Hi, I'm Lovar Burton and this is Lovar Burton Reads.

In every episode I hand-pick a different piece of short fiction and are read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will too.

A couple of seasons ago, the first season of the podcast to be exact, I read a story by the author and satirist Percival Everett.

It was called Graham Greene and I have been thinking off and on about Percival Ever Sands.

And I'm going to read another of his stories today called Alluvial Deposits and it's from a collection entitled

Damned If I Do Published by Greywolf Press.

In just last year he published a novel with Greywolf called Telephone, which was released in three different versions

that included altered scenes and three different endings.

Today's story title sounds sort of glamorous.

Alluvial is a beautiful and elegant kind of word but it really just means dirt or sand that's been moved by a streamer creek.

And the protagonist is Robert Hawks, a hydrologist who's been hired by a fishing game to do some work

in the fictional rural town of Dotson, Utah.

Now Hawks ping pongs around town, trying to get permission to check out the creek on a piece of property.

He's meeting folks, he's getting frustrated by them, he's witnessing their arguments and frustrations.

And their prejudices?

I can't wait to read it to you.

Please check out the content advisory if you are so inclined and if you're ready let's take a deep breath.

And let's begin.

Alluvial Deposits by Percival Everett

People are just naturally hopeful.

A term my grandfather used to tell me was more than occasionally interchangeable with stupid.

...