I picked up the poking stick we used for picking up trash, and went out there. The door was closed. Coons and possums didn’t close doors behind them.
Buster?
If it was Buster, Nub wouldn’t have barked.
Still, I called Buster’s name.
He didn’t answer.
“Nub,” I said. “You sure?”
Nub scratched at the bottom of the door and growled. I said, “Whoever is in there, I got a gun. You better take it easy.”
I started backing away, ready to get Daddy.
I heard a voice from inside. “It’s okay, Stanley. It’s me. Don’t shoot.”
“Richard?”
“Yeah. Don’t get your daddy or mama.”
The door cracked open, and Richard poked his head out. There was dirt crusted on one side of his face.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
“You don’t have a gun.”
“No,” I said. “What are you doing in the projection booth?”
“I climbed the fence when y’all closed down. Slept in here.”
“Get back inside. I’m coming in.”
Inside, Richard said, “I slept on the floor on that piece of carpet. Wasn’t too bad. Best place I’ve slept in over a week.”
Richard was wearing a pair of overalls, no shirt. The overalls looked as if they had been washed in mud and dried in sin. There were bumps on his face from mosquitoes and his nose had run and dirt was crusted on his upper lip like a Hitler mustache. One knee of his overalls was ripped and the kneecap that poked through it had a scab on it. He didn’t have shoes on. His feet were caked with red clay and I could see scratches on top of them and along the ankles where he had outgrown his overalls.
“Your daddy was looking for you,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
“He and my daddy had words. They had more than words.”
“When was this?”
I told him what happened and said I was really sorry.
“Don’t be. I ain’t been home since before that happened. It must have happened mornin’ after the night I run off. He was lookin’ for me ’cause I run away and he wasn’t through whuppin’ on me. He run me out in the middle of the night, and if I hadn’t been sleepin’ in my overalls I wouldn’t be wearin’ nothin’.”
Richard turned. His back, bare except for the overall straps, showed long crusty red marks. “He got in some good licks, but I wouldn’t gonna take no more, so I took off.”
I noticed there were white scars next to the red marks. I knew his father whipped him more than I thought was right, but now I knew how bad he whipped him.
“Heavens,” I said.
“He took a horsewhip to me. Belt’s bad enough, but when I run, he grabbed up the whip, caught me out in the yard. It hadn’t been dark, I don’t know I’d have got away from him. He chased me a mile through the corn and then on out to the woods. Said he’d kill me if he caught me.”
“What started it?”
“Comic books. He said all that readin’ was makin’ me think I was better’n him, and he wasn’t gonna have that.”
“That started it?”
“Yeah. Sort of. One thing led to another. I told him I thought maybe I ought to finish high school. He wanted me to quit. Said the law wouldn’t do nothin’. Not around here. They didn’t care.”
Richard melted onto the carpet on the floor. I sat on the projection booth stool. I said, “Where have you been all this time?”
“Here and there. Out in them woods. Hid in a nigger’s barn outside of town. Stole some food out of a house. Just enough to eat, mind you. Some old corn bread was left on the stove and I got a piece a chicken out of the icebox. Left them a thank-you note, but I didn’t put my name to it.”
“Good grief, Richard.”
“Just couldn’t stay home no more. Daddy told me he was gonna kill me.”
“Surely he didn’t mean it.”
Richard laughed, but he didn’t sound all that amused. “You got it so good you don’t know a thing about how it is. I didn’t know it was any different till I met you. Just thought that’s the way it was. Beatin’s and all. Mamas havin’ black eyes and a swollen lip all the time . . . Stanley, think maybe you could get me somethin’ to eat?”
“I’ll get you something.”
“Maybe you can wrap me up a little somethin’, some bread maybe. Let me have that old canteen of yours. You know, the army one? I’m gonna try and catch a boxcar out later.”
“Where to?”
“Where my old man can’t find me. I started to catch me one last night, but it wasn’t slow enough. May need to walk up to the next town. I think they got a switchin’ station there. Might go where I can get me a job of some kind. Workin’ on a farm. I know how to work, and if they hire them little wetback kids, they’re sure to hire me.”
“What about your mother?”
“She don’t care about me neither. Thought she did, but I finally come to think she don’t. She lets him beat me.”
“He beats her too,” I said.
“I know. But . . .”
“What?”
“She kind of likes it.”
“Likes a beating?”
“Uh huh. That’s how come all this.”
“I thought it was reading, wanting to go to school.”
“That’s what set him off finally, but it’s because I run in on him beatin’ her the other day, and I fought him. He whupped me good with his fists, and my mama told me to mind my own business. That it was the way they did things.”
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“She could have been trying to help you. Keep you out of it.”
“I wanted to think that, but way she looked . . . It was like she was havin’ fun. Ain’t nobody ought to like that, should they?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“I been stupid, Stanley. I been stayin’ home for her, and she don’t want me there.” Richard started to cry. “I’m so tired.”
“Come on, Richard, you don’t need to stay out here.”
“I don’t want your parents to know. I don’t want to tell nobody.”
“It’s all right, Richard. Really. Come on. Let’s get Rosy to fix you a big breakfast. You know how she can cook.”
I held out my hand and he took it, and I helped him up. He sniffed a few times and quit crying. We walked to the house. Richard walked with his head hung, and his poor wrecked feet lifted no more than they had to.
———
WHEN WE CAME IN through the back, Rosy saw Richard and looked at me. I said, “He needs something to eat, Rosy.”
“Well, we gonna fix that,” she said, and pans started clanging. Mom came into the kitchen a few moments later. She had slept late. She was still wearing her robe, and hair hung in her eyes.
