by NICK FULLER GOOGINS

Hickory and Joey Bags twitched in their lawn chairs, coming back to life. They’d been zonked on Canadian Ghost for twenty, thirty minutes, long enough that I was starting to get nervous. Nervous and impatient.

We were sitting behind Hickory’s trailer with our feet in the kiddie pool. The beer was running low, and glimpses of morning sun flashed through the trees. It was early, but I could already feel the air warming into another brutal July day, and there was one full cord of seasoned, split wood behind Teddy Whitfield’s place that needed moving. The sooner Hickory woke up to lend me his truck, the better. One cord meant an easy few hundred bucks this time of year, the tourists needing logs for their campfires. I knew it wouldn’t be enough to replace my mother’s Chrysler, but it wouldn’t be nothing, either. At least she’d know I was trying. I’d recently come to suspect the full extent of her disappointment. I suppose you could say I was eager to set things straight.