A Fine Dark Line by Joe R. Lansdale

him, that she hoped to see him soon. She talked about the trees where she lived, big dogwoods, and how she heard that the dogwood tree was the one used to make the cross that held Jesus up. That the white flowers that bloomed on the dogwoods had little red spots inside, like the drops of blood Jesus shed. That this was God’s message to remind us that Jesus had given his life on a dogwood cross.
    This dogwood cross thing was a popular story of the time, though when I grew up and read about such things, I never found serious reference to it. Most agreed the crosses used by the Romans would have been made of almost anything but dogwood.
    But Margret talked about all kinds of things like that. She was a dreamer, and I enjoyed her dreams.
    There were pages and pages of the journal where Margretmentioned the pregnancy, said how they could keep the child, raise it, as she said, “In spite of everything.”
    When I finally bored of the letters and journal pages, I put them back in the box and used my crutches to get me across the room to my closet. I put the box on the top shelf behind my cowboy hat and my Indian war bonnet, noticed something had eaten off the tips of the feathers.
    Oh well, I didn’t wear the bonnet anymore. I had outgrown playing cowboys and Indians. I had even stored my Davy Crockett coonskin cap away in my wooden chest. I now found the idea of running around the yard on an invisible horse with a racoon’s hide on my head, or an Indian war bonnet, foolish.
    I crutched back to the bed and lay down. I used Larry to scratch inside my cast, and gave up thinking about Margret for a while.

7
    N EXT DAY I spent in a lawn chair pulled up next to the projection booth, residing in its shade, reading a book by Edgar Rice Burroughs called Tarzan the Terrible . Nub lay at my feet, snoozing.
    I paused briefly to stretch, realized the sun was falling away. I was amazed to discover I had spent all day, except for a brief bathroom trip and time for lunch, in that chair reading.
    Late as it had become, it was still hot as a griddle, and when I returned to my book, sweat ran down my face.
    “You better get you a hat, boy. Only an idiot sits out in the sun like that.”
    I turned, startled. Nub raised his head for a look, lowered it again and closed his eyes.
    It was Buster Abbot Lighthorse Smith, carrying two paper sacks. One was wrapped tight around a bottle. The lid and neck of it stuck out of the top. He was unlocking the projection booth, sliding inside.
    He left the door open to let the heat out. He had a fan in there and he lifted it and sat it on a chair and turned it on. It could swing from left to right, but he had screwed it down so it wouldn’t move. He sat in a chair across from it and opened the top of his paper sack, produced a church key, and popped the top off the bottle and took a swig.
    “Shit,” he said, when he brought the bottle down. “Don’t ever take to this stuff, boy. Seen it knock many a nigger low, and it won’t do a white boy no good neither. You put this in a Mason jar lid, bugs will get in it and die. That ought to tell you somethin’. So, you don’t want none of this.”
    “No, sir.”
    He pulled the sack down and revealed an RC Cola.
    “Had you fooled, didn’t I?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    But I could smell alcohol, and knew he had been hitting the liquor before arriving.
    “I’m just kiddin’. Wouldn’t want you to think I’m drinkin’ on the job. Your daddy might not like that, and I wouldn’t want to have to go find some job shoveling gravel in this hot sun. How’s that book? That the one where Tarzan finds them dinosaurs, people that’s got tails.”
    “You’ve read it.”
    “You think niggers don’t read.”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    Buster laughed.
    “See you got you a plate by your chair. You eat out here?”
    “Lunch. Rosy Mae brought it to me.”
    “That old fat nigger gal?”
    I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. I had never had a