Gary V. Powell, Author

After dropping Brick at school, Chooch Bartkowski cruised the streets on the near south side. He slowed past alleys and doorways, but saw no sign of Shana. He visited the free clinic where she’d gone for her CA meetings. No one there had seen her for two days. After checking the parking lots of local grocery stores and strip malls and failing to find her Chrysler minivan, he drove north of the city.

He stopped for breakfast at Carter’s in Morrison, before ditching Interstate 77 in favor of the back roads. He was looking for a street sign—God’s Bluebird Lane. All the roads up this way had names like that. Resurrection Way, Peace in the Valley Road, Blood of the Lamb Court. The influence of the Baptists and Evangelicals was not to be denied. He missed the turn off, drove ahead a quarter mile out of his way, and made a “Y” turn in some good old boy’s yard. Three or four big mouthed hounds bayed like he was prey on the run.

God’s Blue Bird Lane was just that—a rutted red clay lane, lined with uncut grass, bull thorn, and kudzu. About a quarter mile down, the lane opened on a cul de sac. A new modular home occupied the center lot, flanked on both sides by run down mobes. The yard in front of the modular home was neat as a pen and protected from the chaos around it by a white picket fence. On one side of the center walkway a bathtub Jesus hung from his crucifix. On the other side, a smiling Madonna held the Babe against her own backdrop of gleaming porcelain.

Throughout the yard, wooden, glass, and plastic bluebirds sat atop metal stakes, clung to flowers and bushes, or rested in imitation bird baths. Bartkowski made his way to the door and rapped several times. After a while, Harry Prince appeared at the door. Married to Shana’s mother, Prince claimed to have an Internet business, but Bartkowski had never seen any evidence of industry or monetary success from the man. He wore a pair of dirty overhauls and nothing else.

“Well, look what the cat drug in.”

“Fuck off, Harry. Is Loretta here?”

He heard Shana’s momma from somewhere in the house. “If it’s more of them Witnesses, I swear I’ll get a gun.”

“This ain’t no Witness.”

Bartkowski pushed through the door and past Harry Prince. Loretta sat watching a soap opera on the sofa. There were beers and uneaten pizza on the coffee table in front of her. She squinted and pulled her worn pink robe close about her neck. “Is that my loving son-in-law?”

“Loretta, your phone’s out.”

“I never missed it.”

He came around in front of her. “I’m looking for Shana. Have you seen her?”

Harry Prince chortled. “Man can’t keep his woman to home.”

Bartkowski would have bitch-slapped the jerk, if he could have reached him. “Loretta, I’m talking to you.”

“She come by here yesterday. I didn’t have no money to give her, so she didn’t stay.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Didn’t say?” He sighed and looked around the room. More bluebirds sat on shelves, on side tables, on top of the TV. “She tell you she’s using again?”

“I kindly figured that one out on my own.”

Harry Prince stepped in front of him and sat down next to Loretta on the sofa. He lit a cigarette and sucked on it like it gave life itself. “She’s with someone else.”

Bartkowski felt his body go numb. “Someone else?”

Loretta fished the cigarette out of Harry’s mouth and brought it to her own lips. “Drove a motorcycle.”

Harry took the cigarette back and grinned malignantly. “A nigger,” he said. “That’s something you don’t see much, a nigger on a motorcycle.”

Bartkowski knocked the cigarette out of his mouth. He stood over Harry, a large and ominous figure. Loretta jumped to her feet and wedged herself between them. “He said something about going to South Carolina. Harry wouldn’t let him in the house.”

“Damn straight. I won’t have no niggers in my house.”

“South Carolina?” Bartkowski took a step back.

“That’s all he said. I don’t know where.”

“How’d she look?”

“’Bout like you’d expect.”

“Yeah.” He forced his body to the door.

As he stepped into the yard, he heard Loretta call out. “I don’t care if I never see her again. You hear me. I don’t want to see either one of you back here.”