PEPPER IS HUNTING RABBITS

-They's a rabbit...down dis hole.

Pepper stood, red-faced from running, pointing down to a crease in the grass like a dog, his purple t-shirt draping like a dress and streaked with perspiration, his shorts reaching down mid-calf with wide-bottomed cuffs ringing his knees like a bell, his black-brown crew cut sweat-soaked and standing straight up, electrified.  He breathed heavily, with his mouth, his lips appearing swollen and his eyes heavy-lidded, giving his face the overall look most people took immediately, and rightly so, for a certain intellectual inconsequence.  He spluttered for air.

-You OK son?  Grady slid up next to him placing a concerned hand on Pepper's shoulder.  Pepper shuddered but calmed under the hand still jittering like an angry hornet's nest.

-Momma says I git clenched sometimes an' I gotta take it mellow more.  He said "mellow" in two long drawn out syllables, like it was a hard word to pronounce--"MELL...LOW"--though it was more about the way his momma said it, she herself remembering the word as associated with a New Orleans trombone player she met in San Diego in the early 80's and lived with back then for a time.  The memory was a fond one and made her skip a step remembering all the dancing, his lips on her neck and his hand between her legs--as near enough feelings all these years later as the physical presence here in her kitchen of this disappointing son of hers haunting her, like and more often than not bouncing off the walls over one thing or another.

-Take it easy now Pepper...take it mellll-llow, she'd say.

-It's ok kiddo.  So you get worked up.  We's chasin' rabbits right arn't we?

-Yeah Grady, we're chasin' rabbits.  Pepper's faced lightened visibly and his demeanor calmed in general.  He was smiling now feeling a part of something, feeling like he belonged somewhere--right here where Grady was.  He considered Grady the finest person in the world.  And Grady was always kind to him in a way that didn't sound like pity or like he was mocking.

-So you say we got one down here, do you?  Grady crouched and considered the hole Pepper found.  Pepper sat right down next to him crushing a bush.  Grady turned his head to one side and Pepper did the same.

-He took a turn right 'round that juniper there and I saw the tail go right down here.

Pepper pointed and then smacked the grass with his open palm, rocking now in a rhythm of excitement and sure knowledge.  The rabbits below shivered, caught.  Grady parted the grass with his hands, smoothing and separating to expose the opening in the ground.

-Well they're down there now...what'cha think there Pep?

-Don' know Grady.

-Why don't cha sing us something.

-Like what Grady?

Grady reclined in the grass, his arms behind his head.  The grass was long and lush and thickly-bladed.  It felt wet but there wasn't any moisture that came away with your hand when you touched it.  And the smell of it made you want to eat it.  Grady knew to let Pepper be; let Pepper sense the lull and relax; then he'd start all on his own.

Pepper began to sing an old backwoods ballade about catching rabbits in the Kentucky hills or words like that.  His voice was a marvelous smooth tenor.  He had a remarkable ear and fed off the sound as it rolled away from him into the valley and then back up to him in echo.  This was really the reason Grady took Pepper hunting--these peaceful moments.

Even the rabbits braved to sniff the air closer to the grass outside their hole.