You’d feel as if you could disappear into the woods and it wouldn’t matter feel like you could never be heard from again and that would be just fine. Lights bounced oﬀ the water, and after a few beers your body drifted loose and floated out there with the wildlife.

Loud, aggressive rock pumped endlessly from truck stereos. Gator eyes, bright as stars, blinked at us and moved to deeper water. Please? We need the tent.ĭrunk dudes crowing, whooping, yelping, the high beams from their trucks boring holes into the reedy waterfront. We’d carpool out in all the boys’ shitty cars with no air-conditioning, struggling souped-up engines, windows rolled down until we were nearly coated in condensation.Ĭould you sleep in the car? Brynn asked, cuddled up with someone in front of the fire, or drinking beer with another boy out near the water. They brought cases of cheap beer and built bonfires out of old Christmas trees down at the river, which ran about forty minutes away from our neighborhood. Brynn didn’t like it, but she usually tagged along, which meant that I’d go too. She's a columnist for Literary Hub.ĪLLIGATOR MISSISSIPPIENSIS-AMERICAN ALLIGATOR Kristen Arnett won the 2017 Coil Book Award for her debut short fiction collection, Felt in the Jaw, and was awarded Ninth Letter 's 2015 Literary Award in Fiction. After her father commits suicide in their taxidermy shop, Jessa, her brother, and their mother turn to different coping mechanisms and spiral until they are forced to confront their family dynamic. The following is from Kristen Arnett's novel Mostly Dead Things.

Mostly dead things