"My mama say Rev Ike fo' fools!" Derek sneered.

"Yo mama a fool," Tyrone countered.

Derek reared back to punch Tyrone. Tyrone wheeled backward fast. Stony held the rear of Derek's wheelchair to keep him from chasing Tyrone all over the room. "You know I got a brother that's eight."

"He a Indian too?" Tyrone asked.

"Nah, he's black." Stony smiled.

"You liah." Derek squinted skeptically.

"It can be! It can be! Ah knows this white boy in mah class las' year, Robert Parker? He black an' he got a white sister!" Tyrone wheeled himself in front of Derek. "Right?" he asked Stony.

Stony shrugged, stuck on his joke.

"Is yo' brother in the hospital?"

"Nah, he's home."

"What's his name?"

"Albert."

"Fat Albert!" Derek and Tyrone exclaimed together.

Stony snorted. "Yeah, Fat Albert."

"Hey, De Coco, you got a car?" Tyrone asked.

"Yeah."

"I can drive," said Derek. "My granma got a tractor an' she gonna show me how to drive it."

"What kinda car you got, a LD?"

"A what?"

"A LD! A Catalac."

"LD, LD." Stony frowned. "Oh, an Eldorado! No way, try a Mustang."

Tyrone and Derek smirked. "Tha's weak! Tha's a honky-mobile!"

Stony shrugged.

"Man, ah wouldn't be caught dead in nothin' but a LD," Tyrone said.

"That's too bad, I was gonna offer you guys a ride when you got better."

"Where you gonna take us?"

"What's the difference? All's I got is a honky-mobile."

Derek punched Tyrone. "Stupid!"

"You ever drive down to South Carolina?"

"I drove all the way to Florida once."

"That's near California, right?"

A nurse came in, hands in the pockets of her white dress. She wore a white crown cap and rimless glasses. "O.K., boys, time to go back." She grabbed the rear handles on Derek's wheelchair. They groaned in protest. "Could you take Tyrone?" she asked Stony. Stony jumped up. "They just go down the hall."

Stony wheeled Tyrone down the corridor into a long room lined with beds. Stony stopped in front of Tyrone's bed and locked the wheelchair. He slipped his hands under Tyrone's armpits and lifted him up onto the sheets. The nurse did the same with Derek at the next bed.

"Hey, De Coco! You comin' back tomorrow?"

"Sure!"

"You gonna tell us more stories?"

"Hell yeah! See you guys tomorrow!"

"Mrs. Pitt wants to see you," the nurse said as they walked down the corridor.

***

"So how'd it go today?" Mrs. Pitt leaned back and her chair squeaked and snittered with every move.

"Whew!" Stony shook his head. "Heavy, very heavy. I just hung around with two kids in the day room, Derek and Tyrone?"

Mrs. Pitt nodded.

"God! Derek showed me his legs. I couldn't believe it."

Mrs. Pitt sighed. "I've known Derek Walcott since he was an infant. He was first brought in here with malnutrition in nineteen sixty-six. Then he was back two years later with severe cuts and bruises. We had a neighbor testify and got his mother put away for six months. We sent him up to live with an aunt in Brooklyn, but after two years his mother sued to get him back, successfully. After this, what you saw, I think we can finally separate them for good. When his legs heal we're moving him into a city home for boys on Staten Island with the possibility of foster parents taking him in the next year or two."