Carnal Innocence

pick-up.
    That’ll teach you to put your trust in worldly goods.
    “Then I want you to keep it in tune for me,” Tucker was saying, and Cy forced himself back. “A good bike’s like a good—” Shit, he’d almost said woman.“Horse. Needs to be ridden well and ridden often. I figure riding this back and forth from your place to here every day ought to do it.”
    Cy’s mouth opened and closed twice. “You want me to ride it?” Cy let his hand fall away from the handlebars. “I don’t think I could do that.”
    “You don’t ride a bike?”
    “Yes, sir, I can ride one, but … It don’t seem right.”
    “I don’t think walking close to twenty miles a day and fainting on my porch is right either.” He put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’ve got the bike, I’m not using it. If you’re going to work for me, you can’t balk on the first thing I ask you.”
    “No, sir.” Cy wet his lips. “If my daddy finds out, he’ll be awful mad.”
    “You look like a smart boy. A smart boy oughta know where he could pull a bike like this off the road someplace close to home, where nobody’d pay much attention to it.”
    Cy thought of the culvert under Dead Possum Lane where he and Jim used to play soldier. “I guess that’s true.”
    “Fine. Everything you need should be in the shed. Otherwise, ask Della or me. Mark your time. Payday’s on Friday.”
    Cy watched Tucker’s retreating back, then looked down at the dull flecks of blue paint under the grime on the cross bars of the Schwinn.
    Three hours later, after he’d finished all the busy work Tucker could think of on such short notice, Cy was cruising down the blacktop. The ten-speed wasn’t the slick racing machine it had been in Tucker’s day, but for Cy it was a steed, a stallion, a wind-dancing Pegasus.
    This time when he got to the lane leading to the McNair place, he turned in. He tilted dangerously on the gravel, muttered “Whoa, boy” to his trusty mount, and managed to keep upright.
    He saw Jim and his daddy, each perched on extensionladders that leaned against the side of the house. Fresh blue paint glistened. Halfway down the lane, he couldn’t hold back and let out a hoot and a holler.
    Jim’s paintbrush stopped in midair. “Holy crow, lookit what Cy’s got. Where’d you get that?” he shouted. “You steal it or something?”
    “Heck, no.” He stopped the bike just short of running over some of the petunias—he was a little out of practice. “It’s like a loan of transportation.” Sliding off, he toed down the kickstand. “I got me a job over to Sweetwater.”
    “No shit?” Jim said before he remembered his father. His slip earned him a halfhearted bop on the head. “Sorry.” But he was still grinning down at Cy. “You working the fields?”
    “Nuh-uh. Mr. Tucker said I was going to be his man of all work, and he’s paying me four an hour.”
    “No … fooling?”
    “Honest to God. And he said—”
    “Hold on. God be patient.” Toby shook his head. “You two going to stand around shouting all day? Miz Waverly’ll send us packing.”
    “No, she won’t.” Amused by the whole scene, Caroline stuck her head out of the window between father and son. “But it seems to me it’s a good time to take a break. I’ve been waiting all day for you to offer me another cup of your wife’s lemonade.”
    “I’d be pleased to. Jim, you go on down. Mind your step.” The truth was, Toby wanted to see what was doing himself.
    By the time he got down, Jim was already ooing over the Schwinn. Toby went to get the two-gallon cooler while Cy related his adventure.
    “Fainted?” Jim said, mightily impressed. “Right there on the porch?”
    Caroline stepped through the screen door in time to hear. Her brows drew together. She listened, murmuring an absent thanks to Toby as he handed her a paper cup filled with tart lemonade. Tucker had hired the boy, she thought in amazement. As a—for heaven’s sake—man of all work. Chores Tucker was to lazy to do himself, shedecided. The child was stick-thin and hollow-eyed. She’d been much the same herself not so long ago, and she felt pangs of empathy and annoyance.
    “That boy has no business working,” she said under her breath.
    “Oh, I expect he’d like some pocket money,” Toby said easily.
    “He looks like he could use a hot meal more.” She started to call out, prepared to fix the child a late lunch herself. “What’s his name?”
    “He’s Cy, Miz