“The engine seized right up on us, I guess the car’s a real mess.”

“I guess.”

“My daughter here forgot to put any oil in it, that’s the way young people are these days, ruin one car and on to the next. Material things don’t mean a thing to ’em.”

“To some, I guess.”

Skeeter says sideways to him, “Yo’ sho’ meets a lot ob nice folks hevin’ en acci-dent lahk dis, a lot ob naas folks way up no’th heah.”

“Yes, well,” the driver says, and that is all he says until he says to Rabbit, having stopped on Vista Crescent, “Eighteen.”

“Dollars? For ten miles?”

“Twelve. And I got to go back twelve now.”

Rabbit goes to the driver’s side to pay, while the others run into the house. The man leans out and asks, “Know what you’re doing?”

“Not exactly.”

“They’ll knife you in the back every time.”

“Who?”

The driver leans closer; by street-lamplight Rabbit sees a wide sad face, sallow, a whale’s lipless mouth clamped in a melancholy set, a horseshoe-shaped scar on the meat of his nose. His answer is distinct: “Jigaboos.”

Embarrassed for him, Rabbit turns away and sees—Nelson is right—a crowd of children. They are standing across the Crescent, some with bicycles, watching this odd car unload. This crowd phenomenon on the bleak terrain of Penn Villas alarms him: as if growths were to fester on the surface of the moon.

The incident emboldens Skeeter. His skin has dared the sun again. Rabbit comes home from work to find him and Nelson shooting baskets in the driveway. Nelson bounces the ball to his father and Rabbit’s one-handed set from twenty feet out swishes. Pretty. “Hey,” Skeeter crows, so all the homes in Penn Villas can hear, “where’d you get that funky old style of shooting a basketball? You were tryin’ to be comical, right?”

“Went in,” Nelson tells him loyally.

“Shit, boy, a one-armed dwarf could have blocked it. T’get that shot off you need a screen two men thick, right? You gotta jump and shoot, jump and shoot.” He demonstrates; his shot misses but looks right: the ball held high, a back-leaning ascent into the air, a soft release that would arch over any defender. Rabbit tries it, but finds his body heavy, the effort of lifting jarring. The ball flies badly. Says Skeeter, “You got a white man’s lead gut, but I adore those hands.” They scrimmage one on one; Skeeter is quick and slick, slithering by for the layup on the give-and-go to Nelson again and again. Rabbit cannot stop him, his breath begins to ache in his chest, but there are moments when the ball and his muscles and the air overhead and the bodies competing with his all feel taut and unified and defiant of gravity. Then the October chill bites into his sweat and he goes into the house. Jill has been sleeping upstairs. She sleeps more and more lately, a dazed evading sleep that he finds insulting. When she comes downstairs, in that boring white dress, brushing back sticky hair from her cheeks, he asks roughly, “Dja do anything about the car?”