BILL COPE
BRIDGE OUT “What do you suppose they made in there?” “What who made in where?” “There. Where else?” They were alone on this road, Gary and Jenna – a narrow lane-and-a-half with swampy grassland crowding the wet pavement on the right so closely that Jenna could have reached out and plucked a handful of the blades as they drove past. On their left, to where she impatiently flipped her hand, was a brick wall, maybe twenty-feet high and a quarter-mile long, reds ranging from dried blood to splotchy rust. Vines clung to much of the face. There were no windows, no architectural features of any sort but for an occasional wooden loading dock, rotting into the weeds that had reclaimed a dirt access road. In places, ragged holes had been slammed through the brick by the fist of age and deterioration. The vines poured into these breaches as though this was exactly what they’d been waiting for. “How would I know, Jen? Confederate flags? Cotton bales? Hobbles and chains? Whatever it was, they haven’t made it there for a damn long time.” “It can’t be that old. It’s so big. They didn’t have factories so big in those days, did they? And is that what they call kudzu? It’s everywhere.” “Jen, this is your part of the country, not mine. Why ask me?” She turned away, sat forward and fumed in her seat. “Jesus, Gary! To get you to talk. You haven’t said more than five words since we turned off that other 109
