Power in the Blood Read Online Free

Uncle Sal’s getting slower and slower,” Ernie said.
    “It’s okay,” I said. “Sal’s pizza is still worth the wait.” I looked at him only momentarily and then back with the eyes of a hunter towards Bambi. She had disappeared inside the truck. Ernie had seen her too. He was trying to hand me the white pizza box in his left hand with little success. I wanted to look at my future just a little longer first.
    “Do you want the pizza or the pussy?” he half-whispered.
    “What did you say?” I asked as I dug into my pocket for the pizza money with one hand and slapped him on top of the head with the other, knocking his cap off in the process and revealing a shock of black tangled curls roughly the texture of Ernie the puppet’s hair.
    “I said, that will be eight dollars and eighty-nine cents,” he said as he handed me the box.
    I was still feeling around in my pockets for the money when I decided to take one more glance at the truck. She was standing in the opening on the passenger’s side waving Ernie’s money in the air.
    “This one’s on me, Preacher. I need the tax deduction,” she said.
    “Thanks” was all I could say. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have had a very nice buzz going by this time of the day and I could have come up with a better response than “thanks.” I always found that I had plenty to say once liquor had removed my inhibitions. I used to be able to charm the pants right off of them, although not this one I suspect. Recovery has its disadvantages too.
    Ernie ran down the driveway and across the road to her truck and got the money faster than I thought possible. They exchanged a few words, laughed, and then she drove off. I was instantly jealous. As Ernie crossed over the road again, I walked down the driveway to meet him at his car.
    Well I was born in a small town. And I can breathe in a small town.
    Gonna die in this small town. And that’s prob’ly where they’ll bury me.
    “Please tell me you know who that was,” I said, sounding a little more desperate than I would have liked.
    “Sure, that’s Laura Matthers. Her sister Kim and me are on the homecoming court together Friday night.”
    “This Friday night, as in day after tomorrow?”
    “Uh huh.”
    “Thanks, Ernie.”
    “She’s got a boyfriend,” he said unaware of the damage that those words would do to me.
    “They almost always do, Ernie.”
    “Uh huh.”
    I stood for a while in the middle of my driveway after Ernie drove away. The sun was setting, its fiery bite replaced by a glorious orange and pink beauty. To the east, toward Tallahassee, the Apalachicola River snaked around the corner of the Prairie Palm property. Its banks were lined with pines, cypresses, and a seemingly infinite number of other trees and plants so unique and beautiful that Elvry E. Callaway seemed justified in believing this to be the site of the original Garden of Eden.
    As I walked back up the driveway toward my little tin home, I thought how appropriate that the little tin man lived here, but I also thought that a woman that beautiful who drives a one-ton FedEx truck had to have had a tragic life. We were perfect for each other. And though I still couldn’t shake the image of those lifeless black eyes from my mind, I also had the feeling that things were heating up in the small town.

Chapter 3
     
    The following morning, I stood in the chapel office of Potter Correctional Institution. A stack of mail and the package that housed my new computer lay on the desk before me. I moved the unopened mail to one side of my desk and set the box in the center. The box took up so little space on my small desk that I felt justified in having mistaken it for a pizza. Opening the package and extracting the computer inside released a flurry of small packing peanuts into my office, many of which were scattered abroad by the small fan oscillating on my file cabinet.
    The dull gray walls surrounding me added to the illusion of a