
     -You one a them Palmer boys, aintcha? The old man accused, peering with wicked intensity.
     -Naw suh, Tony said ignorant enough of his father's name.
     -Who's your ma? The man bellowed, frustrated already with the little boy.
     -She's dead. Tony said, trembling. He felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.
     -What was her name, boy? Oldman Wilson snapped, at the end of his patience but also amused after some fashion.
     -Helen.
     -Helen Palmer? And there was a Helen Palmer who was a cousin but Tony didn't know her at the time.
     -Naw suh, Helen Wells.
     -Wells? You say you're a Wells boy, then? 
     -Yessuh.
     -Well, I'll be damned, so that old simpleton finally got himself a boy then. And the old man laughed.
     After feeding him a cheese sandwich and a thin chalky tasting milk the old man sent Tony home under the protection of  
     Del. Del was supposed to ask Aunt Lydia for a ride back but didn't. The next day he brought Tony's books to him.
     -Looks like you have yourself a friend. Lydia said.
     And Tony, believing her, took Del to be his buddy long before Del accepted that Tony was more than a helpless protégé 
who shared his lunch and looked at him with such queer innocent glances...
     -Tony!
     -Ah, Del. They were strangers, now. Two men who'd enjoyed the odd coincidence of being children at the same time in 
the same place, if only physically. Del was beautiful with large, brown, camel-lashed eyes, his thick brows and soft round 
lips rendering him totally savage. Tony extended his hand, Del took it and they both chilled. Tony swayed on the steps that 
were only planks on cinder blocks.
     -You drink?
     -Some. He wanted to ask...to ask something.
     -Daddy ain't here. Del said looking into Tony's eyes, trying to see if that was the question, the giant question mark 
that ate up more atmosphere than comfort allowed. -T.John's in jail.
     -He was in jail when I left.
     -Well he went back, the stupid fuck, tryin to take apart Clarksburg. Clarksburg, the nearest city, or approximation 
thereof, was also the  whitest. Only ill, unhappy black folks went to Clarksburg to act the fool. Tony grimaced.
     -Zeena?
     -What, you ain't seen her?
     -Yeh I seen her, you're about to marry her!
     -Ohyeh. Like a misplaced thought. -We're gonna be family. Say what you want to drink, Daddy got some beer in here; 
that shit we used to drink in High School. You remember, Tone?
     -Yeh, I remember. He sat in Oldman's chair on the porch, a rocker with a piece of carpet for comfort. Del went inside to get the beer, when he came back Tony had hypnotized himself.
     -It's all the same, you know? Nothing has changed, not a tree, not a rock, not a single, solitary thing.
     -It sure looked different to me. Del passed him a beer and popped the  top off of his own. Two sips. -Last week when I got back Zeena came to get me at the bus station...say, you know who I seen? Tony looked at him more hopeful than curious. -Jessica Bell.
     -Oh. Alice is running around with that one.
     -Is she? Boy you better talk to her if you still can.
     -Alice is her own person.
     -Not with Jessica Bell she ain't. Even with the two evil asses they got for mamas; those two together -?  Hew!
     -Evil is as evil does.
     -Tony? What you doing thinking about evil?                             Silence.
     -Tell me about Germany, I hear those girls over there really go for some black bucks.
     -I wouldn't know, tell the truth. I'm true to your sister.
     -Cousin.
     -Misses Lydia and Missus Phoebe raised you both. Wind rushed through the trees of a sudden. It threw dust all over the road, rippled the surface of  the black pond.
     -Is it nice?                                                   More silence. A day owl hooted.
     -Ohyeh. Big ass mountains, all the way to the sky, Tone, covered with trees like these here, with those little villages just like in the books, man, the streets all cobblestoned and the houses... the houses are...
     -Prettier.
     Sadly. -Yeh. That was Del, sweet, sweet, soon to be cousin/brother-in-law Del. -Eine schon Land.
     -And you're learning the language? Think Zeena's gonna like it?
     -She will.
     Tony held his breath, waiting for Del to expound. He must say things, great, full, dynamic things about his love for Zeena, pretty, slender, Zeena who must have found time between studies in Philadelphia on weekends and vacations, when her father's people weren't looking. And what happened while Del was away? Boot camp, those first six months in Germany, in Deutschland? How did this thing grow, let alone survive?
     -June.
     -What? Del sounded like his father when he was annoyed. He was about to fall into a trance himself.  One brought on by the pond, the thick air, the lazy hum. It was this sticky heat the two of them had worshipped some long ago June. Bradley was at her coffee break inter-season, the hot time between flowers and green apples.
     -You'll be married the end of June I say, Tony said, -and come July you'll be back in Germany.
     -Goddamn it, Tony stop actin like it's a fucking funeral. You should be happy for me - for us! Shit, ain't nobody can make me happy like Zeena and can't nobody take care of that girl like I'm gonna. I know what you're thinking about, but shit on that! What's done is in the past, cheer up! I'm gonna make her happy, it's gonna work! You ran off to college, you left us both here. We missed you Tony. We missed you so bad we couldn't do anything and not think of you; you were our heart! She was our mind! And I was there, I was part of it, every minute of it...He touched Tony now on the shoulder. -I love you.
     Tony burned beneath his skin. Shame like this made him shun mirrors for days. And Del's touch was pure white heat on his shoulder, on his back. The season attacked, prickly and spiteful.
     -She's my cousin, Del.
     -And my wife. Soon.
     -Give me a beer.
     -Come give me a hug. Del said, vindictive.    

         
     Mercury Herman was not a misnomer. His father had been long and lanky, lean torso, slender limbs, thin extremities, a reach and a stride that went far and fast. And according to his half dozen female bed partners his tool was a long thin piece of work as well. Born with long thin feet was Mercury's way of confirming his lineage. Until he dropped out of High school track was his sport, his thrill his domain. A dark chocolate color he let his body  sail over the red clay in nothing but a brief pair of white shorts and running shoes. The track ovalled the football field in an eternal loop taking you to where you were going, where you had been. On Autumn mornings he felt each step, with each drag of his breath air came in, ragged like chunks of glass. His body dissolved, became a misty blur of black. His universe cycled into a spiral, fell into a dim gray line that he just followed into forever.
     Running was all he loved. Math represented the whole of the ten or so things that he hated. He wondered what would be the first thing, the number one thing that he hated? Even before squash and tomatoes, before the squabble and blood lyric of History, the wasted, repetitive monodrone of English, the arrhythmia of music and the waste of French. School, it occurred to him at some point long ago, was a series of wastes.
     His father had gone to first grade for eight weeks and decided to call it quits. Whether it was the chanting alphabet and number games, the incomprehensibly simpering teachers or the weight of separation from the farm the man never said. He just hadn't been a very motivated Herman. In eleventh grade, Mercury gave up the academic chase. He guessed that after all, maybe he wasn't such a motivated Herman, either. And then there was this teacher...
     Brown haired and drowsy framed the bespectacled womangirl fell out of the sky from New York City. Her smile was greedy eager and when it split her chubby face it showed her gums as well as the two thousand dollars worth of orthodontic science that her father had installed in her mouth.
     To him he was naked in those white shorts, thin bare muscle ripping around that track, becoming air, becoming a blur. Somehow the image ran out of him, a streak of black, and attacked the young first time teacher. That apprentice who thought she could teach Negroes down south. Who thought these folks were really all about  something besides earth and sweat and muscles that bunched with the sincerity of pistons. She thought he was naked, too.
    Sines fought hypotenuses in order to reclaim tangents, he bit the end of his pencil so many times it was a cratered stick. Isoceles laughed at Pythagoras, refusing to give up so much as a single conversion factor. And these warscapes raged while she was a million miles away, two doors down. In a room where she wrangled angles into control. She knew the odd ball language of planes and polynumerals plus the codes that translated them to eleventh-grader-ease. He served his math sentence under a true southern white gentleman, unrelenting, strict and polite.
     -Mr. Herman would you care to show us how to derive polyfractal integers from a redundant base set?
     -No sir, I would not. That was always good for a laugh.
     -Do it anyway. Which always ended any discussion. Mercury would stare at the stubborn book with its ridiculous lines and charts and graphs and numbers and nothing happened, no epiphany, no revelation, no angel of knowledge. He only wished the old bastard would learn two things; one, Mercury Herman will never know the answer to any question you ask about Math. And the second was that the world just might be better off without the complication of the science.
     During Gym, Mercury ran. The regular class had to fill out an hour, it consisted of football, basketball, dodgeball, baseball, or some other kind of ball. Mercury could care less for balls, Track was the only sanctioned alternative to established curricular activities. The Gym teacher, Mr. Bryant, a handsome and abundantly muscled Texan, made the deal with Mercury that he would do twelve laps and shower instead of dealing with the group. Unsupervised, he was on his honor, twelve laps ended in thirty seven minutes and he usually took his time in the shower. There was one set of balls he cared about anyway.
     Bradley High was a nonexistent institution. The kids from the town of Bradley went to the larger Tabor City High by bus. The two cities were within walking distance of each other, though. The High School sat across Route 9 from a general store called Barrefield's. It was a classic country store, with a wooden barrel out front on the low porch filled with produce, most often apples. Two giant windows allowed a gracious view of the interior. It was a colorful paradise of Hershey's, Mars, Zagnuts, Zero Bars, pickles, plastic packages, red and blue boxes, brooms at reduced price, douche, jelly, rolls, nails, aspirin, cap guns, paper towels, peanuts, all the goods that the American consumer might need to make a journey cross country, but none of the stuff that would make a house. It was a universe that appealed to the students because of the candy mostly, but High School girls needed tampons and High School boys craved condoms. Right across the highway, a dash and two hops, because this was the busiest road in the three towns area of Bradley, Washington, and Tabor City. For Mercury Herman it was a fleeting defiance of the laws of physics - he flew. His long limbs reached up into the cerulean calm and he flung himself across that highway into the utopia that was Barrefield's. Speed was god, and in his school jacket Mercury was practically indistinguishable from the football players who would be coming in the store behind him when their practice let out. This served the newfound use for his speed well. The Herman's were not generous parents. They believed  that too many indulgences made for a lazy, unproductive child. Mercury's Math grades did little towards impressing them and threats, pushed forward with punishments did nothing to create improvement. That fit the space for excuses; that and boredom.  His motives were simple, he wanted stuff. He wasn't hungry, Mrs. Herman fed her children. And then the goodies were placed at pocket level, a slow person could almost, but not quite. Speed was a need. And in half the blinking of an eye Mercury had won. The prize was chocolate in the pocket, getting handy with the candy. His heart nearly blew up, it went whammity wham! Wham! Wham! If he'd paid attention in Biology, if he could have paid attention in Biology, he would have know that there was a series of chemicals rushing through his body. Blood vessels were constricted, sugars were rushed to the vital systems, proteins flooded his muscles, visual acuity intensified, he was, for a small moment, something of a superman. Not even the taste of the candy afterward was as delicious as that feeling, that pure blissful unstructuring. And no one ever caught him...
     And across from the bleachers, inside the school itself, the Math classroom 210 afforded a full view of the track. In an unguarded moment she caught a glimpse of him, his full nude form spinning. A gasp fell out of her mouth with a steel thud. Then she saw the shorts, hugging him, twisting in violent protest against his flesh. She underwent a chemical change that made her face turn bright pink. But here she was, making decimals turn to fractions. The room was populated with gray faced medusas. How had the children suddenly become so ugly?
     ...Someone did see him, however. And it was a whitegirl who, like him, never had money. She was standing there, blindly aware of her dress with the color washed out, her flaky skin and itchy hair. She had come with another girl who left her outside by the door. When he stepped out she spoke up,
     -You' mighty squirrely, aintcha? Her friend was inside mulling over cosmetics.
     -And you' mighty nosy.
     -Think I might make it my business to tell Mr. Barrefield what you got in your pockets?
     -You think I might pop you in your big mouth?
     -You won't hit me, she said haughtily enough to show that she didn't consider it a real threat.
     -I don't see why not, you aint nothin but...He stopped, he could not bring himself to call her white trash. -..You aint nothin no how.
     -I aint a thief.
     He ran. The pale gangly succubus stood on the sidewalk laughing at him telepathically. He dashed into traffic where a pick up screamed to a stop and the driver hurled words at him. He was propelled by force, he looked back and she was standing there. Something made him think of trees. And they were burning, a giant red forest with leaping, elongated leaves of orange and yellow. He even felt the heat. It was her hair, she had unbound the flaky mess and it was a mane of bright orange, it caught the wind, and from across the street it wasn't so hideous.
     If there was a comparable human movement to what the bus did to get into the backroads of Bradley from Tabor City it might be called a dance. It's four corners moved in a rhythm all its own, but slightly out of sync with one another. A herky-jerky spastic dance. It tossed its adolescent load around but the driver was all but used to these worn out dance steps. He rode the waves, their motile slave.
     -Miss Templeton is so nice, I got an 'A' on my Math test. That came from some dullard girl, Mercury knew she didn't have two functional brain cells, yet she was getting A's.
     -Yeh, she gives good grades. Some idiot boy.
     -She's a good teacher, I never could understand Mr. Cagley, Hey Merc'ry!
    -Whut?
     -You got Mr. Cagley, don't you?
     -Yeh, and?
     -Aint he a bastard?
     -Quit cussing! The brain-cell-deprived girl said.
     -Shut up, girl. 
     But Mercury was already thinking, what if he could change classes? Everybody was saying things about that girl from New York City. She didn't just know Math, but she knew how to make you understand it, as well. If she was his teacher, it could only be less painful...
     They caught her staring. A big mouth black girl, too ugly for make up and therefore wisely abstained, cried out loud.
     -Look at ole stupid Merc'ry Herman, running around like he aint got no sense.
She thought it was a nickname: Mercury. And she wondered who in mythology she would be, standing in front of a group of eleventh graders? But now she knew his name. And when she said Herman in the teacher's lounge, something along the lines of -You know someone's named their child Mercury Herman?
And somebody laughed. She frowned at the laugher, a butt ugly hag of  a WASP, grandmother to God.
     -That one's destined for itinerant farm work, said Hag.
     -He could go into the Marine Corps, said a younger woman who had the face of a man, as well as the general build. Hell, if it wasn't for the sensible skirt and blazer ( she was an ex-Marine herself) she might be a man.
     -Maybe a garage mechanic said the Art teacher,  thin, overdressed Wellesley alumna. Her hair was prematurely gray. She wound  it into a controlled little knot, perfectly centered.
     -Or a stud said the Hag with a wink to the others.
She wanted to tell them what a bunch of cocksuckers she thought they all were. And when she checked her mailbox she thought to add cunts. There was a note from the Guidance Office, a true misnomer indeed. Her own Guidance counselor had suggested she take up typing for a career in the 'secretarial field'. As though that might lead her somewhere. Cagley, the Math Department chair, wanted a conference.
     -Have you been following the established guidelines of the Department, Miss Templeton?
     -Yes. She tried not to stare at the mole on his chin.
     -Then your students are truly a remarkable breed, wouldn't you say?
     -I'm sorry, I don't follow. She allowed more exhaustion to edge into her voice than she intended.
     -How would you explain a student like Dolores Crimmons going from a 'C' average last semester with Mr. Hunt to a 'B' plus this semester in your class? He shuffled papers on his desk, -What's that, Intermediate Algebra...?
     -Yes, she interrupted, Dolores had problems in Introductory Algebra because Mr. Hunt obsessed with method and not principle, Algebra is about balance; but he was so sure he could teach her the mechanics without the rationale that he was at ends with himself. And how about that kid, what's his name John, Johnny, Smithers or something like that, He was in Miss Van Dorn's Trigonometry class for six weeks and didn't learn anything more enlightened than 'SOHCAHTOA'? What is that? Is that a word, does it function? Where are these things coming from? Why can't teachers just ask their students what it is they think about a simple concept like a triangle? You show it to them, they examine it, you ask them what they see, if they aren't seeing what their textbooks are saying they should see, I don't fault the students. Something is fundamentally wrong with the way in which we present the subjects to our children.
     She was embarrassed for a moment. It wasn't like her to challenge authority with such fire, she was more subversive than that. -And it doesn't just happen in Math, but that's all I care about here, Math.
He tskd. She looked at him, hard. She wanted him to be abusive, to say something else, to challenge her. He didn't.
     While he ran she sat in the bleachers, cutting her third period English class. Her red hair, now all washed and henna'd hanging over her shoulders. Her dull face was alive with concentration. She wouldn't have told on him, and the second time she showed up at the track he knew it By the third time he started shouting out to her.
     -See anything you like?
     -Looks like my daddy's tennis shoes!
     -Your daddy's feet aint big enough!....To fit in these sneakers!
And she laughed.
     From room 210 Miss Templeton saw them. Isn't that nice, he's got a little friend. At the end of the day, the buses rolled around to the front of the school. She could see them from Room 207. He was waiting on the bus, she grabbed at his elbow. Quickly, then she slipped her hand in her coat pocket.
And he was smooth and that girl was smooth. So smooth. Where did they go to do it? The empty, funky, gymnasium? The girl's lockerroom? The boy's-? The lavatories? Petting. Necking. Humping. Fucking.
Mercury, the messenger of the gods and a kind of god himself. And that red-haired, inbred, backwater swamp girl. Calm down, Dana, girl, Miss Templeton told herself. She was grinding her teeth. Her precious daddy's teeth, two grand in dental work. She had to know, and she did not know why.
     They were in the woods, way out behind the school, a teenage tangle. His tongue was so deep in her mouth she would have choked except she swallowed so well. Nearby, birds stalked, rustling the scant underbrush. Her hands were grabbing him, she couldn't scream with delight because his tongue blocked off all sound. She moaned, and it sent a rush through the wood.
     Templeton wasted a week finding them. The girl, first off was some Darla Epps, whose father wore greasy tee shirts and drank cheap beer and... Templeton did not smile but the play was there... Epps had fixed her car. She didn't know how and couldn't stop herself. She wrote the note in large block letters, no one could say it was her handwriting. She still told herself to stop, that this wasn't right, that it had nothing to do with a naked black man running around a clay track. And she knew it had everything to do with him, everything to do with the idea of his purity. He could have come to her, she told herself, she would have taught him, such things. Besides it would only be good for them both to see less of each other, she would get to study more, hadn't she been reported as ditching something like six English classes this month? And he was running less since she started to hang around at the track. She dropped the letter in the mailbox outside the school.
She was ambushed by Cassie, the Guidance Counselors' secretary not two days later.
     -You got my note on Cagley? The pretty caramel colored lady asked.
     -What note?
     -That roster change, thingy. The one about Mercury Herman.
     Her heart leaped. So soon? -No I didn't get anything, Cass. Cassie was a diminutive, and therefore patronizing.
     -Cagley denied Mr. Herman's request to drop him and take Intermediate Geometry with you.
     -What?
     -Okay, slowly now, Cassie was condescending. So much for trying not to patronize,-Mercury Herman wanted to drop Mr. Cagley's Intermediate Geometry class, you got that?
     -Yes, yes, Cassie, go on.
     -All right, calm down, now, Mr. Cagley said no.
     -And Herman wanted to come to me? 
     -Yes, but that's all in the past, Cagley's the head of the department. You are a very popular teacher, you know? They like you. I guess Cagley didn't want to lose students to the newcomer.
     So, Mercury Herman had known about her? He wanted to come to her, to be a part of her little world, to grace her with his presence. She felt beautiful. Not wobbling and helpless but inspired and beautiful.
     -Fuck. She spilled out of the teacher's lounge running, not as fast as Mercury but certainly with as much determination. As she crossed the lot to get to her car she put on her sunglasses. To her dying day that one mindless event would stick out in her mind, the act of putting on those stupid sunglasses as if, in the middle of the crisis she had just initiated they could make a difference. Even the drive to Epps' place was a blur, and she was barely impressed by how easily she found her way after having only been there once. Especially since she'd gotten lost the first time. Mrs. Epps came to the door, small and white haired, as delicate as a spider and wide eyed behind thick glasses. Templeton did not know what to say, it was an accident, really, a lapse in judgment. She imagined Principal Latimer asking her why she didn't consult with school officials. She imagined the long drive back to New York.
     -Yes?
     -Is Mr. Epps here?
     -Oh, you're that girl from up at the school aint cha? How's the car running?
     -Oh, it's fine, is Mr. Epps here, though? She had pee jitters and wanted to go real bad, she was bouncing with her anxiety.
    -Oh no, dear, he got the nastiest letter from some person up at the school, she paused, calculating in her slow southern way, -is that what you're here about? He's done gone up there already.
     -No, how did I miss him?
     -There's about four, five ways out of this hollow...
    She was off again, bounding in what felt like one move from the steps to her car, leaving the dilapidated structure that had been Darla Epps home for seventeen years behind. She revved the car that Epps, his hands like independent super skilled insects, had repaired. It banged over the terrain, growling at the world, spinning up black dirt. And out of nowhere the word loser spun up into her consciousness, it clung to the stillness of her wake as she went off in pursuit of her own self...
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     The first sound was a splintering, shattering crash. Light spilled out and upwards, the roof of the department store grew a small blue-gray halo. Two figures eclipsed the light. One of them was Mercury Herman, three years dropped out of High School and desperate for the material gain that eluded the incidental poor. The other was Jenkins Traytor, a ne'er do well of the street corner variety, hanging out with the truly vicious but unable to commit any horrifying acts himself. On the roof of the department store, named simply 'Allbright's', they secured a position as sneak-thief predators. They tore apart the simple skylight, at risk of setting off of intruder alarms, and dropped a knotted rope through the fissure.
Mercury looked down, three meters he figured, exactly the length of the rope until it was knotted for foot holds, which, as he calculated, made it two meters and sixty two centimeters. He gave Jenkins, who he called Jen, a serious glare.
     -You're too damn noisy.
     -Ain't nobody around this corner on a Sunday night, quit bitchin and get busy. Jenkins was thrilled with the power that automatically came from being the most experienced in this sort of extravagant crime.
He gave a sneer for a smile to the neophyte Mercury. -Partner.
     Mercury had gained six ponds since quitting High School. Other men his age were in the Military, in College, at work in low paying minimum wage jobs, in prison up at Statesville, strung out on crack, dead, at home in bed with their wives/girlfriends. He was on the roof of a department store with Jenkins  Traytor, about to descend into the abyss of want. He knelt, took hold of the rope, Jenkins secured to a fan unit, another sixteen centimeters lost, and began his descent.
     The rope spun him, he gasped and hung on. He damned Jenkins to Hell, let his body take weight, and kicked out against the darkness. He looked again down, into the store, he was at the midway point, too exhausted to continue. He let go, the fall was not so terrible, he landed on his feet. And he thought to himself, like a cat.  Quiet, and death stillness had descended with him. Inside the store, the night lights were on and the distant display cases were blue under their influence. He'd landed in housewares, dark shelves held boxes of  pot sets and tablewares. In the dim, they were gray blocks. Mercury thought of his wife, Darla, and of their kitchen, iron skillets, gas stove and cheap wooden cabinets. Then he felt high, in this place, at this hour, the labyrinthine aisles, the dull brown and gray of the products in the half-light. It was more than intoxicating, he felt like a minor god. He dashed through the store , past the sanitary products, soaps and deodorants, lotions and creams. He eased through the ranks of aspirin, antacids, cold medicines and sleeping pills. 
    After the daily bus the televisions arrived. Unusual for a Sunday, both the bus and the delivery truck offered up something. The bus gave Bradley a man. Mercury, standing on the corner with Jenkins and Wally Tillman saw the man get out of the bus. They laughed, he was a sorry looking fucker all right, thin, feminine, they pegged him instantly as a faggot. Then the girl came and they thought again. 'Man if he ain't gettin' none of that then he gotta be queer' said Wally. 'Damn that's a nice ass' said Jenkins. She left Mercury cold. Oh, she was pretty all right, just not his type, too assuming, too much of herself. She didn't seem to be the type to take much bullshit from a man. And Mercury knew that men only had so much to give, the better part of which was bullshit.
     Frustration had beaten him out of the house because Darla was playing her game again. She pressed her pouty face against the window, looking at the children out there playing in the mud. She was so much like a child herself, still, even these three years after her father's death. She sighed, to give the whole moment a sense of meaning. For him, it was a job to decipher these silences, glances, and pauses. He was a faithful player:
     -What is it, baby?
     -Nothing. A conversation like this was repeated a dozen times throughout the week. Sometimes it came out while they were in bed, when he was deep inside her and she couldn't say anything but grunt monosyllabic needs. 'More', 'Yes', 'Slow', 'Ow'...sometimes she slid past him, easing her body down, down, damn she gave an incredible blow job. And when she wanted him to do her, it was the pouty face all over again, the wanting face, the needing face, the hurt face, the longing face. All were hers, all were signals to him, silent, perfect communications from a woman in love to a man who damn well better figure it out. This time they were on the couch, staring into the universe offered by the thirteen inch black and white t.v..
     -Would be nice to have a real t.v., she said, almost but not quite indifferently.
     -This is a real t.v., he was surprised at his own stupidity, or assumption thereof.
     -You know what I mean.
     -Okay, honey, soon as I get a job...
     -sigh
     -All righty, why don't you get a job.
     -I oughta, it'd keep food in this house.
     -Why, are the kids starvin'? Are you starvin?
     And she got up and left the room. He intercepted her, delicately, because it wouldn't do to hurt the honey. And on her part she allowed him to catch her, to hold her. She might have been made of the clothes that she wore for the resistance she offered. It was his embrace, she was just some disinterested party who happened to fall into it. They made sex right there in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, the chatter of their two boys filtering through the windows.
    When he got to the corner, Jenkins was there with Wally and Cutter Coulson, drinking up the afternoon, living their lives and doing relatively little harm to the world around them. Mercury lured Jenkins away from Cutter and Wally. He asked about t.v.s and the spurned Wally, ever faithful to the smell of Jenkins armpits, came ambling up uninvited. Cutter, who seemed impervious to the concept of popularity instantly found companionship with Lister, a known crack addict, they must be crack heads together, Mercury thought, how disgusting.
     Then Jenkins started talking about Tabor City or Atlanta pawnshops where a good guy could get a cheap set for under a hundred. It sounded too much like work and worry to Mercury, he didn't have any money, he didn't ever get the breaks that would bring him the money. He was unemployed from the time he dropped out of school, He stole everything that he and Darla owned except the rented house and the wallpaper. As soon as his parents had found out about their son and the little red haired white bitch from down in the hollow they renounced all ties to him.
     Darla's father went fast, the public scene at the school did him in. At first it had seemed like a stroke, then, and Mercury reveled in the possibility, it seemed the whole idea of  Darla with a boy like Mercury did it. She called herself a murderer and nothing he said convinced her different. And she looked at him, when he presented her with the ring he'd managed to sweep out from under the case at the jeweler's in Tabor City and asked him how would they pay for it. And he thought she meant the ring and he said his skill had bought it as surely as the carelessness of the clerk at the store had sold it. And she said they were going to pay for what had happened.
     He did everything for her when the first boy came, a fat headed,  red haired boy with Mercury's long nose, and the round mouth that the Herman's all bore. He had his mother's eyes and the shape of his head was exactly like Mr. Epps'. So they named him Lloyd, after the grandfather he would never know. And at the time it seemed like payment enough, then the second child came and Darla was applying for SSI and AFDC. Mercury was alternately working at the five and dime that would become Allbright's and washing dishes at the bar and grill just down the block from the store. It wasn't enough, babies needed. Wife needed. It seemed the whole of Bradley needed and Mercury Herman was going to have to provide. But he got caught stealing from the five and dime and was let go. The bar and grill couldn't handle having someone of that repute around.  It was a matter of time before they finally had to give him severance pay.
     Jenkins' talk of pawnshops then, angered him. How to get to Atlanta or Tabor City without a car or gas money for those few friends who had cars? Wally swore he could get a car and that added to the irritation. Then the bus arrived and that man descended and they had a good laugh. The sexy lady came to pick him up and they had a good ogle.  No sooner had the hissing dragon called Greyhound taken off on it's way to  parts unknown than the van arrived. It was an RCA delivery van with an extra large cargo area. It pulled right up to the front of Allbright's department store and the hefty driver got out, checked his environment and locked his door. Cutter Coulson who used to be the  biggest bully  in Bradley called out:
     -Hey, see if you can deliver one a them to my place.
     -Yeh and bring me the rest. Lister said. And at that instant Mercury realized that Coulson was not a crackhead but perhaps something more sinister. The sun seemed to suddenly explode at that moment, he felt the heat prickling his skin and a shudder convulsed him. The proprietor of Allbright's , Mr. Henry Allbright, a first cousin to the Barrefield's came running out of the store.
     -Why didn't you come around back? He said to the driver in an overly controlled tone.
     -There wasn't any room in the back. The driver said, examining the fullness of his surroundings, The strip mall represented townhood for Bradley. To him it was like a curiosity, a kind of amusing conceit taken on by backwoods folk. He presented Allbright with the bill and began to unload the truck. The assembled host counted them, twelve televisions. They took notes of the specs; nineteen inches, RCA, color. Out of his heat induced delirium Mercury heard the voice of that unseen spirit, that calm, fit-anywhere voice say to him -Here.
     By the time the van left Jenkins had devised a plan involving  the skylight entry. Wally still swore he could get a car. And Mercury had calculated, with a facility that made the others blink, how much rope was needed to lower one person in, wrap a t.v. and extract it. He also figured in the time it would take to accomplish this feat in the event that an alarm was triggered that would summon the deputy from South Bradley. Jenkins counted on a ladder from his brother, Wally said three nineteen inchers at least would fit in his car. They weren't sure of themselves, they giggled like schoolgirls and called themselves crazy. Then Mercury said -I'll do it. And it was a sure thing.
     -What's he doing here? Darla asked when she saw Jenkins in her front yard. The emphasis was on 'he' and the 'here' was territorial as hell. Mercury kissed her and patted her rump as he eased past her, into the house. He went directly to the bedroom in search of the work gloves he'd used doing community service last year.
     -He ain't coming in. He said, by way of apology. She shook her head as if resolved to defeat.
    -I thought you two weren't supposed to be hangin out together. No, not defeat, just to changing the terms of the battle. He was on his knees, his arms running under the bed, rummaging through the collected bedroom debris. He found the gloves and looked up at her with a smile, all mischief and promises. It was the look of the ten year old with a hammer in his hand swearing he won't smash that piggy bank  he's just placed on the smashing block...
     And the second sound was like a bottle exploding underwater, a loud crunch. Mercury heard it from within the store and Jenkins heard it from the roof. They both froze. Mercury, inside was motionless, he let  only his eyes move, rolling around  to seek the source of the sound. His heart's thundering was accompanied by the rush of his pulse, his skin felt sticky and the heat overwhelmed him, a drop of sweat fell into his eye. In that moment he saw a flash of light that could have been a policeman's flashlight. He flung himself, at length, behind a paint display. He lay there, waiting for the inevitable discovery. He waited one minute. Then Jenkins called from the roof
     -Yo!
    -What?
     -Let's get a move on!
     Mercury grimaced, he was still shaken. He got up slowly, checking the front of the store where Wally waited in the car, in the dark, across the street. He could see the car, a black Lincoln Continental. The lights were off, if they came on of a sudden it was a signal, but he couldn't remember what the meaning might be except to get the hell out anyway he could.   He tried to remember anything of use and found that he couldn't, his hip hurt from the plunge behind the paint set up and he half limped through the store to the electronics department.
     -We is moving out of the five and dime business, we is. He cheered. -On to the big gadgets!
      It was Allbright's newest installation. And from the looks of  things it was still under construction. Nothing was in the cases or on the ample sized shelves. Mercury had thought as much, he carried Jenkins' pry bar with him. The store room was behind the cases, the door was un-geniusly disguised as part of the wall, but any person who came during the day could see the employees come in and out of the opening. It didn't take much force to open it. It wanted to be opened. The televisions wanted out, they needed a mistress like Darla, or Jenkins' mom, or Wally's whatever. -Baby, said Mercury. The narrow storage area had shelves that were nearly packed with goods, not just television sets, VCRs, stereos, and speakers. He looked around again, the godlike feeling flooded over him and he was able to smile.  He let out a breath, a good heavy sigh. All in a day's work, he said to himself. He took hold of one of the boxes, hefted it's weight. It was forty two pounds, not too heavy. He backed out of the store room, felt the carpet of the showroom area and turned around. The store was brighter, or so it seemed, it was his eyes adjusting to the dark. And the t.v. got lighter under the influence of his adrenaline rush. He moved quickly through the store, expecting every minute to trip over the blue shadows, go  crashing to the floor and smash the load. The rope dangled from the skylight like a happy noose.
     -Okay, got one, he said, tying the rope around the box, first around the front to rear axis then the side to side axis. He checked his work. The rope scraped against his cheek, he looked up for Jenkins but he could not see into the night. -You there, man?
     The third sound was a very loud burp. Mercury Herman heard it and laughed. He didn't know what Jenkins was eating up there but he was going to give him hell for eating on the job. For one second he didn't expect anything to happen. Then it didn't and he waited.
     -Jen, yank it up! He finally said, irritated. He heard a scraping, the rope tensed and then he nearly fainted. The t.v. did not rise up, it zipped up, straight up through the torn open skylight and into the sky. He was cold of a sudden. And the fourth sound was from outside the department store again. It was when the t.v. came crashing to the ground. Mercury could not move, then he felt the coarseness against his cheek again, he thought it was the rope and reached up to push it away, too late he realized his mistake. The pain tore through his arm, crushed his shoulder. And the darkness came to life...