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/ 115 outlaws Snakeman walks to his mailbox, a short hike down a steep gravel drive, and pulls two government-blue envelopes, one a month old and one justissued , like aces in a bad hand, from the mishmash of brittle discount store circulars and competing church bulletins. After scribbling a signature on the checks, he sets the preaddressed bank envelope in the mailbox and raises the red flag. Snakeman does not sport a bushy beard or even a mustache. He achieves smooth skin with a few swipes of a straight razor polished against an old leather strop and uses a scrap of side mirror in which to study a small portion of his face. He has no insurance or retirement plans, nothing but a healthy, compounding bank account many states to the north, in the names of Cynthia or Chip Grenada. Compliments of the federal government, by way of a deceased parent, the checks were supposed to have stopped when he turned eighteen. He shakes out two plastic bags from his hip pocket, dumps the junk mail 116 / cathryn hankla in one, and starts scanning the ditch for discarded bottles and cans. People who use the sacred Earth as their dumping ground will someday discover that the Earth is going to trash them back. That’s his opinion. He’s prepared to wait a hundred years just to see it happen. He passes a sad, sagging shack of a house. Parked beside it are two pickups and three cars, but the yard is nothing more than pounded dirt, the porch a precarious mess of rotten boards. Sometimes when he passes this way he’s startled by spurts of honking from one of the trucks. Inside, he’s seen a small huddled form that never looks up. He wonders what the story is there. Snakeman plucks a beer can from the brittle underbrush and chucks it in his bag. If anyone asked, he might consider telling the story of his own life, but he goes weeks without anyone’s so much as waving at him, except for the kid from the next farm over. “Hi, Snakeman.” Mitch breathes heavily, having just raced to catch up. His parents let him roam the vicinity without much supervision, and for that Snakeman figures he could shake their hand. These days, kids are just too coddled and scheduled, he thinks. “Metal and glass in this one.Trash in the other.”Snakeman keeps a steady pace, jangling cans. “There’s one!”Mitch bends to snatch a crushed Bud from the ditch. Heavy with water from recent rains, it sloshes in his hands. Mitch holds out the full can like a stinking fishing worm. “Yuck.” “Just empty it,” Snakeman says. A dingy liquid, equal parts rainwater, beer, and mud, glugs out. Then Mitch drops the aluminum into the bag and spies a couple more cans for the collection, along with a soggy brown paper bag. A low-rider pickup whooshes past, its gust brushing Mitch back from the shoulder. He falls in step behind Snakeman, following single file. “My dad has a new rotary tiller,” Mitch volunteers. “That figures,” Snakeman answers, without looking back. “It’s quicker,” Mitch says. “I like to do things slowly,” Snakeman says, bending down to snare a nearly concealed can from a thatch of needles beneath a pine tree. “People should keep their detritus in their cars until they stop near a trash can.” outlaws / 117 “They don’t,” Mitch says. He’s heard it before and doesn’t need to ask the meaning of “detritus.” “Would you look at that?” Snakeman points to a dark, brain-like clot on a stalk. “Some kind of false morel,” he muses. Mitch reaches for it. “Poison,” Snakeman says. Mitch pulls away sharply from the mushroom, then spots some cellophane. “We’re the trashmen of the roadside, you and I,” Snakeman says. They both focus quietly on their job of retrieval. Soon, new spring growth of kudzu, honeysuckle, and grass will make spotting cans and bottles harder. “My dad’s considering running for office,” Mitch announces, clearly parroting the exact words he’s heard from his dad. “What office?”Snakeman has never voted in any election. Even in seventh grade, he avoided voting for class officers. “I don’t know. It’s for the good of the party,” Mitch says. “Which party, then?” Snakeman asks. “I don’t know.” “Well, I guess one’s as good as the other.” Mitch screws up his mouth to respond...

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