Author: J. P. Gritton

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Or else I hated you that afternoon beginning of August, how you stood with one foot planted in the miracle turf and the other against the corrugated vinyl:

“When the sun went down,” you explained between drags on a Pall Mall. “I figured I’d better try and find it. Got on 1-70, drove west. Drove all through the night, looking for the sun. And then about four, five in the morning, I see this great big pink-and-orange fire, right there in the middle of the desert…”

You deployed your conspiratorial grin. You waited a beat—waited exactly long enough— before delivering the punchline:

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At 7:37 AM, the Golden Youth arrives, smiling, via a sleek red sports car driven by his girlfriend. Even from her car, where she watches the beloved scaling the shallow draw before the worksite, Jenny can sense some shift in the air, some (how to describe it?) invisible current turning, polarities reversing. She notes how the other men brighten, lift like parched flowers in a gently pattering rain.