One Apple A Day #97
I love John Connolly writing style. I love the way he dig into the souls of his characters, how he describes the evil inside every men. I love in particular how he pick the right details to put the reader inside the scene. So, as an exercise to improve my writings, I copied an extract from one of his books, “The White Road”.
Beneath the black oak, an old Lincoln has been driven into place. The red truck pulls up beside it and three hooded men climb from the bed, pushing the black man onto the ground before them. He lands on his stomach, his face in the dirt. Strong hands yank him to his feet and he stares into the dark holes of the pillowcases, crudely burnt into the fabric with matches and cigarettes. He can smell cheap liquor.
Cheap liquor and gasoline.
His name is Errol Rich, although no stone or cross with that name upon it will ever mark his final resting place. From the moment he was taken from his momma’s house, his sister and his momma screaming, Errol had ceased to exist. Now all traces of his physical presence are about to be erased from this earth, leaving only the memory of his life with those who have loved him, and the memory of his dying with those gathered here this night.
And why is he here? Error Rich is about to burn for refusing to buckle, for refusing to bend his knee, for disrespecting his betters.
Errol Rich is about to die for breaking a window.
He was driving his truck, his old truck with its cracked windshield and its flaking paint, when he heard the shout.
‘Hey, nigger!’
Then the glass exploded in on top of him, cutting his face and hands, and somehing hit him hard between the eyes. He braked suddenly, and smelled it upon himself. In his lap, the cracked pitcher dumped the remains of its contents on his seat and on his pants.
Urine. They had filled a pitcher between them and thrown it through his windshield. He wiped the liquid from his face, his sleeve coming away wet and bloody, and looked at the three men standing by the roadside, a few steps away from the entrance to the bar.
'Who threw that?’ he asked. Nobody answered, but secretly, they were afraid. Errol Rich was a strong, powerful man. They had expected him to wipe his face and drive on, not to stop and confront them.
'You throw that, little Tom?’ Errol stood before Little Tom Rudge, the owner of the bar, but Little Tom wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Cause if you did, you better tell me now, else I’m gonna burn your shit heap down to the ground.’
But still there was no reply, so Errol Rich, who always did have a temper on him, signed his death warrant by taking a length of timber from the bed of his truck and turning to the men. They backed off, waiting for him to come at them, he threw the timber, all three feet of it, through the front window of Little Tom Rudge’s bar, then climbed back in his truck and drove away.
Now Errol Rich is about to die for a pane of cheap glass, and a whole town has come to watch it happen. He looks out on them, these God-fearing people, these sons and daughters of the land, and he feels the heat of their hatred upon him, a foretaste of the burning that is to come.