Jamey nodded. “Yeah,” he said, but he was still trembling. The two boys settled back down again in their sleeping bags. Larry wanted to say something to make things right, but he didn’t know how he could say it without bringing the whole unpleasant business up again. So instead he shook his head and whispered, “I’ll get him back. Just you wait and see. I’ll get him back tomorrow.”
3
The next morning, when Larry and Jamey arrived at the bus stop, Clemson and Alvin were there. The moment Larry saw Clemson he knew at once he had been running his mouth again, judging from the way both the other boys were looking at him. Earlier, Larry had been confidently planning to walk right up to Clemson and punch him out on the spot. But, for some reason, when he was actually confronted with the situation, Larry didn’t do this. He told himself it was for Jamey’s sake, since, after all, if a fight broke out, Clemson was bound to start flapping off at the mouth about Jamey, which was the last thing Jamey needed his first day at a new school. Better just to hope that Clemson would keep his mouth shut. But there was something else that gave Larry pause. It was the way the other kids were looking at him, at him and Jamey together. Larry had seen that look before. It was the way people looked at Hank. Still, Larry had to say something. “I don’t appreciate you coming around spying on me,” he said to Clemson.
“Spying on you?” Clemson asked.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I ain’t been spying on nobody.”
“Yeah. Then what were you doing out in my backyard at one o’clock in the morning, say?”
“What are you talking about? I ain’t been in nobody’s backyard. What was I supposed to be doing, huh?”
“You know what you were doing.”
“You was just seeing things.”
“I wasn’t seeing things.”
“Reckon maybe you was afraid somebody’d catch you two doing them things, huh? You and him?” Clemson said. “What you two do up in that tree house?”
Larry frowned. He had no idea what Clemson was getting at. But apparently he was the only one who didn’t, for no sooner had Clemson gotten his words out than Alvin started giggling and two girls behind him glanced at each other, as if they were in on the same secret.
“What are you talking about?”
“Ain’t no point lying about it. Everybody knows.”
“Knows what?” Larry said, grabbing Clemson by the shoulder.
But at that point the school bus pulled up and Clemson and Alvin hopped on ahead of everybody else. Larry looked back at Jamey. “That son-of-a-bitch.”
On the long ride over to Willard Larry sat next to Jamey, although the two boys did not exchange a single word. Larry kept straining his ears to hear what Clemson was whispering to Alvin four rows back.
Finally, toward the end of the ride, Larry got up and sat down by Alike Lowe to ask him if he knew what Clemson was saying. To Larry’s astonishment, the boy jumped up, saying, “I ain’t sitting by you no more.” Then, without another word, Mike went to the back of the bus and plopped down next to Clemson and Alvin, who whispered and snickered for the rest of the ride.
It was between the second and third periods that Larry discovered what was going on. Right after the bell rang, Larry was confronted by Clemson in the hallway. Screwing up his face, he looked at Larry and said, “We know what you do.”
Alvin Anderson, standing right behind Clemson, had the same smile on his face.
“What d’you mean?”
“You and that retard,” Alvin chimed in. “We know what you do. Up in that tree house at night.”
Larry frowned. He didn’t have the slightest idea what the two boys were talking about.
“Everybody knows.”
“Yeah, everybody knows.”
Then, in a singsong voice, Clemson started saying it, with Larry standing there in disbelief. “Queers . . . queers . . .queers.” Then, laughing and giggling, both Clemson and Alvin walked away.
Larry watched for a moment, the blood rushing to his head. A second later, his school books scattered across the hallway, he lunged after Clemson and, jumping on top of him, began to pound his face with both fists. “You take that back, you son-of-a-bitch. You shut your goddamn mouth, you hear?”
When the fight was finally broken up, none of the boys told the principal what had caused it. Clemson looked over at Larry. “Why don’t you ask him and that retard?” Nor did Larry say any more about it to his parents when they heard about the fight. Only that Clemson had better keep his mouth shut in the future.
Sent home early from school, Larry did not see Jamey again that day. That evening, too, passed without the two boys speaking to each other. Larry spent most of the time shut up in his room, his feet planted between his Braves’ and Falcons’ pennants.
The whole incident left Larry numb and angry and bitter. Before, during the course of his boyhood, there hadn’t been a single adversity he hadn’t been able to handle, and what troubles had come his way had been minor. A bully in second grade. A cranky teacher in the fourth. But each of these difficulties had been overcome.
But this was different. He just didn’t know what to do.
The next day was the same. When his mother came in to get him up, he told her he was sick and couldn’t go to school. And while he didn’t show a fever, he looked so completely miserable that she didn’t have the heart to press him. “Okay, honey,” she told him. “You just stay in bed and rest today.”
Larry stayed in the bed, but he didn’t rest. Going from one contorted position to another, he kept trying to come up with ways of getting back at Clemson and Alvin. Maybe he could say the same thing about them. Maybe he could catch Clemson alone and thrash him within an inch of his life. Or he could do it in the schoolyard, in front of everybody.
Yet each time he imagined how he was going to get even with Clemson, there was always one element missing from the picture.
Jamey.
Each time he envisioned the scene, it was composed of Clemson and Alvin and all the other kids. But Jamey was never there. It was like he had vanished. Without a trace. And even in the epilogue to the fantasy, Jamey was absent. Instead, Larry saw himself riding back to Lucerne on the school bus, sitting down next to Judy Triseott and laughing and talking to her. Everybody knew she had a crush on him. And she was kind of pretty. Maybe Don Badger would be sitting across the aisle.
But in all these vivid fantasies, Jamey had somehow missed the bus. Or at least he was sitting someplace well out of sight.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Larry got dressed. He stepped into the backyard, then went up into the tree house and sat down.
He stayed like that for a while, then got up. He stood against the railing a moment, idly pulling leaves from the overhead branches.
And as he stood there, staring absently at Miss Simpson’s house across the way, it dawned on him. Or, rather, it finally broke through the barriers he had erected against it. And, for a moment, he saw something in himself that lie had never suspected.
He realized that he was a coward.
It wasn’t Clemson that scared him. He had taken him before and knew he could take him again. That wasn’t what had kept him away from school today. And it certainly wasn’t what kept him from going over to Abigail’s the day before, when Jamey got back from school. Or what kept him from going over right then, at that moment.
No, it was something else.
He had not wanted to go to school that day because he knew what he would have to do if he went. He would have to sit by Jamey on the bus, both over and back. And, in the cafeteria, he would have to stand in the line with him, then sit until the next period eating lunch with the other boy, sitting by themselves, as was bound to happen, trying to act like nothing was wrong, while, all around them, everyone in the cafeteria would be watching them, laughing and whispering and pokin
g each other in the side.
He knew he would have to do that or else...
Larry stood there, amazed that it could even occur to him. But it had occurred, and it was too late to push the ugly idea hack into its dark corner.
Or else he could ignore Jamey. All he’d have to do would be to act like Jamey didn’t exist.
And hadn’t he been doing that already? At least in his imagination? In his mind he had already pushed Jamey off the school bus anyway.
Only before he hadn’t reckoned with the way Jamey’s face would look, watching Larry go and sit by somebody else. Watching as Larry didn’t even glance at him.
“Shit,” he whispered.
He stood there a moment longer. Then, just as he was about to go down the ladder, he heard a voice coming from below him, from the backyard.
It was Jamey.
Once Jamey was in the tree house, they both sat down, though Larry didn’t look at the other boy. They said nothing for a little while.
Jamey broke the ice. “Your m-momma said you were sick,” Jamey said.
“Yeah.”
“Was that why you didn’t come to school today?”
Larry nodded.
Jamey waited a moment. “I thought maybe it was because of what happened yesterday. What Clemson said.”
“Did anybody say anything to you? Like Clemson said to me?” Larry asked.
Jamey looked down and nodded. “A little.”
“What d’you do?”
“I just told them the truth.”
Larry glanced up. “What d’you mean?”
“I said it wasn’t true. I said the reason you had been n-nice to me was. . . was because you felt s-sorry for me.”
Larry stared at the other boy. “Who’d you say that to?”
Jamey shrugged. “Some of the guys, your friends.”
Larry sucked in his cheeks. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”
“I’m sorry. I just thought it might help if people knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Why you were nice to me,” Jamey said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t want them saying things about you. I didn’t want anybody to hurt you, I guess. I don’t mind what people say about me. I guess you get used to it. So when people say mean things, I don’t pay attention to them. Sometimes they don’t want to be mean. But they just don’t know any better. Like Clemson. I think he was just hurt, because you used to be real good friends and then, when I came, you stopped being friends. 1 don’t think he wanted to hurt you.”
“He didn’t hurt me.”
“I think he did,” Jamey said, looking for a moment into Larry’s eyes.
Larry got up and turned his back to Jamey. He stared out through the leaves at the woods behind the house.
“Maybe it was at first. I mean, maybe that’s the reason I was nice to you right at first. But it’s not why I was nice to you later. You’re my friend. I guess you’re the best friend I ever bad. In my whole life. And that’s why I wish you hadn’t said it, Jamey. Because it makes me feel like shit just to think about it.”
Jamey sat there a little longer. Then, getting up, he walked over to Larry, who had turned back around. Jamey reached out to put his hand on Larry’s shoulder, but stopped. Staring down at the deck of the tree house, he said, “The reason I came over was to say, if you don’t want to sit by me on the bus or talk to me at school. I’ll understand. Even if you don’t want me to come over here anymore, that’ll be okay. I just don’t want p-people saying things about you.” Jamey stood there a moment. “I’ll just go on back now. Abigail wants me to mop the kitchen floor. So, anyway, I appreciate what you’ve done. Showing me about b-baseball and everything.” Then, turning around, Jamey started toward the ladder.
“Jamey.”
The boy stopped and turned around. Larry stood there. With a quick, automatic motion, he wiped his eyes. “You want to go fishing? I’ll show you my favorite spot, okay?”
Jamey smiled. “You want me to?”
“Sure.”
4
Half an hour later, the two boys were making their way down to the river.
“I wish there was still some more of the school year left,” Larry said.
“Why?” Jamey asked, looking surprised.
“Because when I beat the shit out of Clemson, I want everybody to be there to see it.” It was something Larry had overlooked in his fantasies: The summer vacation meant he would no longer have the easily available audience of the schoolyard to witness Clemson s humiliation at his hands. “I wish there was a way of getting everybody together to see me smash his face in and hear him begging me for mercy.”
“Why do you want to beat him up?” Jamey asked.
Larry stopped and looked at the other boy like he had just dropped from the moon. “Why d’you think? To show him he can’t treat me and you that way,” Larry said, clearly baffled by the other boy’s slow comprehension of what seemed obvious to him. “I mean, you’re not telling me you haven’t ever wanted to do something like that? Just slug somebody in the face? Just once? Somebody who was making fun of you?”
Jamey said nothing.
“I mean, sometimes you just got to stand up to people. You just can’t let them walk all over you. Sometimes you got to be a man and fight back.”
“But what if there’s nothing you can do?”
“Hell, you can always do something. I mean, even if it’s just learn how to fight.” Suddenly Larry got an inspiration. “Say, I could show you how to do it, Jamey. I could teach you, the way I’ve been teaching you about baseball. How about it, Jamey?”
Jamey didn’t say anything for a moment. And then, in a strangely sad tone of voice, he said, “That’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t get it. What?”
“Maybe there’s nothing you can ever do. To stop things like that. To stop people from hurting each other and being mean.”
“Well, at least you can try. By teaching them a lesson,” Larry said.
“How can you teach somebody by hitting them? Won’t that only make them want to hit back?” Jamey asked with a frown. “Look at Clemson. You can’t make him see he’s wrong by beating him up. It won’t change him, really, the way he is inside, what he’s thinking.”
“I don’t care what he’s thinking, so long as he keeps his mouth shut.”
“Maybe so,” Jamey said, making Larry at once regret what he had said.
“Seriously, Jamey, what else can you do?”
Jamey hesitated. “Maybe all you can do is show people how they should act. Show them instead of telling them. Or making them.”
Larry frowned. Although every instinct he had was against it, there was something in the way Jamey put it that made it hard for Larry to ignore the idea. “I don’t know. I sure would like to beat Clemson to a pulp, I know that.”’
“What if I promised—”
“Promised what?”
To let you teach me how to fight. If my way doesn’t work.”
Larry considered the offer. “How long? I mean, how long do I have to do it your way?”
“A week?” Jamey asked timidly.
“A whole week?” Larry said, “You expect me to let him go around saving that shit about us for a whole week?”
“Can’t we just try it? Both of us?”
Larry hesitated. Then, with a sigh of frustration, he said, I guess. But I’m just doing this for you.”
As the two boys made their way down to the river, Larry found himself puzzled by something. Ever since he was little, he had been told to be good. That was how things were: Everybody was supposed to want to be good. And yet, for the first time, Larry began to wonder if people had any idea of what such a thing would really mean. After all, what would happen if somebody actually tried to be good? So good that you could put up with Clemson mock
ing you for the rest of your life, take it and never even want to hit him back?
Larry couldn’t help feeling he knew the answer: It would be awful. Unbelievably awful. But wasn’t that what everybody wanted? Or said they wanted?
Larry snapped out of his reverie. He turned back around and saw that Jamey had stopped a few yards behind him. They were now only about a hundred feet from the river.
“Jamey?” he called out, puzzled by the strange look on the other boy’s face. Then, glancing to the left, Larry realized what had caught Jamey’s eye.
About thirty yards away, close to the fringe of pine woods, were the ruins of a burned-out shack. Hattie’s shack.
Before Larry could say anything, Jamey started toward it. Larry followed behind until the two boys were standing in the middle of it.
It was then that Larry noticed Jamey was shivering slightly, just the way he had been doing after he had had his nightmare.
“Jamey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” the other boy whispered.
Larry walked over to him. “Somebody died here,” Larry said uneasily. “This old black woman. She got burned up.” He looked over at Jamey. Tell him, a voice inside of Larry whispered, tell him the stories. “It was kind of creepy,” Larry went on, “because she knew how she was going to die.
I mean, about how she was going to be burnt up.” He hesitated. “There was something else, too.”
“What?”
“She told me these stories once. I had to promise not to tell anybody, ever.”
“What kind of stories?” Jamey asked. Larry glanced at him. He was still trembling. It was crazy, but as he stared at Jamey, Larry got the feeling that, somehow, Jamey knew what the stories were.
“It happened before we were born,” Larry said. “This man—his name was Luther—he was crazy. They had sent him down to Milledgeville, you know, where they put people like that. But one night he got out and he came back here. And he did something. Something terrible.” Larry glanced over at Jamey. His eyes were still fixed on the burnt out ruin of the shack. He was still trembling. In fact, if anything, the trembling had gotten worse. As bad as the night when Jamey had spoken of his nightmare. “He took this little girl out into the woods, and he put these tattoos on her. Only he called them ‘abominations.’ And I guess he raped her, too. Because that was the whole idea. I mean, she was supposed to have this child.”
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