{"product_id":"nitro-mountain-isbn-9781101912447","title":"Nitro Mountain","description":"In the mine-riddled town of Bordon, Virginia, a group of lost souls are bound together by alcohol, small-time crime, and music. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Leon is a lovesick bass player with a broken hand and a belief that next time—\u003ci\u003enext \u003c\/i\u003etime—he’ll definitely get it right; Jennifer is the bright-but-battered waitress who can’t quite escape the orbit of Arnett, the local drug dealer. When Jennifer convinces Leon to murder Arnett so she can finally be free, a dark chain of events is set in motion, its violence echoing the pain and misery that shape their fractured lives.“Forceful…. Johnson’s sharp prose … evokes Ron Rash—by way of Charles Bukowski.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Lee Johnson is a natural-born writer. He inhabits every one of his characters—the good, the bad, and those that swing back and forth.” —John Casey, author of \u003ci\u003eSpartina\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A worthy addition to the growing canon of contemporary Appalachian noir…. \u003ci\u003eNitro Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e is like the home we failed to escape.” —\u003ci\u003eElectric Lit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “Brutal and beautiful…. You’ll find yourself engrossed in the hard times and bad choices of [\u003ci\u003eNitro Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e’s] characters and, ultimately, the humanity we all share.” —\u003ci\u003eRichmond Times-Dispatch\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] darkly stunning tale of stark dramas and tragic lives.” —\u003ci\u003eO, The Oprah Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Perturbingly good. Hazardous. Addictive. Harrowing and hilarious too.” —Joy Williams, author of\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Visiting Privilege\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Dark, frightening     and staggeringly good.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eDeep South Magazine \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Johnson is a literary juggernaut. . . . Superbly well-written     and tightly crafted.” \u003ci\u003e—\u003ci\u003eMartha’s Vineyard Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Cover to cover, the book exerts a fierce magnetic pull, sucking its reader     into a profound desolation.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eNashville Scene\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“\u003c\/i\u003eLee Clay Johnson     punches through the basement window of the American Canon Library, gropes     across the spines of Leon Rooke, Denis Johnson, yes, Flannery O’Connor and     Mr. Bill, and, heir-apparent to none and all, achieves a grasp farther than     his reach. Cut-bloodied smelling of bourbon, he retrieves the book you have     in your hand, some far and ancient tale best pronounced from Genesis. A     masterwork of a first novel.” —Mark Richard, author of \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eHouse of Prayer No. 2: A Writer’s     Journey Home\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Excellent . . .     bold, arresting and well-timed [with] intelligent and sympathetic portraits     of hard-up people making bad, justifiable decisions.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Exquisitely stark and gritty . . . Raw, yet relentlessly compelling.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003ci\u003ePublishers     Weekly \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“Appalachian noir at its darkest and most deranged . . . An ambitious,     disturbing, and daring debut.” \u003ci\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews \u003c\/i\u003e(starred) \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A suspenseful, action-packed thriller that’s also a brilliant study in     humanity and what pushes someone over the line.” —Jill McCorkle, author of\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eLife After Life \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eNitro Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e, Lee Clay Johnson gives us … a cast of low-life     bar rats trying to feel or figure out what, if anything, is precious, and     how to save one another before it’s too late.” —Darcy Steinke, author of\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eSister Golden Hair\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“There is rough, real music in the voices of these characters. . . . Hilarious,     harsh, original.”\u003ci\u003e —\u003c\/i\u003eAmy Hempel\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“The sort of reckless, dangerous comedy Flannery O'Connor might have     written if she'd known more about drink, drugs, and country music. . . . Lee     Clay Johnson is a writer with abundant and scary gifts and consummate     skill; \u003ci\u003eNitro Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e is a novel you can't put down and won't     forget.” —David Gates, author of\u003ci\u003e \u003ci\u003eA     Hand Reaches Down to Guide Me \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eLee Clay Johnson grew up around Nashville, Tennessee, in a family of bluegrass musicians. He holds a BA from Bennington College and an MFA from the University of Virginia. His work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Oxford American, The Common, Appalachian Heritage, Salamander,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Mississippi Review\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in St. Louis and Charlottesville, Virginia.chapter  1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were sitting in my truck in front of the diner she was working at.  Greg, her boss, had everybody convinced he was a genius.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“He’s really  smart,” Jennifer said. “You know what he told me yesterday while I was in the  kitchen?” I rolled down the window and let in cold air. She took face powder  from the glove box, bent the rearview at her face and dusted her nose.  Headlights came flickering from way behind us. “You don’t even care,” she  said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I care,” I said. “I’d like to kick his ass.” The headlights were  getting closer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah, right. Remember when you found that wounded  squirrel?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI turned to see a lifted Tacoma with an aluminum hound cage in  the bed rush past. Barks and bays twisted around us and then away as the  taillights took the next turn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It was a baby. It was lost. It found  me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You cried when it died.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That was a while ago,” I  said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’ve never even been hunting.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I fish.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Catch  and release.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I catch and keep, darling,” I said, reaching for her  jeans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe knocked my hand away. Choosing not to hunt around here was  tougher than doing it, given all the shit people talked if you weren’t waddling  around in orange come deer season. “Don’t mess with Greg anymore,” I  said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Aw, look, it’s jealous.” She petted my arm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHand to chin, I  pushed my head sideways, to the point of pain, and held it there until my neck  cracked. She wasn’t even going to kiss me. When things got like this between us,  I had a habit of hurting myself in front of her. See if she’d say  something.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe hummed to herself, checked her watch. “Don’t be here when  I get off,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How else you gonna get off?” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We’re  done. I’m leaving.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Please,” I said. “Don’t.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe walked to the  diner without looking back, smoothed a hand through her hair at the door and  made sure she looked good before going in. She did. It was the end of November  and the sun was barely cracking the sky. Clouds scattered above the northwest  mountains. It got dark so early these days, and it never got all that  light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe town was shadowed by hills. One road this way, one road that  way, and their unfortunate intersection was the main square with a brick  courthouse that had seen nobler days. The Bordon post office, the library, empty  storefronts and a couple shops that hadn’t gone under yet. And then the  abandoned Dairy Queen, my sister’s apartment complex and this diner. North of  town off 231, toward Nitro Mountain, were the gas station and the Foodville  grocery store. Sprawl, if you could even call it that. Then the country opened  up. My folks’ place was out there. All the roads and houses seemed to be crushed  beneath the foothills, on the verge of burial. West of everything, mountains  scraped the sky. At night you could see a red light on top of Nitro  Mountain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSouth of town was a tiny church with a homeless shelter in the  basement. I worked there part-­time for cash, morning shifts that involved  standing behind a desk only a foot away from so many crises worse than mine, or  just running around and handing out towels and soap. It was a strange thing for  me to be doing. I always felt closer to the other side of the desk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a  morning when I’d shown up to help open the shelter after a night of playing  bluegrass music and drinking blended whiskey, one of the old bums stepped to the  desk to sign in, gazed through my skull, grinned and said, “You look worse than  I do today. And I’m a dead man walking.” He looked around. “Somebody do  math?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen things slowed down that day I grabbed a single-­size bottle  of mouthwash from the dental drawer and jogged upstairs to the employee  bathroom. A few sticky blinks. The room rocked. I swished the shot of Scope and  before spitting I checked the label for the alcohol percentage. Hard to read.  Looked high. Not that bad. I swallowed and it made me feel better, and for that  I felt worse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSince then, I had promised myself never to stay out late  before a morning shift. No matter what. Even if I was playing music. Even if the  drinks were free. Even if my girlfriend had just left me. And there was the  problem: I had a shift tomorrow morning at six and my girlfriend just left me. I  needed to go get one drink and figure out what the hell had just happened to my  life. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe last time I’d been  seriously drunk with Jennifer, she wanted to fight so bad that when I didn’t  raise a hand she hit herself right in front of me. I begged her to quit as she  threw her fist into her face over and over again, then said, “You coward, if you  won’t do it, somebody’s got to.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were guilty of the same strange  cruelties, hurting ourselves to hurt the other, then crawling back and asking  forgiveness. She often said I was too soft, and out of everything she called me,  that hurt the most because it was true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI drove to Durty Misty’s, a bar  on the edge of town where I sometimes backed up country bands on bass. It was a  good spot to get shitty, and while driving over there I decided that’s what I  was going to do tonight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe place was almost empty when I walked in. I’d  never come here just to drink. It was always with a band on a busy night. One  guy sat at the end of the bar playing Nudie Photo Hunt. A picture of a woman in  a small torn bikini appeared on the screen and then broke apart into little  squares. He pieced her back together before his time ran out, otherwise he  would’ve lost her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sat down and told the bartender I wanted something  that would make me hard. He was a quiet guy who looked at me like he couldn’t  hear a thing I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Give the boy what I’m drinking,” the man playing  Photo Hunt said. He turned away from the game. There was a Daffy Duck tattoo on  the side of his neck and I recognized him from the shelter. He showed up every  now and then, never to eat, never to do laundry or to get help printing a  résumé. Just to look around, take a few books from the free library and leave.  The books he took were often classics. Lots of tattered Greek tragedies. The  occasional Charlotte Lamb romance. He didn’t know who I was and I didn’t bring  it up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thanks,” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Try shutting your mouth more while  you’re talking.” He picked his tooth with the snapped prong of a plastic fork,  shook his head. “Somebody do something,” he said. “Now.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bartender  poured whiskey, beer and pickled jalapeño brine into a blue mason jar. He mixed  it with a soda straw, placed the jar in front of me and then backed it with a  tiny birdbath of bourbon in the jar’s upturned lid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Drink half the  drink,” the man said. “Then shoot the shot. And then.” He paused and considered  the wall of bottles behind the bar. His pinkie and thumb winged out from his  hand while three ringed fingers rubbed the tattoo into his throat. A small  airplane made of beer cans hung from the ceiling on fishing line.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“And  then drink the rest of it?” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No. And then fuck the rest of it.”  He turned to the bartender, sucked his fingers and tapped the bone between his  eyebrows. It sounded like wet wood. “Who is this sitting next to me,  Bob?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I dunno.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Has he been here before?” He pressed the tattoo  like he was taking his pulse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Yeah.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How do you know?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I  dunno.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBob was right. I had been here many times, but I was always  hiding behind my bass at the back of the band.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Does he know what we  do?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Probably not.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What do you know? Do you know shit? Tell me  what you do know, Old Bob.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You want another drink,” Bob said. He had  the eyes of a boy, and orange cracker crumbs at the sides of his mouth. His hair  was caught up in a bad Elvis situation. Paper clips held some of it  together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man stood up and started clapping. “Thank God! Hallelujah!  Fuck it. You know a lot more than we give you credit for. Ladies and gentlemen,”  he announced to the empty room, “please give Bob the bartender a hand. He knows  every fucking thing.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBob took a bow. Some of his comb-­over fell forward  as he went down, and when he came up a length remained standing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man  quit clapping and ordered himself another one of what I was drinking. “Hell yes,  heaven time,” he said, and drained the shot. He moved the other drink to and  from his mouth with both hands, like he was operating some big machine, and then  looked straight between Bob and me and asked, “You know why a girl’s got two  holes?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t, and neither did Bob.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“So you can carry her  around like a six-­pack.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBob started fixing his hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man  looked intent, like he’d just imparted some essential information. “Get it?” he  said. “Do you get it?” Past the plane, a clock was nailed into the wall. It  wasn’t even nine yet. Or maybe it was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don’t know how I made it back to  the diner, don’t even remember driving, but that’s where I landed when I stepped  out of the cab just in time to see the building’s lights going out. Chairs were  upside down on tables and I could see all their legs in the air, a hundred  little whores taking it. Drinks had worked and I was drunk. I leaned against the  hood and the heat of the engine warmed my jacket sleeve. The stars were so  bright the sky looked like the diner’s speckled countertop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA door shut  in the back of the building. I tripped, steadied myself. Walking could not be  beyond me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe front of the diner was a retro singlewide. The kitchen and  the dish room were in a cinderblock addition stuck behind it. I found Jennifer  and Greg standing back there together near the Dumpster. He had a full trash bag  on the ground beside him, and when he saw me he said, “Who the hell’s  that?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s him,” Jennifer whispered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What’d you just call  me?” I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“ ‘Him’?” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I ain’t going anywhere without  you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Oh, boy. This kind of thing?” Greg lifted the trash bag and  carried it to the bin. A broken bottle cut through the black plastic and caught  the light of the security lamp. When he turned around I was on him, asking how  he liked me now, and I swung on him. Things went spinning and I fell against the  Dumpster and slid down into a sitting position.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“That’s embarrassing,” he  said, and kicked me in the side. Air left my lungs like a puncture. I couldn’t  stand up, couldn’t say anything, couldn’t think. I should’ve asked if that was  all he had, but I just kept looking at Jennifer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Let’s get out of here,”  she said, tugging at him. “C’mon. Before he gets himself up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We can’t  just leave him here.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Teach him a lesson,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile they  were walking back to his car, she turned around to look at me. There wasn’t pity  in her face anymore. I saw approval. I was exactly what she wanted—­someone to  leave again. Maybe for good this time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe weren’t living together or  anything like that, and honestly, if you’d asked her whether we were a couple,  she would’ve said no. I was crazy for her because she wasn’t crazy for me. I  could see that now. The first time we met was so wonderful it made me believe  she’d said things she never said. It was during a gig. I was onstage and she was  the only one dancing. She kept her eyes on me. After, we made out against  somebody’s car. She said we’d never part. She said she wanted to be with me the  rest of her life. Without even moving her mouth. We didn’t spend the night  together, just fell down right there on the concrete. The months following, I  drove her around places, helped her get little things done, took her to various  jobs. Never asked for gas money. The skin under her shirt was untouched, almost  translucent, and I could not, no matter how hard I tried, let that  go.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTires shot gravel and she and Greg sped south down 231. I made it  back to my truck and picked my keys up off the floorboard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI should’ve  seen it coming back when I was the one driving her around. I’d roll over to her  apartment, this single-­room efficiency thing with a raw mattress lying crooked  in the middle of the floor, and just walk in without knocking. Once I found her  curled up on the mattress beneath a mess of sheets and shirts and jeans.  Everything smelled of her body and I knelt beside her and breathed it all in.  “You,” I said. “You’re gonna be late.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I quit.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Since  when?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Since just now.” She’d been working for some photographer, doing  what she said he called “tasteful erotic web work.” He was paying her to be what  she was—­gorgeous—­and though I’d been hoping she’d quit, I didn’t get why she’d  chosen this morning to do it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Is it ’cause I told you to?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe  snarled, clawed the air and kicked off the clothing and sheets. “Them  motherfuckers don’t own me.” She sat up. “And neither do you. Let’s go take me  for a ride.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI leaned in for her lips, but she pressed two fingers  against my forehead and pushed me back to where I’d been sitting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You’re  like, panting?” she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I can’t help it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe pulled her hair  back, slid a rubber band off her wrist. “So unique!” she said. “A guy that can’t  help it. Who’d’ve guessed?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What’s that supposed to mean?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Can I  just say something?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m sure you can.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe tied her hair up and  pushed it back. The way her breasts hung there with her elbows raised like  that—­I had to look away, else I’d have lost control.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Go start your  truck,” she said. “I’ll be right out.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I left it  running.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Well,” she said. “Get out there, turn it off and then start it  up again.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe took 231, the same stretch down which I was now chasing her  and Greg, but things were different back then; new leaves were out on the trees,  bright as katydids. We popped open the vent-­windows and the warm air came  blowing onto our laps and flowing through the cab. We shared every cigarette we  smoked and we must’ve gone through half a pack before she said, “So. You asked  me what I meant. A man that can’t help himself. 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