But she loved that boy, Horace—how old was he when she died? Ten? Eleven? The day Sammy brought him there to the house until the day she died, that was her joy. I knew she was happy. It had been so long since she had a child to touch, to hold, to feed and diaper. Doing the little things like putting powder on him, teaching him to talk, watching him do his first steps. When he got old enough, helping him with his writing and his reading. He was so smart. Oh, was she pleased: her grandbaby. Teachers stopping by the house to tell her how smart her little grandson was; oh, she was happy over him.

I spect her dying had some effect on that youngin. Maybe I’m just saying that, thinking it to take the blame away from where it ought to be. No, the boy was fine all through grade school. A little quiet, a mite shy, damned bookish. But he was all right. Didn’t give me no trouble. And them girls of Jonnie Mae’s helped so much—he was ungrateful, that’s what the matter was. Life had been too easy for him. I made Sammy work. And I worked right there with him. Two men together. So I had a idea what was going on in his head. But Horace. Oh, he’d put in a few days of tobacco in summer—I had stopped farming by the time he was old enough and all our land leased out—he worked some, but I see now it wont enough. When he said he wanted to run on the track team, I was so happy he finally wanted to do something other than read in a book, I said go right ahead. But he started to change. Now, in grade school it was all right to have his little white friends, cause they wont friends. They was schoolmates. The way it ought to been. But when he went over to South York High School and commenced to “hanging out” with them white boys, his “group” he called it . . . just messed his mind up. Piercing his ear. I couldn’t tell him he couldn’t do stuff outside class. That wouldn’t a been right either. He was foreign to me. Trying to be like them white folks is what it was. And then that summer I let him work at that theater. Lord . . . he’d have been better off in the fields. It was just like Sammy all over again. Coming home late. Coming home drunk.

Boy, where you been? Do you know what time it is? I been sitting up here all night, worrying. Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Yes, sir. It’s three o’clock.

Boy, this is my house and if you think you too grown to abide by my rules, then I spect you better get up and go.