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laughed.
        I
could see his legs through the spaces between the bars. Could have almost reached
them from where I sat. Would never have made it. The man moved like a leopard.
My hand would have been out through the bars and he would've broken my wrist
with a billy club in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat.
         Seems
to me the only good thing you ever did was kill some nigra, he went on. And now
they gonna fry your ass for it. Fucking ironic or what, eh?
        And
then he reached into his shirt pocket, took out a cigarette, lit it. He inhaled
once and then, smiling through the grille, he dropped the cigarette to the
floor and ground it to dust beneath the sole of his shoe. Did it on purpose.
        Ground
it so fine it could never have been retrieved and re- rolled.
        And
then he crouched on his haunches and peered through the bars at me. For a moment
there was an expression of sympathy.
         Some
folks are here 'cause they deserve it, he started. And then there's some folks
that are here to pay for all of our sins. You're here 'cause you're just too
fucking stupid to know better, Ford. That's the simplicity of it. Seems to me
there was a time some way back when you did something you decided was worth
buryin' yourself for, eh? Always the way. If you're not here for what they said
you done, then sure as shit is brown and smells bad you're here for what you
think you done. An' don't tell me I ain't right, 'cause I know I am.
        The
sympathetic expression folded seamlessly into one of disgust and disdain.
        Whatever
the hell it was, boy, you felt bad enough to get yourself killed for it.
        Mr.
West, despite everything, knew when he'd caught a nerve, and once caught he'd
twist it like some vicious and sadistic orthodontist. Some said he could read
minds. Some said he could sense the tiniest tics and flinches in your
expression and catch those like a frog catching flies. Never missed, always
satisfied, always ready for more.
        He
stood up, the caustic sneer ever-present, and walked slowly away.
        Mr.
West's words had been timed perfectly, for he knew where I hurt, he knew where
my wounds were, and he played at them ceaselessly.
        Seemed
to me Mr. West had chosen me as his raison d'etre, at least for now, at
least until I walked the walk and sat in the Big Chair. That's what he
wanted; that's what would make him happy.
        That was
Nathan's birthday, and it was remembering this that made me think of Greenleaf
once more. Made me think of a particular day; the day the world made it clear
that Nathan Verney and I were not, and never would be, the same.
        
        
        Seems
to me now that all everyone wanted to do was fuck everyone else.
        You
could sense it in the atmosphere.
        We
were all the same age - sixteen, going on seventeen - and we hung around a soda
shop called Benny's. Benny was Benny Amundsen, an immigrant from some place in
Europe, a good man, an honest man, but a man who walked a fine line himself due
to his own non-American status.
        Benny's
had a juke box, an ancient battered work of art. That juke box played maybe ten
tunes, twelve on a good day, and though the records skipped and skidded, and
sometimes you didn't hear a damned thing at all, it was still the center of the
universe as far as the Greenleaf teenagers were concerned.
        That
day there were maybe twenty kids in all. Guys wearing skinny-legged pants and
tee-shirts, girls wearing frocks, hair made up in beehives like Martha &
The Vandellas or somesuch. They danced a little, they laughed, drank their
sodas, and you could smell the tension in the air. Like I said, everyone wanted
to fuck everyone else, though had they been presented with such an opportunity
they more than likely would not have known what to do with it.
        Nathan
and I were seated near the window. Nathan had been folding a napkin into
something like a bird. I had been