DEUTEROSCOPY

A man walks along the railroad tracks. Sometimes his boots crunch gravel; otherwise they strike crossties gone sticky with tar. The rhythm of his stride remains steady, unbroken. The line has long since fallen into disuse—only the occasional piggyback freighter—and stinkweed grows up from under the rails to brush against his jeans. Just off the embankment, pools of brackish water glint in the sun. The wind carries the scent of copperheads. Thistle bushes wave like antennae. As he approaches a trestle spanning a narrow riverbed, the man sees a dead mule lying in the mud, its pale bones visible through papery rags of flesh.

Halfway across the trestle, three teen boys sit straddling the rails, spitting between their shoes into the river. As the man nears, the boys look up. Their grubby faces squint.

The man halts before them. “What’re you boys doin’ here?” he says.

“Same as you, mister,” says one. “It’s a free country, ain’t it?”

“That all depends,” says the man.

“You ain’t no sheriff,” says another.

“No,” says the man. “I foller a different law.”

“You ain’t no preacher, neither,” says the third.

“What a pack of glue-sniffin’ no-accounts like you might think ain’t of no consequence to me,” says the man.

“Likewise, I’m sure,” says the first.

“What’re you doin’ here?” says the man.

The three boys exchange glances, then shrug.

“I reckon we’re just chewin’ the fat,” says the first. “It’s Saturday.”

“Well, what if I was to tell you that this is the end of the world?” says the man.

“What is?” says the second.

The man sweeps his arms about, swivels his head back and forth. “This here,” he says. “Everything.”

“You’re crazy,” says the third.

The man jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “That’s what they all told me back in town,” he says. “But I aim to get shed of them forever.”

“Won’t take long if it’s the end of the world,” says the second.

Suddenly a strange spark shines in the man’s eyes. He trembles, thrusts a finger into the air above his head. “What color is the sky?” he shouts.

The boys say nothing.

“What color, damn it?”

“It’s blue, mister,” says the first.

“Aye,” says the man. “But don’t be fooled. For it’s as a veil spread over the truth of things.”

“Crazy,” says the third.

“Jackals!” the man cries. “Vipers! Even now they’re circling. Even now they smell blood—and who among us don’t carry the bait of his own assassin in his veins? Tell me that. For we’re born in slime to await the hour when we’ll sop the earth with gouts of gore.”

“Jesus,” says the first.

“I don’t put no stock in that one,” says the man.

“You aimin’ to go to hell?” says the second.

“We all got our reward,” says the man.

The purl of the river fills the silence that follows. Insects rasp. The man reaches back into the seat of his jeans and pulls out a bowie knife as long as his forearm. He twists the blade in the sun.

“You some kind of bandit?” says the third.

“Now you got it,” says the man. “You boys ever seen the like?”

“I reckon not,” says the first.

“This’ll go right up under a feller’s ribs and into his heart,” says the man.

The boys say nothing.

The man resheathes the knife. “I got to move on,” he says.

The boys lean away as the man ambles past and continues across the trestle. They watch him gradually recede. When he reaches the far bank, his image ripples in the haze. Then he rounds the bend in the tracks and disappears.

* * *

As evening falls, the boys stand up. A long jet trail stretches overhead, aglow in the setting sun. On one of the crossties rests a small pyramid of gravel. With the instep of his sneaker, the first boy sweeps the stones into the river. Then they set out toward town.

“You ever been to Grandfather Mountain?” says the first.

“No,” says the second.

“I heard about it,” says the third.

“If you see it from a distance, standing in a certain spot,” says the first, “it looks like the face of a sleeping giant.”

“What does?” says the second.

“The cliffs,” says the first. “It’s how they’re shaped.”

When they reach the end of the trestle, the boys spread out. One moves over to the edge of the embankment; another steps up onto a rail and walks it like a tightrope. The third stays in the middle.

“Who do you reckon that man was with the knife?” says the second.

“I done told you,” says the third.

“They ain’t got outlaws no more,” says the second.

“Likely he escaped from the loony bin,” says the first.

“Should we squeal on him?” says the second.

“I ain’t no snitch,” says the third.

“What if he goes and kills somebody?” says the second.

“Don’t be a scaredy cat,” says the first.

The woods on either side, shot through with amber light, breathe like a primeval forest. Frogs and cicadas croak. The red sun hangs straight ahead, just where the tracks meet the horizon. The steel rails gleam.

“I seen a naked lady once,” says the second.

“Where?” says the first.

“My aunt’s basement,” says the second.

“Who was she?” says the third.

“A high school girl come to help my aunt do after Uncle Trevor passed,” says the second.

“How’d you see her naked?” says the third.

“I was hiding out reading comic books,” says the second. “I’d set up a fort with boxes. She never knowed I was there.”

“All right,” says the first. “Get to the naked part.”

“She come in to do laundry,” says the second. “There was sheets and towels hanging all around. She loaded up the machine, then stripped off her own clothes and throwed them in, too.”

“What’d she do then?” says the third.

“Danced around some, I reckon,” says the second.

“You’re telling tales,” says the first.

“I ain’t,” says the second.

“What’d you do?” says the third.

“Just looked,” says the second.

“Did you pull your pecker?” says the first.

“No!” says the second.

“Did you mount her like a stallion?” says the third.

“I didn’t do that, neither,” says the second.

“Maybe you should have,” says the first.

“That’s what I’d have done,” says the third.

They fall silent save for the crunch of shoes on gravel.

“It’s the end of the world!” shouts the first.

“Doomsday!” shouts the second.

“Kingdom come!” shouts the third.

Now the sun rests halfway behind the horizon. The boys walk on. Their slender bodies cut black figures from the fiery sunset, unstable liquid silhouettes. Then all three stretch out their arms as though for balance—each burning like a phoenix, herald of all great awakenings and the resurrection of the dead.