Maggie Boylan
Also by Michael Henson
Ransack
A Small Room with Trouble on My Mind
Crow Call
The Tao of Longing and the Body Geographic
The Dead Singing
Tommy Perdue
The True Story of the Resurrection and Other Poems
MAGGIE BOYLAN
Michael Henson
SWALLOW PRESS / OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Swallow Press
An imprint of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
First Swallow Press / Ohio University Press edition published 2018 Originally published as The Way the World Is: The Maggie Boylan Stories by Brighthorse Books, 2015
© 2015 by Michael Henson
All rights reserved
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and places and the incidents involving those characters and places are all fictional. Sadly, the issues which gave rise to these stories are real, but the stories themselves are not.
Some of the stories in this collection originally appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Gray Sparrow Journal, Overtime, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Storyscape Journal, Superstition Review, Still: The Journal, and Every River on Earth: Writings from Appalachian Ohio.
To obtain permission to quote, reprint, or otherwise reproduce or distribute material from Swallow Press / Ohio University Press publications, please contact our rights and permissions department at (740) 593-1154 or (740) 593-4536 (fax).
Printed in the United States of America
Swallow Press / Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8040-1201-0
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8040-1202-7
Electronic ISBN: 978-0-8040-4091-4
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Control Number 2017959230
The creation of this book was supported in part by a grant from the Ohio Arts Council.
For Billy Ray Sanders (1971–2010) and so many others
Contents
Maggie Boylan
1
JAMES CARPENTER had just hung the gas pump back in its cradle and he had one foot in the door of his truck and here came Maggie Boylan, straight as a bullet, foul-mouthed, skinny, death-head-looking, Oxy-addled, thieving Maggie Boylan.
“Are you headed into town?” she called. “Can you give me a ride into town?”
He looked around him. He hated to turn down anyone in need of a ride, but still . . . this was Maggie Boylan. He thought, This could be a big mistake in the making.
Maggie was bundled into an oversized denim coat that must have belonged to her husband. It was a bright, late October day with a big wind and she staggered a moment as the wind gusted off the hills and down the highway. It tossed her hair into her eyes and she pulled a hand from the pocket of her coat to brush it back.
“I sure could use a ride,” she said.
James Carpenter was, in fact, headed into town. There was no way to disguise it. He had no handy lie he could use to put her off. So he told her, “I got to drop off some papers at the courthouse and I’m coming straight back.”
“That works for me,” she said. “I just got to pick up some medicine for my mother-in-law.”
Later, a friend would remind him: Maggie’s mother-in-law had died a month before, and she had no truck with Maggie when she was alive. Later, he would see how Maggie had fooled him all along. But now, he could not see how he could turn her away.
“I got to go right now,” he said. He was on a deadline and he hoped that she would have to go back to her house to get something together. Maybe she had to get her purse or maybe some papers of her own and maybe he could dodge her that way. But then, what did Maggie Boylan have left to get together?
“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s roll.” She pulled open the passenger-side door and launched herself into the seat even before he could get his key into the ignition. She already had her purse. It was one of these backpack purses, so he hadn’t seen it earlier. She pulled it off her shoulders and began to rummage inside. “Shit,” she said, then put her hand to her mouth. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cuss. You wouldn’t have a lighter, would you?”
He did not.
“I should of remembered you don’t smoke. Wait just a minute while I bum me a light.” She planted her purse on the seat and jumped back onto the apron. “Don’t worry. I won’t be but
