great height onto his head. Though it was January, the air raw with dampness, he wore no coat, only a jersey and jeans and plastic flip-flops on his feet. The distance at which he trailed them, his hands buried in his pockets, was just close enough to encourage their curiosity without seeming to intrude. A probationary distance, as if he were saying: I might be someone interesting. You might want to give me a chance.
“So what do you think he wants?” Cruk said.
They had reached the end of the alleyway, where they had erected a small shelter from scraps of wood. A musty mattress, springs popping out, served as the floor. The boy had halted at a distance of thirty feet, shuffling his feet in the dust. Something about the way he held himself made it seem as if the parts of his body were only vaguely connected, as if he’d been pieced together from about four different boys.
“You following us?” Cruk called.
The boy gave no reply. He was looking down and away, like a dog trying not to make eye contact. From this angle, they could all see the mark on the left side of his face.
“You deaf? I asked you a question.”
“I ain’t following you.”
Cruk turned to the others. The oldest by a year, he was the unofficial leader. “Anybody know this kid?”
No one did. Cruk looked back at the boy again. “You. What’s your go-by?”
“Tifty.”
“Tifty? What kind of name is Tifty?”
His eyes were inspecting the tips of his sandals. “Just a name.”
“Your mother call you that?” Cruk said.
“Don’t got one.”
“She’s dead or she left you?”
The boy was fidgeting with something in his pocket. “Both, I guess. You ask it like that.” He squinted at them. “Are you like a club?”
“What makes you say that?”
The boy lifted his bony shoulders. “I’ve seen you is all.”
Cruk glanced at the others, then looked back at the boy. He huffed a weary sigh.
“Well, no point in you standing there like a dumbass. Come over so we can have a look at you.”
The boy made his way toward them. Vorhees thought there was something familiar about him, his hangdog look. Though maybe it was just the fact that any one of them could have been alone like he was. The mark on his face, they saw, was a large purple shiner.
“Hey, I know this kid,” Dee said. “You live in Assisted, don’t you? I saw you moving in with your daddy.”
Hill Country Assisted Living: a warren of apartments, families all crammed in. Everybody just called it Assisted.
“That right?” Cruk said. “You just move in?”
The boy nodded. “From over in H-town.”
“That’s who you’re with?” Cruk said. “Your daddy?”
“I got an aunt, too. Rose. She looks after me mostly.”
“What you got in your pocket there? I see you fooling with it.”
The boy withdrew his hand to show them: a foldaway knife, fat with gizmos. Cruk took it, the other three pressing their faces around. The usual blades, plus a saw, a screwdriver, a pair of scissors, and a corkscrew, even a magnifying glass, the lens clouded with age.
“Where’d you get this?” Cruk asked.
“My daddy gave it to me.”
Cruk frowned. “He on the trade?”
The boy shook his head. “Nuh-uh. He’s a hydro. Works on the dam.” He gestured at the knife. “You can have it if you want.”
“What I want your knife for?”
“Hell, he doesn’t want it, I’ll keep it,” Boz said. “Give it here.”
“Shut up, Boz.” Cruk eyed the boy slowly. “What you do to your face?”
“I just fell is all.”
His tone was not defensive. And yet all of them felt the hollowness of the lie.
“Fell into a fist is more like it. Your daddy do that or somebody else?”
The boy said nothing. Vorhees saw his jaw give a little twitch.
“Cruk, leave him be,” Dee said.
But Cruk’s eyes remained fixed on the boy. “I asked you a question.”
“Sometimes he does. When he’s on the lick. Rose says he doesn’t mean to. It’s on account of my mama.”
“Because she left you?”
“On account of she died having me.”
The boy’s words seemed to hang in the air. It was true, or it wasn’t true; either way, now his plea was nothing they could refuse.
Cruk held out the knife. “Go on, take it. I don’t want your daddy’s knife.”
The boy returned it to his pocket.
“I’m Cruk. Dee’s my sister. The other two are Boz and Vor.”
“I know who you are.” He squinted uncertainly at them. “So am I in the club now?”