Constantine could not imagine what a father would say next to his son. He sipped his drink. Almost before he'd decided to, he heard himself saying, “If that damn hair gets any longer you won't be able to see.”
“I can see,” Billy told him. “I've got eyes all over my head.”
Constantine nodded. Every answer had to be smart, every movement had to mock and defy him. He knew that he loved his son—what sort of man doesn't?—but he wanted him to be different. He wanted, right now, to stand in this kitchen with his boy and talk to him about the world's elusive glory and its baffling, persistent disappointments. He wanted to wrestle with his son, to throw a football at him with all his strength.
“You borrow that shirt from your sister?” he said.
“I have to go, Dad.”
“We're talking. Are we talking here?”
“I have to go over to Dina's. Tell Mom I'm having dinner there, okay?”
“I asked you a question.”
“I know you did. It's my shirt, Dad. It's my hair and my shirt and my life.”
“Nobody said it wasn't your life. But I'm the one the principal's gonna call about the hair. And I paid for the fag shirt.”
Billy stood in the middle of the room. He stood, it seemed, in exactly the same place Mary had stood, weeping and holding her purse with both hands.
“As a matter of fact, you didn't pay for it,” he said. “I bought it with my own money. That's why I work at Kroeger's, so I don't need to accept any more from you than I absolutely have to.”
“Calm down,” Constantine said. “No need to get all hot and bothered here.”
“You didn't pay for this shirt,” Billy said, “but listen. I'm going to give it to you anyway. This'll cancel out one shirt you bought for me when I was still too young to make my own money. How's that sound to you?”
He began unbuttoning the shirt, revealing with each button a wider V of skinny, blue-white flesh.
“Bill. For Christ's sake.”
He stripped off the shirt and held it out to Constantine. His bare chest was skeletal, luminous, dotted here and there with livid red pustules. How could a young boy, on the verge of manhood, look so sick and elderly?
“Take it,” he said.
“Stop,” Constantine told him. “Stop this.”
Billy dropped the shirt to the floor. “How about the boots?” he said. “These were expensive. These ought to cancel out two or three pairs you bought me in the fifth grade.”
He raised one thin leg and struggled out of an ankle-high brown boot. As he was pulling it off he nearly lost his balance, and Constantine couldn't help laughing. For the first time in memory he pitied and admired his son. His son had rage and a shrill potency.
“Bill,” he said affectionately. “Billy.” As his son worked the boot free Constantine reached out to tousle his overgrown hair. Maybe they'd have a drink together. Billy was seventeen, old enough for a little bourbon at home.
At the touch of Constantine's hand, Billy jumped back as if he'd been stung with an electric wire. “Don't,” he said, flinching.
Constantine realized Billy had thought he was about to be hit.
“Bill,” he smiled. “C'mon, calm down.” He held out his hand, palm up—a gesture of penury, of harmless intentions.
But Billy, ashamed of having flinched, took another two steps back. He still wore one boot, which clopped loudly on the floor.
“I'm going to pay you back,” he said. “For everything. For every single thing you ever gave me.”
“You're acting crazy,” Constantine said.
Billy turned and strode, single-booted, off-balance, back to the front door.
“Don't talk to me that way,” Constantine said sharply, but he made no move to follow. He hadn't the heart right now. He heard the door opening and closing. Then he heard the sound of his son's single boot heel striking the door, hard. Now Constantine was ready to fight. He ran to the door but when he got there and opened it all he found was the other empty boot, lying on its side on the stoop.
The house was quiet. Pipes and ducts made their soft, efficient sounds. Kitchen appliances droned. Mary was upstairs sleeping, dreaming her dreams. A thief, a repeat offender; a woman who'd sat silently in the fluorescence of the sheriff's office with her makeup bleeding onto her pale, mortified skin. Billy was gone to his friends, half naked. As Constantine poured himself another drink he