Blacktop Wasteland

“Beauregard heard his Daddy’s voice every time he drove the Duster. Sometimes he heard it when he was driving for crews. And those moments, it offered him bitter pearls of wisdom. Nonsensical chatter that reminded him not to end up like his Daddy. A ghost without a grave.”

This explanatory paragraph appears in the narrative just as Bug begins a drag race; this pauses the story and draws in the reader. When the narration offers information about the main character’s father, it does so without a full explanation, giving only enough detail to make the reader wonder what happened to the father.

“Once upon a time he had dreamed of living in a house like this one. A house with running water and roof that didn’t leak like a sieve. [...] He didn’t know what was sadder. That his dreams had been so modest or that they had been so prophetic. [...] But after all these years, he had learned to accept that some dreams don’t come true.”

Alone in his mobile home after his wife has taken his two young sons to school, Bug reflects on how the dreams of his youth are less fulfilling than expected. Living as he had hoped, with indoor plumbing in a home that is in good condition, is not enough for him, particularly when he is facing mounting bills and debt. Additionally, that which he longed for most—the return of his father who unaccountably disappeared when Bug was 13—remains an unfulfilled dream that sets the tone of longing for his life.

“The Lake Castor Convalescent Home took great pains not to look like a nursing home. The front of the building had an elaborate Greek Portico that covered the automatic doors at the entrance. Lush green boxwood shrubs that appeared to have been trimmed with lasers lined the sidewalk like verdant sentries. […] Beauregard stepped through the automatic doors and was smacked in the face by the pungent scent of urine. All that fancy architecture couldn’t do anything about the smell of piss.”

Bug knows that nursing home director Mrs. Talbot, along with all the workers at the home, would love to be rid of Ella Montage, Bug’s mother, who is constantly hateful and needy. He is about to discover his mother’s $48,000 in arrears. In his previous life of crime, Bug could have raised the cash.