Jesup, part the third

and ron walks up next to his momma he leans over and gently kisses her on the cheek she lightly touches the back of his head she stretches up oh so slightly she whispers in his ear that his daddy is on his way ron nods slides his hands into his pockets squeezes himself between stiffened arms and extended double jointed elbows and shivers

a nervous shiver with goosebumps and a brittle grin

she takes his arm she looks up at him while he looks out across the courthouse lawn across the street the screen door to luretta's cafe banging open and shut open and shut as a couple of guys in stained coveralls wander out big quart size styrofoam cups with lids and straws in one hand white paper bags crumpled up hanging from the other

they step up and into a big international truck with ricks of freshly cut logs piled on high an engine fires sputters belches roars the truck crawls down the road out of town dipping down plopping down into and then bouncing up out of the big pothole on the side of the road as they make the turn the logs swaying against the ricks

the last ron sees is the fuzzy grizzled face of the driver leaning over the steering wheel one hand holding his cup and wheel at the same time one hand he guessed on the stick shift his head bouncing on the straw like some cheap valium pumped peachtree whore going down on a pencil dicked geek from georgia tech every time he changed gears

ron and his momma gaze after them the burps of smoke squirting out of the tail pipe

gazing after the truck gazing up into the sky gazing down at their feet ron's old brogans his mom's lime green espadrilles soft pink toenails exposed gazing pretty much at anything other than each other

waiting just waiting

gazing out over the bit of official looking lawn stretching down to the street new brunswick street that tees into cavendish square this wayne county courthouse lawn this lawn where last summer the end of last summer the night before he was taking off for school after he had been hanging with his classmates some of whom were going to altamaha technical college some of whom were going down the road to georgia southern some headed off to the university most just hanging around trying to find jobs maybe a little logging maybe a little farming

hanging around lying about the good old days

hey remember when john thomas drove his truck down into the pond took the left when he should have taken the right took us all night to wench that fucker out yeah remember when bennie drove his truck over all them mailboxes off of twenty seven yeah if it hadn't been for those boxes he might have gone on off into the drainage ditch might have turned that fucker over heh we had a few that night hey remember when stevie took all them ludes and picked a fight with those waycross boys he got the shit kicked out of his redneck self yeah but he got in a few shots they left with a few marks

yeah

hey remember when denzer shot himself in the head with that shotgun when that girl broke his heart

yeah

remember when

yeah