The tail lights took awhile before they disappeared into the distance. Jim could not stand long enough to watch them go back towards his house. At the last, he knelt on his knees, and this time instead of walking, he crawled over to the dangerous place. He no more than got settled, than he remembered May Sue told him there was some hot food in the brown grocery bag she left by his sleeping bag.

It would make death a lot easier if he ate something. Dying was something he did not know anything about except when he almost bled to death lying there in Dawn's house. Hunger, he knew how to handle.

He figured if he had the food up here with him, he could eat a big bait. Perhaps the bank would go before the pain hit him like a fish hook in his gut. Only thing, he was afraid if he went back to get the food, the collapse would come while he was gone. Then he would have to wait another day or two before anymore would wash off into the river.

There was the chance no more would fall. Riverbanks were that way. They were like decayed teeth. They broke off until all of a sudden they hit a solid place, then they looked hurt for years, but they would not break off anymore.

It was lucky he brought the half bottle of whiskey Charles Ray left him after May Sue went on to the car.

Way the thundercloud was coming down river, there was a sliver of moon that was not going to last long. While the moon was out, he remembered a poem he read in high school about Ebner Flood who he drank a toast to what moon there was left.

God, if they even suspected he'd set out to kill himself, there were a bunch of people he would disappoint. When he tilted the bottle at a forty‑five degree angle, he remembered people up and down both sides of the river who cheered him on when he was running the football all over Crawfordsville's field.

Most of the people were either relatives of his ma and pa, or May Sue's people. One thing about living in one place for generations, relatives kind of stacked up all along the highway and river.

Some people whispered his grandpa went soft in the head 'cause his great‑grandparents were close relatives who married. Only thing it was not like the poor little girl who talked to him earlier. It was legal then to marry that way ‑ first cousins.