Excerpts from novel "The End of Everything"

by Paul Segar

Just After the City

Cars straddled the highway, rushing towards what was left of the sun in the distant horizon. Crushing the air between them as they cut ahead of one another, their headlights faintly reflecting in my grandfather's windshield as he drove to Carolina with one hand on the wheel.

"Fuck 'em," my Uncle Jam said, sitting next to my grandfather in the front passenger seat, "I ain't givin' Irv a mothafuckin' dime. You might go and slap your wife 'round - try that shit with me. How many times we play and I win? And how many times did I ask him t'pay me? So, why he askin' me now t'open up my wallet? That's my question."

"He want his money," my grandfather said. "And you better pay him before he stop askin' for it and just take it."

"I ain't scared of his yellow ass." Uncle Jam leaned forward, lighting a cigarette that was just as brown and skinny as he was from a shifting pack on the dashboard. "And you drivin' way t'slow - hammer down! I want t'get back home so I can watch my cartoons."

"I wanna watch cartoons," Angela shouted, jolting forward, as I sat next to her in the backset, only to be snapped back by her seatbelt.

"You do?" Uncle Jam asked, turning to face her. "If you want t'watch cartoons then you goin' t'the wrong house. Yo' gran'daddy ain't got no 'lectricity." The big black irises of his widened eyes ran back and forth along his upper eyelids, searching the blank expression on Angela's face. "That means he ain't got no TV, baby," he cooed. "'Lonza ain't gots no TV, he ain't gots no lights, and if you got t'go you go outside in a bucket."

"You don't have a TV?" Angela asked, staring at the back of my grandfather's head as he drove. "Why? Why don't you have a TV?"

"I gots a TV," Uncle Jam said, taking hold of her hands and attention, in an exhale of smoke. "I gots TVs, nice TVs, I got cars, nice cars - everythin', me and Retta got everythin'. So, you want t'come home with me t'my house? Don't look at yo' brother. I'm askin' if you want t'go. That's what I'm askin'." He let go of one of Angela's hands. "Let me see you make a muscle. Squeeze." Uncle Jam raised his voice above my grandfather's snickering. "You know your Uncle Irv, he a big fella. I ain't a little fella, but I ain't big as Uncle Irv ... and since you got all this muscle ... me and you might be able t'come t'a negrotiation."

"Irv ain't even thinkin' 'bout you," my grandfather said, slapping at Uncle Jam's hand until he let go of Angela's.

"Bullshit - look what he did t'Henry? He threw Henry down the fuckin' stairs," Uncle Jam said, twisting in his seat to face my grandfather as he banged his hand on the ceiling of his car. "The same night we all got up there we caught Henry with some woman. And you can't miss Henry - tall, black, and loud." Uncle Jam's voice fell to a shaking whisper, "We follow him and the woman, all over, all night. We get back t'Joan apartment, George sittin' there at the table, Retta and Ida tell Joan what they saw, Henry with some woman gettin' high. Joan ain't say nothin', George ain't say nothin'. Ida say it weren't no reefer, Henry and that girl were usin' a needle."

My grandfather suddenly sat up rigid in front of the wheel, letting out a sigh that seemed to slow down the rushing traffic around us.

"If you could've seen the look on Joan face ... you'd think they told her he died. Then outta the blue, Joan called Ida a liar. Irv stood up, he about the size of two damn refrigerators, and told Joan t'tell Henry t'get his fuckin' ass over here. Joan say she weren't goin' t'lift one finger t'pick up her phone - George made the call."

Uncle Jam rolled down his window, flicking the ash from his cigarette into the darkening air. He took a quick puff from his cigarette, adjusting himself in his seat to sit flush against the door, his long narrow profile creating a faint shadow that arched over the headrest of his seat and onto Angela's yellow dress.

"When Henry finally got there, Ida and Retta swarm on him like crows on corn. Right there t'they face he say they were lyin'. Retta told him t'roll up his sleeves." Uncle Jam shook his head, puffing on his cigarette. "Irv say, 'You want me t'make you roll up them sleeves? They yellin' and carryin' on, and -"

"Where George?"

"After that mothafucka made the call he stay in the kitchen!" Uncle Jam fingers fluttered up and down in the space between him and my grandfather. "Blood runnin' down Henry nose, gushin' 'cause Irv punch Henry in the face. And now I'm holdin' back Joan from hittin' Irv 'cause Irv'll knock her right out, you can ask Ida on that. Irv ask him again if he want t'roll up his sleeves. That jackass shook his head. Irv roll up his pant leg and took out his gun." Uncle Jam leaned in. "He cock that mothafucka. He point that shit at Henry head then at his chest. Nobody moved, nobody. 'Tell me I ain't see you.' Irv told him t'get out before he paint his ass all over the fuckin' walls. Henry ain't move fast enough. He pick up Henry over his shoulder, open the door, carry him to-the-stairs and threw him down. Henry broke his arm and fracture his leg."

"Henry ain't good 'nough t'pick fly shit outta pepper."

Uncle Jam laughed over the warbling noise on the highway whipping in from his open window. Smoke from his cigarette drifted out. The sun was gone, leaving behind the darkest sky that I had ever seen. Everything ahead of us and behind us seemed so very far away. And for the first time I wasn't afraid of the dark.

Before Work

My grandfather's dark blue denim overalls were as stiff and loud as corduroy as he knelt and began flipping through a stack of pots and dishes propped up against the stove like a deck of cards. He planted his hand high on the wall behind him to stand, slamming a cast iron skillet down hard on the stove.

"I use t'work on the railroads," he said as I sat with my arms tucked into my t-shirt, trying to escape the bitter early morning air blowing in from the half open window behind me. "I use t'always make my own breakfast before goin' t'work, all of us did 'cause all the women were already up in the field." He began pouring huge dollops of milk into a bowl on the table already filled with flour and eggs. "Don't doze off on me now," he said, adding another dollop of milk. "You should've sleep ridin' over here, today goin' t'be a full day." He placed the sweating carton of milk down on the table, mixing everything inside of the bowl together with a fork. "I made my own lunch, too."

In a sudden rush of footsteps, my sister, Angela, stood in the doorway. "I'm goin' outside," she said, the soft gray light coming in through the back screen door shaded her pale skin.

"Your gran'ma know you up?"

She said nothing, her eyes fixed on the quivering bowl on the table as my grandfather continued mixing the ingredients.

"I didn't get a answer."

"Can I go outside?"

"Come and eat." He pointed to the empty chair across from me with the fork in his hand, dropping a huge clump of batter onto the table.

"Bye," she shouted, running out and leaving the back screen door slapping loudly against its frame.

"She just flew outta here like she headin' t'work." He let go of the fork in his hand, losing it inside the batter. Resting his hands on the edge of the table, he stared out of the window behind me. His eyes, like my mother's, were narrow and highly set above bulging cheekbones. "Right in that barn ... if she lucky, somethin' in there'll kick some sense into her."

He took a book of matches from the patch pocket on the bib of his overalls, flicking one up with his thumb, tearing it out with his teeth before walking over to a pile of newspapers not too far from the stove.

"Yo' sister act just like my daughter Sadie," he said through the match in his mouth, scrunching and feeding newspaper into the stove's mouth. "If you tell Sadie t'run ... she walk," he lit the match and threw it into the stove, "that's why I don't like boys."

He clambered to his feet, staring at the orange embers pushing their way out of the stove and into the cold morning air coming up through the gaps in the floorboards and the open window behind me. The higher they flew the brighter they became, cresting to thin wisps of damaged snow.

"I don't like boys," he said, "Girls, they better than boys. They keep you on your toes. You gotta be watchin' 'em t'see what they doin'. A boy goin' t'tell you what he doin' 'cause he got t'brag t'everybody." He cupped his large right hand over his tiny right ear. "'You hear what he did down with so and so? Yeah, I hear it.'"

Slowly, the cast iron skillet began sizzling. He fished out the fork from the bowl, scooping a thick mound of batter into the skillet, a huge plume of smoke shot up, scattering across the ceiling.

He waited with his arms folded across his chest to give the pancakes their first flip. By the third flip they were done, and coming towards me on a plate as thin and stiff as paper, and set down in front of me on a plate.

"I use t'walk t'work," he said, giving me the battered-covered fork in his hand, "every single day, pitch dark, walk home like that too. And every single morn I had t'go lookin' for Sadie with my kerosene lamp - I would find her, I would. She came up to my hip. She knew what she were doin' 'cause she knew better than to wander 'round them woods. But then she'd be too tired t'do anythin' in the field."

He drew out the chair across from me then sat down. Leaning in and resting his forearms on the table, he watched me take my first bite. It tasted like burnt toast. The batter covering the fork and my fingers began drying and flaking before another.

"Railroad got tracks. They go everywhere, one after the other, all over, anywhere you want t'go." He looked at the cast iron skillet burning on the stove. "That's what I used t'do," he said, climbing to his feet, "I use t'work on the railroad."


A Wire Fence

The chickens ran against the wire fence, wildly flapping their wings, taking short bursts of flight as dogs barking loudly on the other side kept pace. My grandfather stopped running to light a cigarette, throwing the match down to the patchy grass before kicking a chicken, a dirty, gurgling, white blur, crashing high and hard against the wire fence and back to the ground stunned while the others scattered.

He picked up the chicken. Puffing on his cigarette, he tucked the chicken underneath his arm before sitting down on an overturned bucket a few feet from where I was standing.

He took a pocketknife from the bib of his overalls, prying it open and covering the blade's spine with his thumb. Holding it against the chicken's neck, he spread his feet far apart as the muscles in his forearms flexed, jerking his head back as the chicken's wings began beating wildly against his chest and neck.

He stood, pitching the chicken's head over the wire fence to the dogs. He cleaned the blade of his pocketknife against his thigh before dropping it back inside the bib of his overalls. Holding the flailing chicken upside down, he began running, letting the air cut the slender red strings streaming from the chicken's neck.

I could feel the sharp midday sun on my back. It was the first time I had ever been outside without a shirt on. The dogs began barking. And the chickens began running against the wire fence.

Paul Segar is a celebrity stylist and fashion designer born and raised in New York City. He won the Ross Alexander Playwriting Prize and the Jerome Lowell DeJur Award in creative writing. He received his B.A. in English Literature from The City College of New York. His work has previously appeared in Fiction.