Free My Great-grandfather Turns 12 Today by BILL DODDS

you live in the suppers?”
     
    “He lives in the city,” Charlie said. “He fell on his head and his brains are still a little mixed up.”
     
    “Uh huh,” Richard said. “Well, he sure doesn’t dress like he’s from around here.”
     
    Which I thought was kind of an interesting statement, coming from someone who wasn’t dressed at all.
     
    “Tell him why your gramma knows a lot about hurting,” Charlie said. “He’s trying to learn a thing or two while he’s here.”
     
    “Huh,” Richard said. “And I hope he does.” Then to me: “Gramma knows a lot about hurting because Gramma was a slave.”
     
    “No way!” I said.
     
    “What?”
     
    “I mean, really? A slave?”
     
    “That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” Richard answered, sounding a little annoyed.
     
    “When was she born?” I asked.
     
    He shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. Before the ’Mancipation Proclamation, that’s for sure.”
     
    “Before the what?” I asked.
     
    “Boy, you mean to tell me you never heard of the ’Mancipation Proclamation?”
     
    I shook my head. “I guess not,” I said.
     
    “Well, you know coloreds are free now, don’t you?”
     
    “Coloreds?” I asked.
     
    “His brains are more than mixed up,” he said to Charlie. “His brains are gone .” Charlie laughed. “This fool related to you or is he related to Bucky? This fool don’t know cow pie from shoofly pie.”
     
    What from what?
     
    Charlie laughed again. I began to suspect the black kid was saying all this stuff just to cheer him up.
     
    “What kind of pie from what kind of pie?” I asked, playing along and both boys howled.
     
    “We gonna call you ‘Bucky Junior’ you keep that up,” Richard said.
     
    “Who’s Bucky?” I asked.
     
    “Come on,” Charlie said and I followed both of them into the bushes.
     
    We walked maybe twenty-five yards and there was the river bank. It was about ten feet from the top of the bank down to the water. Overalls and some kind of underwear that were shirts and drawers in one piece were hanging on some bushes up where we were. Three boys—two white and one black—were splashing around down in the water which was maybe thirty feet across and moving slowly.
     
    “There’s a drop-off about twenty feet from shore,” Charlie was telling me. “A hole. That’s where you want to be sure to land.”
     
    “Land?” I asked.
     
    “Yeah, Junior,” Richard said. “Land. Hey, Bucky, come meet your kin.”
     
    A white boy of about ten walked out of the water. He was naked, too. He had dark hair that was slicked back from the water and his front teeth really protruded. They stuck way out.
     
    “Bucky was here all by hisself when Nate and I showed up,” Richard said. “Out swimming. I told him that’s dumb.”
     
    “If something happens to you, Bucky,” Charlie said, “no one will be around to help.”
     
    “It was hot,” he answered. “Where’d you get that shirt you’re holdin’?” He was looking at me.
     
    “This is my cousin Michael,” Charlie said. “This is Bucky Taylor.” The kid smiled and then turned around and waded back into the water.
     
    “He could sure use some braces,” I said.
     
    “He’s got no pants why would he need ’spenders?” Richard asked.
     
    “Need what?” I asked.
     
    “Suspenders,” Charlie translated and pretended to pull at something with each hand on either side at the top of his chest. I had no idea what he meant.
     
    “I said ‘braces.’” Both boys looked at me. “Wires in his mouth,” I explained.
     
    “Junior, why you want to put wires in that boy’s mouth?” Richard asked.
     
    “Little strands of metal,” I said.
     
    “Crazy.”
     
    “It would push his teeth back in,” I said.
     
    “My uncle’s got teeth like that,” Richard said. “You talk about wires around him, he’ll push your teeth into the back of your head.”
     
    In the meantime, Charlie had taken off his overalls and his