away, crouching like a handler at a cockfight. When Larry didn’t push back Silas pushed again and Carl yelled, “Fight,” and Silas pushed a third time and this time Larry grabbed him in a halfhearted hug around Silas’s middle. Silas brought his knee up in Larry’s gut and Larry let go and fell, his belly on fire, his breath lost, grateful for that, otherwise he’d be crying.
“Get up,” Carl said.
He rolled over.
“He down,” Silas said.
“Get your pansy behind up, boy,” Carl said. He came forward swinging the belt and popped Larry’s rump with it.
Larry barely felt it over the shame swarming his cheeks. He saw his hands in the dirt as they pushed up. Silas had retreated a few steps. He crouched, ready, when Larry charged, and sidestepped and tripped him and fell on his back and they were wrestling on the ground, dull thuds in the dust, cloth tearing, grunts. From above he heard Carl telling them to bite if they want to, it’s allowed, kneeing in the nuts, allowed, kidney punches, rabbit punches, check, check, eye gouging, go ahead, fight dirty, the whole time swigging from his bottle, until finally Silas had Larry facedown in the dirt. When the dust passed it was over. A matter of seconds.
“Let-let-let go,” Larry said, his voice muffled.
“Looks like you won yourself a rifle, boy,” Carl said.
“Let me-me-me-me-me uh-uh-up,” Larry said again, louder, a note of panic.
Silas tightened his grip.
“La-la-la-la-listen at the little stuttering baby,” Carl said.
“Quit it Sssssilas!” he cried. “Ple-ple-ple-please.”
Silas held on.
“You,” Larry burbled, “you n-n-n-nigger.”
Silas let him go and rose. He backed up with his hands open.
Larry got to his knees, brushing dirt from his face, spitting. Tears were falling off his chin now, dripping into the dirt on his shirt. He stood to face Silas, and Silas looked different than Larry had ever seen him. His eyes now flashed the same fierceness the other black boys at school had, that the girl Carolyn had. He was already sorry but knew it was too late.
Because here came Silas and Larry saw that Silas was fixing to hit him, now on his own. Was coming around with his left hand and Larry waited for it, closing his eyes, and then Larry’s head popped and the world blared with hot white noise and spots of light. When he opened his eyes he was facing another direction. His knees had buckled and he opened and closed his mouth, tasting blood, sorrier yet for what he’d called Silas and seeing, through his flooded vision,
Carl had dropped his bottle and begun to fall, hugging Silas for balance, the two dancing weirdly through the bitterweed toward the house, Silas fighting to get away, nearly crying himself as he said, “Let me go, Mr. Ott, please,” and Carl slurring something in his ear that made Silas bat his hands away. He broke free and sprinted toward the far woods and Larry was left alone, on the ground, in the weeds, with his father.
six
WEDNESDAY MORNING SILAS sat at The Hub’s small back table, chewing the last bite of his second sausage biscuit. He’d called Angie the night before to say he wasn’t coming but they could have lunch the next day. He’d slept badly and even dreamed about Larry Ott, though the dream was gone by the time he sat up amid his tangled wet sheets to reassemble its strange narrative. On the drive to The Hub he called the hospital, and a nurse said Larry had been moved out of recovery and to intensive care. He’d come through surgery but was yet to wake up.
Silas looked out the window at the mill’s smokestacks, relieved again not to have to face Larry. For so long he’d used that stuttered “nigger” as an excuse to avoid him. Coming back home, rare as he did, from Ole Miss, from the navy, Silas had never asked about Larry. Once in a while as he drank and smoked weed with M &M and their pals, Larry’s name would come up. Scary Larry they’d begun to call him; should they ride over fuck with him? But Silas would change the subject, put Larry out of his mind. Sure he’d heard Carl Ott had died. Who gave a shit.
“You want another biscuit, sugar?” Marla called. She wore a hairnet over her gray hair and a white T-shirt stained with grease. She was in her early sixties with a potbelly and had been cooking here when he’d been in school. She had leathery hands and a voice like a man. She bore an uncanny family resemblance to Roy French but damn if that woman couldn’t make a sausage biscuit.
“No thank you, Miss Marla,” he said, dabbing his chin with a napkin from the aluminum dispenser on the table and adjusting his seat on the bench so his handcuffs wouldn’t pinch. He wiped his lips and sipped his Pepsi. He loved the food here, especially the hot dogs, which reminded him of Chicago. Marla used kielbasa and grilled them almost black, with a lot of ketchup and mustard and relish and chopped onion. She dabbed hot sauce on top of it and your lips would be burning when you finished.
He got up and put his notebook in his back pocket and took his hat from the chair beside him and walked past an aisle of fishing tackle and cosmetic items and up to the checkout. Facing him a wall of cigarettes, lighters, cheap cigars, aspirin, BC powders, and energy pills.
“I’m bagging you up a couple of hot dogs,” Marla said over her shoulder. She had a cigarette in her mouth, the smoke a constant updraft under the hood of her grill.
“Preciate it,” he said, passing his hat from hand to hand.
In a moment she came to the counter and handed him one of her greasy bags.
“Thank you, Miss Marla,” he said, long past even the pretense of paying her. Instead, as she turned to get something behind her, he slipped a five into the tip jar.
“I saw that,” she said, turning back to hand him four ketchup packets and a few salts and peppers. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray by her register. “I heard somebody shot Larry Ott.”
“Sure did. I’m headed out there in a bit. Look around.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s in the ICU.”
“Lord, oh Lord Lord Lord,” she said, her face grave. “First Tina Rutherford, then M &M, and now this.” She clucked her tongue. “Well, they say bad things come in threes, so we got our quota for a while ain’t we.”
“I’d say we do.”
She reached absently behind her for another pack of Marlboros and began to unwrap the cellophane. “You know, 32, I always felt bad for him. Larry.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, sugar. Whole county thinks he’s a kidnaper or rapist or murderer or all three, but I remember he used to come in here buy comic books. Back when we carried em. The politest thing, that boy. Wouldn’t hardly look you in the eye.”
“You ever see him now?”
She shook her head and slid a cigarette out and lit it with a Bic. “I had me a girl worked the register few years ago. Didn’t hear when it happened but she told me later, all proud, how she told that so-and-so he wasn’t welcome in this ‘family place.’ That was about the time I let her go.”
Silas nodded and put his hat on.
“You gone see Roy today?” Marla asked.
“Don’t know.” He opened the bag, still warm, and slipped the condiments in.
“You do, tell him I got in some fresh catfish.”
“I will. Thanks.” He raised the sack, greasier than when she’d given it to him. “For this, too.”
“You welcome, sugar,” she said, smoking.
HE PARKED BY the gas tanks in front of Ottomotive and got out jiggling Larry’s keys. The shop looked the same, its white-painted cement blocks pleasantly crumbling at the edges and sprigs of grass sprouting along the foundation. He turned. Nothing moving out here, the motel across the highway silent, a child’s bike parked by the
