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window staring into the darkness. Martha hummed in her bed, in her corner of the room.
    “My Leon,” Bess said.
    Leon tensed. He was no longer anyone’s Leon, least of all Bess’s. Yet, he had been taught to respect his mother.
    “Let me have your sweetness,” she said, shifting back close to the wall, leaving a space on the straw for him to lie down near her.
    Leon looked at his father who let too many things go on. “No,” Leon whispered. “I’m going for a walk. I’m in a thinking way and I’m going.”
    Leon noticed Big Leon smile to himself. A sign of approval?
    Bess screeched, surprising them all. Then she covered her head and mumbled a long sentence that kept going even as Leon left the shack.
    The cold bit hard, but he stepped lively into the darkness. The moon had remained low on the horizon and could not be seen from the woods. He knew his way to the creek. The closer he got the louder the sound and the colder the night air. At the creek flat, Leon kneeled down and hugged his knees to conserve a little body heat.
    He tried to feel white, but nothing came except images of Hank and Earl and Mr. Carpenter. He couldn’t even conjure his own face. Then there were white women, but only a few. Mona, in his memory, always stared ahead, seldom looked around. It was as if she had been dead for years, like Bess was becoming dead. Mona moved slowly. Hillary had talked about how Mona mumbled, not ever saying any real words, agreeing and disagreeing with herself at the same time. The tones involved were what had made Hillary think so. And now Bess mumbled.
    Thinking of Hillary also brought up other images. Her hanging breasts, thick arms, and wide, when she bent to pick up her dress, butt. Leon laughed out loud. She smelled like sweat and sweet water. Her big arms were made for work, but since she did little of that, they were flabby and soft.
    He pictured lying atop that big softness and felt the itch to do it again.
    Still, in his imagination, he didn’t look or feel white.
    He spit onto the rocks. Moonlight edged onto the flat from behind him, scattering the pebbles and stones into shadow and light. The creek sparkled.
    He pictured Big Leon, Tunny, Bud, and all the other shack people together. Picturing him with them made it plain as day that he wasn’t black either.
    “I nothin’,” he said. “Evil have its own look.”
    Hearing his voice, Leon heard again what Big Leon had told him that day. ‘You have to think white, read white, and speak white.’
    Big Leon never said feel white. He never said be white.
    Leon didn’t feel white, but he knew how to speak white. In fact, he spoke better than most whites. Leon didn’t feel black either, but he could speak black.
    He spit onto the rocks again. He looked into the trees on the opposite bank. The moonlight brightened the branches and highlighted the new life, the spring buds searching for a place in the world. Was he evil? He sensed pain and sadness inside him, but also song and delight. Perhaps Mix-up was an appropriate name for his feelings as well as his heritage, as well as his appearance.
    A great horned owl hooted and Leon saw it high in a tree waiting for the stirring of a mouse.
    He spit once more, then stood. Cold air brushed all the newly exposed areas of his skin. He rubbed his arms. In a slow careful run Leon headed to the only family he knew.
    He sneaked into the shack, undressed and lay on the cold straw floor, pulling a blanket over him. There had been a fire in the fireplace earlier, but only embers glowed now. He stared across the room into the red and black mystery of the dying fire. He listened to the shallow breathing from the other bodies who shared the shack with him. He attempted to sense a connection, a kinship, an instinct, between him and each of them. Only thoughts of Martha brought that family feeling. For Big Leon he felt respect. He felt pride. For Bess, even the thought of her made him tense up and pull back. He closed his eyes