The Illusionist by Dinitia Smith Page A

left behind in Sparta because they couldn’t get jobs elsewhere. People with something wrong with them. Mutationally speaking. Genetically speaking. The people who lived off the dirt roads in the countryside, in worn-out farmhouses and trailers under strange circumstances, trailers you weren’t even sure were inhabited when you drove by them, because there wasn’t even a car parked outside and the windows were shuttered. But then, if you looked closely, you could see a thin column of smoke rising from the metal vent on the roof, and you’d know that someone must be home.
    So what did people know about Dean? Did they guess? One moment, you were looking at a boy. The next, you shifted the angle of your sight just a little and—and lo and behold—he was a girl! And you were left squinting and wondering. But maybe people just didn’t want to know the actual truth. It was more fun that way anyhow. Dean was like going to the movies. He was entertainment. Watching him was something to do, he was someone to look at and smile about if you saw him on the street, or at night when you were drinking at the Wooden Nickel.
    If you were an old person, and sitting there in the window of your house day after day looking out onto the street, you’d see Dean strutting down the sidewalk, handsome and cocky, in his cowboy hat and boots with their thick heels. He’d catch you staring at him and he’d grin and he wouldn’t let go of your eyes, he’d force you to look at him, and you’d just keep staring and staring, in spite of yourself.
    At work, Terry was private about Dean. Terry knew I was Dean’s friend, but she tried never to mention him. If I brought him up, she’d respond as briefly as she could. Maybe it was the overwhelmingness of her love for him. Sometimes I’d talk about Dean deliberately, just to see Terry look uncomfortable. And because it gave me power over her. As if to say, “You better be nice to me, girl, because I’m his original friend, I introduced you.” I liked having power over Terry. It would be harder, I thought, for Terry to discipline me now if I were late or something, because I was his original friend.
    One night, Dean brought the boy to the Wooden Nickel. Terry was working nights that week to get the differential because she was supporting them both now that Dean had lost his job at the Laundercenter. Dean must’ve gotten bored being home alone with the child. It was eleven o’clock when he came in with Bobby. You weren’t supposed to have kids in the bar really, but Carl didn’t say anything. I saw Dean carrying Bobby along the bar, showing him all Carl’s crazy clocks and objects, the deer head with the tinsel hanging from its nose.
    Then Dean started dancing with him to the noise of the jukebox, holding both his little hands in his.
    The boy was getting overexcited, his eyes were too bright and wet, his cheeks flushed. He looked up into Dean’s eyes and Dean made faces back to him and stuck his tongue out and wiggled it at him. Then he sat the boy down on his lap at the bar, and they watched the TV news together, the boy leaning back against Dean like he trusted him completely, was comfortable with him, like Dean was his family. Dean was showing him off, like this was his real, biological son.
    People walked over to them, touched Bobby’s hand, as if they’d never seen a kid before. “Hey fella, how ya doing, little guy?” The kid was special because he was small for his age, and yet he was intelligent and alert like an older child. He had long fine dark wavy hair, dark eyes, long eyelashes. The discrepancybetween his small size and his mental capacities intrigued people. Someone offered him a sip of beer, and he took it, then made a terrible face and spat it all out and it made everybody around him laugh. It was as if he were a pet monkey or something, a little performer, a conversation starter. He