Carnal Innocence

shoulders. “Ain’t no work.”
    Jim carefully folded his bright red tie and put it in his pocket. “My daddy’s doing some work for that Miz Waverly.” Jim didn’t consider it politic to mention that his father had replaced the windows Cy’s father had blown out. “Going to paint her whole house. I’m helping.”
    “Guess you’ll be a rich man.”
    “Shit.” Jim grinned and began to draw patterns in the dirt. “Get me some pocket money though. Got two dollars right now.”
    “That’s two more’n I got.”
    Lips pursed, Jim slanted a look at his friend. They weren’t supposed to be friends, not according to Cy’s old man. But they’d managed to remain so, on the sly. “I heard tell the Longstreets are hiring on for field work.”
    Cy hooted and passed the Pall Mall to Jim to finish off. “My daddy’d skin me alive if I went near Sweetwater.”
    “Guess so.”
    But his daddy was in jail, Cy remembered. If he could get work, he could start his own secret fund, just like Ruthanne. “You sure they’re hiring?”
    “What I heard. Miss Della’s down at the church bake sale. You could ask her.” He smiled at Cy. “They’ve got lemon pies down there. Might get one for two dollars. Sure would be nice to take some lemon pie down to Gooseneck Creek and catch some cats.”
    “Sure would.” Cy cast a look at his friend. His grin was slow and surprisingly lovely. “I really oughta help you eat it, or else you’ll just pig it down and puke it up.”
    While the boys were negotiating for pie, and women were showing off their Sunday dresses, Tucker was spread over his bed, luxuriating in a half doze.
    He loved Sundays. The house was quiet as a tomb, with Della off to town and everyone else asleep or sprawled somewhere with the Sunday paper.
    In his mother’s day it had been different. Then the whole house had marched off to church—spit and polish—to take their place in the front pew. His motherwould smell of lavender and be wearing her grandmother’s pearls.
    After service there would be a varied critique of the sermon, talk of weather and crops. New babies would be admired and clucked over. Grown children come back to visit would be shown off by proud parents, and the young would take the opportunity to sashay and flirt.
    Afterward, they would sit down to Sunday dinner. Glazed ham, sweet potatoes, fresh biscuits, green beans swimming in pot liquor, and maybe some pecan pie. And flowers, there would always be flowers on the table. His mother had seen to that.
    Out of respect for her, Tucker’s father never touched a bottle on Sunday, not from sunup to sundown. As a result, those long afternoons took on a pleasant, dreamy quality in retrospect—an illusion perhaps, but a comforting one.
    Part of Tucker missed those days. But there was something to be said for snoozing in a quiet house with the chatter of birds piping outside, the hum of the fan stirring air, and the happy notion that there was no place to go and nothing to do.
    He heard a car engine and rolled over in bed. The movement revived a few aches. He grunted, waiting for the discomfort and the disturbance to pass.
    The knock on the front door had Tucker opening one eye. Sunlight speared it, causing him to hiss through his teeth. He considered playing possum, waiting for Josie or Dwayne to handle things. But Josie’s room was on the other side of the house, and Dwayne was probably just as comatose as he’d been last night when Tucker hauled him in from the lake.
    “Shit. Go the hell away.”
    He had snuggled into the pillow and was willing himself back to sleep when the knocking stopped. Before he could congratulate himself, Burke’s voice rose from beneath his window.
    “Tucker, get your butt up. I gotta talk to you. Dammit, Tuck, it’s important.”
    “Always goddamn important,” Tucker muttered as he pushed himself out of bed. All of his aches and painsbegan to awaken. Naked and irritable, he pushed open the terrace doors.
    “Jesus.” Burke tossed his cigarette aside and took a long, slow scan of Tucker’s body. It was a palette of black, blue, and sickly yellow. “He really worked you over, didn’t he, son?”
    “Did you come all the way out here and wake me up just to make that stunning observation?”
    “You come on out and I’ll tell you why I’m here. And put some clothes on before I haul you in for indecent exposure.”
    “Up yours, Sheriff.” Tucker stumbled back into the bedroom, looked at his tangled