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

He nods. “Okay. Okay. Yeah. But don’t be asking for meth. I don’t sell that shit up in here. You want that, you head up Grainger Hill way.”

“Grainger Hill—isn’t that where the richies live?”

“Nah, that’s Gallows Hill. Grainger’s is where you find the drugs, the trailers, the dogfights. Ain’t the underbelly so much as what’s under the underbelly.”

“I’m still figuring the area out a little.” She sniffs, then says: “I didn’t want meth anyway.” She’s seen what meth does to people. Bad skin. Worse teeth. Meth users end up looking like a pumpkin or gourd that sat too long past Halloween on someone’s porch—mushy and rotten, the flesh puckered with pits and pockmarks.

“I got something for you.” He disappears down the hall of the trailer. She hears one of the accordion doors slide open and slide back, and then he’s back. The pill bottle rattles as he plunks it down in front of her.

She picks it up. It’s unlabeled.

“Adderall,” he says. “You know, for, like, hyperactive kids. I don’t know why the fuck anybody would want to give an upper to a kid who’s already acting like he just ate ten bowls of Sugar Smacks, but shit, once upon a time people thought the sun traveled around the earth.”

“Some of them still do,” she says.

“I know, right? Anyway. You take that. It’ll focus you up real good. You know you gotta sleep at some point, though, right?”

“Of course,” she lies. Her fingers work to peel the wet label off the beer bottle. Like peeling a sunburn, she thinks. “Yeah. Duh. I know that.”

“Just in case.” He reaches in his pocket, tosses her another pill bottle. “Ambien. If you decide to go the other way with it.”

“Thanks.”

“I normally get seven bucks a pill. You got ten Ambien there and twice that of the ADD meds, but let’s call it an even hundred for the Adderall, and the Ambien can be my gift to you. For being such a badass chick and all that.”

She pockets the drugs. Hesitates. “I’m not badass, you know.”

“From where I’m sitting, you’re one I wouldn’t mess with.”

“I don’t have money right now. Soon.”

“You can owe me. It’s no thing.”

“That’s cool, Guy. Thanks.”

Atlanta finishes her beer in one long pull, then gets up. She thinks to move in to give Guy a hug, but again the hairs on her neck and arms raise, and it’s like she hears this keening frequency in her ears, and for a moment she thinks, Oh, hell, I’m gonna pass out right here, right now—

But then the sound goes away, and she’s left feeling wobbly but stable.

She fake-punches him in the arm on her way out the door.

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR