Boys Life

with firmness. Mr. Pritchard had come into the room. Vernon didn’t even look at him. I started to stand up, but Mr. Pritchard said, “Master Cory? Please stay where you are for right now.” I stayed. Mr. Pritchard crossed the room and stood behind Vernon, and he reached out and put a gentle hand on Vernon’s thin shoulder. “Dinner’s over, young master Vernon,” he said.
    The naked man didn’t move or respond. His eyes were dull and dead, nothing alive about him but the slow crawl of tears.
    “It’s time for bed, sir,” Mr. Pritchard said.
    Vernon spoke in a hollow, faraway voice: “Will I wake up?”
    “I believe you will, sir.” The hand patted his shoulder; it was a fatherly touch. “You should say good night to your dinner guest.”
    Vernon looked at me. It was as if he’d never seen me before, as if I were a stranger in his house. But then his eyes came to life again and he sniffled and smiled in his boyish way. “Dust on the tracks,” he said. “If it builds up, a train can crash.” A frown passed over his features, but it was just a small storm and quickly gone. “Cory.” The smile returned. “Thank you for having dinner with me tonight.”
    “Yes si-”
    He held up a finger. “Vernon.”
    “Vernon,” I repeated.
    He stood up, and I did, too. Mr. Pritchard said to me, “Your father’s waiting for you at the front door. You turn right and walk along the hallway, you’ll come to it. I’ll be outside to drive you home in a few minutes, if you’ll just wait by the car.” Mr. Pritchard grasped one of Vernon’s elbows, and he guided Vernon to the door. Vernon walked like a very old man.
    “I enjoyed my dinner!” I told him.
    Vernon stopped and stared at me. His smile flickered off and on, like the sputtering of a broken neon sign. “I hope you keep writing, Cory. I hope everything good happens to you.”
    “Thank you, Vernon.”
    He nodded, satisfied that we had made a connection. He paused once more at the entrance to the dining room. “You know, Cory, sometimes I have the strangest dream. In it, I’m walking the streets in broad daylight and I don’t have on any clothes.” He laughed. “Not a stitch! Imagine that!”
    I can’t remember smiling.
    Vernon let Mr. Pritchard lead him out. I looked around at the carnage of plates, and I felt sick.
    The front door was easy to find. Dad was there; from the way he smiled, I could tell he had no inkling of what I’d witnessed. “You have a good talk?” I guess I mumbled something that satisfied him. “He treat you okay?” I just nodded. Dad was jovial and happy now that his belly was full of beef stew and Vernon hadn’t hurt me. “Nice house, isn’t it?” he asked as we walked to the long black car. “A house like this… there’s no tellin’ how much it cost.”
    I didn’t know either. But I did know that it was more than any one human being ought to pay.
    We waited to go home, and in a little while Mr. Pritchard walked out of the house to deliver us at our own front door.

XX – The Wrath of Five Thunders
    ON MONDAY MORNING I FOUND THE DEMON HAD SPURNED ME. She had eyes now only for Ladd Devine, and her fickle fingers left the back of my neck alone. It was the birthday card that had done it, and Ladd’s unknowing declaration that he had sent it. Ladd was going to be a really good football player when he got to high school; between then and now, he would be getting plenty of practice running and dodging.
    There was one last incident in the tale of the Demon’s birthday. I asked her at recess, as she watched Ladd passing a football to Barney Gallaway, how her party had been. She looked at me as if I were one shade short of invisible. “Oh, we had fun,” she said, her stare going back to the young football star. “My relatives came and ate ice cream and cake.”
    “Did you get any presents?”
    “Uh-huh.” She began to chew on a dirty fingernail, her hair stringy and oily and hanging in her face. “My momma and daddy gave me a nurse kit, my aunt Gretna gave me a pair of gloves she knitted, and my cousin Chile gave me a dried flower wreath to hang over my door for good luck.”
    “That’s good,” I said. “That’s real-”
    I had been about to move away. Now I stopped in my tracks.
    “Chile?” I said. “What’s her last name?”
    “Purcell. Used to be, I mean. She got married to a fella and the stork brought ’em a little bitty baby.” The Demon sighed. “Oh, ain’t Ladd just the handsomest