Dismembered
Vernon, Florida
Tom Lake: VERNON - Nothing binds a town together like a powerful story: the Giants win the pennant, for example, or a mother wolf rescues twin boys from the riverbank, or a silversmith and a borrowed horse conspire to foil the Redcoats.
In this town, the story is broken.
The characters are not heroes. They are not even villains. They are merely conniving mercenaries with a tolerance for gore.
If you have heard of Vernon, population 780, an old steamboat port between the red hills of Alabama and the white shores of Florida's Emerald Coast, there is a good chance you have heard this story. To the outside world, it has become Vernon's master narrative.
Poor country folk get desperate. Poor country folk get an idea. Poor country folk buy insurance. Poor country folk fire guns at selves, blowing off hands or feet, and poor country folk get rich.
Posted by
ben on 09/01/07 at
09:01
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Comments
Re: Dismembered
I love this story. Funny, strange, a great read, with some corruption thrown in for good measure. Narrative with an ending that veers into investigative reporitng. Just great! Tom, if you're out there, how'd you decide to structure this the way you did?
Posted by:
Bill R
at September 01,2007 10:40
Re: Dismembered
Brilliant story, Tom. To a certain extent, it's a collection of oddities until the end, when you tie together that these old-timers are doing the same thing they did long ago. Did you see the story that way, when you went up there? Did you know what you had? Why did you want to go to begin with?
Just fantastic.
Posted by:
Brad
at September 01,2007 14:09
Re: Dismembered
So, was the fourth-graf phrase "master narrative" inspired by recent Gangrey discussion? Haha. Lake, how do you find this stuff? Bill R. was right. That last section bumps this story up a notch from your typical awesome and entertaining weirdo tale to an investigation where so much is at stake (by the way, I love the idea of a highway as an "asphalt spine.") Your investigative details pack a punch, and your ending ties it all together. I bet it made your day when that lady said the last quote. High five, Lake.
Posted by:
zayas
at September 02,2007 08:35
None
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