Page 1 (1/2)

The air was raith February theBobby Lee Fuller found the first body They would say he found it, when in truth what he&039;d done was trip over as left of Arnette Gantrey Either way, the end was the same, and Bobby Lee would live with that hite face floating into his drea time to coain-the night before, he&039;d have been hunkered over his desk in English lit, trying to twist his brain into coping with Shakespeare&039;s Macbeth, instead of dropping his line into Gooseneck Creek But this last fight in his rocky eighteen-month romance with Marvella had worn him down Bobby Lee&039;d decided to take himself a day off, to rest and reflect And to teach that sharp-tongued Marvella that he wasn&039;t no pussy-whipped wimp, but a man

The men in Bobby Lee&039;s family had always ruled the roost-or pretended to He wasn&039;t about to break the tradition

At nineteen, Bobby Lee was long past grown He was six one and gaith it, the filling-out years still to co skinny arms, and his mother&039;s thick black hair and luxuriant lashes He liked to wear that hair slicked back in the style of his idol, James Dean

Bobby Lee considered Dean a man&039;sany more than Bobby Lee did If it had been up to hi full-time in Sonny Talbot&039;s Mobile Service Station and Eatery instead of hacking his way through twelfth grade But his mama had other notions, and nobody in Innocence, Mississippi, liked to cross Happy Fuller if they could help it

Happy-whose childhood nah since she could smile beauteously as she sliced you off at the knees-hadn&039;t quite forgiven her eldest boy for being held back twice in school If Bobby Lee&039;s mood hadn&039;t been so low, he wouldn&039;t have risked hooking a day, not with his grades already teetering But Marvella was the kind of girl who pushed a s

So Bobby Lee dropped his line into the sulky broaters of Gooseneck Creek and hunched in his faded deniainst the raw air His daddy always said when a s on his mind, the best cure was to take hi

It didn&039;tthere that counted

"Damn women," Bobby Lee muttered, and peeled his lips back in a sneer he&039;d practiced long hours in the bathrooain"

He didn&039;t need the grief Marvella handed out with both pretty hands Ever since they&039;d done the deed in the back of his Cutlass, she&039;d been picking hiether her way

It didn&039;t sit right with Bobby Lee Fuller, no indeedy Not even if sheNot even if she had those big blue eyes that seemed to whisper secrets just for him when they passed each other in the crowded hallways of Jefferson Davis High And not even if, when he got her naked, she near to fucked his brains out

Maybe he loved her, and maybe she was s to tug hi the reeds along the skinny creek fed by the hty Mississippi He could hear the loneso down to Greenville, and the whisper of the da slack and still

The only thing nibbling thiswas his temper

Maybe he&039;d just take himself down to Jackson, shake the dust of Innocence off his shoes, and strike out for the city He was a good ured he could find ith or without a high school diplo about soles and the like, to fix a dinky carburetor Down to Jackson he could get hie, end up head mechanic Hell, he could own the whole kit and kaboodle before too long And while he was at it, Marvella I-told-you-so Truesdale would be back in Innocence, crying her big blue eyes red

Then he&039;d co face and warmed his chocolate eyes in a way that would have made Marvella&039;s heart flutter Yeah, he&039;d co in his pockets He&039;d cruise on back into town in his classic &039;62 Caddy-one of his fleet of cars-duded up in an Italian suit, and richer than the Longstreets

And there would be Marvella, thin and pale fro on the corner in front of Larsson&039;s Dry Goods, clutching her hands between her soft, pillowy breasts, and tears would be streaht of hi and telling hi hiive her