The tallest boy walked slightly ahead, sullen faced, a disconnected and disinterested leader. His gaunt body was framed by the road below, the explosive June growth on each side and the shock of blue sky above. Going nowhere in particular, the three boys drifted together and then apart, slowly angling from one side of the road to the other. The hot asphalt stretched underfoot, an ebony rail of progress that had finally come to the remote mountains. Freshly laid a week before, it was still settling, sighing down into the old potholes and crevices that had once pockmarked its face.

The summer heavy trees lining the two-lane road bent over and in, a deluge of green intent on reclaiming the space stolen by the hot tar. There was nothing else for miles, just this lush decadence and the secrets the birds and insects carried between the trees.

Bone tall, sauntering in front, Rick scarcely noticed the foliage. His attention was usually burning inward, caught on some sharp memory, some uneasy wound. Those old scars periodically narrowed his eyes, flashed in his words, a thin tight wire twisting in his gut, twisting ‘round his living-scarred heart, there under the blanche of his pale chest.

Every so often with a look of irritation he would glance back at the two boys trailing him. They were his audience. Both witness and players in whatever dark drama seized him. Pil and August, at 12 and 13 years old were feverishly entranced with Rick. They shared blood with him, through their father. Rick was their half brother.

Fate had moved Rick in with them when Rick’s mother had threatened to send him away to reform school. By then he was a volatile mix of impotence and Herculean rage. His stories were of theft, drugs, and family dinners that always seemed to explode into violence. The never-ending series of fights that he struggled through had given his body a visible tension. Brawls at school and heavy fists at home, he fought his way through a gray and concrete world of institutions and a stepfather who hated him. A step-father who once in a blind rage had almost run Rick over. The smell of burning rubber, the screech of tires.

At some point Rick’s mother couldn’t take it any more, when the cops came knocking on her door. Knock, knock and a badge. She made the phone call. A single phone call from the woman their father hadn’t seen in 15 years. "Come and get him or we’re gonna put him away." That was it. A thin voice from a forgotten life.

Rick showed up in a faded Metallica t-shirt and skintight acid washed jeans. Sixteen years old. Homemade tattoos littering his arms, black promises to the world. "Born To Die" scrawled on one forearm, skulls and crosses peppering his biceps. Nothing to lose but the anger that flashed with his words, a jagged cadence like missing teeth.

He stopped abruptly and pulled out his cigarettes. Marlboro man. Screw light cigarettes, Marlboro Red. He tapped one out expertly while cursing softly,

"What the hell we gonna do? What the hell does anyone do round here?"

His eyes darted to the impenetrable mass crowding the road.

"Shit, you ain’t got no idea what a party is, no idea how to party…" His words trailed off as he fired the cigarette.

The two brothers shifted uncomfortably, as if acknowledging their ignorance. Pil stepped forward, brushing his sandy blond hair behind his ears. He cocked his head to the side in Rick’s manner.

"Gimme a cigarette," Pil demanded. Rick stared.

"Shiiit," he said, rolling the word out across his tongue. "I ain’t giving you nothin, you ain’t got no money and here you are bummin’ my damn cigarettes. It’s enough I gotta stare at your ugly face all day."

Pil slouched, momentarily rejected. A truck roared by, swerving wildly around them. "Fuckers!" Rick screamed into the speeding tailgate. They watched it disappear around the bend.

"Come on man," Pil pleaded again, "I give you shit all the time." He waited anxiously. "Come on, I really need one…."

Rick’s forehead creased and his lips spread in a tight grin, "First off you don’t gimme nothin’, nothin’ but a pain in the ass." He flicked the ash and took a long drag. Inhaling deeply he turned and blew the smoke out at Pil.

"Ahh Hell, if I don’t you’re just gonna whine all day aren’t ya. So here, now just shut up."

He flicked a cigarette at Pil who scrambled to catch it but missed. It spun downward and tumbled away. Rick laughed as Pil curled over to retrieve it.

August stared from across the shimmering ocean of heat, the thick sweat of the road that wrapped the two figures.

"A friggin’ light would be nice too," Pil’s head jerked sarcastically, "I mean how am I gonna light it - off my dick?"

Rick exhaled violently red-faced , "Hell you ain’t got one to light it with then, do ‘ya?"

He pulled the light back out from his tight Levis. "Here boy, here boy, come and get it." Pil hunched, jutting his head forward as Rick flicked his thumb. The hungry flame licked upward. Dirty clouds fluted out Pil’s nose, out his pursed mouth. Cigarette smoke encircled his head, an ashen halo.

August stood alone. When had Pil started to smoke? Weeks? Days?

He really didn’t see him much any more. At meals, or in passing, his small frame arched forward as if protecting a secret. Since Rick’s arrival Pil had virtually disappeared, swallowed whole into another world, a dark cave of wailing guitars, overflowing ashtrays, and crumpled beer cans. August watched, quiet, awkward, a little resentful, a little jealous. He moved on the periphery of their world, a ghost seeking form.

"Hey, you want one too?" Rick turned to August and extended his pack.

A second dropped. The canopy of green crouched listening. The pack shook violently, "Helloooo, I said do you want one?"

August chewed his lip, transfixed.

"Nah," Pil said his eyes slanting to August, pricks of dumb challenge, "He don’t want one, he’s a pussy, I bet he’s afraid it will hurt his lungs or somethin’."

Pil convulsed full of nervous laughter and shot a quick look at Rick. Rick ignored him and wagged the pack again. Abruptly magnetized, August felt his body lurch into motion, legs pedaling forward. His arm lifted and he watched his thumb and index fingers close on the brown filter of a loose cigarette.

"Ahh hell, see! He ain’t no pussy," Rick smiled ferally and nodded his approval, tasting the capitulation. He flicked his lighter to life again.

August felt the flame on his face as he bent forward, a diffused oval of heat. More heat on a hot day. He sucked hard, giving the cherry life and pulled the smoke inward, feeling the acrid sear down his entire throat, down into the moist chambers of his lungs. The cough that erupted shook his entire body and left him doubled over.

"See, I told ‘ya he was a pussy! I told ‘ya!" Pil’s face stretched in mockery as he pointed wildly at August.

"Yeah, maybe he is, maybe," Rick laughed, spat and turned away, bored. He kicked an empty beer can out of the ditch, sending it skidding down the road. The can fled forward from his foot, spraying stale beer from its mouth, pungent and warm. The smell curdled the air.

"Smells like piss," August observed from behind, loitering in their wake. His feet itched for the can.

Rick stepped off the road and stood legs spread wide, facing a small scruffy field. At the far end sat a squat yellow trailer, leashed by a huge satellite dish. It was flanked by an old barn full of refuse. Old cars lay gutted and spent, their metal intestines spilling out, victims of some macabre surgery. The field was wrapped with one lone electric wire.

The electric fence held in a pony. It was the Sutton sisters’ long forgotten rag-doll. Thin and muddy, idling in the barn or pacing the length of the field, it wandered listlessly across the worn plot, head in a desultory curve downward.

Rick unzipped his fly. "I gotta take a piss." Pil sideled up alongside him. The two golden arcs sputtered above the pulsing wire. "I wonder if it’s really electric," said Rick.

August touched the wire with a long stick picked from the ditch. "Ya know water conducts electricity, so if it is …..I bet you’d get shocked if ya pissed on it."

"Nah," Rick said "I don’t believe that shit."

"He’s making it up," Pil interrupted. "I don’t believe it."

"Well, I don’t see you pissin’ on it," August observed.

"Yeah, go ahead big man, let’s see what ya got," Rick goaded.

Pil stood, uncertain.

"Come on, pussy," Rick taunted.

"Yeah, I’ll show ya. I ain’t no wimp." Pil lowered his stream. Golden water met electric current. Pil stiffened and his body wet rattled, eyes bugging, hands kneading. His small movements broke the connection. There was dead silence for a moment and then Pil screamed. August and Rick watched in stunned disbelief as Pil’s legs folded under him and he fell to his knees.

Rick started to laugh. His laughter grew in strength and infected August until they were both howling, reeling like drunks around Pil’s crumpled form. August saw a tear slip from Pil’s eye.

"Look, he’s starting to cry."

"What a baby," Rick teased. August crouched down next to him "Are you all right?"

Pil quickly wiped the tear from his face "Leave me alone," he stuttered. He stood and zipped his fly, noticing the stain on his pants.

"He pissed himself," Rick ridiculed. Pil turned shame-faced and started up the gravel drive that led to their house.

Rick and August followed, still laughing sporadically. Pil stopped abruptly,

spying something by his foot. He hesitated but finally spun around, his face

lighting up.

"You guys, come ‘ere, Quick! Hurry up!" Rick did nothing to increase his pace. "Hurry up Rick!"

"I don’t hurry for nobody," Rick snarled. "What the hell?"

"A snake!"

Struggling slowly through the gravel was a small black snake, pinky thick and about 10 inches long. Its head bobbed uncertainly from side to side.

Rick whistled."Look at that! A damn snake!" They huddled around, staring.

"Give me that stick," Rick coaxed reaching for the thin branch August still clutched. August pulled back.

"Why?" he inquired "What’re you gonna do?"

"Never mind that, just give it to me."

"What are you gonna do?"

Rick snatched the branch out of August’s hand. He blocked the snake’s path with his shoe and as it turned he flicked the end of the stick. It caught the snake midbody and flung it a couple of feet, looping and unlooping through the air. He ran over to where it had landed. "This baby can fly!" He flicked it back towards Pil and August. It landed belly up writhing between the two boys. A living rubber band. Their eyes met. They both felt the distinct violation of some innate and shared ethic. They also tasted the violent power in it, the utter disregard. Empathy morphed into another unspoken challenge. August saw the change in Pil’s eyes, from clear sky to shrouded dome.

Pil broke the gaze, bent and gingerly stroked the snake’s back.

"Pick it up," Rick coaxed.

Pil clamped his hand on the snake’s tail and straightened up, holding it at a distance. It struggled, lashing its sleek body to and fro. It was bleeding where the stick had wounded it. Pil shook his hand slightly, increasing the snake’s frenzy. "Look at it go, Rick!"

"It’s bleeding," August said, voice trembling.

"What, you afraid of some ‘ol snakes’ blood?" Pil questioned, thrusting his arm towards August. The snake hung between them, a line of division.

"Nah, I don’t care," August said. His brow furrowed. Black clouds in his head. He hesitated.

"Give it to him," Rick commanded. Pil shook it harder. The world thickened.

August reached out and possessed it. Lost division. Shimmy snake. Shake.

"Harder!" Rick yelled maniacally, "Harder!Yeah! That’s it!"

August started to swing his arm in circles the snake following, or leading, chasing its tail. A black propeller blurrrr, swirling with dirty laughter. Rushing, eating the sky. August blinked.

Rick whooped, "Hell yeah! Let me see that thing!"

An image flashed in August’s mind, the snake swimming in the air landing in the thicket, safe.

Now, poised, now, he thought. NOW… Do it…

Rick’s hand locked on his, manacling his irresolution.

"Gimme that." He easily pried it out of August limp hand, dropping empty to his side.