In the Forest of Light and Dark Read Free Page B

had landed myself a summer job at the Boonies pizza and subs making pies and all kinds of assorted sandwiches. Sometimes during busier shifts I would also wait on tables in the place’s small dining room for tips. It was okay work, and the money wasn’t too bad either. I had brought home roughly eighty bucks on a good day and about sixty for an average.
     I had decided to use the tips as my spending money and save the paychecks for repairing the Trans AM and it wasn’t long before the money really grew. By July’s end, I could already see myself flying down the road with my friends, T-tops off, with the wind blowing my hair back, while sound of white noise filled my eardrums as rubber met the pavement.
     And as the dog-days of summer passed by everything for me seemed on track and running smoothly for once. At the time, if you would’ve asked me, I would’ve had to have said that it looked like it was really turning out as a pretty decent summer for me indeed.
     I had spent most of my days off just goofing-off with Lettie and Gerralyn down by the Gulf. The beaches having still remained open even though we couldn’t go into the water due to that BP Deep Horizon oil rig blowing out its asshole and spilling a bunch of crude in the water. It sucked the big one, but I got over it because it was my evenings that I looked forward to the most. I had spent them partying in the forested area a couple of miles from my house with my best gals and a few of my guy friends Tucker Calhoun, Eron Durfee, and Owen Doss whom I’ve mentioned already from our game of spin-the-bottle.
     Owen had his brothers ID and would use it to pick up a case or two of Budweiser along with a bottle Southern Comfort because that was the universally accepted favorite that everyone was okay with drinking. Better yet, sometimes Lettie would score a handful of Mitsubishis from her cousin Jeff, who was a low-level drug dealer and part-time cashier at the Winn Dixie.
     (If you don’t know what Mitsubishis are? They’re ecstasy pills that are all white and look like an aspirin. The only way to identify them is by the three-diamond Mitsubishi symbol embedded in them.)
     They were my favorites! I loved it when Lettie could score them. They would make me feel all mellow and happy and would give me the color trails when I glanced at something too quickly. The only downside of having them was that every time Tucker was rolling on them, he would try his damnedest to get into my pants. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him. It was just… At the time I would never want to have such an awesome buzz ruined by a sweaty guy thrusting his unwashed junk at or in me. Plus, like I said, I’m not that sort of girl. I’m still very much a Southern belle thank-you-very-much even though what I may have written so far might suggest to you otherwise.
 
    *****
 
    Soon, July had passed into August in what seemed like a blink-of-an-eye, but thankfully by then I had saved up most of the money needed to get the Trans AM fixed up and back on the road with new tires and tags—and just in time for the start my senior year. But, that was when the shit really hit the skids for me and my family though. Not that we hadn’t come to expect that already. We have had more than our fair share of rainy days over the years. I guess you could say it came with the territory of being a Singer. Our family motto being, It can always get worse…
     What had happened was, in the four months that had passed since that well blew out in the Gulf, my Step Daddy Cade’s job at Carson & Company (They’re a seafood distribution company in Mobile.) had slowed down to a standstill. My Step Daddy Forrest—sometimes I like to call my Step Daddy Cade, Forrest Gump because he’s born and raised in Alabama, he’s a bit of a dip shit, and he works in the shrimp industry—had spent the last twelve years working for C&C and when that well blew out. It had