They knew what my word was worth to them. And what their lives were worth to me if they didn’t keep theirs.
So I wanted to make sure they knew Tory-boy’s face. Had it memorized.
suppose it would be fair to say I was a criminal myself way before I started working for criminals. I was selling those drugs, wasn’t I? I knew what drugs did to folks. I’d seen people—kids, even—turn themselves into … things. They’d stop being human. Lie to their friends, steal from their own families. Sell their blood and their bodies. Take anything; give up everything.
Drugs. You die from them; you die for them. Either way, you’re dead. I knew all that, but it never caused me to hesitate a second.
So maybe it wasn’t only my lower half that didn’t feel much of anything. Maybe my conscience was like that, too. Not dead, but … frozen, I guess. Frozen beyond any heat they have on this planet.
I think that was it. From the first time I showed those people what I was capable of, I’d known what I was going to be doing with the rest of my life.
There wasn’t anything else. I used to fantasize about what it would be like if we could put my brain into Tory-boy’s body. One of us would have to die to make that happen … but neither one would ever know which one had.
If that fantasy could actually happen, it wouldn’t matter even if we did know. Tory-boy would die for me without thinking about it. The only difference between us is that I would think about it. But I’d still do it.
Fantasy. Wish. Dream. Whatever I called it, I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen.
couldn’t help noticing how women denied Miss Webb the respect properly due her. Not because she tried to come in here and change things. She never did that; all she ever wanted to do was make things better. No, those women withheld their respect because Miss Webb never got married, that’s why. A lady in her position, she didn’t have the option of just taking up with a man. You expect that from trash, but not from someone who got themselves an education.
“Nice-looking woman like she is,” they’d say, “she doesn’t have a man, you know what that means.”
In one way, Jayne Dyson and Miss Webb were like sisters. They both showed proud. Never looked away, never let on they’d even heard the whispers. Always kept their backs straight and their heads high.
Jayne Dyson and Miss Webb, they wrapped themselves in their own self-respect, and no amount of nasty little whispering was ever going to crack those stone walls they put up.
Maybe that’s how they found their balance, just as I had.
I really and truly cared for Jayne Dyson. Respected her, too. And even before I was grown, I had loved different women for different reasons—like Mrs. Slater, for helping me raise Tory-boy.
But for myself, for me as a man, Miss Webb was the only woman I ever loved.
eople are always talking about how you have to make your own way in this world. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Make it on your own.
They’ll look at the TV hanging in a corner of some bar when it’s showing a black kid being handcuffed. They’ll tell each other that it’s niggers on Welfare that are ruining this country.
But the checks
Grocery stores would go broke if they wouldn’t take food stamps in exchange for cigarettes or beer.
People blame their lives on anyone but themselves. Where we live, if you want something better in life, you have to take some risks. Maybe that’s why the Klan never got any traction around here. People might sympathize, they might even use the same words, but they weren’t going to spend their own money to support it.
For me, it wasn’t a real choice. I needed something better if I was going to keep Tory-boy safe. We were both collecting Disability. For-real Disability, not the “I hurt my back at work” kind.
Ours was going to keep coming forever. It wasn’t ever going to stop, no more than I was likely to start running marathons or Tory-boy to get a college scholarship.
Those Disability checks wouldn’t be going away, but I was. And without me to guide things, no matter how much money I could put aside, it would never be enough to keep Tory-boy safe.
iss Webb would always be on me to use my mind. I could go to college, she’d tell me. And it wouldn’t cost me a cent. Just to make her feel better, I took this test she had sent away for. But when she got back the results, that only made her more determined.
So, one day when there was only the two of us in the library, I asked her if I might speak with her.
She looked at me kind of funny. I guess it did sound strange—I always spoke with her. But she got up from behind her desk and walked over to a far corner. Then she took down a big book from a high shelf—one I’d never be able to reach on my own—and laid it open on the table. If anyone walked in, it would look like the most natural thing in the world for us to be talking about that book.
I took that for understanding, so I asked her to please sit down. Sit next to me.
I told her then. I told her everything. I had to do that; it was only right. I just couldn’t bear to keep on disappointing her, and the only way to tell her why I would do a thing like that was to tell her the truth.
My truth was a long list of Nevers.
Never leave this place; never go to college; never accomplish anything the world would recognize.
And the worst of them all: never become a man worthy of her respect.
I told her why this had to be. I even told her what I’d been doing to make sure Tory-boy would always be safe.
I stripped it right down to the bone, so there was no misunderstanding: I’d have to do wrong to make things right. I’d been doing wrong, and I was going to have to do more. A lot more. A lot worse, too.
I don’t know what I expected, but Miss Webb breaking into tears wasn’t on that list. I reached for the fresh- clean handkerchief I always carry with me, but she already had her own out.
She stopped crying after a little bit. Dried her tears off her cheeks … but they stayed in her eyes.
“I understand, Esau.”
“I know I shouldn’t have said anything to you. I know I don’t have that right. But …”
“Then why did you?”
“Two reasons,” I told her. “One is that I’m forever indebted to you. I know I don’t come around as much as I once did, and I couldn’t have you thinking I didn’t want to come. With this Internet we have now, I can do so much research.…”
My voice trailed off like a dying man’s breath.
Miss Webb looked at me, and she wouldn’t drop her eyes. Blue eyes, she had. But not the blue-jean eyes some around here have—a lighter shade. I wouldn’t know the name for that color, or even if it had one. “You said two reasons,” she reminded me.
“I … I don’t feel right about the other one.”
“Why, Esau? After what you just told me, what could there be left?”
“Telling you that would be the same as telling you what it was. The reason, I mean.”
“And you don’t have that reason anymore?”
“Oh, no. That’s mine, and that’s forever. I’ll have it until the day I die. Even after, maybe. What I’m saying is just what I said before. I’ve got a reason, but I don’t have any right to it.”
“Esau, you’re a grown man now, not a child.”
“I’m half a grown man.”
“Not to me, you’re not. You’re more man than anyone I ever knew. A man takes responsibility. Takes it and keeps true to it. No matter what it might cost him.”
That’s when I learned Miss Webb’s first name.
Evangeline.
I learned that right after those eyes of hers finally made me admit that I loved her.
hen you’re known to be a criminal, crime comes looking for you. One day, Tory-
