Bryce lived in Woodbury, a fast-growing suburb of the Twin Cities which was as opposite to the pissant Arnette as could be. The Speedways were spanking clean and, true to their title, were places where you gassed up, maybe grabbed coffee or fast food, and went on your way; you didn't see middle-age men drinking beer in a dusty office like at Hap's. Woodbury was very much a part of prosperous Minnesota, unlike Arnette which looked like a place the state government in Austin and the ultra-rich in Dallas and Houston never gave thought to. If Woodbury had families on relief like more than a few folks in Arnette, Bryce had yet to meet any.
He rose at 4:30 AM on June 17, more tired than usual because of his fractured sleep. He'd turned in just after 8:30 the previous evening, only to be awakened at 9:10 by a nightmare. Almost all of it had evaporated quickly — the only part still available to his mind's eye showed a black swollen man who might not have been born Black gasping his last breath — but he still knew what it had been about. He'd been hot, with something like a tube constricting his neck. His increasingly difficult breathing had been wet and bubbly at times, crackly at other times and it was the crackles that were most horrible.
For they reminded him of his cancer-ravaged mother, little more than bone covered by sickly yellow skin, during her last day. Her breathing had been crackly as though her lungs were drying out. But they were actually filling with fluid as her heart went deeper into failure. Stu had been himself at her side, tough as nails yet calm, but after he and Bryce left the room they both broke down with Stu's eyes streaming more than Bryce's.
As Bryce cooked breakfast on this wet Minnesota morning, looking out at sad blue-grey twilight (though it wouldn't look sad much longer as skies were expected to clear soon), the nightmare still bothered him. His bed had felt full of big snakes for quite a few minutes after and it had taken him more than two hours to get back to sleep; over most of that time his heart had been racing. Had he been presented with a preview of his own death? Carefully, with just a little tremor in his fingers, he felt his neck and after half a minute or so he judged that it was the same as always.
Summer had been a very healthy season for him since his move from Texas, and he saw no (other) reason to assume this year would be any different. He turned his mind back to his cooking, then thought of the day ahead. Clients to see, computers to program and fix . . . and after the day's work was done, a hot date with Dani.
Hopefully not too hot.