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Show < ? 1 i the big guy had stopped that whirring motion of his arms and was standing over k, fists clenched. Hoping he'd try to get up, probably. He didn't see the deputy le up behind him and that deputy wasn't taking any chances: he went up on his ;, reaching up as high as he could, and brought his billy down on that guy's head : he was hammering spikes. I heard a solid clunk and the guy dropped. He just pped, and I heard him hit the floor, and something dropped in me too. I thought was dead for sure. But he stood right back up. He came up with his back to the >uty and didn't even look around, didn't waste a second, taking off and striding ough that crowd like it was wheat, on out the door and bingo he was gone. Then crowd sort of came together again and the deputy couldn't get through it. Fhe whole thing didn't take more than a minute. Right around where it had jpened there had been a breath-caught lull, then came up again the voices, rising that heightened excited pitch. The circle around Buck shifted and he rose up in : middle of it streaming blood. At first I thought all of it was from his nose, that : blood from his nose had run into his mouth and he was spitting it out, but he'd ne up with that impudent grin not the slightest bit diminished and I saw that one his upper front teeth was gone. I was a little disappointed that he got up so easy, d only minus one tooth, but it wasn't me that prayed he'd lose more. Actually, I didn't see him much to remember until nearly a year later, that morning court the following June. I was there because somebody had had a birthday party the Lion's clubhouse, a small building in a small park on the north side of Selig, d if your parents had the money you could rent it, hire a small band and throw lat we thought was a pretty fancy deal. With fruit punch. Anyhow, I was sup-ised to take this girl I was deathlessly in love with that year and I really begged for e car. The Chevy sedan. I'd never been allowed to drive it alone; my father said I is too young. I'd been driving for five years and doing a man's work for four, and e put in ten hours a day six days a week in the summer, plus three hours of chores rery day, but I didn't point these things out to him. He is a stern reserved man and hen he said no, you're too young, what do you kids want with a car anyhow, I never •gued. I'd beg a ride with a friend, and then I'd have to go to my father, maybe ice a month or so, and ask him for a dollar. "What for?" he would ask, every me. "The school dance," I would say. "I thought that only cost fifty cents," he would ty, as if I was trying to con him. "It does. But we always go down and have ham-irgers and cokes afterwards." So he would dig up the dollar but always with such disapproving reluctance that each time I felt criminally at fault. But that time Mother argued for me because she thought this girl was so nice, her imily was so nice. And then afterwards, when all of us were driving up the avenue )ward Main Street, there was a speed trap and who did it spring on? It was a twenty-ve zone and this fat cop said I'd been doing twenty-nine but I couldn't have been. ince the dance ended at midnight we all left together, most of the cars were in front f me and I was lagging behind waiting for them to string out when he flagged me lown with a flashlight. But I took the ticket as meekly as if I'd been doing sixty tfy Father's Money 2I7 |
