Dirt Music

Content Warning: The source text includes racist language and violence, mentions of self-harm and death by suicide, and graphic depictions of vehicular accidents.

Georgiana “Georgie” Jutland closes her laptop at dawn, fills a glass with icy vodka, and steps outside to look at the lagoon. She spends her sleepless nights aimlessly surfing the web. A few months prior, her stepson called her “stepmother” for the first time. Although true, this breaks Georgie, and she cannot find a way back to the contentment she felt before with her husband, Jim Buckridge. As she looks over the lagoon lost in thought, brake lights on the beach draw her attention. She wanders down to explore, finding a truck, a dog, and a boat trailer. Georgie strips naked and dives into the sea, the dog following. As she floats under the breaking dawn light, she wishes she could escape her life.

Beaver, “a bear-like man in a pair of greasy overalls” who works at a local gas station (11), sees the shamateur, an illegal fisherman, launch his boat into the sea, and wishes he had seen nothing. He calls the shamateur an idiot under his breath and walks away to open his gas station.