The Patricide of George Benjamin Hill by James Charlesworth

Author:James Charlesworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2018-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

OUTSIDE AKRON, THEY’D SEEN IT, rising above the trees beyond the exit ramp. It wasn’t the first time. You couldn’t go ten miles along any road in the US without seeing it—and of course GB had passed dozens during his trip up the Atlantic seaboard, lighting up the night from towers above the treetops and making him sometimes turn away and sometimes stare—but it was the first time either of them had seemed willing to admit it into the space between them, disregarding it on a principle broken now by necessity or just hunger.

It was the cheapest place and they were broke, feverish from the previous day’s long haul and the unquiet night in the hard beds, the trip resumed in the early heat of the unseasonably warm morning with the country still reeling, that feeling of aftermath still hovering though they’d made good time through dreary river towns north of Pittsburgh, the dog curled up on Jamie’s lap while he struggled against the wind to read a newspaper procured from the motel lobby. A strange bond had formed that night in Pennsylvania. The dog had never been one to sleep on beds; even in the house in Coral Gables he had slept on Emma’s floor rather than in bed with her—yet the previous night the dog had remained with a head propped on Jamie’s leg throughout his intervals of quiet and gabbiness, even into the early hours when restlessness had driven GB out to the parking lot to sit and stare at nothing in the front seat of the Stingray. It had continued the following morning when he’d stood at the checkout counter, watching his brother in his sweatpants and long trench coat step out to the car with the dog and the Times while he handed over his Mastercard and practiced what he’d say if it was declined, looked around at the newspaper racks bearing on their front pages the same bleary photos, another rehash of the president’s speech two nights before on the television above the meager breakfast station, looking just as shocked as anyone else behind his podium.

Jamie had ordered a quarter pounder with cheese and taken it on a tray to a table in the corner of the dining room behind a little row of fake plants. GB had an instant of panic before he saw them, listened self-consciously to the sound of his baseball spikes crossing the floor, scanned the room for observing eyes as he sat down across from his brother and the dog. It was nothing to be proud of, this red-and-yellow erector set on a slab of blacktop outside the former tire capital. And yet even during this darkest of weeks the place was still busy with folks on the go, a quick stop for a burger and some fries procured from teenagers in weird caps saying May I help you?—a tasty unhealthy snack to keep the kids quiet for the next fifteen minutes and then back into the cramped car for more of the same.

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