A vignette – Young boy from a small Southern town.  Raised in a culture which hovers just around poverty, whatever that is. Necessity can breed genius and skills passed on from earlier generations still link him to the land.  Making do with what is available is the “redneck” way.  While he may never know the “sophistication” programmed into the larger culture, he carries in his blood a wisdom and frank view of the world that many will never fathom.  He laughs at “City” folks who would starve to death if they closed the grocery stores and cut off the water.  He wonders at their ignorance.  What follows is told in the language, inflection, and accent of that world.  A word of advice, if the world falls apart you better know some rednecks. 🙂

Yeah, I seen them pull up and stop outside her house. They seemed important, or like they wanted to be anyway, walking like they do, like they own the damn place. It was the cops and a guy in a dark suit, the man from the bank. I seen them knock on her door and wait. They talked to each other like they were making a plan or something. One of them had some papers and started shaking them at her when she finally did open the door. She just stood there, still like that big rock we played on in her backyard.  They were talking to her, but she wasn’t listening. She looked right past them, through them.  And I watched her.  She looked up and down the block then she seen me. She smiled at me and nodded as if she knew, like she was telling me goodbye or something. Then I seen her look up, past everybody to something in the sky. And I looked up too, to see what she was looking at, but all I seen was clouds. Then this dove landed on the telephone wire in front of her house. She grinned.  Her eyes lit up and her mouth moved like she was talking to somebody.  She raised her arms and took a step out the door on to the porch and then she fell down dead.  A couple of the cops got all excited and started talking on their radios and shit, and another started doing that CPR stuff on her. The banker man, he just watched like he was bored, like it was all just getting on his nerves. I saw him look at the cops then he looked at her.  Then that bastard stepped over her like she was a mat at the door. Guess he got what he wanted, but so did she. She’s finally home.