Sons of the Mesa.

[Soapy]

[Soapy]

You may now post.

[redsox907]

RTG in Zona?

[Caesar]

Oh we all in the desert huh?

[Captain Canada]

Baze did his big shit

[Soapy]

RTG in Zona?

what i did cuh

Oh we all in the desert huh?

Baze did his big shit

I made that banner, cuh

just waiting on Baze to fulfill my order any day now smh

[Soapy]

Season 1, Episode 1
"I’m telling you, it was right here. I swear it was.”

Micah was already at the counter, knife in hand, the toast already buttered before Kayla had finished her sentence. He didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. The kitchen was small enough that he could hear her from anywhere in it, and he’d heard this particular complaint, or some version of it, enough times to know the shape of it before the words arrived.

“It’s at Mom’s,” Kayla said, pushing a spoon through her cereal without eating any of it. “I bet it’s at Mom’s."

“Probably,” Micah said.

Arianna pressed herself against his leg, chin tilted up, watching the knife. He’d already cut the first piece into four triangles, crusts off, and she was waiting for the second piece to get the same treatment before she’d touch either of them.

He set the plate down in front of her and she climbed into her chair without a word.

“Can you ask her?” Kayla said.

“I’ll text her.”

“You won’t.”

“I will.”

“You’ll forget.”

He didn’t answer that one. He was already moving around behind Arianna, his fingers finding the brush on the counter where he’d left it the day before, and then he was working through her hair, starting at the bottom and working up. She sat perfectly still for him.

“It’s the gray one,” Kayla said. “Not the black one. The gray one with the pocket on the side.”

“Got it.”

“And the charger. The fast one."

“The fast one.”

She pushed her bowl away. “I have nothing to wear today.”

“You’re wearing something right now.”

“You know what I mean.”

He finished with Arianna’s hair and set the brush down. The clock above the stove said six-forty. He had twelve minutes before they needed to be out the door.

The mail sat on the table where it had been sitting since yesterday. Bills. A flyer for something. And one envelope, cream-colored, the corner of a school emblem just visible where it peeked out from under the electric bill. He’d seen it when he came in last night. He’d seen it again this morning when he set the table.

“Backpacks,” he said.

Kayla groaned but she got up. Arianna slid off her chair and went to the hook by the door where her backpack hung low enough for her to reach. Micah crossed to the refrigerator, pulled out two lunch bags and set them on the counter.

“Water bottles filled?”

“Filled,” Kayla said, already at the door, backpack on one shoulder.

He checked Arianna’s. Full. He zipped it into the side pocket of her bag and lifted it onto her shoulders, adjusting the straps. She turned her face up to him and he kissed the top of her head, the braids still warm from his hands.

“Keys,” he said.

Kayla held them up. She’d grabbed them off the hook on her way past.

He opened the door. Morning light hit the linoleum, and for a second the three of them stood in the frame, Kayla already halfway out, Arianna’s small hand finding his, the backpacks and the lunches and the keys all accounted for and then they were through it, and the door swung shut behind them with the same soft click it always made.

The kitchen sat.

The mail on the table. The dishes in the sink, two bowls and a plate and a butter knife. The toast crumbs on the counter. The brush on the edge of the counter where he’d set it down. Morning light coming through the window over the sink, catching the dust that hung in the air the way it always did, the way it did every morning, the way it would do tomorrow.

The cab smelled like diesel and the particular kind of heat that came off a metal roof that had been sitting in the sun since five-thirty. Delvin’s shirt was already dark at the back, the sweat working its way down between his shoulder blades, and he didn’t bother wiping his face anymore because the bandana around his neck was soaked through and anything else would just push the grit around.

The machine shuddered under him as the blade bit into the ground, and he felt it in his teeth, in the base of his spine, in the old place in his left knee where the cartilage had gone soft years ago. He adjusted the joystick a quarter inch to the right. The blade followed.

The radio crackled.

“Fourteen, you’re clear on that grade.”

“Copy.”

He backed the machine up, shifted, dropped the blade again. The earth peeled away in front of him in a long pale ribbon, the color of something that had been buried and was now being dragged back into the light. Dust rose and hung in the air and the cab’s filter hummed against it, doing what it could.

The radio again.

“Fourteen, hold.”

He pulled back on the stick. The machine settled. The engine idled beneath him, that low constant rumble. He let his hands rest on the controls. Through the dust-streaked glass he could see the other operator, two hundred yards off, signaling to someone on the ground.

Delvin’s eyes drifted.

Past the idle machine, past the railing, to the far section where the younger crew was working. He could see the shape of them through the haze with their hard hats, reflective vests, the smaller machines they ran.

He watched.

Then the radio crackled.

“Fourteen, you’re good.”

He turned back to his own machine. Adjusted the blade. Dropped it. The ground peeled away again, flat and pale and scraped clean, the way it had been scraped clean yesterday and would be scraped clean tomorrow, until there was nothing left underneath to give.

Jace found a strip of shade against the side of the equipment trailer and sat down on an overturned bucket. Tony and Reuben were already there, splitting a bag of chips. Dawayne showed up a minute later, dropping down next to Jace with a grunt.

"You still owe me twenty," Tony said.

"For what?"

"For what? Suns game, bro."

"He did drop forty."

"He dropped thirty-six."

"That's basically forty."

"It's not forty, Jace."

Reuben laughed around a mouthful of chips. Dawayne leaned back against the trailer and closed his eyes against the sun.

"Pay the man," Dawayne said, eyes still closed.

"I'll pay him when he learns to count."

Tony flipped him off without looking up.

They ate. Reuben passed the chip bag around. Somebody's radio was playing low from one of the trucks.

"You hear they're talking about cutting back hours in the fall?" Reuben said.

"Heard that in the spring too," Tony said. "Heard it last year."

"I'm just saying."

"This whole thing's got like a year left in it anyway," Dawayne said, still not opening his eyes. "Maybe two. Then what?"

"Then I marry rich," Tony said.

"You don't know nobody rich."

"I'll learn somebody rich."

Reuben laughed again. Dawayne cracked one eye open and looked at Tony like he was an idiot, then closed it again.

"What about you?" Tony said, looking at Jace. "What's the plan when this dries up?"

Jace shrugged. "Figure it out when it dries up."

"That's not a plan."

"Didn't say it was a plan."

Tony shook his head and went back to the chips.

"Speaking of figuring shit out," Reuben said, grinning now, "You still talking to that girl from Shungopavi?"

"Which one?"

"Oh, there's more than one," Tony said.

"There's always more than one."

The horn sounded for the end of lunch. Tony and Reuben pushed up off the ground, groaning about it the way they did every day. Dawayne stayed against the trailer a second longer, eyes still closed, like the horn was something he could wait out.

Jace stood there by himself for a second, looking out at the cut.

Then he picked his hard hat up off the ground, put it on, and walked back to his station.

Kayla and Arianna were at the table, Arianna working through a plate Micah had cut into smaller pieces. Micah stood at the stove, finishing the last of it, his back to the door.

The shower ran in the back of the house, shut off, and a few minutes later Delvin came out in a clean shirt, hair still wet, comb tracks still visible in it. He went straight to the freezer, pulled out a beer cold enough to fog, and sat down at the head of the table.

"Smells good," he said.

"It's just chicken," Micah said.

"Smells good anyway."

The front door opened. Jace came in still in his work clothes, dust on his boots, a little looser in the shoulders than he'd been that morning. He dropped his keys on the counter.

Delvin twisted the cap off his beer and didn't look up.

"That check's not even gonna make it to the end of the month at this rate."

Jace pulled out a chair and sat down across from Kayla.

"Go shower," Micah said, not turning around.

Jace grunted. Delvin didn't look up from his beer. Micah sighed and went back to the stove.

Kayla reached over and stole a piece of bread off Jace's plate before he even sat down to use it, and he swatted at her hand a half second too late.

The mail was sitting at the end of the table, where it had been all day. Jace reached over and pulled it toward him, flipping through it one piece at a time, mostly without interest. Water bill. He set it down. Flyer for the tire shop. He set that down too.

He got to the last one and stopped for half a second, just long enough to register the crest on the corner.

He didn't say anything about it.

He flicked it across the table. It slid to a stop in front of Micah's plate.

Jace picked his fork back up.

[Caesar]

They Hopi, cuh?

[redsox907]

single Dad with a bunch of kids in the dessert, eh?

what i did cuh

you'll see