The two brothers had biked across the state and were finally starting to break into a sweat. They had left town earlier in the week and now found themselves in the deserted plains of the south. The pines had turned to wheat and the wind had turned to dust. Jeremy the older and darker colored one said it was time to stop and drink some water. Sam the little one with big green eyes obliged his request and took a ripping bite out of his beef jerky.

   “What do you think of this place?” Asked Jeremy. Sam shrugged. There was a farm in the distance and nothing much up ahead and a long crunchy road winding straight into the same thing. They had been everywhere, seen everything, talked to just about everyone on the way. Jeremy had battled a moose, gotten into a bar fight, ran naked across a main street at dusk, saved a dog from a burning car, fed a hungry baby and learned how to pick a lock with an eyelash. Sam had lost his virtue to a toothless Apache girl. When the first talk of cold came to the docks they both agreed it was time to go home. Their mother had also called saying they couldn’t stay with their father anymore. Refusing the train, the two had taken to their slick rides and soon enough waved goodbye to the north woods. On the way home they rode in silence, except for the stops. Jeremy had recently read a pretty heavy book and wanted to share it with Sam who always was willing to listen. For a good hour the older brother told the little one just about everything he had read and what it meant to him and how he was thinking of changing his life because of it.

   “So when we finally get home I think I’m gonna take up candle making,” concluded Jeremy with a firm finale of a fist in the stale air. Sam nodded in agreement; he wanted a book to change his life too. He had read some trashy ones and some stupid ones and some others he never understood, but he had never read one he wanted to keep in the back pocket of his pants like Jeremy.

   “Next house we stop at for water we’re stealing you a book,” said Jeremy, hopping back on his bike and speeding up ahead. Sam, excited, leaped onto his seat and followed him towards the dirty hills of burned buds finding no sanctuary between the hot earth and constant light above. Sam hoped they would find a book about adventure, a book about guns and a book about a little boy winning the heart of the girl who sings the solos in choir. He wondered if the Bible had such stories, or Charles Dickens, or any of the English tragedies. He knew exactly what would change his life. He wanted a naked girl and horse racing and big hats and fast talking. He told this to his older brother who laughed in return saying, “I’ll be damned if we never find that book.” So they biked faster into the next small town of open doors and waving hands and an old man clutching a book of poetry he had written himself. He read the two young sons a sonnet and they both thought it was just great. It had been about something completely different; a storm and a fish and a foreigner and a blind dog. As they left the town little Sam began to cry, he cried up the hills and down the hills and over the shallow rivers and below the bleached leaves. Finally Jeremy stopped his bike.

   “What the hell are you crying about kiddo?!” He asked. Sam sniffled and coughed and threw down his bike.

   “That damn bit of poetry changed my life! I just never thought it would make me fucking cry!” Sam screamed, kicking the dirt and punching the poor flies up above. Jeremy gave him a pat on the shoulder and they continued on, both of them searching for the next page to save the day.