The Fighter by Michael Farris Smith

Author:Michael Farris Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2018-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

He slouched through the thunderstorm with his back bent and a coat draped over his head. A dark humpbacked shadow. The carnival workers hidden away in their vehicles playing cards or smoking weed or rocked to sleep by the rain. But Ricky Joe was milling through the night. Moving from one residence to the next in the mobile home park. Pulling on car door handles and finding some open and taking what he liked. His pockets filling with their spare change and random dollar bills and cigarette lighters. Headphones and checkbooks. A watch and CDs and a pair of running shoes.

When the cars and trucks would give no more he stepped onto their porches, his footfalls silenced beneath the rhythm of the rain. He reached into mailboxes that hung next to front doors and he studied bicycles to see if they had pawnshop value. Sometimes he stood close to a window when he could see the light from within and he tried to listen to what was on television or eavesdrop on the conversation of the two faceless voices but the thrum of the storm would give no clarity.

At the mobile homes where there were no cars and no lights he turned door handles but had no luck. And then he began to creep around the backsides, up onto porches or into aluminum storage sheds. In the sheds he came across nail guns and lawnmowers and cordless drills. He took a couple of drills and handheld saws and marked his memory for where to return to collect the rest in the coming days as the carnival entertained and the caravan stayed put, taking a little at a time, a steady stream of theft that would keep extra cash in his pocket from his pawnshop deliveries. Satisfied with his first haul he headed back toward the caravan, sloughing across a sodden field on the edge of the park. His pockets full and an armload of tools and he felt a satisfaction in the cover of the storm when he heard the pop.

He paused. Moved again. And then another pop. This time when he looked he saw the flash of light from the end of the rifle. A tiny bright burst. The thunder roared as he heard another pop and saw another flash and he dropped his loot and ran and in the morning the residents would find their belongings in a scattered trail across the wet field.

But the humpbacked shadow was not finished. He saw the light on inside her eggshaped camping trailer and he sloshed across the parking lot and stood next to the window. His clothes heavy with the rain and his hair matted against his head and the tip of his nose rubbing against the glass. One eye into the slit between the curtains. Watching as she brushed the tangles out of her wet hair. Watching as she peeled off her wet clothes. Watching as she sat in a chair with only a towel draped across her lap, her lips moving as if she was talking to herself.

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