In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ff*รป i* IVj Black Lightning by Bob Snyder Tasseling up his arm and into his face, the airfoil played like a miniature brushfire . A monster gust had the Dayglo spinners really wigwagging over the Amoco pumps as they rode in Jerry's pickup. Raised up into the free blue sky, it was hard not to have this laid-by feeling , Loomis mused, hard not to think of Knawles Ridge as the top of the world. Bud shook his head at them as he jawed with the Doctor Pepper man. Jerry's mother shot a frowny throwaway smile from the window of the market part of the station, where she was clerking. Their job search had ended in midmorning . A short way past Bud's station was the turnoff, the swerve of gravel gulch up the knoll, the blustery old spruce all blue-green patches, and the farmhouse where Jerry lived with his mother and her mother. Inside the big long kitchen, the paste and wash-water aroma of green beans cooking said hello. Loomis wondered if the old missus was of the HalfRunner or the Snapbean School, or if she could suit his dad, who claimed nobody knew how to cook green beans any more. Maybe it was all one more matter for his Granpa Loy's smoke theory. Jerry flipped his Reds ball cap onto the blue-checked oilcloth and dumped cold coffee from the large percolator into the little saucepan. Loomis took his usual spot on the inside of the table, tilting his chair to the wall like Wild Bill Hickok in a deeply important poker game. He was getting to like the kitchen of the Knawleses and even becoming hooked on the virtue of reheated coffee. The gas rings made a sleepy popping sound like the playing out of a skillet of popcorn, and they could hear Jerry's grandma deep in ridgely intrigue: -No, no, land no . . . his is that green Toyota or whatever it is he bought off 35 Kayo Fricker when Kayo got divorced from that thing . . . 'sides that anyway I think he's down visiting his sisters in Virginia Beach . . . how long do you reckon its been parked there . . . she, she, hold on, she . . . well, maybe he does go to her church but there's not a chance in the world that it would be him . . . Old Mrs. Knawles was a key lieutenant in the gossip ring of the notorious Hattie Moomaw. Loomis has never actually seen Hattie Moomaw, but everyone in the county felt her presence. Women would dismiss a rumor with "Oh, that's something that Hattie Moomaw and that bunch probably got started." Men at the Eoolroom would swear a great oath at [attie's name, claiming that loose lips had upset their marriage or cost them a romance. Loomis was impressed that Mrs. K had the queenpin herself at that very minute on the line. Leaning against the stove with his coffee clutched to his chest, Jerry was winding up a disquisition on primitive culture. It had become their summer routine. They would spend part of the day driving around filling out job applications -Jerry was laid off from the Cyanamid as an instrument man and Loomis was fresh out of the state university -and the rest either hitting the bars or hashing over their small town ideas in Jerry's kitchen. Jerry's points came from a paperback Margaret Mead he had found at the newsstand in Parkersburg and he ended by tying them up to Loomis' earlier talk about the decadent culture of New York City. This should have been music to Loomis' ears, but hearing his opinions back he realized with uneasy surprise that he had not been talking about New York, really, but about Roz, a bohemian woman who had Eut him through the wringer at WVU. [er big city ways were precisely what appealed to him. Every morning he vowed a solemn vow that it was over with her, but every day he checked the mailbox for a letter. The phone finally clicked and slippers padded curtly over the linoleum. Jerry took a chair and Mrs. K took his place holding up the stove...

pdf