Rednecks

		Rednecks Gaithersburg, Maryland At Scot Gas, Darnestown Road, the high school boys pumping gas would snicker at the rednecks. Every Saturday night there was Earl, puckering his liquor-smashed face to announce that he was driving across the bridge, a bridge spanning only the whiskey river that bubbled in his stomach. Earl's car, one side crumpled like his nose, would circle slowly around the pumps, turn signal winking relentlessly. Another pickup truck morning, and rednecks. Loitering in our red uniforms, we watched as a pickup rumbled through. We expected: Fill it with no-lead, boy, and gimme a cash ticket. We expected the farmer with sideburns and a pompadour. We, with new diplomas framed at home, never expected the woman. Her face was a purple rubber mask melting off her head, scars rippling down where the fire seared her freak face, leaving her a carnival where high school boys paid a quarter to look, and look away. No one took the pump. The farmer saw us standing in our red uniforms, a regiment of illiterate conscripts. Still watching us, he leaned across the seat of the truck and kissed her. He kissed her all over her happy ruined face, kissed her as I pumped the gas and scraped the windshield and measured the oil, he kept kissing her. from Imagine the Angels of Bread