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Someone used to live here. A white picket fence and a terra-cotta rooftop. Now there’s bullets holes in the front door. Junior’s ripping out the floorboards to fire up the pipe stove. Eddie shuffles the cards and Sergeant bitches about the orders. Hurry up and wait. I wonder, what’s in the basement?
Digging trenches out by the highway. Old man, all smiles, invites us back to his house. No chickens in the coupe. No electricity. Portrait hangs of a young man in a military uniform. Medals in a frame and a candle burning. She waits in the kitchen. All cleaned up. His teenage daughter. We’ve got dollar bills.
Just another pretty little postcard town. It’s snowing outside. Where did everybody go? Sergeant says they’ll come pushing down from the North. Get some revenge for what was done to their own. Junior stuffs his mouth full of meat and potatoes. Eddie’s cap, blue and white, covers his eyes. I go down to the basement.
Took a long, long time to come back up.
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