BooksBarbecue
Back This Side of Night
Chapters (110)
  1. Cover
  2. ALSO BY J. TODD SCOTT
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. PROLOGUE
  6. I
  7. II
  8. PART ONE
  9. ONE
  10. TWO
  11. THREE
  12. FOUR
  13. FIVE
  14. SIX
  15. SEVEN
  16. EIGHT
  17. NINE
  18. TEN
  19. ELEVEN
  20. TWELVE
  21. PART TWO
  22. THIRTEEN
  23. FOURTEEN
  24. FIFTEEN
  25. SIXTEEN
  26. SEVENTEEN
  27. EIGHTEEN
  28. NINETEEN
  29. TWENTY
  30. TWENTY-ONE
  31. TWENTY-TWO
  32. TWENTY-THREE
  33. TWENTY-FOUR
  34. TWENTY-FIVE
  35. TWENTY-SIX
  36. TWENTY-SEVEN
  37. TWENTY-EIGHT
  38. TWENTY-NINE
  39. THIRTY
  40. THIRTY-ONE
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. THIRTY-FIVE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. PART THREE
  50. FORTY
  51. FORTY-ONE
  52. FORTY-TWO
  53. FORTY-THREE
  54. FORTY-FOUR
  55. FORTY-FIVE
  56. FORTY-SIX
  57. FORTY-SEVEN
  58. FORTY-EIGHT
  59. FORTY-NINE
  60. FIFTY
  61. FIFTY-ONE
  62. FIFTY-TWO
  63. FIFTY-THREE
  64. FIFTY-FOUR
  65. FIFTY-FIVE
  66. FIFTY-SIX
  67. FIFTY-SEVEN
  68. FIFTY-EIGHT
  69. FIFTY-NINE
  70. SIXTY
  71. SIXTY-ONE
  72. PART FOUR
  73. SIXTY-TWO
  74. SIXTY-THREE
  75. SIXTY-FOUR
  76. SIXTY-FIVE
  77. SIXTY-SIX
  78. SIXTY-SEVEN
  79. SIXTY-EIGHT
  80. SIXTY-NINE
  81. SEVENTY
  82. SEVENTY-ONE
  83. SEVENTY-TWO
  84. SEVENTY-THREE
  85. SEVENTY-FOUR
  86. SEVENTY-FIVE
  87. SEVENTY-SIX
  88. SEVENTY-SEVEN
  89. SEVENTY-EIGHT
  90. SEVENTY-NINE
  91. EIGHTY
  92. EIGHTY-ONE
  93. EIGHTY-TWO
  94. EIGHTY-THREE
  95. EIGHTY-FOUR
  96. EPILOGUE
  97. I
  98. II
  99. III
  100. IV
  101. V
  102. VI
  103. VII
  104. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  105. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  106. Excerpt from LOST RIVER
  107. LITTLE PARIS
  108. DILLON
  109. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  110. What’s next onyour reading list?

It was a pep rally, the last one of Chris’s senior year. An away game against Ozona, and after everyone left the gym whooping and hollering, they drove in a long convoy of school buses and pickup trucks with all their carefully rendered homemade signs jammed into windshields (not so different, he figured, from his reelection signs now scattered around town), and under the lights of that other school, he went on to throw three touchdowns. One of them, a forty-yarder that Nat Bulger caught one-handed in the back of the end zone, sweetly toe-tapping the chalk sideline. Chris could still remember the smell of the fresh-cut grass, the way the warm Texas sky got so easily lost behind the glow of the sodium lights, an infinite night. The salty smell of popcorn and the sour tang of diesel fuel and the whisper-gentle murmur of the crowd between plays. Even the slickness of sweat running down his arms and into his eyes, although he was somehow still able to see everything so clearly—the stitches on the ball spinning in the air, escaping his hand.

His dad, calling out his name.

The whole world laid out in front of him.

He had been heavier then, more solid. He didn’t want to use the word “stronger,” though, because he wasn’t sure that was fair, not even to himself. He wanted to believe that everything he had been through in the intervening years—Ross, the Earls—had made him strong enough, but all those days had taken their toll, too, and in all his time on the football field, playing in front of all those people beneath the bright lights, he’d never felt so exposed.

Not the way he did now in this gym.

Where he was now weightless, insubstantial.

Like everyone could see right through him.

—

HE WAS SWEATING THROUGH HIS NEW SUIT, ruining it, and had been for the last hour.