had returned home early from the hardware store and was sitting on the porch in the rocking chair, cigarette in hand.
"Git in the car," Ainesley said, "I want to talk to you."
They drove into Clayville, down streets lined with live oak and trimmed hedges, past the Nokobee County Courthouse and on to Roxie's Ice Cream Palace. The latter social center, like the Cody home, was virtually downtown--no surprise, because if you kept on driving you'd come out the other side of Clayville in under five minutes. Inside Roxie's, they squeezed into a booth and Ainesley told Raff to order his favorite dish. It was, they both knew, a butterscotch sundae with chopped walnuts.
As Raff started to eat, Ainesley said to him, "Son, I'm sorry I pushed you so hard yesterday. You're pretty young to be firing guns anyway, and I don't think you'd have a lot of fun at your age killin' a turkey anyhow. It don't count that Junior was willin' to fire the gun and you wasn't. He's older and he's a lot bigger than you, and to tell the truth, compared to you he's dumber than a stump."
Managing a mouthful of ice cream, Raphael nodded and thought, Yeah, that's the truth. Junior was held back last year and was still only in the fourth grade. He'd have to endure another year of disciplinarian torture in Mrs. Maddon's class. Middle-aged, steely eyed behind glasses, her graying hair worn in a bun, she was both strict and given to quick anger. Out of earshot the students called her the Mad Ox.
"What I was trying to do," Ainesley continued, "was not start you huntin' game animals, exactly. You might not like it very much even when you're older. I don't know. I was just trying to show you things that when you grow up you gonna need to know to be a real man, not the kind of girlie man you see all over the place nowadays."
He paused to let that sink in, and--Raff could feel it coming--lit a cigarette. There was more talk coming from Ainesley, he was sure. No matter. Fear and remorse were sliding off him. He had been forgiven. For the first time he looked directly into his father's face--tanned, lines around his mouth, with blue eyes that now had a sad look.
Ainesley took a deep draw into his lungs and turned his head to blow the smoke to the side. He flicked a crumb of tobacco off his lip with a middle finger and continued, "You probably don't know what I'm talkin' about, so I'm gonna add a little bit more for you to think about. And maybe some more later, whenever we get together, so you'll understand about how I feel." How he feels? Raff thought. He was beginning to get anxious again.
"You know I don't have the education your mother and Uncle Cyrus have. You'll be gittin' one like that yourself, for sure, and I feel real good about that. But I want you to grow up to be like me in one important way. When you're on your own, I want you to stand up straight and tall and be the kind of man everybody respects no matter how much money they have, or how many fancy titles they have, or whatever.
"Now, what does that mean? It means honor. It means you keep your promises, you pay your debts, you meet your responsibilities, you do the best you can, even though sometimes things get tough. And you don't talk about it, you keep it inside of you. People meet you and work with you, they don't need to have your word on it. They know they can count on you--all the time, and not just when you feel like it. You understand that?"
Raff said, "Yes sir," and put another spoonful into his mouth, savoring the butterscotch.
"But being a man is more than that," Ainesley continued. "It's bein' a gentleman. Our people have a code that people may laugh at who live in big houses and take vacations in Italy and places such as that. I certainly wouldn't talk about any of it with your Uncle Cyrus, who incidentally I respect a great deal. But it means everything in the world I live in. You might say that code is raw, you might say it's too simple, but it sure stays right there on the surface of things, and it suits me. It's this. Never lie or cheat. Never ever hit a woman.