Boys Life

diminished left ear.
    “Would’ve shot that little bastard if I’d had my gun on me,” Mr. Hargison said. “He was a fast thing, I’ll give him that. Bit me and took off and I swear I hardly saw him.” He grunted and shook his head. “Hell of a note when you can’t walk on a street in the daylight without gettin’ attacked by a damn monkey.”
    “Maybe they’ll catch him pretty soon,” Dad offered.
    “Maybe.” Mr. Hargison puffed blue smoke and watched it drift away. “Know what I think, Tom?”
    “What’s that?”
    “There’s more to that damn monkey than meets the eye, that’s what I think.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well, consider this. How come that damn monkey stays around here in Zephyr? How come he don’t go over into Bruton and cause trouble?”
    “I don’t know,” Dad said. “I haven’t thought about it.”
    “I think that woman’s got somethin’ to do with it.”
    “What woman, Gerald?”
    “You know.” He cocked his head toward Bruton. “Her. The queen over there.”
    “You mean the Lady?”
    “Yeah. Her. I think she’s whipped up some kind of spell and put it on us, because of… you know… the trouble.”
    “The burnin’ cross, you mean.”
    “Uh-huh.” Mr. Hargison shifted into the shadows, because the sun was hitting his leg. “She’s workin’ some of that hoodoo on us, is what I think. It’s spooky, how come nobody can catch that damn monkey. Thing screamed like a banshee one night outside my bedroom window and Linda Lou about had a heart attack!”
    “That monkey gettin’ loose was Reverend Blessett’s fault,” Dad reminded him. “The Lady didn’t have anythin’ to do with it.”
    “We don’t know that for sure, do we?” Mr. Hargison tapped ashes onto the grass, and then the cheroot’s tip returned to his teeth. “We don’t know what kind of powers she has. I swear, I believe the Klan’s got the right idea. We don’t need that woman around here. Her and her petitions.”
    “I don’t side with the Klan, Gerald,” Dad told him. “I don’t go in for cross burnin’s. That seems to me like a cowardly thing.”
    Mr. Hargison grunted quietly, a little plume of smoke leaking from his lips. “I didn’t know the Klan was even active around here,” he said. “But I’ve been hearin’ things lately.”
    “Like what?”
    “Oh… just talk. In my profession, you hear a lot of lips flap. Some folks around here think the Klan’s mighty brave for sendin’ a warnin’ to that woman. Some folks think it’s high time she got sent on her way before she ruins this town.”
    “She’s lived here a long time. She hasn’t ruined Zephyr yet, has she?”
    “Up until the last few years she’s kept her mouth shut. Now she’s tryin’ to stir things up. Colored people and white people in the same swimmin’ pool! And you know what? Mayor Swope’s just fool enough to give her what she wants!”
    “Well,” Dad said, “times are changin’.”
    “My Lord!” Mr. Hargison stared at my father. “Are you takin’ her side, Tom?”
    “I’m not takin’ anybody’s side. All I’m sayin’ is, we don’t need attack dogs and fire hoses and bombs goin’ off here in Zephyr. Bull Connor’s days are done. It seems to me that times are changin’ and that’s the way of the world.” Dad shrugged. “Can’t hold back the future, Gerald. That’s a fact.”
    “I believe those Klan boys might argue the point with you.”
    “Maybe. But their days are done, too. All hate does is breed more hate.”
    Mr. Hargison sat in silence for a moment. He was looking toward the roofs of Bruton, but what he was seeing there was difficult to say. At last he stood up, picked up his mail satchel, and slung it over his shoulder. “You used to be a sane fella,” he said, and then he began walking back to his truck.
    “Gerald? Wait a minute! Come on back, all right?” Dad called, but Mr. Hargison kept going. My father and Mr. Hargison had graduated in the same class from Adams Valley High, and though they weren’t close friends, they had traveled the same road of youth together. Mr. Hargison, Dad had told me, used to quarterback the football team and his name was on a silver plaque on the high school’s Honor Wall. “Hey, Big Bear!” Dad called, using Mr. Hargison’s high school nickname. But Mr. Hargison flipped his cheroot stub into the gutter and drove away.
    My birthday arrived. I had Davy Ray, Ben, and Johnny over for ice cream and cake. On that cake