“I … Oh, gee, Esau. I get it. I really get it. What Miss Jayne taught me, it wasn’t just about girls, right?”
“It’s about everything, Tory-boy. How many times have I told you that you’re a lot smarter than folks think you are?”
“You’re always saying that, Esau.”
“And I believe it, too. So that makes it … Tell me, Tory-boy, what does that make it?”
“It makes it … true! You cast a spell, but it didn’t take, because I didn’t believe you believed it yourself. I thought you were just being nice to me, like always.”
“But now you know, right?”
“I do. I do, for real.”
“I would never lie to you, Tory-boy. Never.”
He sat down on the floor right next to me and started crying. I patted him like I always did when he was upset, but that time, I knew he was crying for joy.
was really encouraged by such things. I guess, deep down, I was hoping Tory-boy would find himself a girl with real smarts. A girl he could marry, and then they’d take care of each other. He could bring in all the money they’d ever need—I’d already made sure of that—and she could help him with some of the stuff he couldn’t handle so well.
But any girl from around here smart enough to do that kind of thing was smart enough to get out. And never come back.
ory-boy’s mind was always at ease. I kept it that way by surrounding him with knowledge he could have and hold. He knew I’d always fix anything, always keep him safe. Always love him.
I got a lawyer to draw up the papers. A legal trust, so Tory-boy would be taken care of for the rest of his life. I even named the lawyer as the trustee, so he would be the man who paid any bills that might come up. He was also to make sure Tory-boy got whatever else he needed, from bribing a lawman to drawing up a deed.
The lawyer I used, he was a young man. His father and his father before him had been lawyers, too. Now all three of their names were on the shingle, but only him and his father were still alive.
I wasn’t worried about that lawyer trying to cheat Tory-boy. His father handled cases for the people I did all that work for, and I was confident he’d passed what that meant along to his son.
If that lawyer ever cheated Tory-boy, if he ever failed on his promises, he was never going to be able to start his car. Or pick up his telephone. Or stand near a window.
He’d never know how or when, but something would be coming for him; he could count on that.
If I was still around, I’d handle it myself. I had a hundred ways to do that. And if I wasn’t, then those people I had worked for, their part would be a man with black pantyhose over his face, black latex gloves on his hands, holding a double-barreled sawed-off, with a pistol in his pocket for finishing off his job. The people I had done all that work for, their part was to make that lawyer’s ending dead sure.
I didn’t care if that ever happened. All I needed was for that lawyer to believe it would.
I had plenty on his father, too. When I told him just a little bit of that, he got real anxious. But I calmed him right down. I made him understand I wasn’t selling; I was buying.
All those things I told him, they weren’t any kind of blackmail; I was just making a payment on Tory-boy’s life-insurance policy.
Tory-boy had more than one of those. Which was kind of the point of me talking to that lawyer at all.
As long as Tory-boy stayed protected, it would be as if I had never died. I’d still be with him, keeping him safe.
e had a car, too. A van, with a lift for my chair. Tory-boy could drive real well. His coordination was damn near perfect. He just couldn’t … make decisions, I guess is the best way to put it.
So I made the decisions for us both. Anytime I had to deliver one of the devices I made, Tory-boy would always be right there with me. I didn’t need him for protection—and I’d never let him carry a firearm—I just didn’t like leaving him alone.
The people I delivered things to were bad men, but I never felt even a little tremor of fear when I was around them. They were always going to need more of the things I made. And they knew I’d never say a word about them to anybody, ever.
They knew what my word was worth to them. And what their lives were worth to me if they didn’t keep theirs.
So I wanted to make sure they knew Tory-boy’s face. Had it memorized.
suppose it would be fair to say I was a criminal myself way before I started working for criminals. I was selling those drugs, wasn’t I? I knew what drugs did to folks. I’d seen people—kids, even—turn themselves into … things. They’d stop being human. Lie to their friends, steal from their own families. Sell their blood and their bodies. Take anything; give up everything.
Drugs. You die from them; you die for them. Either way, you’re dead. I knew all that, but it never caused me to hesitate a second.
So maybe it wasn’t only my lower half that didn’t feel much of anything. Maybe my conscience was like that, too. Not dead, but … frozen, I guess. Frozen beyond any heat they have on this planet.
I think that was it. From the first time I showed those people what I was capable of, I’d known what I was going to be doing with the rest of my life.
There wasn’t anything else. I used to fantasize about what it would be like if we could put my brain into Tory-boy’s body. One of us would have to die to make that happen … but neither one would ever know which one had.
If that fantasy could actually happen, it wouldn’t matter even if we did know. Tory-boy would die for me without thinking about it. The only difference between us is that I would think about it. But I’d still do it.
Fantasy. Wish. Dream. Whatever I called it, I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen.
couldn’t help noticing how women denied Miss Webb the respect properly due her. Not because she tried to come in here and change things. She never did that; all she ever wanted to do was make things better. No, those women withheld their respect because Miss Webb never got married, that’s why. A lady in her position, she didn’t have the option of just taking up with a man. You expect that from trash, but not from someone who got themselves an education.
“Nice-looking woman like she is,” they’d say, “she doesn’t have a man, you know what that means.”
In one way, Jayne Dyson and Miss Webb were like sisters. They both showed proud. Never looked away, never let on they’d even heard the whispers. Always kept their backs straight and their heads high.
Jayne Dyson and Miss Webb, they wrapped themselves in their own self-respect, and no amount of nasty little whispering was ever going to crack those stone walls they put up.
Maybe that’s how they found their balance, just as I had.
I really and truly cared for Jayne Dyson. Respected her, too. And even before I was grown, I had loved different women for different reasons—like Mrs. Slater, for helping me raise Tory-boy.
But for myself, for me as a man, Miss Webb was the only woman I ever loved.
eople are always talking about how you have to make your own way in this world. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Make it on your own.
They’ll look at the TV hanging in a corner of some bar when it’s showing a black kid being handcuffed. They’ll tell each other that it’s niggers on Welfare that are ruining this country.
But the checks they get, the ones they drink up every month, those get called County Aid, or Disability, or Unemployment … anything but Welfare.