Free Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward Page A

beach, to cruise along the coastline.
    Solitary, sparse stands of pine trees dotted the sandy median as they
rode along. The moon was full and white in the black, nearly starless sky. As
they turned from the beach and rode through St. Catherine to the bayou
and neared Bois Sauvage, Dunny seemed to tire of the music. He pushed
a button, and the lights on the stereo went off: the music stopped. Dunny
hadn't asked Christophe about his sudden change in mood, his need to
run away. Once they'd left Bois Sauvage, he'd simply pulled a sack from his
pocket, and told Christophe to look in the glove compartment for a cigar
and roll up. The marsh grass was a pale, silvery green as it whipped by
outside the window. Here, the night sounds of the insects chattering one
to another like an angry congress were loudest. The pine trees were inky
black and lined the horizon, and the water was a dark blue, the reflection
of the moon shimmering like a white stone path on its surface. Christophe
thought it beautiful. He squinted against the salty marsh wind and saw
that Dunny was focused on the road, his eyes half-lidded. Christophe
took a long pull of the last of the last blunt, and handed the roach to his
cousin. He was glad he wouldn't have to explain himself.

    In Bois Sauvage, Dunny rode down the middle of the pockmarked
streets, steered away from the edges of the narrow, ancient roads where
the asphalt crumbled into pebbles that mixed in with the red dirt, the
thick summer grass, and slid down into the ditches. The oaks reached
out with tangled arms to form a tunnel over the car. In the yards of the
few houses they passed, people, small shadows, sat on their porches or
their steps drinking beer from cans, fanning themselves with fly swatters,
burning small cans of citronella, and eyeing the patches of piney woods
suspiciously, muttering about the descending summer heat, mosquitoes,
and West Nile, which they'd heard about on the news.
    Christophe watched the tree line, smiling faintly when he realized he
could tell where he was going in Bois Sauvage by the tops of the trees,
that he recognized the big oak at the corner of Cuevas and Pelage, and
that the dense stand of pines on his right indicated that they were in the
middle of St. Salvador St.: he and Joshua had played chase under those
trees when they were little. Dunny and Javon were always team captains,
and they would always pick the same teams: the twins and Marquise, all
small and squirrelly, for Dunny, and Big Henry, Bone, and Skeetah for
Javon. The smaller team invariably beat the larger team. Christophe and
Joshua would always skip past Marquise and Dunny to hide together
deep in the woods while the other team was counting loudly on the street.
Christophe was the fastest, so he led Joshua in a general direction, but
Joshua always had the better eye for hiding spots: he would bury them
underneath a hill of dry brown pine needles or in the heart of a full green
bush with dark leaves the size of their fingernails or in the top of a small
oak tree, silent and perching like crows.
    The other team seldom caught them. Dunny would give up and walk
out into the open, into the dim light of the forest and give himself away,
mostly because he was hungry or tired or had to go to the bathroom.
Marquise would follow him, tagging along for food. Joshua and
Christophe would stay hidden for hours, giggling breathlessly as Javon or
Big Henry crashed through the underbrush beneath them, calling their
names loudly and threatening forfeit and talking shit. Their members
would drift away, complaining: Big Henry insisting he had chores to do,
Bone yelling he had dinner to eat, and Javon spitting that he had TV to watch. Christophe and Joshua would stay where they were until there
were no other human sounds around them, sometimes until the sun was
setting, and then they'd run out to the empty street, hopping in delirium,
drunk with their cleverness, wrestling