The Risk Pool

curb.
    “What’s the matter?” my father wanted to know. I must have looked like something was the matter. He had a gray chin again and his hair looked crazy until he ran his black fingers through it, which helped only a little.
    I said nothing was the matter.
    “You want to go for a ride?”
    I figured he must mean to the dairy for ice cream.
    “Come here,” he said.
    I started around the car to the passenger side.
    “Here,” he repeated. “You know what ‘here’ means?”
    Actually, I don’t think I did. At least I couldn’t figure out what good it would do me to walk over and stand next to him outside the car. I found out though, because suddenly he had me under the arms, and then I was high in the air, above the convertible’swindshield, where I rotated 180 degrees and plopped into the seat beside him. My teeth clicked audibly, but other than that it was a smooth landing.
    He put the convertible in gear and we thumped down off the curb and up the street past Aunt Rose’s in the opposite direction from the dairy. I figured he’d turn around when we got to the intersection, but he didn’t. We just kept on going, straight out of Mohawk. My father’s hair was wild again, and mine was too, I could feel it.
    The car smelled funny. My father didn’t seem aware of it until finally he sniffed and said, “Ah, shit,” and pulled over so that he was half on the road and half on the shoulder. First he flung up the hood, then the trunk. With the hood up, the funny burning smell was even worse. My father got two yellow cans out of the trunk and punched holes in them. Then he unscrewed a cap on the engine and poured in the contents of the two cans. In the gap between the dash and the hood I could see his black fingers working. I thought about my mother, who would be just about putting her key in the front door lock and wondering how come I wasn’t on the front porch to greet her. I started to send her a telepathic thought, “I’m with my father,” until I remembered that the message wouldn’t exactly comfort her should she receive it.
    My father slammed the hood and trunk and got back in the car.
    “Ever see one of these?” He dropped something small and heavy in my lap. A jackknife, it looked like. I knew my mother wouldn’t want me to touch it. “Open it,” my father said.
    I did. Every time I opened something, there was something else to open. There were two knives, a large one and a small one, the can opener I’d seen him use, a pair of tiny scissors you could actually work, assuming you had something that tiny that needed scissoring, a thing you could use to clean your nails with and a file. There were other features too, but I didn’t know what they were for. With all its arms opened up, the gadget looked like a lopsided spider.
    “Don’t lose it,” he said.
    We were pretty well out in the country now and when he pulled into a long dirt driveway, I was sure he just meant to turn around. Instead, he followed the road on through a clump of trees to a small, rusty trailer. A big, dark-skinned man in a shapeless hat was seated on a broken concrete block. I was immediately interestedin the hat, which was full of shiny metallic objects that reflected the sun. He stood when my father jerked the car to a stop, crushed stone rattling off the trailer.
    “Well?” my father said.
    The man consulted his watch. “Hour late,” he said. “Not bad for Sam Hall. Practically on time. Who’s this?”
    “My son. We’ll teach him how to fish.”
    “Who’ll teach you?” the man said. “Howdy, Sam’s Kid.”
    He offered a big, dark-skinned hand.
    “Go ahead and shake his ugly paw,” my father said.
    I did, and then the man gathered up the gear that was resting up against the trailer. “You want to open this trunk, or should I just rip it off the hinges?” he said when my father made no move to get out and help.
    “Kind of ornery, ain’t he,” my father said confidentially, tossing the keys over his shoulder.
    “Hey, kid,” the man said. “How’d you like to ride in the back?”
    “Tell him to kiss your ass,” my father advised. “You got enough gear for three?”
    The man reluctantly got in the back. “Enough for me and the kid anyways. Don’t know about you. Can he talk or what?”
    My father swatted me. “Say hello to Wussy. He’s half colored, half white, and all mixed up.”
    Wussy leaned forward so he could see into the front seat. “He ain’t exactly dressed for this.” I