From In a Car Going Nowhere
Janice Daugharty

He bumps open the screened door to the carport and the spotted puppy stands and waggles around his boots, and it's a curious thing to the boy why the puppy just sat there when the pistol went off inside. In one hand Beebee is holding the keys to his mama's blue Buick, and in the other the pistol that made the little popping sound that created a big blood spurt between her eyes.

On his way to the car, parked hood-in trunk-out of the carport, he looks next door and sees Miss Frankie with her bleached hair in pink rollers and the children she keeps hovering round the picnic table where she is carving a jack-o-lantern from a huge grooved pumpkin. Bunch of nonsense! She stands straight and stares at Beebee, tugging her silky orange blouse down over her ballooned breasts and stomach. Her hag face poses a question. He pokes the pistol into the waist of his blue jeans and goes on walking till he gets to the car. Gets in, places the pistol on the seat, switches the car on, and backs down the dirt drive to the highway. The hard part, backing.

Of course, now that he has the car to drive to school, he can't go to school, and he doesn't know where he can go or when he can come back. And he feels sad driving past the old portwine-brick school with a train of yellow buses parked along the west fence, but glad that he doesn't have to go....

Ontario Review #47