Free Mercy by Alissa York Page A

other—cannonballs, scissor-legs, awkward, splashy dives—disappearing and bobbing back, stroking hard for the outcropping and hauling themselves out, as though there were no pleasure to be had in the water, but only in breaking its surface, in feeling it rush up around you and swallow your yelling head. From where August was standing, they made a circle of sorts, their brown bodies rotating in a wheel.
    Until one of them chanced to look up.
    “Hey!” The boy’s fat finger rose to inform. “It’s him. It’s that son of a
bitch.”
    Burnt necks swivelled.
    “What’cha doin’ out, sonny?” said another. “Your mama got a
gentleman caller
?”
    Yes, thought August, your father. Didn’t speak it, though, kept his tongue. He’d learned long ago there was no right answer, just as he’d learned they couldn’t chase him if he could force himself never to run, or that it was no fun for them to beat on something that wouldn’t fight back and wouldn’t even cry.
    Now it was almost always just words, and even those lacked their former force. As little boys they had understood how wrong, how downright evil it was for a woman—no matter how lovely, and even then they knew she was—for a woman with no husband to receive
paying
gentlemen in her home. Now those same boys could feel manhood beginning to colour their blood, and the change made them not so sure. Some of the wilder ones made it theirbusiness to pass close by Aggie’s place on their way fishing. Some even stole into her backyard to slide silk stockings from the line—stockings they would press to their faces, even to their bare bellies, once they were safe in their beds.
    Still, the
son
of a woman like that—
    They left off jumping into the creek. When the last boy hauled himself out dripping, they spread out in a line, hardening their bodies to make certain August understood.
    They were like one of those cut-out garlands, six little figures in a row. August looked down through the spaces between their legs and saw the water, six muddy triangles of cool. Maybe, he thought slowly, if I walk upstream a ways, I’ll chance upon a better place.
    He turned to go, but instead of the wide field his eyes met three big, bare chests—more brown, rippling triangles, only these were turned tip-down. Two of the men had soiled undershirts hanging like tails from the hips of their pants, but the middle one had his tied in a headdress, Lawrence of Arabia—style. Their hands and heavy work-boots were black with grease. Railway men. August stole a look at their hard faces, figuring the middle one had been to see Aggie for sure.
    “Ain’t you goin’ in, boy?” Arabia’s hand came down on August’s thin shoulder, black hair steaming from the pit of his arm.
    “I—I—” August stammered.
    “C’mon.” The hand spun him lightly, and then August was slipping down the bank with Arabia right behind him, to where the other two were already stripping to their shorts. Arabia reached up to tighten the shirt’s knot, thenunbuckled his belt, motioning for August to do the same. Together they stepped out of their pants, and then the four of them tossed their clothing onto the bushes and walked out onto the coveted face of the rock. The boys broke and parted like a gate. Arabia’s two buddies strode through like it was their birthright and jumped in tandem, throwing up a watery wall. But Arabia was different. He took his time, nodded hello to both sides, then pressed the palms of his hands together and followed his fingertips through the air, parting the surface with his nails and sliding into the creek like a knife through chocolate cream.
    The boys began to smile now, relaxing their formation, a few of them whistling approval through their teeth. August held back. Arabia was underwater, nowhere to be seen. The two buddies were already climbing out, one with the look of twisted cable, the other hard in his own way, more like the rock they stood on, substantial and smooth.