In my mind I remember it this way: We had a cool walk there, along the sunken road where, in places, you could see the roots of pine trees sticking out like brown needles. Where the banks rose high along the road, we would smooth our hands on the gray dirt walls, knocking free clumps of earth to roll onto the dark floor. It looked like marble breaking.
The cut road rose up and out into the tobacco field and past two barns, one covered in green shingle siding. We walked on the crown of the road, where the loose white sand held patches of centipede, and down towards the well for a drink at the hand pump. Mr. Bill hadn't sanded its rust before he painted it so the color didn't stay in places and someone had broken the mason jar full of water that was left to prime the pump. Just through the small hardwoods that filtered the wind, we could hear hammers and saws and see the frames of new houses. She didn't glance that way, choosing to put the smaller pieces of glass in the intact base of the jar instead. When she bent at her waist, the pockets of her flowered smock emptied: Lighters every color of the rainbow, matches, two packs of filterless Camel's, and keys with a red ribbon tied through the holes. We pushed back the straw to pick out her things and found a snake hole. She stood at once, leaving a pack of cigarettes on the ground. She flattened her clothes, checked the hem of her dress and we left without drinking.
We headed on to the pond, by high orange cliffs that curved around abandoned washing machines and ovens, lowering our heads to pass under branches that grew together over the road. Below us, the water sat before great green stairs of grass cut into a hill. To the right the road continued for a mile, finally intersecting into an empty paved cul-de-sac. We went down the road until we were next to a cold block of concrete that sat just a few feet into the pond. High water drained into the block through a grate of welded rebar, through a pipe under the road, and out into a creek. A wide wooden plank linked it to the shore. She let me stand on the block, holding my belt loop as I leaned out. The current pressed milk jugs, old bicycle tires, and tree-limbs polished by the constant flow of water against the grate. For a time, it was just the noise of the water passing over them and then, her humming to accompany it. She tugged at me when it was time to leave.
On the walk back to the house we passed all the same things, but they looked older late in the day. On the sunken road she snatched me up in both arms, cradled me across her front and ran. When I looked down I saw a cottonmouth with two heads. When I tell it, I feel like I'm remembering someone else's dream.
