World Out There

John Talbird

Description

The World Out There is set in Gainesville, FL during the early nineteen-nineties and its North-Central Florida setting is important as both physical and psychological space. In addition to Spanish moss, heat-radiating highways, and palmettos, the novel explores the violence beneath the glittering surface of the “Sunshine State”: racial tensions, neofascist violence against “others,” and a string of serial murders acts as an ominous backdrop for the action. The car wreck into Lake Walters, coming within the first pages, is a catalyst for action—the concentric waves radiating from the car dropping through that lake surface like danger reverberating throughout the book. The story follows the lives of three people—Jan, William, and Ray—with the action centered around a used bookstore. Each of these Gen-Xers came to Gainesville to get college degrees and then never left. Each watches his or her grandiose ideas of “success” drift away as they pass through their thirties, replaced with a vagueness of purpose, a nagging anxiety that there is something else they’re supposed to be doing.

Sujets

• Florida
• Crime
• Florida (homonymie)
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Madville Publishing
• Date de parution: 09 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781948692373
• Langue: English

Extrait

The World Out There
The World Out There
a novel
John Talbird
Copyright © 2020 by John Talbird All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
The World Out There is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, businesses, companies, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Requests for permission to reprint material from this work should be sent to:
  Permissions   Madville Publishing   P.O. Box 358   Lake Dallas, TX 75065
Author Photograph: Melinda Yale Cover Design: Jacqueline Davis Cover Art: All Bantering and Debating , silkscreen, 2008, Melinda Yale
ISBN: 978-1-948692-36-6 paperback, 978-1-948692-37-3 ebook Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936689
In Memory of My Mother
1
Something weird is happening, Mom.
Jan turns from the window, shakes the daydreaming trance from her head. The kitchen is bright and stifling with afternoon air. She cuts the water, dries her hands on a dish towel. A sluggish fly buzzes past, half-dead with heat, not worried about flyswatters. Jan kneels so she is face-to-face with her son. She loves seeing Hank up close like this-it gives her chills to think that someday he will be her height, someday she will have to look up at him. His curly blond hair is out of control. A man thought he was a girl last week in the grocery store. Perhaps she should cut it, but she is afraid of screwing it up. She hates going to the barbershop: those thick men with their cheap cologne and cigarette breath, fat fingers holding scissors too close to his neck, the long wait while she bites her nails and spits the slivers, scowling guy pushing a broom. She puts her fingers through Hank s curls, his serious expression making her smile.
What do you mean, buddy?
It just keeps jumping. My chest. His eyes move slowly downward. The fly buzzes. That was it. Did you hear it?
Yeah. You got the hiccups.
Will it go away?
Sure. Try holding your breath.
He puffs his cheeks, places his fists against his neck as if to hold the air back. The clock on the wall hums. Hank hiccups and giggles, placing a hand on his heart as if to pledge allegiance. Just a sec, Jan says, filling a glass with tap water, tasting it-room temperature, metallic. Here. Drink this fast. He does, but after a few swallows, his chest jerks, eyes widen. She smiles. She knows it s nothing, but wants to fix it. Hey, buddy, try to drink upside down. He frowns and bites his lip. She nods, recognizing the stupidity of her suggestion. Like this, she says, taking a mouthful from the glass, turning and bending so she is looking at him through her legs. She swallows, smiles upside down, black curly hair pooling on the gray linoleum floor beneath her head. Got it?
He giggles and swallows some water, hands the glass back, bends over. The water runs down his face, into his hair and onto the floor. His laughter, jarred by hiccups, is musical in the kitchen. Jan pours the rest down the drain. Through the window, she can see Hank s cat, Smoke, inching through the grass, hunting something she cannot see. She could turn suddenly, yell boo, scream, scare the hiccups from him. Of course, that s a ridiculous idea.
He looks at her as if to say What next?
They ll go away, buddy. Get your bathing suit on. We need to leave if we re going swimming.
Jan packs a lunch-a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, sodas-and they head down 441 to Lake Walters. The grass on Paynes Prairie looks dry enough to spontaneously combust under the Florida sun. Palmettos poke up from the ground like clumped daggers. The long, green sedge speckled with white flowers stretches for as far as she can see. Wavy lines of heat rise in the air as the road blurs and twists ahead, the dark mirage of water evaporating as they approach. Sweat runs down the side of her face, ribcage, the small of her back. The steering wheel vibrates like a lawnmower handle. Hank runs his fingers through his sweaty hair. Warm wind whips through the open windows, passes out again. Elbow against the armrest, Hank stretches to peer at the speeding scenery. He is wearing his new blue bathing suit, a YMCA T-shirt, black sneakers, the Donald Duck sunglasses his grandmother gave him last spring. Jan touches his hair and gets that feeling: chest contracts, eyes blur, and she tries to swallow, but the feeling is stuck in her throat. Sometimes, she thinks she loves him so much it will kill her.
How are the hiccups, buddy?
Still there.
What the hell, eh?
He shrugs and she laughs. Then she flips the blinker and turns onto the dirt road leading to Lake Walters. The old Chevette leaves a cloud of dust, obscuring the road in the rearview. Her tongue is gritty, air smelling of chalk and gasoline.
Hey, look, buddy.
A brown rabbit crouches in the middle of a freshly mowed field. Its black eyes turn toward the passing car, and then it hops off, seeming to skim the grass. The little automobile struggles, groaning up a steep hill, and then the lake is below, sun glittering on its rippled surface, tiny people running on the beach, splashing in the water. Hank hiccups and Jan presses her foot and the brake goes all the way to the floor.
There is a surge of panic and she stamps again, thinks she has pressed the gas by accident, slams her foot against the other pedal. The car shoots down the hill, toward a family crossing the parking lot. She hits the horn again and again, silly sounds from beneath the hood like a cartoon duck, inappropriate for the frenzy in her chest. She stomps on the brake pedal while Hank says, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, too calmly for a four-year-old in a brakeless car. The father yanks his little girl and he and the mother run, dragging the boy across black pavement. Jan jerks the wheel, swerves from the family and other blurred bodies and Hank is saying, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, and the Chevette nicks a car-gray, large like a Buick, Oldsmobile maybe, who cares, she can t think about that-there is the deep crunch of metal and tinkle of glass. She jerks the wheel away from a large oak; they run up a hill, green and cushiony with grass. It nudges the front of the car into the air and then they float.
Jan inhales and she and Hank look at each other and, briefly, smile. They hit the water and Jan lets out a big sigh because water is soft and she thinks that they are safe. That was exciting. Huh, buddy? Her laughter is shaky and without humor.
Uh, Mom, water s running in the car.
Don t worry, it ll be okay. We re just a few feet She is surprised that land is so far away. In fact, her shock paralyzes her, not allowing any movement but the slow scan of eyes as she measures the distance: Ten? Fifteen? Twenty yards? The placid water is marred by rings expanding from the little car, horizon wet and rising to blot out vision. A large, flabby man-sunburn, too-tight T-shirt-moves toward them, struggling against lake, free-styling arms through the air. His eyes are white circles of dismay, tiny teeth framing open mouth. People gather on the beach to gawk. Water is pouring into both windows and their feet slosh in it. Hank stares at Jan, waiting. Don t panic, buddy. It s going to be fine. She pops off her seatbelt and reaches into water for the button on Hank s.
Goddamn. What? It will not unlatch. Jan feels her lips curling into something like a smile but not, the situation too surreal with dream terror to be true. She can see Hank is not scared, he trusts her, waiting. Don t panic, buddy. She jerks at the seatbelt, punches the button, jabs until her nail breaks. Goddamn it. Fucking goddamn! Come on! He hiccups, eyes round with fear. Or maybe shock at her language. Don t panic, baby. When the water comes up, hold your breath. I ll get you out. He nods once, his cheeks puff and the water is over his head.
Jan is under and Hank looks back with fishlike eyes. She jerks at the strap which is unbudging. But then, with the second pull, shoulder straining as if to break, it comes loose. Sliding Hank free, she shoves him through the open window and his head bumps the frame, knocking an explosion of bubbles from his lips, air rushing crazily toward the light. She hears herself moan beneath the lake, dragging him to the surface. Putting her foot down, she sinks, surprised not to find mud, and swallows warm, gritty lake water. She kicks up, sucking in sweet air. It tastes clean. She can even feel it in her teeth. Hank s eyes are closed, mouth open, lips blue and fragile like wet paper.
Shouting and splashing next to her ear. Lady, here, let me have him.
No! Jan yells, bats the hand away, swallows another mouthful, coughing. Her arm is across Hank s chest as she swims toward shore. A few feet and there is mucky earth beneath her. Hank is in her arms-light, limp, like a doll, no, not like a doll, skin rubbery, tongue gray between even, white baby teeth. Her mind is chaos, a garbled what next: How do I get him to the hospital with the car gone? Call Ray? He d threaten to take my son, got him into this mess now get him out. Could I walk? I could But when it registers that her son is not breathing, language breaks down, mind screaming atavisms.
The sun and water slide across her eyeballs, blurring everything but dark figures gathering and murmuring, hands to mouths, milling, unsure postures. Sand and spidery shadows, sprouts of grass fly up at Jan s corneas as she drops to her knees on the sand, son in arms. She lifts his neck, stares down his pink throat, pinches his nose, puts her lips against his. Breathing into his mouth, lips gritty with lake, her good air travels through his lungs. She wills the air to exist, become solid, something she can see-not this ghost she inhales through her nose and mouth. An image from grade school comes unbidden: science class, cartoon Os, arrows pointing them in the right direction.