I couldn’t deny even to Railer that Baptiste was my relation. I’m still shaming myself by trying to deny the connection. My mother used to encourage me to help Baptiste, to be a good example to him. When Baptiste was younger I’d tried to have a man-to-man talk with him. I was twenty-some years old and Baptiste must have been about thirteen at the time. Baptiste was smoking kinnikinnick outside the Dixon Bar. I sat down next to him on the stoop. He was just a scrawny kid but he turned his back to me. He was bare chested and the day drifted to the edge of cold. His skin welted with goose bumps, but he squared his shoulders to the cold and most likely to me. “Look Baptiste,” I had said, “Auntie tells me you got some problems.” He pulled on his homemade cigarette, and I heard the tough snap of a seed exploding. He faced me and blew smoke out his nose like a tough guy. I thought I had his attention. “You can talk to me you know,” I had said. “If you got problems, kid, you can talk to me.”

“Yeah,” he said, lifting his eyebrows to me, and I felt good then, hopeful, like I was making a difference. “I’ve got a lot of problems.” He drew hard on his cigarette again, then opened his fingers to let it drop to the ground. Before I could stop him he stepped on the stogie with the ball of his bare foot and rubbed it out. He didn’t flinch or even show discomfort, and I thought what a kid he really was. “A lot of problems,” he said, looking me in the eye. I was nodding, urging him on. “And you’re number one,” he said. He had taken me off guard. He stood up and I saw how thin he was, scrawny, long armed and long legged, his thin pants high-water. His belt was looped with a woman’s red scarf. He looked pitiful.

I put my hand on his shoulder and he pulled away from me with such force it startled me. I felt the heat of his shoulder, the strength of his frame. “Don’t be getting funny with me,” he said. And he walked away from me then. I don’t know how long I sat on those cold porch steps in my polished shoes and ironed shirt, my good intentions turned sour. I could hear the bar customers at my back talking about the price of cattle, laughing about their hard luck, and I wasn’t even good enough to step into that bar and wash down Baptiste’s sour words with a beer. I wasn’t even good enough to walk behind Baptiste. I sat there for a long time until I believed I had shaken the connection. I was wrong.