Carnal Innocence

with gratitude when Tucker set the plate in front of him.
    As they ate, he studied the boy who was plowing through ham and eggs.
    Good-looking kid, Tucker mused. For some reason Cy reminded him of a picture of the apostle John in the family Bible. Young and frail and lit with some inner light. But he was thin as a rail—not just teenage gangly, but painfully thin, his elbow sharp edges, his wrists like sticks. What the hell was that bastard doing? he wondered. Starving his kids into heaven?
    Patient, he waited until Cy had mopped up every trace of egg.
    “So, you’re looking for work,” Tucker began, and Cy nodded, his mouth still full. “Anything particular in mind?”
    Cy swallowed gamefully. “Yes, sir. Heard you were hiring on for the fields.”
    “Lucius is pretty much in charge of hiring fieldhands,” Tucker said. “He’s gone to Jackson for a day or two.”
    Cy felt the strength the good food had put back into him waver. He’d come all this way, only to be told to go home and try again.
    “Maybe you could tell me if you’re hiring.”
    Tucker knew they were, but there was no way in hell he was putting this pale, hollow-eyed boy with pencil-thin arms out in a cotton field. He started to tell him they had all the hands they needed, but something in those dark, shadowed eyes stopped him.
    This was Edda Lou’s brother, he reminded himself. Austin’s son. The last thing in this world he needed was to hire on a Hatinger. Christ knew, he had no business caring about one. But those eyes stayed steady on his, full of hope and despair and painful youth.
    “You know how to ride a tractor?”
    The hope began to deepen. “Yes, sir.”
    “Can you tell the difference between a weed and a pansy?”
    “I think so.”
    “Can you swing a hammer without hitting your thumb?”
    Unexpectedly, Cy felt his lips twitch. “Most times.”
    “What I need is something more than a field hand. I need somebody to keep things up around here. What you might call a man of all work.”
    “I—I can do anything you want.”
    Tucker took out a cigarette. “I can give you four an hour,” he said, and pretended not to hear Cy’s sputter of amazement. “And Della’d give you your lunch at noon. Or thereabouts. You can take your time eating, but I expect you to watch the clock. I don’t pay you for munching on corn bread.”
    “I won’t cheat you, Mr. Longstreet—Mr. Tucker. I swear it.”
    “No. I don’t expect you will.” The boy was as unlike the rest of his family as day to night. Tucker had to wonder how such things happened. “You can start now if you want to.”
    “Sure I can.” Cy was already pushing back from thetable. “I’ll be here every day, first thing. And I can …” He trailed off as he remembered Edda’s Lou’s funeral the next day. “I—ah—tomorrow …”
    “I know.” It was all Tucker could think of to say. “You do this little job for me today, then come on back Wednesday, and that’ll be fine.”
    “Yes, sir, I’ll be here. I sure will.”
    “Come on out here.” Tucker led him out the door and across the patio, over the green lawn to a shed. After rapping on the side a few times in case any snakes were napping inside, Tucker pulled open the door. Its hinges squeaked like old bones. “I expect you ought to oil those sometime,” Tucker said absently.
    He was struck with the scent here, the damp richness of peat that brought back memories of his mother turning it into the ground as she planted. What he was looking for was tilted against the shed wall opposite the garden spades and hoes and pruning sheers. Grinning to himself, Tucker dragged out his old ten-speed Schwinn.
    Both tires were dead flat, but there was a pump, and there were patches. The chain needed oiling worse than the hinges on the shed door, and the seat had developed a nice coating of mold.
    Tucker flicked back the lever of the bell bolted to the handlebars. It jingled. He could see himself flying down the blacktop toward Innocence—he’d driven fast even then—eating up the miles toward cherry Popsicles and fountain Cokes. The sun at his back, and his whole life ahead.
    “I want you to clean this up for me.”
    “Yes, sir.” Cy touched a reverent hand to the handlebars. He’d had a bike once, a wobbly
second
-hander he’d bartered for with a flute he’d carved out of a birch branch. Then one afternoon he’d forgotten and left it in the driveway and his father had crushed it flat with his