writing: civil war chess.

There was one of those above-ground pools and the girls were swarming it, with Doug standing watch.  Of course, Monmouth and Crissie were still perched at the kitchen counter, talking in their secret language, and Mamie was corralled in her room as usual, but most of the rest were there.

Except Howell and Ard.  Nowhere to be seen.

And Bobcat and Clyde, who sat in Clyde's house, blinds drawn to watch the ladies in their swimsuits.  They had Bobcats civil war chess set between them, like some kind of battleground between Dollar Generals, the ground where the real stuff happened, with Bobcat and Clyde pushing buttons and moving pawns.

Their eyes kept going to Maya, as everyone's eyes did, tallish blond looking like a wet dream, a model, watching her weight, and they where their two, the eyes of everyone, watching her weight.  She was in a two piece and looking untanned, fair, in her dollar store loafers.

They all had them dollar store loafers, it seemed, and they all, probably even the women, wanted to fuck Maya, and she stayed aloof, kinda quiet, which gave her a maddening sense of mystery.  

And she was one of the few that worked around the three houses, at Chicken Place #1637, where she probably just walked in everyday, into a place where everyone wanted to fuck her, there, too.  It was enough to make her desirable, that she had a little pocket money, that she wasn't on mister Roys disability check because of her adult age separated her out even more.

She wouldn't get in.  She'd just stand there and make them all wish.

Bobcat and Clyde played at chess, nudging the pieces like two ogres bartering, and PT Beauregard had met Sherman, had met the 37th Camden, had shot the line over by the Wilderness, and his horses were making the blue bellies toss their cookies in the scrub brush after they had fled in terror, tossing their cookies in the relative safety of having run on foot all the way deep into the heart of Maryland.

The newspaper people, in no uniform, probably had it easier, probably turn-coating and taking up with the rebels, in the name of getting the story, and saving their skins.

All at once an 80s Chevy Silverado ballisticly killed the front entry, the decking and the cinderblocks, and was parked feet from Clyde and Bobcat.

It was Nicky, Nicky the wonder, not much femininity about her to speak of, but always a pet interest of Clyde, pursuing him around the country the way she had already and would continue, if they both lived.

She had a gun and was firing wildly, making the plaster rain down like dust and sand from the ceiling, firing and running towards Clyde, who made for the bathroom, and came in so fast he fell in his savings bathwater, dirty stuff he kept for watering the tomatoes, and she was on him then.

They clawed and scraped, Nicky screaming inarticulately at the top of her lungs, sounding like a raging locomotive or something, a snake-scared bear of something, and suddenly 

a gun shot.

It had grazed Clyde, only, but went through the bottom of the fiberglass tub, and suddenly he wasn't drowning in dirty water, but sucking in pure air, as the water drained out of the tub into the crawlspace under the house.

He had the gunhand.  Not the gun, but the gunhand, and he picked up, like they were glued to one another, and water was pouring off of them, out their pockets, shoes, everywhere.

He wrestled her, tooth and nail to the bathroom floor.

Finally Nicky said something, enraged, as he landed on top of her, their elbows against the toilet:  I HATE YOU!
 

She kept on, "I hate you, I hate you", and his penis got into her somehow, and the gun fired knocking splinters all over the place, and he was kissing her, and she pulled away grunting and squirming to say she hated him again,

and then they got still.

She whispered, "I love you" and as his grip loosened, she scampered away like a frightened squirrel, scampered out, back into her truck, and left, leaving her trail of destruction like any afternoon thunderstorm.

One of Clyde's eyes was blood logged and useless, and he stumbled, partly out of breath back into the living room where Bobcat sat.

"Well" said Bobcat, that knowing hate-it-all smile on his face.

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