BooksBarbecue
Back The Heathens
Chapters (33)
  1. ALSO BY ACE ATKINS
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  33. What’s next onyour reading list?

“Sure,” Lillie said. “And bring some goddamn coffee.”

“Just like the old days?”

“Really?” Lillie said. “I sure as shit hope not.”

TWENTY-FIVE

TJ wished she’d kept that nice Kia that Ladarius had stolen in Hot Springs instead of stripping the tags and abandoning it two miles from that loser Graham’s house. When she and John Wesley had walked back to find it, the car had been towed or stolen again, leaving them with no money and stranded with those junkies, Chastity dragging her ass on getting them down to Grand Isle. At one time, Grand Isle was all Chastity could talk about, but now she wouldn’t even speak to TJ, heading out to some bars with Graham and his lowlife druggie friends. All their eyes half-closed, stumbling, smelling like they never met a bar of soap or owned a razor.

She was worried they were all onto her now. One of the junkie buddies asked if she was really “that TJ Byrd” and wanted to know if she really killed that trucker and her own mother. TJ told him to go fuck himself, but could tell the reward money was heavy on his mind.

“What do you think?” TJ asked John Wesley.

“Why you asking me now?” he said. “Hell, TJ. I don’t think we should’ve ever left home.”

“Come on,” TJ said, walking back along St. Charles Avenue. Purple and gold beads littered the big oak branches overhead and hung off the electric lines. The parades had already passed through, folks wandering the streets free and loose or hanging out in the front yards of mansions and apartments. She’d given John Wesley her only coat, the sleeves about six inches too long for him, while she shivered in a thin flannel shirt.

“I wish Momma wasn’t gone,” John Wesley said.

“Me, too,” TJ said.

“Why’d folks blame you for what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess ’cause it was easier that way.”

“Was it really that Chester Pratt?”

“Afraid so.”

“I’d like to kick that bastard right in the nuts.”

“Me, too,” TJ said, grabbing his hand. They moved as a team in and out of the crowds, TJ keeping her head down, trying to come up with a new plan, a better plan, to get them out of the city and away from these broken people and all Chastity’s damn bullshit.

They were close to the big park now, the neutral ground separating them from heading on across the wide avenue and back to the house. They waited for a streetcar to pass, electric lines sparking overhead. Folks crossed back and forth over the tracks, carrying coolers and folding chairs.