BooksBarbecue
Back Atlanta Burns Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PART ONE: SHOTGUN GRAVY
  6. Sometimes she wakes…
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. PART TWO: BAIT DOG
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. PART THREE: THE FARM
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. PART FOUR: KISSING FIRE
  38. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  43. PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  48. EPILOGUE: THE MESSAGE
  49. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  50. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Here faces shift. Blood on the carpet. Her head shoved facedown in a pile of comforters that for some reason smell like the Cat Lady next door. A thumb wetted by a long, too-long, tongue and pressed against her cheek to wipe off a smudge. Again the shotgun goes off. Again the wicked stink of discharged powder. Again she awakens. Wet not from the shower but from her own sweat. Drenched, actually.

She needs to go see Guy on the other side of town after school tomorrow.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

What’s that they say about Pennsylvania? Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and Kentucky in the middle? Pennsyltucky. Way Atlanta sees it, that’s about right. She’s from North Carolina and comes from a town where half the floor of the nearest gas station minimart is dirt, and even still, this part of Pennsylvania—the great gaping, pooch-bellied middle banded by the stretched asphalt elastic of I-80—fits the bill.

Her school, William Mason High, isn’t straight-up Hicksville. It has its rich kids and its poor kids. Some kids are those of millionaires, some are kids who even at the age of fifteen know the ins and outs of the food-stamp program and need special assistance to afford a school lunch every day. The school has blacks and Latinos and a handful of Chinese, one Arab girl that she knows of, and more than a few Indians—not the casino kind, but the curry kind. But for every kid who drives a Lexus, you get three who can drive a tractor. For every kid who cares about poetry or science or the history of the world, you get five who know every driver’s NASCAR number and not much else.

For every black kid, Latino kid, Chinese kid, Arab kid, you get a dozen white kids.

So it goes. None of them knows her, anyway. Not really. But all of them watch her as she walks down the halls past bands of lockers painted bright. She’s only been back a week now, and it’s like she’s a ghost that everyone can see. Like she’s a poisonous toad or toxic jellyfish—interesting to look at, but for God’s sake, do not touch.

As she walks, she catches glimpses of old friends. Like Petra Bright or Susie Schwartz. Or her once-bestie, Becky Bartosiewicz (pronounced Bart-o-savage), a.k.a. “Bee.”