The Roy Stories by Barry Gifford Page B

go to the beach.”
    â€œProbably Batman never went to a beach.”
    Roy’s mother puffed and turned halfway around in her chair to stare at the ocean.
    â€œWhy did he live alone? Somebody should have taken care of him.”
    â€œYes, Roy, somebody should have. The poor thing.”
    Roy watched a horsefly land on one of the sugar cubes that were crowded in a small green bowl next to his mother’s cup and saucer. He remembered his father once saying that he knew a guy named Art Huck who would bet on anything, even which cube of sugar a fly would land on.
    â€œMom, do you know a man named Art Huck?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. Who is he?”
    â€œA friend of Dad’s.”
    His mother sat still, looking toward the water.
    â€œWhat are you thinking about?”
    â€œI’m not sure which is worse, Roy, an act of cruelty or an act of cowardice.”
    â€œMaybe they’re the same.”
    â€œNo, actually I think cruelty is worse, because it’s premeditated.”
    â€œWhat’s that mean?”
    â€œYou have to think about it before you do it.”
    â€œYou’re always telling me to think before I do something.”
    â€œYou’re not a cruel person, Roy. You never will be.”
    â€œDo you know any cruel people?”
    Roy’s mother stood up and walked out onto the terrace. She threw her cigarette away.
    â€œYes, Roy,” she said, without turning to look at him, “unfortunately, I do.”

 
    An Eye on the Alligators
    I knew as the boat pulled in to the dock there were no alligators out there. I got up and stuck my foot against the piling so that it wouldn’t scrape the boat, then got out and secured the bowline to the nearest cleat. Mr. Reed was standing on the dock now, helping my mother up out of the boat. Her brown legs came up off the edge weakly, so that Mr. Reed had to lift her to keep her from falling back. The water by the pier was blue black and stank of oil and gas, not like out on the ocean, or in the channel, where we had been that day.
    Mr. Reed had told me to watch for the alligators. The best spot to do it from, he said, was up on the bow. So I crawled up through the trapdoor on the bow and watched for the alligators. The river water was clear and green.
    â€œLook around the rocks,” Mr. Reed shouted over the engine noise, “the gators like the rocks.” So I kept my eye on the rocks, but there were no alligators.
    â€œI don’t see any,” I shouted. “Maybe we’re going too fast and the noise scares them away.”
    After that Mr. Reed went slower but still there were no alligators. We were out for nearly three hours and I didn’t see one.
    â€œIt was just a bad day for seeing alligators, son,” said Mr. Reed. “Probably because of the rain. They don’t like to come up when it’s raining.”
    For some reason I didn’t like it when Mr. Reed called me “son.” I wasn’t his son. Mr. Reed, my mother told me, was a friend of my father’s. My dad was not in Florida with us, he was in Chicago doing business while my mother and I rode around in boats and visited alligator farms.
    Mr. Reed had one arm around me and one arm around my mother.
    â€œCan we go back tomorrow?” I asked.
    My mother laughed. “That’s up to Mr. Reed,” she said. “We don’t want to impose on him too much.”
    â€œSure kid,” said Mr. Reed. Then he laughed, too.
    I looked up at Mr. Reed, then out at the water. I could see the drops disappearing into their holes on the surface.

 
    The Piano Lesson
    I bounced the ball against the yellow wall in the front of my house, waiting for the piano teacher. I’d been taking lessons for six weeks and I liked the piano, my mother played well, standards and show tunes, and sang. Often I sang along with her or by myself as she played. “Young at Heart” and “Bewitched, Bothered and