Were there other names you considered for SOUTHERN VOICES: A BOOK OF AWARD-WINNING STORIES? I wanted its title to be Copeland’s Crossing as that’s where the stories take place. The title it has does less to limit the setting so the title it has is better.
What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? 1994-2004
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? Many of these stories were written on my computer in my messy office. Books surround me on two sides, a floor to ceiling double window behind me and photos of barns on the wall in front of me, one a watercolor from an artist in Huntsville and four photographs I took on travels. An additional barn is a charcoal primitive artwork of an artist whose initials I cannot read. I was told when I bought it that he was one of the most prominent artists in the country.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I fill myself with diet Coke as I write. At times I listen to mountain music, especially ballads. If I have a thought when I’m away from home, I write on white legal pads with pencils, sometimes pens. I keep a legal pad by my bed in case a sentence comes to me in the night. When I start to write on my laptop, I write all day.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
Pages 104-105
Jena drew closer to the window to look.
At the far edge of the backyard, Clint crouched on his knees, bent over a pile of dirt. His plaid shirt stuck to his skin. Next to his knee lay a lumpy blue shirt. He lifted it with both hands, as if cradling a baby, and placed it in a hole. He guided muddy dirt over the hole with his hands and tamped it, first with his hands then with his fists.
Jena let the kitchen door slam and ran screaming across the yard. “Murderer!” She threw herself on Clint’s back. Her weight flattened Clint face-first into the mud. Noah grabbed Jena at her waist and heaved to get her off his little brother. She flailed her arms and legs, kicking Clint’s hips, his back, and Noah’s shins with her hard-soled oxfords.
She shouted at Clint, “You SOB.” One turn and she wiggled out of Noah’s hands.
“Shut up,” Noah shouted. “That’s enough.” He groped again, grabbing whatever he could grasp.
Jena shrieked in pain and rolled off Clint. She turned on Noah and beat his chest with her fists. “What do you mean, grabbing my tit like that?”
“God, Jena,” Noah said. “You gone crazy?”
“He’s done killed Bella.” She slapped Noah hard across the face. “I told you not to let him stay.”
Behind her, Clint smoothed the center of the mound and rose from the mud.
Noah gripped her wrists. “Stop it, Jena.”
She fell against him, breathing hard.
“He killed Bella,” she whimpered.
“Big Brother, you ought not feed a dog chicken bones,” Clint said, his back to his family. “They sliver. Little dog died from inside.”
Noah felt his pants for a cigarette. There were none there. “I didn’t feed . . .”
Jena spit her words toward Clint. “I knowed all along you was a no-count.” She squatted down and threw a metallic object off the mound and evened the soil. “Noah should’ve left you on the side of the road to die.”
“Now, Jena.” Noah stroked her shoulder. She pulled away.
Clint picked up his paper sack and took the muddy shovel. Jena cowered over the little grave and watched him wide-eyed. Clint beat the shovel against clay stuck to the sole of his shoe. He stuffed his Piggly-Wiggly paper sack, now empty, into his pants pocket. He stepped over Bella’s grave and cut between Noah and Jena.
Rain has a unique trick of falling in one place. The rain and the sun appear to battle for the right to claim some invisible barrier. It allows folks to walk into the rain and back out again. Often for no particular reason, other than the thrill of controlling what people do.
Noah moved out of the rain and away from Jena. He picked up the medal piece, now washed clean. He held a bronze cross, no more than two-inches high with an eagle on the center and a scroll beneath. The scroll read “FOR VALOR.” Noah flipped it and read Pvt. Clint Townsend. “Oh, baby brother.” Noah’s words struggled for air. Something viscous lodged in his throat and held his words at bay. “Why didn’t you say so?” He put his brother’s Distinguished Service Cross in his pocket. The patch of rain moved over and fell again on Noah.
In the distance, Clint climbed the road toward the highway. Before he reached the crest of the hill, he brought out a whiskey bottle, turned it up and drank it dry. He threw the empty toward a pine’s black trunk. It hit its target and shattered into a brown explosion.
From the beside Bella’s grave, Noah called out. “We need to talk.” Clint walked on. Noah twisted around and glared at Jena. “I need me some hard liquor,” he said.
“Don’t you dare.” Jena said it almost like a gasp. She seized Noah’s arm.
Noah wrenched her hand away. He stepped out of the rain. He slammed the kitchen door as he went inside.
Dazed, Jena moved one foot. It fell on Bella’s grave. Her shoe sank into mud. A rowdy hen squawked at her. Jena gagged from the stench of wet chicken shit across the wire fence. She untied her oxford and drew out her foot. One foot bare, she limped toward the kitchen.
By dusk, the rain had stopped. Noah heard a series of abrupt yips and a soprano howl from the back woods. A wolf pup stalking his chickens, he thought. “Going out to check on the chickens” he called to Jena. She didn’t reply.
He hid his vodka bottle in the bib of his overalls. He walked easy. His bones ached from the tension of the past twenty-four hours. Outside, he swallowed a long draft of liquor and watched the sun shoot pink and purple clouds across the horizon. The coming dark didn’t hold him back. He stumbled on. He needed to get as far away as he could so he could be alone with himself.
Near the chicken coop, he stopped as he approached the fence. Something shadowy sat atop Bella’s grave. At first glance, Noah thought it was Bella herself, back from the dead. He paused next to the mound and rubbed his eyes. It wasn’t Bella. It was a shoe. Jena’s shoe, filled with rainwater. He bent to lift the shoe but ordered himself not to. “Leave it be,” he said to nobody. “It won’t matter none one way or the other.”
Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? I am especially drawn to those who have been in conflict. I am drawn to dogs, but I don’t place a dog over a man. This story “Chicken Bone” was written as a tribute to a family member who served three years in a German prisoner of war camp. He came home an alcoholic. He lost his wife, his children and never held a job. He was an outcast in the little town where he lived. The true tragedy is that he never told people that his alcoholism grew from being a prisoner. He never told his wife or his children that he had been a POW. He wouldn’t talk about his war time once he returned. I learned from another family member that he had spent three years as a POW. That’s the only truth in the story. In this story, dogs are treated better than he.
https://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/pow-germany.html
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt
This revision (Above) is not the final edit. It is built on adding more action to the end of the story. Noah is forced to take sides. He does so when he realizes that his brother was recognized as a war hero, not that that fact should matter. I don’t keep copies of what I have changed.
https://www.facebook.com/laura.hunter.9655
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