Boys Life

friend’s house.
    Six miles later, he stopped in front of a ramshackle farmhouse that had a rotting sofa, a cast-off wringer, and a pile of moldering tires and rusted radiators in the front yard. I think we had crossed the line between Zephyr and Dogpatch by way of Tobacco Road somewhere a few miles back. Obviously, though, Jerome Claypool was a popular good ole fella, because there were four other cars parked in front of the place as well. “Come on, Cory,” the Jaybird said as he opened his door. “We’ll just go in a minute or two.”
    I could smell the stench of cheap cigars before we got to the porch. The Jaybird knocked on the door: rap rap rapraprap. “Who is it?” a cautious voice inquired from within. My grandfather replied, “Blood ‘n Guts,” which made me stare at him, thinking he’d lost whatever mind he had left. The door opened on noisy hinges, and a long-jawed face with dark, wrinkle-edged eyes peered out. Those eyes found me. “Who’s he?”
    “My grandboy,” Jaybird said, and put his hand on my shoulder. “Name’s Cory.”
    “Jesus, Jay!” the long-jawed face said with a scowl. “What’re you bringin’ a kid around here for?”
    “No harm done. He won’t say nothin’. Will you, Cory?” The hand tightened.
    I didn’t understand what was going on, but clearly this was not a place Grandmomma Sarah would have enjoyed visiting. I thought of Miss Grace’s house out beyond Saxon’s Lake, and the girl named Lainie who’d furled her wet pink tongue at me. “No sir,” I told him, and the grip relaxed again. His secret-whatever it might be-was safe.
    “Bodean won’t like this,” the man warned.
    “Jerome, Bodean can stick his head up his ass for all I care. You gonna let me in or not?”
    “You got the green?”
    “Burnin’ a hole,” the Jaybird said, and touched his pocket.
    I balked as he started pulling me over the threshold. “Grandmomma’s waitin’ for the ice cream sa-”
    He looked at me, and I saw something of his true nature deep in his eyes, like the glare of a distant blast furnace. On his face there was a desperate hunger, inflamed by whatever was going on in that house. Ice cream salt was forgotten; ice cream itself was part of another world six miles away. “Come on!” he snapped.
    I stood my ground. “I don’t think we ought to-”
    “You don’t think!” he said, and whatever was pulling him into that house seized his face and made it mean. “You just do what I tell you, hear me?”
    He gave me a hard yank and I went with him, my heart scorched. Mr. Claypool closed the door behind us and bolted it. Cigar smoke drifted in a room where no sunlight entered; the windows were all boarded up and a few measly electric lights were burning. We followed Mr. Claypool through a hallway to the rear of the house, and he opened another door. The windowless room we walked into was layered with smoke, too, and at its center was a round table where four men sat under a harsh light playing cards, poker chips in stacks before them and glasses of amber liquid near at hand. “Fuck that noise!” one of the men was saying, making my ears sting. “I ain’t gonna be bluffed, no sir!”
    “Five dollars to you, then, Mr. Cool,” another one said. A red chip hit the pile at the table’s center. A cigar tip glowed like a volcano in the maelstrom. “Raise you five,” the third man said, the cigar wedged in the side of a scarlike mouth. “Come on, put up or shut-” I saw his small, piggish eyes dart at me, and the man slapped his cards facedown on the table. “Hey!” he shouted. “What’s that kid doin’ in here?”
    Instantly I was the focus of attention. “Jaybird, have you gone fuckin’ crazy?” one of the other men asked. “Get him out!”
    “He’s all right,” my grandfather said. “He’s family.”
    “Not my family.” The man with the cigar leaned forward, his thick forearms braced on the table. His brown hair was cropped in a crew cut, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a diamond ring. He took the cigar from his mouth, his eyes narrowed into slits. “You know the rules, Jaybird. Nobody comes in here without gettin’ approved.”
    “He’s all right. He’s my grandson.”
    “I don’t care if he’s the fuckin’ prince of England. You broke the rules.”
    “Now, there’s no call to be ugly about it, is th-”
    “You’re stupid!” the man shouted, his mouth twisting as he spoke the word. A fine sheen of sweat glistened