Core. Kassten Alonso
Читать онлайн книгу.
said. She took a drink and set her bottle on the wedging table. She nodded at the window. So you live over there?
He glanced out at the bungalow. Yeah, he said. I live over there.
I’d love to live in a place like this out in the middle of nowhere nobody else around no obnoxious neighbors fuck that would be so great.
It is, he said. It’s always real quiet. Nobody’s voice or footsteps. Just my own.
She said, So how did you end up here?
He watched her for a moment. She stared out the window. He looked to his left out the open door, at the sunlight across the parched goldenrod outside, at the butterflies and willowtrees. He took a drink of his beer and rattled the caps in his fist.
THE SKY SHOWED PINK THROUGH THE POPLARS AND WILLOWS. He led her down into the fen. Through rushes and stands of cotton grass, over dead trunks and around stiff brown stalks of fireweed, wildflowers going to seed. The ground sucked at their feet.
Yeah, this used to have a stream running through it, when I was a kid, he said. Dried up, oh. I don’t know. Ten, fifteen years back. There’s still patches that never dry, though.
And this is the shortcut, huh? she said behind him.
They climbed the embankment at the dogleg. Before them lay the harvested cornfield. Music fell from the sky. And the sun. From the center of the field the bonfire glowed. Bodies stumbled unseen around them, laughter in the corn.
Sounds like things’ve gotten underway, he said. He held his hand up front of his face he pushed through the stalks. Footfall and breath of the girl behind him. The moon a white wedge, and the stars.
They stepped into the clearing plowed at the center of the field. Bodies danced around the smoking bonfire. Bodies tossed stalks and lengths of wood and bundles of straw into the fire. Bodies lined up before fat silver kegs. The pigs roasting on spits. And dished up paper plates of meat and bread and corn. A large flatbed truck was parked at the far side of the clearing. The bed was buried under lights, banks of speakers, amps, cables. Cam shirtless in levis, cowboy boots, Cam’s hand thumping against his guitar, his boot heel on the flatbed. PLUTO’S DOG, a banner said, hung across the side of the truck.
He bent and untied his high tops. Pulled his socks off with his shoes. She watched him. It can get pretty muddy, he said. She shrugged and kicked off her sandals. They placed their shoes together, away from the others. The mud was cool. The mud felt good to his feet.
Let’s get a beer, he said.
They made their way to the kegs. Pushed past bodies, walked through the mud. Overhead the wedge of moon and shouts and laughter from the corn. Two big plastic cups raised above his head, he and the girl pushed their way back through the crowd, toward the flatbed.
Bodies danced before the truck. Cam bobbed his head and Cam stamped his foot and Cam smiled and sang. And the world.
The bonfire wavered the light around them. The girl drank from her cup. There was sweat on her throat. And bits of corn tassel captured by that sweat. He blinked and raised his beer.
She turned her head toward the bodies and the spears of flame. Figures darted in and out the undone corn. So this is like a yearly thing, she shouted.
Yeah, he shouted. Long as I can remember. The folks who own this field. Pagans, I think, and he laughed. He glanced from her to the flatbed, then up at the sky. It usually rains, but tonight is real clear. You can see the stars.
Oh yeah, she said. She took his arm in hers. Here turn this way. She pulled him around to the right, backs to the flatbed. She spoke into his ear. See those three really bright stars?
I’m not sure. I guess so.
Those three really big bright ones, she said and traced her finger against the sky. The triangle. See it?
He squinted. All he could think was her body pressed to his body. Yeah. I see it, he said, and pointed with her. A triangle.
The one that’s farthest right is Vega, she said. It’s like the brightest star in the constellation. Lyra that is. The lyre. And the one that’s farthest left is Altair Altair is the eye of Aquila. That’s the eagle. See the stars that form the wings and the tail?
He nodded and watched her profile. He raised his beer to his lips. Squeezed the mud between his toes. He said And what’s the third star?
That’s Deneb. It’s one of the top ten brightest stars and the highest tip of the Northern Cross. She shook his arm and pointed. See the cross?
He looked up. He cleared his throat. Yeah, he said.
Some people call the Northern Cross Cygnus but I kind of look at them as two constellations laid over each other, she said. The lowest tip of the Cross kind of forms the eye of Cygnus or the swan in case you didn’t know.
Yes, he said.
And the wings go out past the arms of the Cross. Cygnus and Aquila swim past each other in the Milky Way.
Cool, he said. Her perfume smelled like flowers.
Stars are cool, she said, and the music rose, voices shouted, hands clapped. You know what I really like about stars? He shook his head. Stars mean life after death, she said.
How do you figure? he said.
The so-called experts tell us the light we see up there is all that’s left of the stars because the stars died a long time ago. But we’ll be worm shit a thousand times over before the light of those stars fades out. So who’s outlived who?
Guess I hadn’t thought of it that way, he said. Her perfume. Daffodils.
Stars go way beyond time the way we know time she said. They blink and we’re gone. Stars are immortal.
He said, Guess they’re like, the closest thing we have to gods.
And nothing bothers the star, she said. While life fucks us over down here throwing in all these twists and turns and sucking us dry the star doesn’t change it doesn’t feel. It’s got bigger things to think about it’s above it all the whole rat race thing. You could be watching TV or working drive up or having sex or getting axe murdered and the stars don’t even blink.
He said, Nothing astounds the stars.
Exactly, she said. What I would give to be a star. What I would give not to feel.
They drank more beer, scored a couple joints, drifted beneath the drift of the stars, drifted among the bodies, the smoke off the bonfire and smell of roasted meat, mud cool between the toes. He and the girl watched the shapes bend and kick around and around the fire.
She said, So you ever going to ask me to dance?
Cornstalks rose behind her. The flames of the bonfire flickered in her glasses. What? he said and his head spun and the music all around.
She laughed and slipped her arm through his. I said I really really love this song and I think you should dance with me. It’s a party after all isn’t it?
He scratched the stubble on his throat. She was close, her skin against his hand the smell of her perfume. Manikin of daffodil. I don’t really dance, he said and raised his beer to his mouth. The cup was empty.
Don’t be shy, she said.
I don’t. I mean, I’m not. I’m not a very good dancer.
She dropped her cup to the ground. She took his cup from him and dropped his cup. We’re not on TV, she said. And there are no judges. And this is a slow song. Slow songs are easy. You move real slow.
No, that’s okay, really, no thanks, but she pulled him through the bodies, beckoned him away from the bonfire, toward the dead and dying corn. She faced him and pulled his arms around her. She rocked her hips side to side. Arms over his shoulders, she snapped her fingers to the music, and they turned, feet brushing, he swayed with her toward the harvested stalks, surrounded by movement and shouts and laughter. Bodies tumbled Sandbags from the