Read Crow Fair for Free Online Page A

along.”
    “What’s the matter with you?”
    Deputy Crane would have to get up earlier in the morning if he wanted to be rid of me. By the time he pulled out of town, I was hot on his trail. The interstate followed the river, and we sped along doing seventy-five, the river intermittently visible on my left. Thus far the bridegroom had outrun us.
    Pulling off the interstate and down into a riverside trailerpark, I was convinced that euphoria was the rarest of all prizes, and being as good as anyone at cherishing mine, I started to fear that seeing the corpse up close might be a buzzkill. A small crowd had formed at the riverbank, and the squad car was parked close by. I pulled up next to the deputy, who got out and, spotting me, said, “Jesus Christ.” The small crowd parted at the sight of the uniform, and I pushed through in its wake, rudely asked to stop shoving. There within the circle of gawkers was the dead bridegroom. Either his wedding clothes were too small for him or he was seriously waterlogged. I don’t know why they laid him out on a picnic table. The well-trimmed mustache seemed misplaced on the broad moon face whose wide-open eyes were giving me such a bad feeling. The gawkers would look at the face, then at one another searching for some explanation. People with sideburns that long were inevitably from the wrong side of the tracks, where me and my family, excepting Grandma, had all lived. I couldn’t say why I felt a corpse shouldn’t have a mustache and long sideburns. It seemed about time to buck up with some more artificial elation. But first I thought it only right to inform this group that it was I who had first spotted our friend floating past. This fell on deaf ears. I looked around me with a bleak, ironic smile undaunted by their indignation.
    Somebody at the Mad Hatter had told me there was going to be midget wrestling at the Waterhole. There was a van parked in front with the logo SUPPORT MIDGET VIOLENCE , but no midgets in sight unless they were asleep inside. Two horses stood tied to the hitching rack in front by the trough and beside them four pickup trucks with so much mud on the windshields that the drivers could only have seen through the wiper arcs. Between two of the trucks was a blood-red Porsche Carrera with NewMexico plates and a King Charles spaniel at the wheel. I was able to get what I wanted without giving the others the impression that I cared to mingle. The bartender was a compulsive counter wiper, and when I got up, the tip I left there disappeared. He pretended to find the bills under the rag as I departed, giving the entire crowd a laugh at my expense as I pushed through the doors. I thought of going back and raising hell but found the Porsche unlocked and released the spaniel instead. It was dark, and all I could think of was one word, “Grandma!” The dog headed off through the houses with their lighted windows as I was swept by uneasiness.
    Something was making me drive this fast. I was trying my best to reckon where those little units of time had gone. Whatever trouble I was headed for, it didn’t feel like it was entirely my fault, just because someone decided to send a corpse through my day. If he’d lived on Grandma’s side of town, he would have enjoyed more options with no sideburns to maintain.
    It was not easy to find our picnic site in the dark, and I wouldn’t have been sure I’d found it if I hadn’t spotted the remains of the box lunch. I ate the other deviled-ham sandwich, the hard-boiled egg, the spicy pickle, and the cookie, and staring at the large expanse of the river, breathing mostly with my abdominal muscles, I tried to collect my thoughts and ward off hysteria.
    The chair was gone. So, she didn’t jump in the river. Can’t have more than one corpse a day. Somebody must have found Grandma and taken her home. This thought gave me an especially sharp pain, as it suggested one more person looking down on me, the oaf who left his blind