The witnesses included people who handle animals for a living. On the day it happened they converged, but only in the sense that when it rains the pavement gets wet. One of them teaches pubescent girls how to ride and jump horses English-style. Boys too, but mostly girls. He rides alongside them with a drawstring backpack for his personal possessions. Another drives into the city twice weekly to deliver pasture-raised organic eggs. Among the witnesses, only the entomologist and the dogwalker knew the vagrant/victim by sight. The entomologist is a woman, if that matters. The people occupying the picnic area were barbecuing. Pork mostly, but also brisket. A delicious crust had formed. The vagrant stayed on the perimeter until he didn’t. It could have happened over territory. It happened in a burst. Think racehorses at the gate. He ran straight at the nearest barbecue, which was smoking hot. Not a grill, a barbecue. Barrel-shaped, its lid closed. He could have been trying to vault it and who knows, maybe at an earlier stage of his life he had made a living doing that kind of thing. Vaulting over people, a row of them. He landed on flesh-devouring steel. Belly down, arms widespread, chin up. You can imagine shrieking.


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Short stories by Karen Laws have appeared in The Georgia Review and Zyzzyva, among other literary journals. She recently completed a novel set in the High Sierra.

ART:
Stephanie Phillips
TB (TN)
iPhone 7, 2020