Ruination
Kent Quaney
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We’re sitting out on the back deck in the Alabama spring heat, drinking iced tea, going over the plan for that evening’s reading, shouting over the savage barking of the neighbor’s dogs. Snarls and howls from the other side of the fence make it almost impossible to talk, but Melody wants this, breathes deeply, insists she doesn’t mind the feral onslaught. She’s just flown in to Mobile from Chicago where there’s still snow on the ground.
Frank’s driving in later that day from Pensacola and the three of us are doing a group reading at an indie bookstore downtown. It’s in a repurposed shoe factory, the “colored entrance” and “whites only” bathroom signs left hanging on the exposed brick back wall by the owner so we don’t forget the past, but I wonder how much good it’s doing.
It’s supposed to be a themed reading, but our only tie is that we all went to the same school and we all have new books out. Our work has little in common – My straightforward realism has no bearing on Frank’s sci fi weird monster dystopian death cult spec stuff, although we’re both vaguely minimalists, while Melody’s astonishingly lyrical, ethereal poetry deserves its own performance at La Scala, and she doesn’t even know how good she is.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Melody says over the barking. “You really lucked out.”
I look at the April weeds pushing up through the lawn, the fence, damaged by wind and rain, held up only by a row of overgrown rose bushes and a zig zag of plywood patches I’ve hammered up – one or two planks added per storm. I’m still waiting to hear about my pay raise. The deck needs a good power-wash as well.
Melody has tucked her feet under her bum and settled into the splintering deck chair as if it’s a leather bound Eames in her own private library.
The gate slams and Frank shouts, “Made it! Sorry. Wouldn’t believe the fucking traffic,” sending the dogs into a new frenzy. Painful snarls drown out all speech, and the fence rattles as one of the bulldogs next-door throws her full weight into it. The picket snaps – second that week – and she bumbles into the yard, snapping and barking, then stops, wags her tail and sits. A crowd of puppies tumble through behind her and one fat-bottomed bumbler jumps into the pool, immediately sinking below the surface, kicking frantically. Her head pops up, then goes under again, water frothing and churning.
Melody is already up from her chair, streaking across the deck. “She’ll drown!”
Without pause she dives into the pool and swims to the pup, wrangling her up from the still chilly water, squeezing her to her chest while she kick-swims toward the edge. She hugs the dog tighter as she sloshes up the steps, shivering, her black summer dress plastered to hips and shoulders.
Melody kisses the puppy’s wrinkled nose and sets her down; mother waddles forward, sniffing and licking making sure her child is still intact. Frank herds them all from behind, calling and nudging, and gets puppies and mother back through the fence. The only thing I can see to grab, an empty propane cannister from a long past barbecue, becomes a temporary blockade.
“They’re renters, you know, so the fence isn’t their problem. I’ve tried calling the fucking owner but he won’t do jack shit. I’m about to file a complaint with the city.”
Frank has brought Melody a towel and she leans sideways, squeezing a curtain of water from her thick blonde hair. “Would you really do that?” she asks. “Would you really ruin all this?”
She sets the wet towel on the deck, curls back into her chair, and turns her face toward the sun.
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Kent Quaney’s novel, One Breath from Drowning (University of Wisconsin Press), recently won the Brodie Award for fiction, and his short stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review, BULL, Literally Stories, RiversEdge, and other journals. He studied creative writing at the University of Sydney and the University of Southern Mississippi Center for Writers, and is currently Creative Writing Coordinator at Auburn University Montgomery.
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Posted in Winter Extravaganza and tagged in #boudin, #fiction, #flashfiction, Fiction