soft bone on wire; he’d always thought the chime sounded like a skeleton playing a guitar, and for a time they sat together on the porch and watched the sun scald the sky red and the trees black.
DECEMBER 24, WEDNESDAY, after work. He hadn’t seen Wallace in a few weeks. In the morning-Christmas one of only four holidays he took each year-he planned to ride over to River Acres and give his mother the presents he’d gotten her at Wal-Mart, a new nightgown, a chicken-shaped pot with flowers in it, and a pair of slippers. He’d got a pair of slippers for the woman beside his mother, too, in all spending nearly an hour at the giant store, this one of his favorite evenings of the year.
At home he built a fire in the fireplace and sat looking at the picture of his parents. Then he made a chicken- fried steak TV dinner and turned on the television and, eating, watched the Grinch steal Christmas again and bring it back. Then he watched his favorite holiday movie,
Something woke him around midnight, somebody on his porch. He sat up in the chair and the book fell off his chest and landed on the rug. Nobody had ever messed with him on this night, and he went to the window but saw no one. Quietly, not turning on the light, he opened the door and peered out through the screen into the cold night, the smoke of his breath sucked away by the wind, the chime playing fast, the rocking chair rocking by itself.
Nothing.
He was about to close the door, thinking it must have been a stick blown over the porch. But then he saw something in the chair. He pushed the screen door open and went over to where a shoe box sat in the wicker seat, tied shut with a frayed red ribbon.
He looked around. Then took it inside and lowered himself into his chair by the fireplace and held the box. He shook it, put his ear to it. He untied the ribbon and lifted the lid and saw an old pistol, a.22 revolver, its checkering worn off and most of the blueing gone as well. Its wood grips were tight, though, and its sight intact. He picked it up and held it and saw oil on his hand. Somebody had cleaned it. Beneath it was a box of cartridges,.22 longs. Off to the side was a piece of white notebook paper folded in half. He opened it and read, “Merry Xmas, Larry, from Santa.”
ON NEW YEAR’S Eve Wallace brought a bagful of bottle rockets and they were shooting them over the field.
“Had me a visitor,” Larry said, watching the sky pop.
“Oh you did?”
“Left me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Pistol. A nice.22.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Next time them fuckers comes messing with you, you shoot a few times in the air I bet that’ll scare em off.”
“Thanks,” Larry said.
“For what?”
Larry had brought out two Coke bottles for the rockets, but Wallace would hold them by their sticks and light them, wait a moment as the fuse burned, and throw them, watch them lag and then take off and explode against the night.
It reminded Larry of the New Year’s Eve the Walkers had come over with bottle rockets, and as he began to tell Wallace the story he remembered telling it to Silas, who hadn’t laughed, but now as Larry told it Wallace began to laugh as Larry imitated Cecil running and pounding his pocket.
Later they sat on the porch in their coats, Larry rocking, Wallace on the steps drinking beer. He’d smoked tonight’s joint to a nub and reached down and smushed its end gently on the porch and put it in the Sucrets box and closed it and zipped it back up in his pocket. Once in a while he lit a firecracker and flicked it into the yard, the night grown so dark and starless Larry only saw him in these moments of fire, the ember of his cigarette, the joint, the night becoming its sounds as each night did, their voices, the squeak of Larry’s chair, the pop of Wallace’s beers opening, crickets, the skeleton playing guitar. Near midnight, Larry yawning, Wallace lit another firecracker with his cigarette and threw it into the yard and they sat waiting as the fuse hissed but that was all.
“Dud,” he said.
“LARRY?”
Larry yawned, stretched. It was a month later, Wallace coming once or twice a week, drinking his beer, smoking his cigarettes and marijuana as the nights deepened.
He said, “Tell me about that girl.”
“Girl?”
“You know. The one…?”
“Oh.”
“Did you do it?”
“No,” Larry said.
“You mind talking about it?”
“Well, nobody’s asked me in a long time.”
“If you had done it, would you tell me?”
“I took her on a date is all.”
“Oh. What happened? On the date? You get in her pants?”
“Naw.”
“How come?”
“I just didn’t,” Larry said.
“You ain’t queer, are you?”
“No,” Larry said. “Not the way you mean, anyway.”
“That’s good,” Wallace said. “I can’t stand a damn faggot.”
WALLACE SAID, “YOU know what we ought to do sometime?”
“What?”
“Go out to that cabin you got.”
“You found that, too?”
“Yeah.”
“I expect it’s about to fall in.”
“Yeah. You know what I used to do?”
“What?”
“Play in it.”
“It’s locked, ain’t it?”
“Yeah. But it was a window you could prize open. Back window. Climbing in there with all the dust and spiderwebs. Seen a possum one time? Like to shit my pants and didn’t go back there for a month. I’d be scared to death, you know, sneaking in like that, thinking you in Scary Larry’s hunting cabin. Thinking is you crazy? But I was wondering, too, what if this is where he, you know, hid that girl.
“I tried to find some place you might’ve hid her, but I never did find nothing, not even a dirty magazine or a old rubber.
“I ought not be telling you this,” he said, “but I’m bout as high as a buzzard on laughing gas now and you know what? I used to imagine you’d find me playing in there and tie me up and keep me prisoner. But instead of killing me you’d just keep me out there and we’d get to be friends.”
It was dark and Larry heard him creak open his Sucrets box and knew he was plucking out a roach, as he called it, saw the flash as he lit it with his Bic and took two more hits before he said, “Shit,” and flung it from his fingers into the yard where it pulsed a moment like a dying firefly.
“You know what else?” he said. “I don’t care if you done it or not, took that girl. We’d still be friends if you did.”
“I didn’t.”
“I wouldn’t mind, is all I’m saying. If you had a done it. If you’d a raped that girl. And killed her. Sometimes women can make you crazy can’t they? You ain’t got to tell me that.
“But you can trust me, Larry. We friends, and a friend, a best friend, he wouldn’t never do you that way,
