“So that man up on the porch revealed to himself. It was very simple what he did. He held his smile while he told her: what she should do. Told her to go over to Fishtown, to Niggertown, and went on then, enjoying the loss of twenty-five years to describe to her where he was talking about. Because when she’d left Sweetboro there was of course no such place. So he journeyed back and laid out the geography to her. Told her to go over there and ask around. Because he knew she would find no answer there. Because he knew there was none to tell her. But wanted her to do that first, because he knew there was only him. Wanted her to know for her ownself he was the only one she could come to. Reminded her she was a fugitive woman. And then told her what it would cost her to learn what she wanted. He sat up straight in that rocker, leaving that goddamn cane flat on the porch floor and forced himself erect to look down at her. Still smiling at her. And told her what she would have to trade for what she wanted. And did not wait to watch her face but bent and scrabbled for his cane and stood sideways a moment on the porch, looking off away from her, letting her see that some part of him still worked exactly right.

“It did not matter what she told him then. He looked down at her face all blotched with anger, still so pretty and fine. Fine like an animal, the sort of creature a man would make if he could make anything he wanted, to his own specifications—wasn’t that after all what those old Greeks were up to with their nymphs and naiads, the woman as a creature of the world, out of stone, rock, wood or some such thing, some material that we strive to join with? Some other beyond just the simple frail humanity of a woman?

“So he waved her off, just waved a hand at her response. Told her again to go over to Niggertown and see for herself, then come back. Not sure she would go anywhere. Just wanting her to have to wait. And he turned then and went on in the house, shutting the door behind him, sliding home the bolt he almost never used. So she could hear him do that. He wanted her to hear the sound of the lock sliding home. Wanted her to know she’d have to come up on the porch when she returned and knock at that door. That he would not be out waiting on her. Wanted that locked door to make clear there was no negotiation.