Red Sugar

Stray

Stray a guy in a john deere hat tells the reporter: he was quiet, a good neighbor. he took good care of his yard. then we see his body, sunken in on itself. hair hanging down. feet lurching inches at a time in shackles. sometimes I look at people and think: I can feel the blade of your little machinery. turning inside you from some generator. cutting you off from yourself. no trace of the older couple down the street, their bodies he sliced to bits. up the cement ramp to the county jail, he looks down. pieces of skin still under his fingernails but nothing we can see. I think: look at his undiscovered cities. the buildings rising in him and their fierce armies. you can’t tell how he packaged them in 6-inch squares, to be sent through the mail. christmas presents to the family. now the woman next door: he made good potato salad. brought it to church functions. standing in her yard, she looks down. imagines his big hands in the dark blades of her grass/sees him cutting the vegetables next to her daughter in the social hall. newly afraid, she looks out into the camera: this is a good neighborhood. nothing like this ever happens here. if someone strays from themselves, does it turn the good in them to dust? here’s what I know: we don’t want any trouble. what if he was split off from all kindness from the beginning? I think: you are all little frankensteins: all little broken-down machines. you put your head down. one foot in front of the other. lurching. 38 BeattyPGS:Layout 1 2/5/08 8:28 PM Page 38 ...