BooksBarbecue
Back Southernmost Save as PDF
Chapters (77)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Also by Silas House
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Part One
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. 7
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. Part Two
  27. 1
  28. 2
  29. 3
  30. 4
  31. 5
  32. 6
  33. 7
  34. 8
  35. 9
  36. 10
  37. Part Three
  38. 1
  39. 2
  40. 3
  41. 4
  42. 5
  43. 6
  44. 7
  45. 8
  46. 9
  47. 10
  48. 11
  49. 12
  50. 13
  51. 14
  52. 15
  53. 16
  54. 17
  55. 18
  56. 19
  57. 20
  58. 21
  59. 22
  60. 23
  61. 24
  62. 25
  63. 26
  64. 27
  65. 28
  66. 29
  67. 30
  68. 31
  69. Part Four
  70. 1
  71. 2
  72. 3
  73. Epilogue: The Everything
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. About Algonquin
  77. Copyright

“My granny always says that a person has to live until they die.” Justin doesn’t add that ever since he can remember he’s been trying to figure out what that means. Sometimes he thinks she means that the living is harder than the dying. But other times he thinks she means we have to live as much as we can before we die. He tries to not think about dying, though. Sometimes he lies awake at night and thinks about eternity and even if he’s thinking that’s going to be a good thing, the thought still makes him feel like throwing up after a while.

“Well, I agree with her. Life shouldn’t be feared any more than dying. I’ve never been afraid of either one. But when my time comes I sure will miss all of it.”

“All of what?”

Bell swept one hand out in front of her, indicating the trees, the sky, everything. The clouds have moved on and the world is brightly lit once again. “All of it.”

As long as Justin can remember people have been talking to him this way. There’s something about him that makes people treat him like he’s an old man. Maybe that’s why all the kids at school hate him even if they don’t know why. Once Rabbit held him down in the bathroom and dipped a wad of toilet paper in the commode and shoved it in his mouth and got very close so that his words spat on Justin’s face: Eat that you weirdo bitch. For no reason at all. Justin hadn’t done anything to him.

“I wasted a lot of years being mad. Don’t you do that. Alright?”

“I won’t,” he says.

Then Bell leans her head on the back of the rocker and closes her eyes. Justin watches her enjoying the sunshine. He wishes that she and his granny could know each other. He thinks they’d be real good friends. He thinks they’d have a fine time together.

16

16

An arrogant brood of hens pecks at the lawn of the Key West Post Office. They’re not like chickens back home. Here they strut around as if they own the place. Zelda has a few chickens back home—“laying hens,” she calls them—and hers are jerky, always on the edge of darting off with their heads pumping and wings tucked, clucking a ruckus if anyone gets too close. One of Justin’s favorite things has always been to go check for eggs in the mornings. The roosters are the worst here, swaggering along the streets; even the chickens of Key West show very little concern for the people approaching them.

They park their bikes and Justin runs ahead of Asher, hunching down, spreading out his arms as he rushes toward them. “I am the Chicken King!” he hollers. “I can do anything!”

The chickens barely look up.