Sweet Dream Baby by Sterling Watson Page A

like it, but then I see he does. He winks at me and says, “What’s shakin’, Buddy?”
    My Aunt Delia spins on her stool. “Kenny Griner, you leave him alone.”
    Griner smiles and raises both his hands and the jacket spreads again like the wings of that big buzzard I saw circling over the pasture when Aunt Delia and me were driving in her white Chevy. Griner says, “I ain’t doing nothing, Miss Delia. All I done was say hello to the boy.”
    My Aunt Delia looks at him for a while, and he keeps smiling at her, and she says, “Well, all right then,” and turns around to face the soda fountain.
    Griner goes back to his booth and sips the Coke and says, “News gets around fast in a small town.”
    My Aunt Delia turns around again, and there’s something scared in her eyes. Something I’ve never seen before. “News about what, Kenny? Did you set a new speed record from here to nowhere and back?” She’s smiling, but her eyes are holding Griner’s, and they’ve still got that scared thing in them.
    Griner shrugs again. “Naw, I already hold that record. I’m talking about Mr. Flatland there. Him being in town for the summer an’ all.” I look at my Aunt Delia. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act. She’s not scared anymore.
    She gives Griner a tired look and says, “Last time I looked, Kenny, I didn’t see any mountains around here.”
    â€œWe got hills though,” Griner says, “out there north of town, and we got the rock. Good old Widow Rock. Now that’s pretty high, ain’t it. Out where that boy comes from it’s as flat as your momma’s ironing board and just as hot.”
    My Aunt Delia says, “When’s the last time you were in Nebraska, Kenny?”
    Griner looks hurts. He takes out another cigarette and flips open the Zippo, but before his thumb scratches the lighter, he looks over at Mr. Tolbert and just holds the cigarette in his mouth. He says, “I know about Nebraska. I read about it in a book one time.” Griner reaches into the pocket of his black leather jacket and pulls out a paperback book and puts it on the table. On the cover, there’s a picture of a boy on a motorcycle. He’s wearing a jacket like Griner’s and a leather hat with a pair of silver wings on the front. He’s leaning over the handlebars and looking off down the road. Griner says, “See, I read a lot, Miss Delia. Just ’cause I ain’t still swallowing the crap they dish out in that high school don’t mean I don’t read.”
    My Aunt Delia looks at Griner now, and her eyes say she’s sorry. She says, “I wish you hadn’t quit school, Kenny. You didn’t have to quit.”
    Griner looks out the front window, squinting at the sun, at the cool blue and flaming red street rod out there at the curb. He looks back at my Aunt Delia and says, “I didn’t have to stay either. That’s one thing they couldn’t make me do.”
    My Aunt Delia shakes her head and slides down from her stool. My malted is only half-finished, but I’ve had enough. My stomach’s not that big. She says, “Come on, Travis.” I’m standing beside her. Griner’s looking at his book now, pretending to read with that cold cigarette hanging from his mouth. My Aunt Delia says, “Kenny, what are you gonna do with yourself? You can’t just stay around here and work in that box factory and fiddle with that stupid car for the rest of your life.” Now she sounds angry, but I know she’s not angry at Griner. Not exactly.
    Griner pulls his eyes out of his book. “Why can’t I, Miss Delia? A lot of folks do, folks that don’t live over on Bedford Street or out to Pleasant Hills with your friend Sifford.”
    Bedford Street is where I live now.
    My Aunt Delia says, “Bick’s my friend, Kenny, and so are you, or at