The football players made faces at Erika and her friends, but didn’t say anything. A good day, when they didn’t say anything, when fag and freak and the n-word didn’t follow them like the greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste. The well-dressed missionary boys and girls from the Church of the New Day stood at the edges of the lunchroom, watching as they always watched.
Erika and Max and Chloe got their lunches from their backpacks and sat down. Backs to the wall, watching the entrances and exits.
“So Annabelle’s hanging with the vamps,” Chloe said.
Six Sentence Sunday excerpts in June come from the most recent draft of Erika and the Vampire, currently being revised for release in July 2012.
E. P. Beaumont 
Absolute cheers on this sentence “..he greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste.” It is perfect!
With so few sentences, you set up the this group’s history so easy. It defines them and their settings very well. And I love the last line. So simple, but so interesting.
“the greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste” – that’ a terrific image. Very well written.
Am repeating it but it’s worth repeating – greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste. Brilliant line
I like that barge leaking toxic waste, too.
Really well done. We understand the entire context immediately!
Thank you all for the comments on this, probably one of the most painful passages in the entire story. “The greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste” is the feeling of being on the receiving end of those epithets, which are not “free speech” but spiritual assault.
I wish that this all were history … well, history neither begins nor ends with us.
In America, the trail left by the word that I would not spell out here (because it receives far too much currency elsewhere) stretches back 400 years and more. Its victims are legion, but most recently, R. I. P. Trayvon Martin, and all of your brothers and sisters who died too young.
The events described in this disturbing article took place only a step or two up the road from me, in global terms, and claimed the lives of some beautiful young people. In particular: R. I. P. Justin Aaberg, whose mother Tammy continues the fight for social justice.
yes
Great simile: like the greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste
The whole scene made me feel like this was awash all over me…
As others have said “… the greasy wash of a barge leaking toxic waste” is a great line. Each word adds new layers of meaning. I especially like the barge – which lends a hint of classism to the more overt racism.
I like it.