Boys Life

you’re in damn sorry shape, ain’t you?” Bill took the glass back to the kitchen. “You ain’t gettin’ none of my work money, that’s for sure!”
    Chile reached down into the pocket of her jeans. “I’ve got some money,” she said, and her hand came out clutching a small red plastic purse in the shape of a heart. It was cracked and much-used, the kind of thing a little girl might buy at Woolworth’s for ninety-nine cents. She popped it open. I saw a few coins inside it. “I just need a dime,” I told her. She gave me a dime, one with Mercury’s head on it, and I shoved it into my own pocket. She smiled at me, which was worth a fortune. “You’ll get home all right.”
    “I know I will.” I looked at the infant’s face, and I saw he had her beautiful eyes of cornflower blue.
    “Come on, if you’re comin’,” Bill said on his way past me to the door. He didn’t spare a glance at his wife or baby. He went on out, the screen door slammed, and I heard the truck’s engine snort.
    I could not tear myself away from Chile Willow. In later years I would hear about the “chemistry” between two people, and what that meant; I would be told by my father about the “birds and the bees” but of course by then I would know all about it from my schoolmates. All I knew at that moment was a longing: to be older, taller, stronger, and handsome. To be able to kiss the lips of her lovely face, and crank back time so she didn’t have Bill’s baby in her arms. What I wanted to say to her, in that moment, was: You should’ve waited for me.
    “Go on home where you belong, boy,” Mrs. Purcell said. She was watching me intently, her needles paused, and I wondered if she knew what was in my head.
    I would never set foot in this house again. I would never again see Chile Willow. I knew this, and I drank her in while I could.
    Outside, Bill leaned on the horn. Bubba started crying again.
    “Thank you,” I told Chile, and I took my wet shirt and walked out into the sunlight. The truck was painted bilious green, its sides dented up, its body sagging to the left. A pair of red velvet dice dangled from the rearview mirror. I climbed into the passenger seat, a spring jabbing my butt. On the floorboard was a toolbox and coils of wires, and though the windows were rolled down, the interior smelled like sweat and a sickly sweet odor I later came to connect with miserable poverty. I looked at the house’s doorway and saw Chile emerge into the light, cradling her baby. “Stop and get him some milk, Bill!” she called. I could see her mother standing behind her, in the musty gloom. It occurred to me that their faces were very much alike, though one had already been weathered by time and circumstance, probably a lot of disappointment and bitterness, too. I hoped Chile would be spared such a journey. I hoped she would never lock her smile away, and forget where she’d put the key.
    “’Bye, now!” she said to me.
    I waved. Bill pulled the pickup truck away from the house, and dust boiled up off the road between Chile Willow and me.
    It was a mile or more until the pavement started. Bill drove in silence, and let me off at a gas station on the edge of the air force base. As I was getting out, he said, “Hey, boy! Better watch where you put your pecker.” Then he drove away, and I stood alone on the hot concrete.
    Pain was nothing to a man like me.
    The gas station’s owner showed me where the pay phone was. I started to put the Mercury-head dime into the slot, but I couldn’t let go of it. It had come from Chile Willow’s purse. I just couldn’t. I asked the owner to let me borrow a dime, telling him my dad would pay him back. “I ain’t no bank,” he huffed, but he took a dime out of the cash register anyway. In another moment it was tinkling down into the pay phone. I dialed the number, and Mom picked up on the second ring.
    My folks were there to pick me up in about half an hour. I expected the worst, but I got a rib-busting squeeze from my mother and my dad grinned and cuffed me on the back of my head and I knew I was in high cotton. On the drive home, I learned that Davy Ray and Ben had reached Zephyr together about seven this morning and Sheriff Amory knew the whole story, that two masked men had bought something in a wooden box from Biggun Blaylock and then the Blaylocks had chased us through the forest. “The men with the masks were Mr. Hargison and Mr. Moultry,” I said. I felt bad about this,