Hanging on

because of their primitive muscles. Our primitive muscles atrophied when our brains got bigger, but them niggers still have primitive muscles." Even when Danny Dew won a pot in poker, Coombs looked for hereditary explanations. "Never play poker with a nigger," he told Slade. "That natural rhythm of theirs tells them when good luck's coming, when to bet heavy and when light. They have a natural instinct for gambling. A nigger can have a fantastic hand and not show it. Natural poker faces. Too dumb to get excited about the right things."
        But the thing Danny Dew did best was operate the D-7 dozer. He could plow up ruins, stack them neatly, and not bend the pieces which had survived the bombing and might be used again. All the hot day, he sat high in his dozer seat, shirtless, ebony muscles gleaming with sweat He waved at Kelly now and then, and he talked constantly to the D-7 as if it were alive.
        The machine was his virility symbol.
        Kelly was fascinated by Danny Dew's relationship with the dozer, because he'd never thought a black man needed a virility symbol. White men bought fast cars or owned guns, built huge and phallic homes and amassed fortunes. But a colored man needed no symbol of his manhood. His manhood was formidable enough to speak for itself. Yet here was Danny Dew with a virility symbol he could not do without. In the morning, he washed the dozer in the river, oiled it, greased and polished it. In the afternoon, he raced it back and forth across the field for fifteen minutes, because he was afraid it would come to feel unwanted unless it was used every day. In the evening, he slept on its wide tread, on a bundle of folded blankets, forsaking his cot in the main bunker. At odd moments, he amorously caressed the wheel, the clutches, the seat, the backrest…
        If you asked-few ever did-he explained in detail about the hydraulic steering clutches, the forward reverse lever which allowed you to drive in all speeds front and back, the booster springs… the stressed blade… the four mammoth cylinders!
        One night when they had been drinking, Kelly asked Danny Dew why he needed a virility symbol. And Dew said, "Because of my balls."
        "Your balls?" Kelly had asked.
        "My testicles," Danny said glumly.
        "They're gone?"
        "No. I've got them."
        "Well?"
        "They're not normal. My testicles are abnormal."
        "Abnormal?" Kelly asked, incredulous.
        Danny took a drink of whiskey. "It's been the curse of my life, Kelly. I feel silly. And feeling silly makes me feel inadequate-and so I need the dozer."
        Kelly hesitated, drank. Then, "What's wrong with your -balls?"
        "They're silly."
        Major Kelly's face felt fuzzy. He wiped at imaginary cobwebs. "Yes, but how are they silly?"
        Danny was exasperated. He waved his arm for emphasis. "Silly! They just are, that's all. They're laughable."
        "Has anyone ever laughed at them?" Kelly asked.
        "Everybody who's seen them." Danny looked suicidal.
        "Even the girls in Eisenhower?" Kelly asked, recalling how easily Danny had gotten the girls there.
        "Even them." Danny took a drink and let whiskey run out the corner of his mouth. He didn't seem to know he was losing it.
        Kelly poured another drink. He was only using the whiskey as an excuse not to ask what, finally, he had to ask. "Could I see your funny testicles?" When Danny sighed, Kelly said, "I don't want to touch them."
        "Sure, sure," Danny said, as resigned as a weak woman submitting to a powerful rapist.
        "You don't think this is an odd request?" Kelly asked anxiously.
        "No," Dew said. "Everyone wants to see them when they hear how damn funny they are." He stood, unzipped his pants with considerable fumbling effort, reached inside, cupped himself, and revealed his cock and balls.
        "What's funny about them?" Kelly asked.
        "Come on," Danny said. "I can see you want to laugh. I'm used to it."
        "They're perfectly ordinary," Kelly said. He looked closely, because he wanted a good laugh, needed a good laugh, but he couldn't find anything funny about them.
        "Don't be sarcastic. Go ahead and laugh, but don't make it any worse."
        "Really, Dan, there isn't-"
        "Shit," Danny Dew said. "You're smirking behind that frown. You think you'll make me let down my defenses- and then you'll laugh at me. I know you