Free If Jack's in Love by Stephen Wetta Page B

for everything, your father should know that.”
    Dickie was averting his eyes.
    â€œPop does what he wants to do,” I said.
    â€œWell, you should bring it up with him, tell him what I said.”
    My pop could kick your ass into the next county, I was thinking. But I didn’t say it. Mr. Pudding was one of the few men in the neighborhood willing to acknowledge Pop. Sad as it sounds, he was one of the good guys.
    â€œI don’t think he’d listen to me,” I said.
    â€œWhy not, aren’t you the brains of Lee Elementary?”
    My grades were the subject of frequent comment in the neighborhood. That a Witcher should make the honor roll was an anomaly in social logic. My brother certainly never made the grades. In fact, because of his legacy my teachers (Mrs. Carter aside) hated me even before they knew me.
    I reminded Mr. Pudding that we were starting junior high in the fall and that Lee Elementary was irrelevant. He nodded absentmindedly, already thinking about something else.
    â€œSnead’s not such a bad colored fellow,” he allowed. “The Sneads aren’t bad people.”
    â€œNo sir.”
    â€œBut don’t you think Snead of all people would know better?”
    â€œBetter than what?”
    â€œThan to come in here if it’s not for work.”
    I shrugged. It was none of my business. I decided that would be my policy when dealing with the Snead scandal. And there was sure to be trouble. The amiability of Mr. Pudding’s face had been replaced by tight lines formed by so many disciplined years in the wilderness of the dialectic of white supremacy.
    â€œY’all come on down, we’ll throw the baseball in a while,” he said.
    Abruptly he spun and went towards his house.
    I was surprised to have gotten off that easily. Dickie seemed so relieved that I half expected him to leap up and do a softshoe. But what had made Mr. Pudding get so preoccupied? We watched him pass indoors. I worried he might be phoning his fellow Ku Kluxers that very moment to convene an emergency konklave. The last thing the Witchers needed was the KKK on our ass.
    Dickie and I sat in silence. There wasn’t much to say, even though our eyes kept searching for what the other was thinking.
    He claimed he had something to do and left me sitting by the bush.
    By now I didn’t care whether I saw Myra or not. Of course, that is precisely when she appeared, in the moment of my perturbation. Too demoralized to call out, I watched while she made her progress through the trees.
    Mr. Pudding had thrown me for a loop. If the Puddings had such a hard time with Witcher ways, what prayer would I have with Brahmins like the Joyners? My father entertained Negroes. We were broke. Only last night Pop had admitted to Mom that he’d lost fifty bucks to a bookie, and Mom had hit the ceiling. He was supposed to have been in Southside applying for a mechanic position; instead he was betting on baseball.
    By the time I found the resolve to catch Myra, she was gone. I dashed out of the woods and hurried to the end of the street. She wasn’t anywhere in sight. She’d already turned the corner onto Myra Street.
    For a moment I was too deflated to keep going. But then I reached in my pocket and felt the ring....
    I caught her as she was passing through the gateway that led to the alley behind the shopping center.
    Within moments I had her against the brick wall, next to the insurance agency. Her eyes were focused on the red stone in my palm. I was passing it this way and that before her eyes, hoping it might perform some mystical agency on my behalf.
    â€œI can’t,” she kept saying, “I can’t.”
    I held the stone under her eyes.
    â€œThat isn’t the ring you showed me the other day.”
    â€œIt’s yours,” I said, “take it.”
    She sucked her teeth in frustration. She was all too aware of the ostracism suffered by Courtney Blankenship before