MAYS WELL BE DEAD

Five pounds of onions in a ten pound grocer's sack. Tried not to look at his hands as he placed them in the bag. Set them carefully. Loss four fingers in a combine, he said without looking our way. Onion roots wound from knots as frazzled wire. Best onuns inna world, he said. Won messa wards. Sweet as grandbaby's tear. Salt stained his USA ballcap, mountain range of salt jagged over the screeching eagle and across Old Glory. He leapt out the truck bed and stood there with the sack. Beyond the truck the train tracks and upon them a lone boxcar, CSX, rusted clay red. Loblolly pines thereafter. A hawk above. Dove nestled on telephone wire.

Pile of onions loose in the truck bed. Tall jars set tight in Coca-Cola crates. Red paint worn pink and logo soft serpentine. Woman set in the cab smoking. Face like shoeleather, fingers fitted with fake nails Dahlonega gold. Saw her scowl in the truck mirror and sip soda from Church's Chicken cup. Man folded the grocer's bag mouth over close and handed it over. His dog yawned.

Vidalia Indians t-shirt had the sleeves cut-off and his arms red as hotlinks. Mockingbird swept over his dog. Scarred pit tethered to a spike driven in the dust. The pit blinked as the bird feathered over him. Used to shoot them with uh pellet gun, the man said. Kilt mess of them. Now they driven Duff here docile. He bend like a willer tree nowdays. The man pet the dog and waved his arms at the mockingbird and shooed him. Tractor trailers roared by.

See yall got five pound at three dollar pound, the man said. He closed his eyes and opened them wide. Eyes faded Ford pickup blue. That fifteen dollars. He folded the bills and put them in a cigar box on the truck bed. The box was tacked shut. Yall need nothin else? Muscadine wine? Watermelon rind pickle? We shook our heads.

He looked at the back of the car. Yall from Atlanta. Use to watch them Falcons. Loss five hunnert on them when they lose to Dallas that year. Danny White was a killer weren't he? Loss my house and car to that game an end up livin inna church buildin downere Coffee County. Wasp nest hanged from rafters size of a hay bale. Set there hummin dayn ight. Dreamt bout bustin it two and how the whole county'd be torn part by them wasps. The mockingbird drove between us and hissed. Get him Duff, the man screamed. Goddamn. Get up and do somethin. Mays well be dead.