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Show Why We Cry Butch and Fenn Stories 173 "Butch! What's the matter? Hey?" But when I approach him, he pushes off the fridge and walks past me to his camp. "Butch?" He doesn't answer. He reaches in a milk crate and holds out a paper bag. I take it. Inside are all my bottle cap men. They've been down here for a long time. I take out a green plastic cap. That guy could really hit. Some of these guys, I realize, are six years old. Now Butch has covered his face in both hands. I stand in the crickets and watch his back for five minutes. "Butch? Butch, are you okay?" "Go away, Larry," he says finally. "Go home." I limp halfway home on that one shoe until I pass the monstrous poplar in front of Lopez's. I stand there and throw my shoe up into the tree three, four, five times until it catches. I toss my dirty socks into the vacant lot. There, too, I bury the bottle caps. As I turn the Concord corner for home, the tennis court lights go out. It's late. I remember the first time I met Butch. We were in the first grade, Miss Scanlon's class. He asked me how old I was and I lied: I said six. After school he took me across to his house and showed me an experiment. He heated a white dinner plate on the kitchen stove, and ran it outside in an old towel. When he poured cold water on the plate, it cracked into three pieces. |