LITMIR.BIZ

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and I didn’t think I’d want to place any bets either way.

      “What the hell you want?” he asked.

      His lips moved beneath a wild beard like a miniature wilderness. I wondered if food crumbs and bugs lived in that tangle somewhere, in a little world separate from the one we were in. Maybe there was a whole civilization of lost bits of food and beetles in there somewhere, and when he talked it was like an earthquake and the voice of God from on high to the wee beard folk.

      For a moment I thought I’d laugh.

      Then I knew if that happened, I’d die, and so I didn’t laugh.

      “I’m here to see Bobby, sir.”

      I tried sounding as respectful as I could muster. Afraid of my head being popped like a grape, I think I did pretty good. Fear’s a fabulous motivator.

      “Are you the kid he’s been hanging out with so much?” I thought about answering but he kept on talking, and so I clacked my mouth shut. “He’s been shirking his chores, the fat lazy bastard. Gone all day long, comes home late, like this is some sort of motel he can just come and go from whenever he likes.”

      He paused like maybe he wanted me to say something, but I didn’t know what to say so I continued to keep my mouth shut.

      “You shirk your chores too? Out here running around like you got nothing to do.” Silence still seemed the best option on my end. Then: “Your parents some kind of fucking hippies? Let their kids run around and shit?”

      “No, sir,” I said, not really knowing which part I was answering to.

      “Yeah right,” he said, and I didn’t know which he was referring to either. Not that it mattered, even with him talking bad about my parents in some offhand manner. I imagined myself briefly trying to stick up for my folks, flipping this guy off or something, and him coming at me, and me trying to use one of the tricky leg maneuvers that Dad had taught me. This guy just laughing as I tried to tangle his legs with mine, or kick at a kneecap like a boulder, and he just twitched a big toe or something and I busted like a little glass figurine.

      “May I see Bobby, sir?” I said, deciding politeness was still the best course of action.

      “You talk like a fruit, kid.” He smiled, and he had teeth yellow-stained by years of nicotine. As I watched he pulled a crumpled pack of Camels from a breast pocket, pulled out its last inhabitant, and lit it up with a lighter shaped like a little pistol. “‘May I?’” he mocked, murmuring around the cigarette. “‘Sir,’” he said in a high and whiny voice. “Goddamn queers everywhere nowadays.”

      At that moment the door to the trailer swung open and hit the wall it was attached to with a metallic rattle. We both turned at the sound, and there was Fat Bobby standing in the doorframe. It took a second or two for me to notice what was different about my friend. The dark ring around his right eye seemed to call my gaze to it, like the target circle of a dartboard.

      I looked back at Mr. Templeton.

      He looked at his son, then looked down at me. It was clear he knew what I’d seen but he didn’t seem much concerned. As in not at all.

      “You know what happens in another body’s family isn’t none of your concern, don’t you, fairy boy?” he asked, and immediately, obediently, I nodded. “You don’t doubt that if you caused me any sort of trouble I wouldn’t think twice about bouncing you around some, do you?”

      I shook my head. No, I didn’t doubt it one bit.

      “Good,” he said, then he looked from me back to Bobby, still standing silent and slouched in the doorway of the trailer. “Get out of my sight.”

      Turning back to the Toyota he leaned once again under the hood.

      Bobby stepped off the porch lightly, making almost no sound, which, with his girth, was a tremendous feat of skill. Slowly, he walked towards me, moving as if he were trying to avoid disturbing a beehive. When he was close, he waved for me to follow and together we walked softly away from the miserable trailer, out of the neighborhood like a Third World ghost town, and onto the highway. After several minutes of silence like a period of mourning, I finally opened my mouth and told him what I wanted to do.

      Fat Bobby smiled as I spoke, and with that smile the effect of the black eye seemed to dwindle. Though we cheered up considerably talking about what we were going to do, time and again I turned to look at my friend and that shiner and, in my mind, I saw the fist that caused it coming down like a hammer.

      * * *

      On the way to the Connolly yard, we stopped at the hill on the dirt road overlooking the woods. I immediately saw the object casting back the sunlight that I’d seen before, far out into the forest among the thick carpet of trees. Fat Bobby saw it too, and I actually heard him breathe out something like an ‘ahhhhh’ of amazement.

      “That isn’t ghost lights or a UFO,” he said.

      “No, it isn’t,” I said and looked at my watch. It was approaching noon, and I tried to think back to that day I’d first met Fat Bobby, and what time I’d been standing on this very hill. It could have been around noon. Which meant that the object down there, be it abandoned car or something else, for some reason only reflected the sun at a certain time of the day and from a certain angle.

      This was intriguing, and I was eager to get on with our plans.

      “Come on,” I said and started to walk again. Bobby lingered for a moment, as if the light down there held him by a tether and was reluctant to let go. I knew the feeling. It’s that thing between boys and the mysterious, the unknown. Like an umbilical cord that gives and returns life.

      * * *

      Before hitting the Connolly yard we stopped by my house to pick up Bandit. The aroma of fresh cookies wrapped about us like tantalizing fingers as soon as we walked inside. We stayed awhile, watching my mom in the kitchen pulling out trays lined with brown baked delights and scooping them onto the counter to cool. We wanted them hot and begged for them, and Mom gave us each a handful. A glass of cool lemonade that fogged the glasses just a bit accompanied this feast, and we ate slowly, enjoying every bite and swallow as if they might never come again.

      Mom noticed Fat Bobby’s shiner, but she didn’t say anything. She gave me a look and I gave her one back, and somewhere in that secret exchange she understood the message: Not now. I’ll tell you later. She nodded as if she’d actually heard this, told us to enjoy our cookies, and then was off somewhere else in the house.

      As we were putting our glasses in the sink, Sarah came down the stairs in a summer dress, and her hair and face were all done up like for some sort of pageant. Date, I said to myself, and had to smile. Apparently, her true love in California was forgotten. Out of sight and out of mind.

      She saw us in the kitchen, saw my blooming smile, and pointed at me threateningly.

      “Don’t say a word,” she said, and that was like an invitation.

      “I think you need more makeup,” I said. “We can still see your face.”

      There was something in her other hand, the one not pointing like a dagger at me, and she wound up her arm and threw it and, too late, I saw it was her sandals and one of them hit me in the chest. The heel was broad and thick and it hurt when it struck. I laughed, though, seeing my sister’s face had turned red with the jab.

      “You don’t want him to know you’re a mutant on the first date.”

      And here came the other sandal, fast, and I stepped aside at the last moment and it sailed by my head, striking the refrigerator with a thump. My sister stomped determinedly towards me, and that was when Mom stepped back into the kitchen from the living room and planted herself between us.

      “What on earth is going on in here?”

      “Oh, Joey!” my sister bawled. “Why do

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