the look in them seemed a little funny, maybe too thoughtful for the middle of the night.
“Barry?” Roy said.
“Don’t be silly, Roy. That was the doctor.”
“What doctor?”
“Why, Dr. Nordman, the lip doctor. Doing his post-op check.”
“Isn’t it a bit late?”
“He just got out of surgery.”
They looked at each other. He waited for the return of the expression he’d seen in her eyes before they fell asleep, a look not unlike the one she’d had on that trip down Crystal Creek. It didn’t come back.
“Who’s Grant?” he said.
“Dr. Nordman’s Christian name. That’s why I didn’t recognize him at first.”
She picked up her bra, slipped a strap over her shoulder, shrugged one of her breasts-he’d be able to picture them now-inside.
“You going?” Roy said.
She turned, smiled. “Can’t very well stay all night, now can I?” She laughed. “Isn’t this the craziest thing?”
“How do you mean?”
“Like an affair, or something.” Shrug, and her other breast disappeared from view.
“What happens next?” Roy said.
She leaned forward, patted his arm. He could smell her; she smelled good. “We go from here,” she said.
“How, exactly?”
“We’ll think of something.” She kissed him on the mouth, but quick, and turned off the light on her way out.
Roy thought he heard Rhett crying in the night. He got up, went down the hall, looked in Rhett’s room. Rhett was in his bed, crying in the night. Roy lay down beside him.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said. He felt hope inside him, a good feeling, almost like happiness.
The crying stopped soon after.
Peter Abrahams
Last of the Dixie Heroes
FOUR
Rhett’s eye looked a little better when Roy woke him in the morning, a lighter shade of purple and not so swollen.
”Not going to school,” he said.
“Got to,” Roy said.
“Why?”
“You’re eleven. Going to school’s what you do on school days.”
“That’s the reason?”
“Yeah. What else are you going to do?”
“Hang out.”
“And go back to school when?”
Rhett shrugged, one shoulder slipping out of the neck of his T-shirt, those knuckle-shaped bones on top almost sticking through his skin.
“Got to go to school,” Roy said.
“You’re an inflexible jerk,” Rhett said. “Like Barry.”
Inflexible was a favorite of Marcia’s. Roy probably should have been angry; he even wondered a bit why he was not. “Maybe a jerk,” he said. “But not like Barry.”
Rhett gave him a long look, then sat up and started getting out of bed.
In the car on the way to school, Rhett said: “How tall are you?”
Roy told him.
“What do you weigh?”
“Haven’t weighed myself lately.”
“How many push-ups can you do?”
“Not many.”
“Like what?”
“Twenty, maybe.” That seemed reasonable-in his football days, high school and that one year in Athens, he’d been able to do a hundred, winning free beers sometimes at parties. The air supply problems came later.
“That’s all? Cody can do thirty-one.”
And you? Roy thought. That’s what counts. He didn’t say it. Rhett was making his tight little fists again.
“I’ve got something for you,” Roy said, reaching into his pocket. “Something you can show the kids.” He handed Rhett the oxidized lead bullet.
“What’s this?”
“A real bullet from the battle of Kennesaw Mountain.”
Rhett gazed without much interest at the bullet resting on his palm. “It doesn’t look like a bullet.”
“It’s old,” Roy said. “You know about the battle of Kennesaw Mountain?”
“No.”
Roy tried to recall the details of the battle and failed. “They haven’t got to the Civil War yet?” he said.
“Mrs. Pullian calls it the War Between the States. That’s what she says-’the War Between the States, or as some folks like to say, the Civil War.’ “
Roy remembered he’d had one or two teachers like that too. “You like history?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Is it one of your favorites?”
“Favorite what?”
“Subjects.”
“What are the subjects?” Rhett said.
“Like math, science, reading.”
“I hate all the subjects,” Rhett said, as Roy pulled up to the school.
“But your last report wasn’t too bad.”
“So what? They give you a break for self-esteem. I suck at school.”
Roy checked the time; he was already an hour late for work. He didn’t know what to say, heard himself trying, “But you like football.”
“Football’s not until the fall.”
“Practice starts in August. Be here before you know it.” He reached across the front seat, opened Rhett’s door. “You’re walking home after school, don’t forget.”
“Where?”
“Home to momma. Get on, now.”
Rhett didn’t move. “Were there bullies back in your day?”
“They rode up on dinosaurs.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Sure there were bullies.”
“But you were big, right?”
“I was built kind of like you.”
“You were?”
“Yeah.” Roy motioned to the open door.
Rhett didn’t move. “Did any of them pick on you?”
“No,” Roy said, but then he had a funny memory, a taste memory, the taste of blood in his mouth. His own
