BooksBarbecue
Back Stay and Fight
Chapters (28)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. PART I
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
  9. PART II
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. PART III
  16. 10
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. 14
  21. 15
  22. 16
  23. 17
  24. 18
  25. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  26. Also by Madeline Ffitch
  27. A Note About the Author
  28. Newsletter Sign-up

“I said shut the fuck up,” said Karen. She reached beneath her torn shirt, felt her arm, and winced. “That woman is effective,” she said. She crushed the plantain and stuffed it into her nose. She looked at me. “Don’t think I don’t know what you want to fucking say,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“Shut up,” she said. “You want to thank me for taking the half of the beating that was meant for you. I know it. You and me might be like oil and water but half that shit Lily was saying she could have been saying to you. You and me are the same, right? I might not like it much, but I admit it. The odd one out here is Lily. Too bad I don’t date butch girls. You and me basically belong together. We’re two of a fucking kind. This fucked-up house? The wild foods? The preparations? Perfection? You want to talk about perfection? The Best Practices Binder? The motherfucking Best Practices Binder?”

“I don’t think that it’s fair to blame everything on the Best Practices Binder,” I said.

“I told you I don’t care what you fucking think. Where’s the binder?” said Karen.

“What?”

“Where’s the fucking binder? No, don’t say anything, I told you to shut the fuck up. I’ll find it.”

She went around the kitchen, pulling apart shelves and drawers. I had hidden the binder, worried about a return visit from the intake worker. I could see a corner of it sticking out from behind the bread box. I tried to edge in front of it, but Karen saw me. She reached behind me and grabbed it. “I should have done this a long time ago,” she said, and she took the binder and left the house, so I went after her. I saw her plunge down the hillside to the creek, which was full and ferocious from the melting snow. She flung the binder in. It fell like a dead bird. From between the hard plastic covers its pages, feathers, flew up and out, coated the creek, and floated away or got caught in the elderberry. The binder itself was tossed up and grabbed by the milk-chocolate water. I saw it kiss a crushed beer can, snag and then loosen from a birch branch, sink again, drown. I saw Karen stand on the bank, her back to me, holding her torn-up arm. For once I didn’t say a thing.

PART III

GALL OF THE EARTH

10

PERLEY