some things you remember when you don't
when you don't know how
they got there in the first place when
somebody whoever it was
said the guy was riding in the back of somebody else's
pickup and either he fell off
or his girl friend pushed him out the open tailgate
just up the road from us and the deputy
that was married to mama's cousin
said that after the coroner had gone home he would take us
to where it happened
at the top of the hill not far from where
we used to wait to catch the schoolbus
and sure enough
when we got there you could still see
some dark spatters
in one of the ruts which he said was spots of blood
from where the man's head hit the road
and we could touch it if we wanted to
don't be scared they done finished up here anyway
but when we didn't move
he laughed and put his finger in it and daubed it
down his cheeks and then he did
a rain dance he said
he had seen the indians do in a don red barry movie
but that whole summer it only rained twice
and by the time it happened the deputy had already left
mama's cousin and gone to
detroit city to work on the assembly line which was booming
then right after the war and the last anybody
heard about him was in the sixties when he ended up
with a real life indian woman who killed him with a knife
about the same time that don red barry went public
to beg all his fans to send
a donation of one dollar so he could start up a new
series of westerns
which never happened but somehow
he managed to survive until
1980 when he finally gave in and done away with his self
and took his young wife with him which
you might just shrug off
as coincidence except for one more thing
same month same year
that don red barry gave up the ghost july 1980 was when
naomi jordan and i went out to the old cemetery
at watts cross roads
and made love for the first and last time which could happen to anybody
except for this one thing she was
having her period and she took her fingers and put
them in her blood and brought them up
to my lips
and when i turned away she laughed and said scaredy cat go ahead
it won't kill you
and she pulled her wet fingers down my cheeks and pushed them
in my mouth and right there and then
without a cloud anywhere in sight it started
pouring down rain



�2007 by James Lineberger
previously published in thieves jargon