That night Derby wolfed down his dinner double-quick.
"You got a tape worm or something?" Cassie's mom asked him. His dad was on another delivery and once again wasn't home when Derby returned from his paper route.
"No, Mrs. Granger," Derby said, mouth half-full. "I just wanna finish up those frames for Farmer Brady tonight, because--"
Derby froze. Because why? He couldn't tell them. Or could he? He hadn't done anything wrong. Or had he?
"Yeah, Derby?" Cassie asked. "Because why?"
"Well..." Derby began, swallowing his mashed potatoes. "I uh... I think I might've made a friend."
"A friend?" Mrs. Granger said, eyebrows tenting. "Well, that's great, Derby."
Cassie starred into her plate, shifting her peas around with her fork.
"Who is he?" Mrs. Granger continued.
"Uh... Well, his name is Max. He's the son of one of the families on my paper route. He's home for the summer while his folks are gone on vacation and... well, he and I got talking yesterday and I'm gonna go back and spend some time with him when I'm done my papers tomorrow. Oh! So, Cassie, if Farmer Brady comes by again before I get back tomorrow night you can just give him his frames and tell him I'll be by to collect the payment this weekend, okay? I'll have them all set for him."
Cassie shrugged one shoulder, chewed, and mumbled an affirmative.
"Well, Derby, isn't that something," Mrs. Granger said, smiling. "At high school for four years and you never mentioned making even one friend, now you're not even out of school for a week and you've already made one. Good for you!"
Mrs. Granger was a real nice woman. She was small like Cassie, and pretty. Several years ago when Cassie was still a kid Mr. Granger started hinting around town and at church that she was cheating on him. Rumors spread like gnats in May. People would look at her sideways with nasty expressions, or they'd glare at her full on like she had some mark on her forehead. Only thing was, it wasn't true. Mrs. Granger denied it from day one, but that didn't seem to matter. A year later Mr. Granger left her and left town with his name intact and his head held high. Word had it that he was even remarried in Memphis. Mrs. Granger still gets dirty look so this day and no man will go near her.
Every time Derby thought about Mrs. Granger he felt sorry for her, but he also felt sorry for Abbottsville. The whole situation reminded him of something he read once: "It's not what you don't know that'll get you, it's what you know for certain that just ain't so." And everyone was so certain about poor Mrs. Granger. In Abbottsville it never really mattered what was true when it came to things like that, only what folk thought was true. Derby often wondered if it was different anywhere else.
In any case, Derby couldn't imagine why Mr. Granger said the things he said and did the things he did back then. Maybe he had another woman in Memphis all along and he was the one cheating. But any man who would leave her was a damn fool in Derby's opinion.
"Well, we'll see," Derby replied, polishing off his plate of food. The sausage gravy was real good and it was all he could do to stop himself from licking the plate.
"What're you blushing for?" Cassie asked him, her eyes aslant.
"I'm not blushing!" Derby objected. "It's hot, is all. Everybody's blushing."
"You won't be in the workshop too late, will you Derby? We both need our sleep."
"No, ma'am. I'll be finished up well before bed, I promise."
In the afternoon of the next day Derby charged up the Rolands' driveway once again, but this time his basket had just one newspaper left in it; he'd rearranged things so that this was the last house on his route. He rounded those cedars and saw Max, shirtless once again, leaning on his shovel in the front garden.
But he wasn't alone.
This older blond girl was standing in front of him, flipping her hair and holding a basket full of something. She was talking very animatedly with Max, slowly inching her way toward him. Max had his arms folded across his bare chest and inched every time she inched closer. The girl wore a breezy white skirt and a light, beige blouse that was open in the front a bit more than strict modesty would permit.
"Oh, hey, Derby!" Max called over to him, sounding very glad to see him.
"Uh... Hey, Max," Derby said, skidding to a stop.
"Well, Hello," the girl said, stretching a smile across her tight-looking, made up face. "Are you bringing the paper?"
"Uh... yeah. Here ya go," Derby said, handing the newspaper over.
"Well, thank you. Aren't you thoughtful bringing it right to the house like this," the girl said, smiling brightly as she tucked the paper under her arm.
"So," she said, turning back to Max, "tell me again about that wrestling team you're on, Max."
She reached forward as she said this and stroked Max with one hand, lightly squeezing his upper arm for a second. Max chuckled, looked at the ground, and once again took a quarter-step away from the girl. Derby felt like a kid who'd walked in on some grown-up talk and slowly slinked away on his bike.
"Hey," Max called. "See you same time tomorrow, right Derby?"
"Yeah," Derby said. "Sure thing."
Max's tented his eyebrows and gave a closed-mouth smile as he nodded toward Derby.
Derby turned and reversed back down the driveway, pushing down hard onto the pedals of his bike as he muttered curses under his breath. He barely looked up from the dirt of the road in front of him, a sour look curdled on his face the whole way home. He didn't want to talk to anyone, he didn't want to help Cassie in the garden, he didn't want Farmer Brady to come by for those frames, and he hoped against hope that his Dad would still be away when he got home. But life was never that kind to Derby Gleason.
Farmer Brady didn't come by, Cassie and her mom were away--must've been in town--but Larry Gleason, Derby's father, was home and in rare form. Derby saw his truck in the drive, of course, and was able to steel himself as he stowed his bike, drawing a deep breath as he opened the door to his house and trudged inside.
"What's for dinner?" was his father's grumbled greeting. He sat at the kitchen table, slumped in a chair with his newspaper in one hand and a half-drained glass of whisky in the other. He hadn't shaved today--yet again. He wore old, dirty blue jeans that he should've put in the basket to be washed a week ago. Derby would have to try and get them out of his room tonight if an opportunity presented itself, or they'd never get washed. His father's hairy forearms stuck out of an unbuttoned plaid shirt like a scarecrow's limbs.
"Dinner's quiche with the ham that's left in the icebox. It'll be about an hour if I--"
"Ate it for lunch."
"What?"
"I ate the ham for lunch."
Derby slumped and exhaled.
"But I told you that was for dinner tonight. I left you those tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and there was that canned soup if you--"
"I was sick of tuna fish, goddamnit! Is that a crime? Just make something else."
Derby wanted to tell him to settle for the tuna fish tonight so that they wouldn't get soggy and go to waste, but he knew that would be a fruitless argument. He'd eat the sandwiches himself and make his dad an omelet with fried potatoes.
"Fine. It'll be eggs, though. Just lemme get cleaned up and cool down."
"Don't take up all the hot water. You sure shower a lot lately."
"Better than not showering at all like some people," Derby thought to himself, but didn't rise to the bait. He just shut himself in the bathroom and savored the few golden moments of solitude it provided.
"Who the fuck was that bitch!?" Derby muttered to himself once he was alone. He'd looked forward to spending time with Max all day long. He'd barely slept last night thinking about it, anticipating it, wondering what they'd do together, wondering what Max would say, what he'd be like, what he'd be wearing. Now someone else was getting to spend time with him, someone who didn't even introduce herself, just expected him to bring the newspaper and leave straight away.
"Well..." Derby thought, "I suppose that's what I'd done everyday up 'til now. But that wasn't what was supposed to happen today! Today I was supposed to hear all about Max and what he did at school, and what he liked, and what he did for fun, and... all sorts of stuff."
Instead it looked like she was gonna hear about all that stuff. Derby didn't know why he was so angry with that girl. She hadn't really done anything wrong--except ruin Derby's whole day without even trying!
Maybe Max would've hung out with him all afternoon and evening. It was still really hot outside. Maybe Max wouldn't have put a shirt on the whole time. Maybe Derby could've spent hours right next to Max, admiring his thick black hair, his perfect teeth, his sinuous neck and shoulders, his broad chest and back, his unbelievable--almost unnaturally perfect--stomach. Derby could've let his eyes roam up and down the thin trail of hair than ran from that triangle of fur on Max's chest down into the waist of his jeans, gazing back and forth along the length of Max's torso as though he would gaze a path into his flesh with his eyes.
Derby's penis swelled as he ran the cool water over himself in the bath tub. He fixed the shower head above him and, despite the ire it might provoke in his father, turned the warm water on and let it cascade over him. He stroked himself to full erection. He let his head fall back on the edge of the tub and spread his legs, feeling the warm water run down and caress his nether regions as he gently bucked his hips into his hand. He thought of Max and let his juices slowly rise from his scrotum into his pulsing shaft and--
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Goddamnit, Derby! Turn off that hot water!"
Derby jumped out of his daydream, throwing a washcloth over himself fast as lightning. There was no lock on the bathroom door.
"Almost done, Dad," he called.
He turned off the water and dried himself off. Derby looked up toward the bathroom mirror. It was steamed over and he couldn't see himself.