“No,” the man said. He tipped his hat in the direction of Charlotte Green. “Charlotte, I wonder if you’d mind if Joey and I took a little walk?”

“You’re welcome here.”

“I know that. But it’s a hot night, and I have something kind of private to discuss. Do you mind, Joey?”

Joey shook his head.

“Just be back in time to get some sleep,” his mother said.

He walked down the steps with the man in the black suit, out onto the dusty road. The darkness was full; The Huddle had closed for the evening.

They walked for several minutes, then the husky man said, “Joey, I think you have a lot on your mind. A lot trying to get out. Maybe I can help.”

Joey found it difficult to lie. He had known Finley Mead ever since childhood, had listened to the man’s sermons—sometimes glowing and peaceful and full of poetry; sometimes thundering—and he respected him. More than that: he felt a kinship with him. Finley Mead was one of the few colored people in Simon’s Hill with whom Joey could talk, without talking down. He was a preacher, maybe: but he was sharp.

“You know, Reverend,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“I think so,” the man said. “See if I’m right. You don’t want to go to the white school tomorrow. You don’t think this integration idea is going to work. And you’re afraid to say what you think out loud.”

Joey sighed. Just getting it unbottled a little, just that much helped.

“It’s tough on you,” the minister continued. “Especially tough. You’re twenty years old. You had to miss a lot of school to pitch in for the family. Now things are almost, you might say, wound up for you. One more year at that Farragut school and you can graduate and go on to college. In the East.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I understand, Joey. And it don’t seem right to you, pulling you out of a good thing and putting you right back here in a nest of trouble.”

Joey fumbled for a cigarette, dropped his hands quickly. “If I thought it would work,” he said, “that would be different. But it won’t.”

“How do you know it won’t?”

“You read as much as I do. Just look at things. Things as they are, I mean as they really are, not the way Ma wants them to be.”

“You think you’re going to make them better by running away?”

“I don’t think it’ll make any difference,” Joey said. “Not now. People are people.”

Again, silence. The night thrummed with insect noises, but there was no other sound. The streets of Simon’s Hill were empty. Its houses were quiet.

“Joey,” the minister said, “we’ve always gotten along pretty good, you and me. Isn’t that right?”

“Sure,” Joey said.

“You think of me as a friend?”