Thing i wrote

I didn't proof read this at all so apologies for bad grammar, this is probably full of it lol.

Small rocks hit the windshield as Tatum drives down the old dirt roads, the sun high, beaming down on the newly bought—well used car with seats too low, and too shaky to feel safe.

“Where are we going?” Silas asks, arm warming against the metal shell of the car, head swiveling towards Tatum, a stack of cash peeking out of an envelope. 

“Mom opened me an account,” she smiles, eyes never leaving the road, voice low and laxed like ginger after the werewolf, “so I drained it.”

Loose bills blew in the wind, like blades of grass growing beyond their reach, ready to challenge the cars and highways, “gee, you could buy a house with that,” he mutters, hand running across the hastily ripped envelope, daring it to cut him.

“That what you want, a house?”

“No, but shouldn’t you be saving for college?”

She scoffs, taking one hand off the wheel, leaning into its palm as the dirt roads better, turn into nice white asphalt, “we don’t go to college.”

He huffs out a laugh, a release of swelling recognition, one felt in the blood, across the plains and there borders, “that’s not true, you got good grades, you could still go,”

“Oh, it isn’t?” She joked, turning off 16th towards the city, her eyes flashing a smile at Silas, his face darker, richer, but still undeniably young under the summer sun, “how about this? When you go to college, get all rich and famous doing whatever you’re gonna do, you can pay me back for this trip? How’s that sound brother?”

He brings his arm up, pulling away from the burning exoskeleton of the car, raising his hand and thumb to the sky, “deal.”

Cities, bridges, towering buildings, monuments erected for the sake of boundaries, all on land beating so softly, so sadly. Some say, about those passing through the isle of the video store, lingering in the westerns, then the horror, that they can feel it, like an inheritance. The rivers flowing lifeless, land without medicine and ceremonies, but it’s no inheritance, only a feeling of absence, a land that should be filled with ceremonies without the medicine or people to do them. 

Silas walks down the aisle, finger dragging across each spine of the lined up dvd cases, warmth spreading across his finger, only starting to pay attention when he feels the spines widen with the vhs tapes. There were a few, less than before, slowly being replaced with his adolescent adversary of technological progress; maybe that’s why he liked horror and westerners, it never strayed, would always be unappreciated and Indian, “yo, let’s go I’m hungry!” Tatum yelled down the aisle, pulling a few more eyes towards them as Silas grabbed a movie off the rack. 

“Amityville horror.” She read, but it came out more like a question, a question she wouldn’t dig further into as she tossed the movie and hers onto the counter.

Silas carries the movies like a large dog, hugging them tight to his chest as they enter her car, dumping most of them in the back seat. Amityvile sits nestled between his legs like a prized position assuring it won’t clatter around the back of Tatums car like some forgotten take out, this was art after all.

He thought of the movie often, enough to debate stealing it, a redline he’d only crossed for Halloween, but there was something about it that’d make him jump over that line in the sand. He’d seen better gore, better scaries so what made this one special?

He supposes it was the Indians, the mention, the idea of a burial ground, Indians were everywhere, have died under every tree and every butte, under the Same stars and skies that white men over so many desperate years made the burial ground. 

Whenever he thought about it, whenever he went back home to his fathers, sat and stared up at the ceiling he couldn’t tell the difference between the burial sites and a living one, between his ancestors and self. They’re both on sad land, mourning, with hair too short to feel like anything but a burial ground. 

That was it, him and that clamshell vhs were the same, archives, proof of survival, the solution in an ever growing theory. 

They grew silent, still, the vhs now on the dash, an empty bag of food at Silas’s feet, the dull sun prying at the odd corners of the car, “thanks for taking me out today.”

“Don’t mention it.” 

“No, I’m just glad I came today, truth is, I feel like I’ve been a zombie the last few years, like everyone knows something I don’t about moving on.”

He’s playing with his fingers, tatums knuckles are white, fist clenched around the steering wheel, “I’m really glad you brought me with you today, so, thanks,”

She’s silent for a second too long, her lax gone, replaced with something akin to sympathy, “thank me when you got that college money brother,”