“In the kitchen,” said Charlotte Green.

Albert scratched his side. He was going to look a lot like Joey. He had the same wiry set of muscles, the same lean build. And his face was already growing handsome. “Hey,” he said, “is he really going to the white school tomorrow?”

Charlotte nodded.

“I sure hate to miss that.” Albert laughed. He was thirteen years old; he said what he felt like saying. “That ought to be a real lot of fun.”

Joey said, “Yeah.”

Albert looked first at his mother, then at his elder brother, shrugged and went toward the kitchen. “You think there going to be any fights?” he asked.

“No,” Charlotte said, “there won’t be any fights, Albert. You get your pajamas on. It’s time for bed.”

“Eight thirty?”

“Get them on.”

“I want some bread first.”

“All right, all right,” Joey heard himself shouting, “you go get that goddamn bread, will you, and shut up!” He felt the blood pounding in his throat.

“Well,” Albert said, “I guess there going to be some fights, okay,” and he disappeared into the kitchen.

Uncle Rowan frowned.

There was a silence. Charlotte said softly, “Joey, I think maybe we ought to talk. Do you want to?”

Joey didn’t want to talk; he was afraid of what he would say. But he nodded. “Sure, Ma.”

“We’ve been through it before, but you’re troubled, I see that, and it won’t do any harm to speak.” She paused, groping for words. She was slender, more youthful in appearance than her forty-nine years would suggest; but she moved slowly, and spoke slowly. “Your daddy ought to be here, but he won’t be home until eleven, and I’m just afraid you aren’t going to last that long,” she said.

“I told you, I’m all right,” Joey said.

“No,” his mother said, “you’re not. You’re worried.”

“Worried?” Joey tried with all his strength to keep calm, but the air had gone from the room, and there was only the still heat, filling him. He had tried in every way to keep his opinions away from his parents, to make them think he believed as they did, but now, tonight, it was more than he could do.

“Worried? For God’s sake—”

The words came up; he felt them coming, sour and acid, and they told all that he felt; and he fought them. But why? She was going to get hurt anyway. Why not hurt her a little now?

“Ma—”

There was a knock at the door. A brisk, businesslike knock.

He let the breath out of his lungs, turned, opened the door.

“Hello, Joey.”

A tall, husky man in a black suit stood at the threshold. In an odd sort of way, he resembled pictures of the great fighter, Jack Johnson; but there was nothing rugged about his features.

“Hello, Reverend.”

Joey stepped back and motioned the man inside.