The Bread We Eat in Dreams Read Online Free PDF

married the state herself.
     

     
    That night, we had a big bonfire down by the lake. Neutral ground was barely 45 minutes out of town, and no one got home tired and ready to sleep a good night and rise to a work ethic in the morning.
    I remember we used to say down-by-the-lake like it was a city, like it was an address. I guess it was, the way all those cars would gather like crows, pick-ups and Camaros and Jeeps, noses pointing in, a metal wall against the world. The willows snapped their green whips at the moon and the flames licked up Devil red and Devil gold. We built the night without thinking about it, without telling anyone it was going to happen, without making plans. Everyone knew to be there; no one was late.
    Get any group of high school kids together and you pretty much have the building blocks of civilization. The Eagle Scout boys made an architecturally perfect bonfire. 4-H-ers threw in grub, chips and burgers and dogs and Twix and Starburst. The drama kids came bearing tunes, their tooth-white iPods stuffed into speaker cradles like black mouths. The rich kids brought booze from a dozen walnut cabinets—and Coyote taught them how to spot the good stuff. Meat and fire and music and liquor—that’s all it’s ever been. Sarah Jane started dancing up to the flames with a bottle of 100 year old cognac in her hand, holding by the neck, moving her hips, her gorgeously round belly, her long corn-colored hair brushing faces as she spun by, the smell of her expensive and hot. Jessica and Ashley ran up to her and the three of them swayed and sang and stamped, their arms slung low around each other, their heads pressed together like three graces. Sarah Jane poured her daddy’s cognac over Ashley’s breasts and caught the golden stuff spilling off in her sparkly pink mouth and Ashley laughed so high and sweet and that was it —everyone started dancing and howling and jumping and Coyote was there in the middle of it all, arching his back and keeping the beat, slapping his big thighs, throwing the game ball from boy to girl to boy to girl, like it was magic, like it was just ours, the sun of our world arcing from hand to hand to hand.
    I caught it and Coyote kissed me. I threw it to Haley Collins from English class and Nick Dristol (left tackle #19) caught me up in his arms. I don’t even know what song was playing. The night was so loud in my ears. I could see it happening and it scared me but I couldn’t stop it and didn’t want to. Everything was falling apart and coming together and we’d won the game, Bunny no less than Coyote, and boyfriend never fooled me for a minute, never could.
    I could hear Sarah Jane laughing and I saw Jessica kissing her and Greg Knight both, one to the other like she was counting the kisses to make it all fair. She tipped up that caramel-colored bottle and Nick started to say something but I shushed him. Coyote’s cognac’s never gonna hurt that baby . Every tailgate hung open, no bottle ever seemed to empty and even though it was January the air was so warm, the crisp red and yellow leaves drifting over us all, no one sorry, no one ashamed, no one chess club or physics club or cheer squad or baseball team, just tangled up together inside our barricade of cars.
    Sarah danced up to me and took a swallow without taking her eyes from mine. She grabbed me roughly by the neck and into a kiss, passing the cognac to me and oh, it tasted like a pass thrown all the way to the sea, and she wrapped me up in her arms like she was trying to make up Homecoming to me, to say: I’m better now, I’m braver now, doesn’t this feel like the end of everything and we have to get it while we can? I could feel her stomach pressing on mine, big and insistent and hard, and as she ripped my shirt open I felt her child move inside her. We broke and her breasts shone naked in the bonfire-light—mine too, I suppose. Between us a cornstalk grew fast and sure, shooting up out of the ground like it had an