Wettest County in the World

It amazed Forrest that so many men seemed to wake up in the morning needing some kind of beating or another, men saying and doing fantastic things for the sake of getting another man to smash his face.

He smelled of sour corn, dirt, and sweat and she put her chin and mouth into the crook of his neck and softly kissed the scar, from one end to the other.

Strands of Bertha’s dark hair fell in her face and at the end of each song she raised her head and cast her eyes over the crowd, a slight smile, a nod of embarrassment. After the second such movement of her head Jack felt a momentary breathlessness, surprised by beauty and split to his core.

The nurses said that he came into the hospital sometime in the night under his own power, staggering into the lobby, holding the edges of his throat together with his fingers. Before Forrest passed out he told the doctors that he’d had an accident. It was nearly twelve miles to Rocky Mount from the County Line Restaurant, most of that twisting through the mountains on rough roads. When asked how he arrived there, Forrest replied that he walked.

Jack longed for some new way to impress the woman who now held his heart in the crook of her elbow like a package from the grocery. He had some sense that the larger spaces that he intended to inhabit would require her assured hand. As he walked through the trees Jack removed his hat and smoothed his thin hair, slick with lemon-scented pomade, smiling to himself.