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    "They had ta destroy dat building cause they couldn't get the blood off the walls." 

The girl had to be crazy, he thought. What compelled her to tell him that? I mean it was something a boy his age would find wildly fascinating, but jesus. 

"yeah." he pretended to be less than impressed. And she liked it that way. 

He could be a good liar. It might come into use.

She dug into her orange sweater pouch and lifted out a crippled filter-less cigarette. "Hey, here." He palmed the stick and let it roll down his hand, as the light revealed it's nature. He smiled inside and thought of the guys from back home. They'd never smoked. Sure they had all pretended at school, choking and squinting their eyes at the harshness of the polluted air and then passing it on. But here, this; He was suddenly proud of the fact that he was away from home.

Someplace new. 

He could be new. 

This girl could make him new. 

     He smiled at her and she lit a match from the back of a red book from some motel. She held it to the tip and watched his expressions as it attached itself and made the end glow. He puffed it, didn't suck and blew out a plume of white. She laughed and took the stick from him. She sucked on it and swallowed the air. He was smiling and he knew why. The way of this whole thing was strange to him and he didn't care. Not one bit. He was happy to be new. "What now?" she spoke knowingly and said it just to get him to stop looking at the ground. "What?" he said back. They got back on their bikes. His, a bmx dirt trick kind, and hers, a bigger ten-speed with all the gears and cord to switch them. He could barely keep up most of the time and she kept going not looking back for him. Not sure if he was there. They raced and he followed her into the weeds and paths along the houses. The driveways into dirt carports and past gravelbeds and over hills and down sun cracked earth. They found roads outside the fences and rushed past stopped cars and kids with beer and basketballs. They rode all day. Everywhere. She said what this was and what that was and never stared at him to make sure he understood. He was listening to it all. She took them by her house and said that it was where she stayed. "There's my grandmas room" she pointed and he looked and saw a screen and a little porcelean cat with its tail curled around its back staring out at him. They rode past the Post Office and she said that it was new, it used to be somewhere else. Then she took them to where it used to be. A bigger place. Older and crumbling. The sign still said what it was but he now knew not to trust anything written here. She took him to a house down a hill and off to the side that had an old wooden door. It was broken in and just dirt inside. Dirt and papers and trash from people who threw it there. She put her bike down outside and walked in it. He watched her go in and waited to see if she would invite him. She walked out of sight into another room. "Hey," he heard her say. He quickly jumped off his wheels and went in. She was standing there with a frame of wood. Like a windowsill with no glass inside. She put her head through and smiled at him. "What is it?" he said and she threw it down almost breaking it. "Wood." she said. He looked around and saw that the roof was opened up. Big beams like telephone poles were there like a ladder on it's side and thick dirt sat on top of them. They picked up sticks and battled each other like swordsmen. She won cause she swung so hard his stick broke and they both laughed. She was reading papers and said that the house was her family's but they didn't live there. The old men said something about it being the villages. She didn't understand but she told him it was theirs anyway. That she played there and made castles with the dirt and made stew in the broken washer tub. It was all full of mud and ants eating green plastic soldiers. They killed some ants and she burned one with a match. He watched her smiling and he started to smile too. The sun outside was getting over them, hotter and windy. The dirt flew through the doorless frame and washed them with sand. She covered her face and screamed but he just made a face and closed his eyes. They were spotty with brown on their faces and she pointed at him. "Now you're an Indin!" she laughed. He dusted off and shook his head. "Not now." She tried to dust the brown off too but it didn't work. And he stared at her. She shook her head. "Too bad." she said. They ran out of the house and got on their bikes to ride again. They rode through the plaza over to Hazel's on the south side. She got off and walked to him. "Want anything?" she nodded her head. He got off his bike and follwed her in. The bells on the door jingled and made known their presence. The store was small. One room. A counter at the back and an L shelf with old stuff on it; Crackers and soap and fly catchers and insecticide with the pump still on. He walked by the counter and saw that the only new things were the candy bars. She was already studying the good stuff through the glass. "Do you have anythin'?" she asked him and dug into her orange pouch again. A grandma came out of a door in the corner behind a soda cooler. She nodded to them and smiled at the girl. "How's your mom?" The grandma asked. The girl told her and they both laughed. She told the grandma what candy bar she wanted and a pop too. A sprite. The grandma, Hazel, looked at him and waited. He shook his head and smiled at her. He wanted a candy too but he didn't have anything. The girl turned to him and asked him what he wanted but he was too shy to say it now. The lady already asked him and he said no. He didn't want anything. The girl payed and they left. The bells jingled again as they closed the door tight. She broke the candy bar open and bit it. She offered him some and he shared it with her. They rode down to the river and the waterfall by some horse corral. They watched the horses run around and huddle in a corner as they stuck their hands through the fence. They laughed. The village was empty today she told him and he believed her. They saw barely any cars and they were out all day. They finished her pop and he stomped on it when they got back to the pavement. She said they should go down to the bridge. They did. It was close. She told him a story when they stopped and walked to the bottom. It was about when the bridge was first being built. "The men were pouring the cement and they almost didn't see it but there was a foot sticking out by the middle. See, in there. They stopped and somebody went to look at it. He tried to pick it up but it was buried. They dug it out and found a kid. This kid that lived by us. He was dead. Somebody buried him and left him to be covered by the bridge." She was frowning and shaking her head. "Who did it?" he asked. She looked around them and down the big tube where the water ran through and whispered to him.

"Witches."
She said that you're not supposed to tell anybody. The witches get mad when people talk about them. He was getting scared actually. Did his dad know that there were witches here? He was staying here now and the thought of REAL witches being here and doing things to little kids did make him a little uncomfortable. He asked her if she had seen one. She did, she said. It was one night she was walking by her old house. The one they played in earlier. The empty one. She said she saw a light in there. A fire. Somebody was in there she thought and she wanted to see who it was. She crept up to the door and peeked in but she didn't see a fire. The light was gone and it was all dark. She said she ran home and when she passed the old post office somebody was standing there. A girl or a boy. All in black just leaning by the wall. She kept running and they said something to her. It was smoking and blowing smoke out and that's all you could see. It was like they were just a shadow. She ran home to her mom and told her what happened. They put ashes on her and by the door and windows. She told him this and he didn't know what she meant. She didn't say. He got scared. Very scared. They ran back to their bikes and peddled away, up the hill. She looked at him and he had tears in his eyes. He didn't even try to wipe them so she wouldn't see. She liked that.

"the foot by the new bridge" (circa 1995-9)