Boys Life

his chin, and I realized I had interrupted him in the process of eating a small brown dog, the upper half of which he held struggling in his left hand.
    It was not a pleasant dream.
    But maybe there was some truth in it. Somewhere.
    I was a walker in these days, bereft of two wheels to call my own. I enjoyed walking to and from school, but all my friends had bikes and I definitely had lost a step or two of status. One afternoon I was pitching a stick to Rebel and rolling around in the green grass with him when I heard a clankety sound. I looked up, Rebel looked up, and there was a pickup truck approaching our house.
    I knew the truck. It was splotchy with rust and its suspension sagged, and the noise it made caused dogs to bay in its wake. Rebel started barking, and I had a time getting him quiet. The truck had a metal frame thing bolted in the bed from which hung, clattering like asylum inmates, a bewildering array of tools, most of which looked as antique and worthless as the truck. On the driver’s door was stenciled, not very neatly, LIGHTFOOT’S FIX-IT.
    The truck stopped in front of the house. Morn came out on the porch, alerted by the clamor, but Dad wouldn’t be home from work for another hour or so. The truck’s door opened, and a long, skinny black man wearing dusty gray overalls got out, so slowly it seemed that movement might be painful for him. He wore a gray cap, and his dark skin was smoky with dust. He came slowly toward the porch, and I have to say that even if a bull had suddenly come charging up behind him, Mr. Marcus Lightfoot probably wouldn’t have hurried his pace.
    “Good afternoon, Mr. Lightfoot,” Mom said, her apron on. She had been working in the kitchen, and she wiped her hands on a paper towel. “How are you?”
    Mr. Lightfoot smiled. His small, square teeth were very white, and gray hair boiled up from under his cap. This is how he spoke, in a voice like a slow leak from a clogged pipe: “Good afternoon to you, too, Miz Mackenson. Hey there, Cory.”
    This was a good-paced conversational clip for Mr. Light-foot, who had been a handyman in Zephyr and Bruton for more than thirty years, picking up the task from his father. Mr. Lightfoot was renowned for his skill with appliances, and though he was slow as a toothache, he always got the job done no matter how baffling the problem. “Mighty fine.” He stopped, looking up at the blue sky. The seconds ticked past. Rebel barked, and I put my hand over his muzzle.
    “Day,” Mr. Lightfoot decided.
    “Yes, it is.” Mom waited for him to speak again, but Mr. Lightfoot just stood there, this time looking at our house. He reached into one of his many pockets, brought out a handful of penny nails, and clicked them around, as if he were waiting, too. “Uh…” Mom cleared her throat. “Can I help you with anythin’?”
    “Jus’ passin’,” he replied, slow as warm molasses. “Wonderin’ if you”-and here he paused to study the nails in his hand for a few seconds-“might need somethin’ fixed?”
    “Well, no, not really. I can’t think of-” She stopped, and her expression told me she had thought of something. “The toaster. It went out on me day before yesterday. I was gonna call you, but-”
    “Yes’m, I know.” Mr. Lightfoot nodded sagely. “Time sure does fly.”
    He went back to the truck to get his toolbox, an old metal fascination filled with drawers and every kind of nut and bolt, it seemed, under the workman’s sun. He strapped on his tool belt, from which hung several different kinds of hammers, screwdrivers, and arcane-looking wrenches. Mom held the door open for Mr. Lightfoot, and when he walked into the house she looked at me and shrugged, her statement being: I don’t know why he’s here, either. I left Rebel the gnawed stick and went into the house, too, and in the cool of the kitchen I drank a glass of iced tea and watched Mr. Lightfoot stare down the toaster.
    “Mr. Lightfoot, would you care for somethin’ to drink?” Mom asked.
    “ Nome.”
    “I’ve got some oatmeal cookies.”
    “ Nome, thank you kindly.” He took a clean white square of cloth from another pocket and unfolded it. He draped the cloth over the seat of one of the chairs to the kitchen table. Then he unplugged the toaster, set it on the table alongside his toolbox, and sat down on the white cloth. All this had been done at an underwater pace.
    Mr. Lightfoot chose a screwdriver. He had the long, graceful fingers of a surgeon,