Chapter 1
"You do realize we’re confirming every known stereotype people have of us? The least we could do is put our stupid shirts back on."
"Naw—too hot for shirts. Besides, we ain’t niggers."
"Well, I’m putting mine on."
"No you’re not!" Pink watermelon juice sluiced between Hector’s teeth and dribbled down his chin. He simultaneously slurped and leaned forward, causing his chair to slide back and strike the door. But he was too slow. Juice dripped from his chin to his tanned, round stomach. "My house, my rules."
"How old are you, twelve?" Pete asked with a dismissive shake of his head.
Hector ignored the jab and resumed where he had left off. "You see—are you listening, Pete? O’Brien? You see, what they could do is take the engines off old airplanes—DC-9's and 10's—and line ‘em up in the Gulf, put ‘em on floats or something. Then, when a hurricane comes by, turn ‘em on and create a wind shear in the hurricane, see, so it’ll fall apart before hitting land."
"Impossible," Pete said, hands on narrow hips. "You can’t generate enough updraft that way. Do you even understand how big a hurricane is? That’s it, I’m putting it back on—now what the fuck are you doing?"
While Pete spoke, Hector plodded down the three shallow steps to the lawn and knelt in front of the porch. Through the sun-bleached trellis, he looked up at Pete and raised his eyebrows as if to say What’chu gonna to do about it? On the weathered planks, Hector’s relic of a Bloodhound, Lola, napped lazily. Hector reached around the trellis and jostled her droopy ears. Lola sat up, craned her wrinkled head, sniffed the air, then, through the diamonds of the trellis, apathetically lapped the watermelon juice off Hector’s pot belly.
"Great," Pete said. "Now your dog’s going to get the shits."
Off in the shade at the other end of the porch: a chuckle.
“See what you’ve done, Pete," Hector clucked. "You woke O’Brien. Now he’ll be up all night."
Mike O’Brien continued to laugh. "The shits! That’s funny, Pete." He raised his naked torso and crab walked his skeletal figure out of the corner, concern sweeping over his wide face. "Lola ain’t really gonna get sick, is she?”
Lola sighed disinterestedly at the sound of her name.
"Naw," Hector said. "She’s a tough old bitch. A little watermelon juice never hurt her none."
Mike held his crab pose for a moment, then quickly scuttled back to the shady spot underneath the window. In the room on the other side of the wall, Russell Whitford played the Graham’s baby grand piano. Mike leaned his bare back against the paint chipped sill, closed his eyes, and allowed the melody to sweep over him like a slowly falling bed sheet.
Meanwhile, Pete marched the length of the porch like a prosecutor cross examining a tight-lipped witness. "Have you ever thought about putting her down?" he asked Hector. "A lot of dogs her age get arthritis, and it becomes too unbearable for them to live."
Back on the porch now, Hector turned away from Pete and went to the ice chest by the door. "She ain’t in no pain, Pete, so why would I go and do that?"
"Well, how do you know she’s not in any pain? What are you, some sort of dog psychic?" Pete laughed quietly to himself.
With no inflection in his voice whatsoever, Hector replied, "I got a knife here, Pete."
Sinking the blade into the halved watermelon, he listened as Pete retreated to the corner of the porch, where he roused O’Brien with a few harshly-toned, curt words. Hector grinned. He was still on top.
As Hector’s smile waned, the drone of a nearby cicada waxed. Then the screen door flew open, striking the cooler and knocking the knife out of his hand. Hector cursed as Russell Whitford, piano man himself, strolled onto the deck.
Rubbing his eyes, Russell said to everyone and to no one, "What’re you kids doing out here—Christ, it’s hot. Bright as fuck, too."
"Hey, you gotta take your shirt off. It’s the rules," Hector said, grabbing the knife from the porch boards and pointing its tip at Russell’s torso.
Russell laughed. "You know, I just don’t see that happening, big guy. But I will take a slice of that watermelon if you can spare it."
Hector cut him a slice. "Anybody want more? I’m about to chuck it. Fuckin’ flies are everywhere."
Pete stepped forward. "Why doesn’t Rusty have to take his shirt off?"
"Because he’s not a redneck like you," Hector replied.
Pete clenched his fists; his face darkened. Only Russell noticed.
"Your shirt is off too, bonehead. So is Mike’s."
"Huh?" muttered O’Brien from his universe.
With all eyes temporarily on Mike, Russell seized the opportunity to surprise by dashing left and grabbing Pete’s scrawny, slippery shoulder. "Relax, buddy—shit, you’re sweaty. Wait, you girls have been fighting again, haven’t you? What have I told you about doing that?"
Russell took a quick chomp of watermelon, then threw the pink and green wedge into the yard. With his free hand, he reached out, gripped Hector’s beefy arm, and brought the two squabblers face-to-face. Through a mouthful of juice, he gurgled, "Now smoochie-smoochie. On the lips. I wanna see some tongue action this time. Oh, come on—everybody knows you two are gay for each other."
Hector easily shrugged out of Russell’s hold, but Pete struggled. After a few seconds, Russell let go. Pete rolled his shoulder and winced. "Shit, Rusty. What did you have to do that for?"
Pete sat down on the steps. The breadth of his back, Russell noticed, was pocked with acne. More than a few of the sores were bleeding.
You’re loonier than O’Brien," Pete said. "You know that?"
Russell leaned against the house and ran his sweat-slick hand through his long hair. "Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. But I do happen to know for a fact that you," and nodding toward Hector, "and your better half over here are both crazier than Mike."
"And on what do you base that hypothesis?" Pete asked, standing back up, finding the steps way too hard and unyielding for his bony ass. He turned to face his friend, who bore the all-knowing grin of one who sees and hears what others normally can’t see or hear.
"Well," Russell replied, gazing over the tips of the jagged treetops in the near distance, "it has to be close to a hundred degrees out, and while you two were having your little lover’s quarrel in the unforgiving Alabama sun, O’Brien here was lying in the shade, under a window that hasn’t closed right in years, enjoying the air conditioned breeze from inside."