tions. Plus, Palmer liked to drive, and Rodney had always been more of a passenger, prefer- ring to leave his fate in the hands of his nomi- nal brother while he contentedly watched the features of the North Georgia landscape dash by.
“Kick it,” Rodney said as they settled into
the bucket seats. “Kicked,” Palmer replied as he dropped the
Camaro in gear and popped the clutch. To complete the celebratory plan, they
needed beer. One of the advantages of living in a dry county was that the bootleggers sel- dom concerned themselves with their cus- tomers’ exact ages. If drinkers’ legs were long enough to reach the pedals and their arms were long enough to reach the cash, then they were old enough to buy alcohol. The pair of graduates took advantage of this liberal sales policy and bought themselves a case of beer and three bottles of cheap, sweet wine for toasting. This wasn’t the first alcohol they had ever consumed, not by a long measure, but it seemed the best they had ever tasted, perhaps due to the gaiety of the occasion. They clinked their beer bottles in mutual salute as they sailed down the narrow asphalt in the Ca- maro. This was their turf. They had run these roads more times than they could count. They knew them like they knew their own names: Rodney Earwood and Palmer Cray, two up- and-coming young men parting the silky dark curtains of the soft Georgia night, curious and eager to see what marvels lay just on the other side. E ventually they found themselves parked in the graveyard behind Mission Hill Baptist Church. It was an exceptional spot to drink or to take the Nickel sisters because Millard Mc- Chesney, the local policeman, never came up there when he was out making his rounds. Millard was a large, rough man with a short left leg, and to his great shame, he was afraid of all manner of dead people, both the freshly departed as well as those who were little more than memories drifting on the gentle breeze.
This was admittedly an odd and somewhat limiting trait for a law officer, considering the nature of the work and the eventual likeli- hood of encountering an individual who had ceased to breathe. But Millard was an odd and somewhat limited man, so it made sense for him. Still, the dead can do no harm. It is only the living who must be watched. Rodney and Palmer were deep into their
celebration and not worried about Millard McChesney or his phobias when they decided that the night was still young enough for an- other journey to the beer joint. It was a deci- sion that forever altered the small part of the world they knew and called their own. Many times during the ensuing years, Palmer Cray marveled that he was able to recall those mo- ments at the cemetery so well, especially con- sidering that he didn’t recollect much at all from the time right after. But the memories were there; all he had to do was close his eyes, and they all came back to him, as welcome as a night terror, as wanted as a hurricane. The stars that night had been twinkling
lights strung randomly against a backdrop of black cloth, blue and white beacons sparkling just out of his reach. The only cloud in the en- tire sky had wrapped itself tightly around the heavy moon like a cape. A wispy ground fog meandered to and fro among the white tomb- stones. The gravel road gleamed alabaster in the moonlight, and fireflies danced their care- ful dance, ever watchful for barefoot children bearing mason jars. It wasn’t just images that came to him. He
could breathe the scents of early summer as they lingered on the gentle breeze, the sugary perfume of the blossoms on the fat honey- suckle vines as they hung from the branches overhead, the thick sweetness of the garde- nias, and the overripe richness of the magno- lias. He could hear the crickets and the tree frogs as they croaked and skreeked, and from a great distance came a long, mournful note as a freight train approached a marked cross- ing. It was a slow moment in time, a rare
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