by Jason Ward Boyte

This morning I was baptized. Now I’m lying stretched out in the backseat with my legs up on the black vinyl. It’s hot. My calves and the back of my neck stick, but I don’t have the energy to move. Pastor Sherwood said the next flood would be fire. That makes sense.

Through the window, I can see the fig trees go by. Acres and acres of fig orchards stretch for miles. That’s all that grows on this [...]]]> by Jason Ward Boyte

This morning I was baptized. Now I’m lying stretched out in the backseat with my legs up on the black vinyl. It’s hot. My calves and the back of my neck stick, but I don’t have the energy to move. Pastor Sherwood said the next flood would be fire. That makes sense.

Through the window, I can see the fig trees go by. Acres and acres of fig orchards stretch for miles. That’s all that grows on this side of town. On the east its grapes, because there’s a river that comes down from Yosemite, and there’s better irrigation. Here it’s dry. Rows and rows of trees, spread out across the plots in a grid, their trunks whizzing by the window like the blades of a fan. At home I’ve got a card clipped to the spokes on the back wheel of my bike. Speed can blur things to where they look solid. Like running by a chain-link fence. If you run fast enough, it looks like a solid, silver wall.

In the front Dad mutters, “Too hot to mow the lawn.”

The church is still ten miles from anywhere in town, but the town is catching up to it. The windows are rolled down, the hot wind cooling the sweat from my hair. A chill goes down my neck. It makes my stomach turn. I’m so tired, I could dissolve. Songs are going through my head, but I don’t know the words yet. There are times that I feel like I can just separate from my body, float above myself for a while, but I always come back, even when I don’t want to.

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We are the Disciples of Mayhem. Within five miles, there’s a spray-painted D.O.M. on every Neighborhood Watch sign. We’d already marked most of our territory, but we’re working toward omnipresence.

It’s the first Friday of fall and all the leaves on the block have been raked up off the lawns and put into white plastic bags along the curbs. About two or three per house all lined down the street, on every block. Mark’s behind the wheel of the Crime Car, giving it all he can, and Dave and I are holding a pair of bags out the window by their necks. Mark clicks a dirty beige cassette into the stereo, and the beginning of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” crackles through the speakers. It’s just two notes repeated over and over, building momentum. It’s on ten and distorting. Mark is trying to get the car up to speed. The thin tires of the car hiss over the slick street. Halfway down the block—as the french horns break away from the trombones—he gets it. We release the bags, and the leaves swirl down to the rushing asphalt, then up again in huge arches of crackling tans, oranges, rusty reds, and pale greens. The french horn solo blasts beautifully, so high I think it can shatter the windshield or pierce through the roof and keep going. It’s so loud we can’t even hear our thoughts. It’s magnificent.

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Mother cries a lot these days. It started after Dad died. I used to try to talk to her, but I always seem to make it worse. More and more I find myself just closing the door when I hear her. Doesn’t seem like me doing it when I do. Lately I’ve been breaking things, too, and I don’t know why. That doesn’t seem like me, either. I just get mad sometimes, even though everything’s going better now. But, you know, things seem better when other people don’t have to tell you they’re better. Everybody at the meetings always say things are better, they insist it, like they know something I don’t. Maybe it’s just that they’re telling me it’s better now. I don’t know. But I’ve been getting my act together.

I talked to Dave a few weeks ago. He said he’d talked to Mark, and that Mark is pissed at me, that he won’t even say my name anymore, and that he says I’m a “complete shit.” Maybe I am. Other people seem to have their act together, and where the hell am I? Sometimes I really want a drink, but I stop myself. It’s about all the strength in me.