They looked at me—the policeman had the palest eyes I’d ever seen. In just the light from the bug-swirled dock lamp, they looked like floodlit ice. The fisherman took the bottle, lifted his head for another swallow, and looked away. He handed it to the policeman, who took it—but was still watching.

I walked on.

There was only one more boat after that, and nobody was on it. But empty docks went on a ways. So I kept walking. The brush and weeds and trees between the docks and the old warehouses were higher here.

About twenty-five, thirty yards on, in the gravel behind me I heard steps.

I didn’t turn, but when I slowed, the steps slowed. When I stopped, they shushed off into the bushes. I didn’t look back, but I was pretty sure it was the nigger who’d hoisted his meat at me when I’d tasted his pee down by the first boats, come up after me now, here beyond the end.

Well back in the brush, two, five, three at a time, with pauses in between, the steps came closer.

I turned and pushed into the brush too.

Leaves slapped at my face. Twigs caught on my shirt. Then, three or four yards in, I found a clearing where the stuff wasn’t even up to my knees. The steps came on, slowed—perhaps he wasn’t sure I’d come in, though I couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard me. Some more steps came closer. Then I realized: it was more than one person. It was two people, together.

I turned and started away again. One time, about a year ago, on Federal Street over by the University, two guys together caught me and took me to some burned-out building. (The young one, I think, was from the college.) Most of the things they did with me I didn’t like at all. And it took me three days before I got away. The brush here was so loud, there wasn’t any hiding. But I moved toward where it got thicker and higher, going beside the docks, in the direction I’d been going before.

My steps quickened. Their steps quickened.

So I stopped and turned around, ready to run off. Outside and over some warehouse door, a bulb in a wire cage was burning, its light all splintered through the leaves and branches. Really, you couldn’t see much by it.

They stopped, first one, then the other—right next to him.

“Hey. That’s you, ain’t it, white boy?” It was a nigger’s voice, calling softly; but familiar. “You out here lookin’ for somethin’?”

“We got somethin’ for you, if you want it.” That was a white man’s, also quiet, also familiar. “You like black cheese? I got a whole handful of just what you want.”

The nigger laughed, low and rough.

I took a couple of steps forward.

From the warehouse bulb behind the leaves, a sliver of light glistened on a dead black shoulder the way it never would on a white guy’s. Someone shifted—and beside it I saw freckles in the copper snarl.