In the Pines, In the Pines(Pawn H1 to H3)

The night was dark, threatened rain again. In a quiet corner of downtown one bar sent its soft amber glow out into the sidewalks and a sole neon sign advertising a cheap Milwaukee lager flashed blue and red intermittently. Inside, smoke and the smell of a fryer and the crackle of pool balls. An old jukebox woefully shuffling away the hours until close.

"My girl, my girl, don't lie to me..."

Clay sat at the worn and pitted bar. Cigarette burns under old coats of varnish, the wooden edge worn smooth by generations of working class elbows, down-and-out forearms.

"Tell me where did you sleep last night?"

A small collection of shot glasses. A cigarette burning in an overflowing ashtray.

"In the pines, in the pines,
Where the sun don't ever shine,
I would shiver the whole night through."

Lacey stubbed another smoke out and leaned back on her chair. Cool blue light filtered through the small window that looked out onto the brick firewall across the alley. She held her hands against her face and her body shook again.

Outside her door, her employees listen to the sound of sobbing and the unending rhythmic squeak of a chair.

"My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I'm going where the cold wind blows."

Snow poured himself a single malt and loosened his tie. He fell into his leather recliner and turned on the television. Scotch had long since ceased to burn his throat. He savored its peat and smooth fire. It reminded him of Ireland, the moors and green fields and the sweep and scent of rain coming off the Atlantic waves. Maureen loved that smell, he remembered her with that smell, she was inseparable from that smell and the movement of the breeze in her hair. It was in Ireland where he'd really begun to understand her.

He hadn't been back since the affair.

"In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don't ever shine..."

Clay downed a fifth shot and asked for another. He wasn’t his father and his eyes watered, his face flushed, the room wobbled around his bar-stool. His fingers traced a pattern on the wood grain, played with the water rings, and drummed on the stained empty glasses.

A coaster lay torn in a hundred tiny pieces.

"...I would shiver the whole night through."

Bishop sat at her kitchen table, pouring over notes and accounts and a stack of black and white 8x10's. Leadbelly played on a little radio. His scratchy voice comforted her, helped her concentrate. She recorded a list of figures into a notebook and rubbed her eyes, unaware that her hands moved in time with the guitar. Between the pops and hisses of the old recording the rain began to tap on the roof, and she walked into the kitchen to open an empty fridge.

"My girl, my girl, don't lie to me,
Tell me where did you sleep last night?"

From the office the wailing had ceased, replaced instead with a low murmur as from a conversation that rose and fell in volume and in concert with the rain. It was long past midnight. One of the employees knocked on the door. Silence, then the murmur again, steady, rhythmic, hypnotic. The employees looked at each other, then picked up their coats and left. The one who locked the door did so quietly and carefully, as though he were sealing the lid of a heavy pine box.

"In the pines, in the pines,
Where the sun don't ever shine,
I would shiver the whole night through."

The news came on. Top story: another accident. Advocates up in arms. Traffic safety. Snow tipped the decanter. A golden brown cascade over ice, three fingers. Anna Murray died on the scene. Snow's head snapped around. Witnesses say the driver didn't stop. He slowly walked to the television. 911 calls indicate the driver ran a red light. He sank to his knees. How could this happen in broad daylight? Yes, how could it? How could it?

"My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I'm going where the cold wind blows."

The rain brought with it cold and though at first it kept Bishop alert, she soon rose to close the window. She reached over the couch and heard the tinkling of a homeless man's bag of recyclable cans. Otherwise, the streets were quiet. The window clicked when it latched.

"My girl, my girl, don't lie to me,
Tell me where did you sleep last night?"

Clay stared at himself in the restroom mirror until it shattered in a star pattern and blood ran from his fingers in rivulets. He stood there blinking stupidly, looking at his knuckles. A hand twisted his collar and gripped his shoulder and spun him around into the door frame. The taste of iron filled his mouth. The bartender threw him into the pool table and pushed him through the door and Clay fell down on the sidewalk into the arms of the soft receiving rain.

"In the pines, in the pines,
Where the sun don't ever shine..."

Snow was already working feverishly at his computer, the screen illuminating his furrowed brow. His planner lay open by his right hand, his left gripped a pen that he twirled absent-mindedly as he typed, took notes, and made calls to people whose displeasure at being woken up so early in the morning was repressed by the anguish in the old man's voice.

"...I would shiver the whole night through."

A frail wraith-like shadow slid down the downtown streets like a thief seeking the darkest corners. None could have guessed its purpose or the reason for its huddled, hurried gait. Night seemed to pour into it and become lost, trapped in a vacuum never to escape. Even the streetlight's sodium glare was unable to penetrate that closed, contained form, which held within it the dark ruined circles where late a bright star shone.

"My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I'm going where the cold wind blows."

With his left hand Clay dug his cell phone out of his right pocket. His right hand hung useless, bloody and inflamed. The numbers didn't come easily, to memory or to kinetics. His hand worked only as a model of potential energy, some wounded thing sleeping away a painful night from which dawn might draw peace, or yet more pain.

"In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun don't ever shine -

She reached for her cell without taking her eyes from her notes.

"Hello?... What?

Where are you?"

- I would shiver... the whole... night through."

A Wet Dog (G7 to G6)

Hey, Preacher girl. How’s my pooch? D'you miss me? Yeah, I think you missed me. Woah, dog, you stink and you're wet. D'you go swimming?

Yo, you didn’t let her in the river, did you? Man, I told you not to. You know what’s in that river? Fuckin’ acid rain, man. Fuckin’ mercury and PCBs. DDT. You name it, the fish are swimming in it.

I should send you swimming, you bench hog. Scoot over. Yeah, well, fuck you. You would be too, you seen what I seen today. You hear about what happened downtown? No, the hit and run. You didn’t hear about it? Man, it was cold–blooded.

No it wasn’t. I don’t care what Kneecap say. Cap don’t know shit. This was cold man. Co-old.

Yeah, you know, I got that gig over there across from the bank. I told you about it before, didn’t I? Some crazy-ass dude – thinks he’s Deep-Throat or something – been paying me to keep track of when this guy leaves for lunch, how long he’s gone, who he hangs with, shit like that. Boring. But hell, I’ll take the money.

So I’m outside waiting for my mark to make an exit, and I’m just thinking that he’s kind-a late, ’cause the bank’s already closed – closes early on Saturdays, and he normally doesn’t take so long to lock up and get out of there. And I’m kind-a checkin’ out other folks on the street, people chillin’ on a Saturday. And I notice this chick on a bike pedaling past, and I don’t even know why my eyes follow her but they do. I remember thinking she looked really good on that bike, you know, like a natural, like in her element.

Oh, blow me. That’s ’cause you never been in your element, you wouldn’t know it if it rained on you.

Anyway, I see she’s coming to the intersection, and I also see this SUV – it’s a 4Runner, which I’d locked onto earlier, ’cause I like to keep tabs on the vehicles parked nearby – this 4Runner’s pulling out and the driver’s stepping on it, and just as I’m rolling my eyes thinking, oh yeah, hot rod there gonna gun it to the stoplight, he’s running through the light and plowing into this chick on the bike. And it’s like, “you asshole,” but I don’t even have time to think that. ’cause just like that, the bike’s flying and she’s flying and she’s flipping over the top of the SUV and man, I did not want to see what happened. But it’s like it happened so fast, I couldn’t even turn away and you know, her body’s falling and I swear I could hear bones snapping, but I know that ain’t true ’cause there’s all kinds of cars screeching and people screaming and shouting, even I’m screaming. Some guy’s running after the 4Runner hollering, but it’s like where’s a traffic jam when you need one? The driver just creams out of there. Another guy throws his coffee at it, but it don’t even come close. Fucking twisted rat bastard. But I’m thinking I don’t care, ’cause I got his number, man.

But man, that girl. You never seen anything so twisted. There’s a group of us, we’re all crowdin' around the body, but like I don’t know why, ’cause man, I did not want to see that. And it don’t seem real, man. It’s like I just seen this chick and she’s beautiful and then it’s like… like fuckin’ Picasso took a live body and mangled it for real instead of just on canvas. Face looking front and profile, limbs bent like they ain’t never supposed to be bent. A woman says she’s a doctor and people clear a path for her, but it’s like there’s blood leaking out this chick’s nose and mouth, and we all know it’s not a doctor she’s needing.

People been pouring out of the stores and apartments to see what’s going on. Cops ain’t nowhere to be seen yet, but everybody’s on their cell phones calling it in and shouting out, “Anybody catch the license plate?” and I hear myself chiming in like some Dudley Do-right, “I got it!”

But then I notice my mark’s finally come out of the bank. And it’s like at first, he isn’t even too interested in what’s going on, but then I see him ask somebody what happened. And then he’s pushing his way in to see the body. And then it’s weird what he does. ’Cause I swear he gets all pale and I’m thinking well what’d you expect, don’t look if blood makes you faint, you dickhead. But it isn’t like that. ’Cause then he’s looking all around, scared like, like suddenly everybody around him might have some contagious disease, and he just starts backing out and away from the crowd and then he’s got like his briefcase up to his chest and he starts trottin’ backwards, and I’m about to follow him, but there’s somebody pulling my sleeve saying, “This is the guy’s got the license number,” and next thing you know there’s this cop and he wants to know what I got written down, and so I’m stuck there trying to explain to him why I’ve got a notebook full of dates and times and license plate numbers and shit.

Jesus, what a day. What a fuckin’ day.

C’mon pooch. Let’s go get some din-din. Yo, thanks for watching her. I’ll catch up with you later. And man, I’m telling you, don’t go dunkin’ into that river. That shit will kill you.