Bait Dog An Atlanta Burns Novel - By Chuck Wendig Page 0,35
town? Wrangle up the outlaws and make things right? We tried that already, Shane. And let me tell you: we were not up to the task.”
“But Chris would want us to—“
“Chris is dead!” she yells. “Chris doesn’t want anything now.”
“Atlanta—“
But it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want to hear him. She grabs her bag, throws him the vodka. Then she pushes past Shane and walks away, threading herself between the stones of the dead, walking the wobbly walk of the drunken and alive.
* * *
That night she goes to clean her shotgun. WD-40 and a coat hanger with a paper towel wad at the end. Crumbs of powder tumble out the end of the barrel and she finds an empty .410 shell in the breach, green casing uncrimped and open-mouthed from when the gun last belched forth a spray of pellets.
Halfway through she has to put the gun away. Can’t do it.
Can’t do any of this. Can’t solve Chris’ murder. Can’t bring him back. Can’t help Shane. She’s not equipped for any of this. That lesson she learned with great pain.
Her mother’s been hovering over her like a cloud of gnats since Chris died and tonight’s no different, asking Atlanta if she wants anything at all, and Atlanta thinks, I could really use a hug, but for some reason she doesn’t say that and instead she just shakes her head. Then closes the door and feigns sleep. This night. The next. And so many others after.
* * *
Mid-June.
It’s the last day of school for the year. Atlanta passed. B-pluses across the board, except in Mrs. Lewis’ English class, where she squeaked by with an untidy (but still passing) C-minus.
Atlanta goes by the English department, a dark little quad of classrooms. No lockers up here and the day is almost done and so it’s mostly empty. A few kids laughing, passing around yearbooks, dumb shit like that.
She knocks on the door to Mrs. Lewis’ classroom. The teacher looks up from a white carton of gummy Lo Mein, caught in a moment of embarrassment as she’s got a squid’s tangle of noodles dangling from her lips. She knits her dark brows and quickly slurps them up.
“Sorry,” Mrs. Lewis says, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “Kind of a tradition. Last day of the school year means a carton of Chinese from Happy Peking.”
“They have good egg rolls,” Atlanta says.
“They do, at that. What can I do for you, Miss Burns?”
“Just thought I’d tell you to have a good summer.”
The teacher smirks. “And here I thought you didn’t like me much. From what I hear, I was the only teacher to buck the B+ trend.”
“Yeah. You were.”
They stand there like that, in an awkward staring match, for ten seconds that seem to stretch into a geological epoch. Finally, Mrs. Lewis says, “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.”
“Mm. Yeah. Thanks.” A sour feeling sucks at her guts. “Did you have him as a student?”
“I did not. He was in AP English. Mr. Shustack teaches that.” Again the teacher dabs at her mouth with the napkin. “I’m surprised.”
“At what.”
“That you didn’t write anything for the yearbook. For your friend.”
“Not much to say.”
“Some wrote poems.”
Atlanta shrugs. “I’m not the poetic type.”
“Your analysis of ‘Of an Athlete Dying Young’ was surprisingly incisive. Sloppy in execution, perhaps, but some powerful insight in there.”
“Dying young’s kind of a theme these days.”
Mrs. Lewis doesn’t say anything. Her pained, sad smile says it all.
“Housman was gay,” Atlanta says matter-of-factly.
“He was. You should read all of ‘A Shropshire Lad.’”
“Maybe.” She pauses. “I probably won’t.”
Mrs. Lewis laughs. “Well. At least you’re honest.” Then, in a fit of her own honesty, she says, “My son died. When he was five. Leukemia.”
“I’m real sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be. It was before you were born. But it’s why I teach that poem. Among others. Life is equal parts strange and beautiful and horrible and we’re tossed into it without a map or an instruction guide. Poems and stories have a way of helping us make sense of things.”
Atlanta’s not so sure about that. She’s not sure anything makes any more sense just because you read or wrote some poem. Even still, she offers a wan smile and a wave. “Maybe. I’ll see you next year, Mrs. Lewis.”
“Have a good summer, Atlanta.”
But Atlanta knows the days of good summers may very well be over.
* * *
She hasn’t spoken to Shane since the night of the funeral. Shane tried to reach out a few times.