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store and gas station after thirty-seven miles. The weathered wood walls of the structure didn’t stand up straight anymore. Instead they leaned inward around a once flat tin roof that had buckled and now looked like a wave threatening to roll right down the front of the store.
    The only sign was a round Coca-Cola poster that, once red, had bleached out into a weak pink color. The gas pump next to the front door looked like something out of a 1930s movie.
    I stopped and got out, waiting for the attendant to come running from inside.
    Nobody came.
    There was no shade on that side of the building. I hoped that there was air conditioning inside the ramshackle house. A fan maybe, or just one of those Coke machines.
    I stopped at the door. Maybe this wasn’t even a store at all. The sign and the gas pump were old. There was no other outward indication of a working business. Maybe this was just someone’s house with just a few leftovers from the old store.
    I looked out over the horizon. There wasn’t another structure in sight. So I rapped my knuckles on the front door. It was fabricated from many layers of wood. So many layers that I couldn’t get a sure knock. The sound I did make was nothing more than the rustling of kisses in a close hallway at night.
    “Yeah,” he said from inside. “Come on in.”
    The voice sounded relaxed, so I wasn’t surprised to see the man reclined on a sofa chair in the middle of what looked like a parlor. A refrigerator hummed happily in a corner of the shapeless room. There were open shelves that ran along the uneven walls. On the shelves were dry goods and some bottles and cans. It might have been a store and then again it could have been a careless man’s home. There was an electric fan blowing over him. He wore only boxer shorts, a T-shirt, and a ruffled fisherman’s cap. He was long and skinny but not too tall. When he saw me he got up immediately. At the back of the room was a large podium-like piece of furniture. It wasn’t until he was behind this whitewashed stand that he said, “Can I help you?”
    I froze dead in my tracks. I was sure that he had a handgun or worse back there and I didn’t want to make any move to cause him to use it.
    “Afternoon,” I said in a voice far too happy for the heat.
    “What can I do ya for?” He even smiled at me. I was more afraid of his robin’s-egg eyes than I was of the gun I suspected.
    “All I want is about a dozen’a them Cokes you got,” I said, hearing the scared voice of a small homeless boy in my throat. “And some directions.”
    “Three to a customer,” he answered. He nodded toward the small box refrigerator. We both knew that he wasn’t going to move.
    I walked over to the box and lifted the lid. As nervous as I was, I enjoyed the cold coming out at me. I lingered, taking the Cokes out from between homemade ham sandwiches and an old-time bottle of gin that was stoppered with a cork.
    “What kinda directions you need, son?”
    He was from the South. If I hadn’t been able to tell by his accent I sure could have from the liberties he took with my age. But I had to remember—I was out in the middle of nowhere, a black spot against a white backdrop. Even if I could have moved quickly enough to keep from being shot, what was the value of killing a white man for belittling me? I’d killed white men before in my life and that hadn’t changed a thing.
    But still, I hated him. I even hated the air because it reeked of his sweat.
    “Marlon Eady,” I said through tight lips.
    “The nigger?” The crooked grin made his leathery gaunt face into a kind of evil crescent.
    I’d been out of the South for too long. The hate for this man must have shown from deep down where we all learned as children to keep it hidden.
    “Oh.” The sparse beard and mustache bristled around his mock smile like brier thorns. “Don’t get me wrong, son. We all call him that around here—he likes it. They call me Dickhead. Now wouldn’t you