Chapter One

On Sunday in the new church, Preacher John Roberts tells about the disciple Jesus loved whose name was also John, how at the Last Supper John lay his head tenderly on Jesus's breast. The preacher says we do not know why the Scriptures point to the disciple; we do not know why it is mentioned particularly that Jesus loved John at this moment of the Gospels. He grips the pulpit and gazes raptly into the air over the heads of the congregation, as if he can see the Savior there. His voice swells with holy thunder, and, listening, Nathan's father leans forward in the pew with a vision of God shining in his eyes. He is thinking about salvation and hellfire and the taste of whiskey.

Nathan's mother is thinking about the body of Christ and the wings of angels. Her spirit lightens in the safety, the sanctity, of the church. Dark hair surrounds her pretty oval face. Light from the stained glass window tints her skin.

Nathan thinks about the body of the son of the farmer who owns the house Nathan's parents rented three weeks ago. Jesus has a face like that boy, a serene smile with dimples, a nose that's a little too big, and Jesus has the same strong, smooth arms.

Preacher John Roberts says, "Let us pray and Nathan bows his head with all the rest. With his eyes closed he pictures his family, father, mother, and son, neatly arranged in the church pew. The prayer means the sermon has ended, and the tautness in Nathan's midsection eases a little. The first day in the new church is over. Now everyone can stop staring. Dad, as if thinking the same thought, stirs restlessly in the pew. Mom sighs, dreaming of a Sunday morning that will never end.

Nathan pictures Jesus's hands spread against the wood of the cross, fine bones and smooth skin awaiting the press of the nail, the first moment of blood.

At the end of the service, the preacher stands at the door and shakes hands with the congregation as they leave. Nathan and his parents join the line. Various people from the congregation welcome them, so glad to have you, make sure you come back now, you'll like this church, there's good people in it. Dad has already been invited to the Men's Prayer Circle on Tuesday nights and the Deacons' Breakfast on Saturday morning. This will add nicely to Wednesday Prayer Meeting, Sunday evening Training Union, and the Thursday meeting of the Rotary Club.

After church, during the silent drive out of the town of Potter's Lake in the aging Buick, Nathan waits breathlessly. They have a house in the country this time, a farmhouse that stands adjacent to its more modem successor, at the end of a dirt road near what the local people refer to as the old Kennicutt Woods. The farmhouse and farmyard are neat and well kept, and the property includes a pond, a meadow, and an apple orchard. The farm family, Todd and Bettie Connelly and their son Roy, lives in the new house next door. They are back from church too, and Roy has already changed from his Sunday clothes and stands in the farmyard, hosing clay off his rubber boots beside the barn. Red clay has stained his white tee shirt, a smear the color of dried blood. Nathan tries not to stare, but Roy is two years older, and has the added prestige of being a school bus driver and a member of the baseball team. Roy catches him watching. He hesitates a moment, as if he too is waiting for a sign to speak. He nods his head in greeting.

All afternoon following Sunday dinner, Dad sips moonshine whiskey and reads from the Old Testament, the books of Kings and Chronicles. He is always quiet when they move to a new town. Nathan can rest easy today. Mom keeps Dad company in the shadowed living room at the front of the house. She is doing needlepoint, stitching the Alcoholic's Creed across cream colored cloth. Embroidered violets climb the bases of each letter. As she stabs the needle through the cloth in the circular frame, she keeps her eye on Dad. When Nathan passes by, she offers him a wan smile. He returns it. But there is always the moment when she cannot look him in the eye any longer. She searches her sewing basket for thread. Nathan climbs silently up the narrow stairs.

His bedroom in the new house seems airy and spacious after the smaller rooms he has occupied before. Large windows face the Connelly house over the high privet. A figure in the upstairs window above the hedge draws Nathan's eye.

Roy stands there. Maybe that is his bedroom, where the pale curtains fall against his shoulder. He has stripped off the dirty tee shirt and leans against the window frame. He has a smile on his face and a self-conscious look in his eyes, as if he knows someone is watching. The curled arm is posed above his head. He moves away from the window after a while. But Nathan goes on waiting in case he comes back.

Roy has been watching this same way for a while. In the beginning Nathan thought he was imagining things. The first morning he rode the school bus, he thought it was unusual to find Roy studying him from the rearview mirror. They had barely said good morning when Nathan climbed onto the bus the first time, and yet here was Roy watching.

Sometimes the look in Roy's eyes reminds Nathan of his own father, of the look in his own father's eyes, but Nathan prefers not to think about that and shuts off the thought before it begins.

On the Monday morning after that first church service the sky unfurls its gray wash over the flat country, mist adrift over the fields beyond the Connelly house. Nathan wakes early and steps to the window. The partly open sash admits crisp morning air. Yellow light burns in Roy's room. In the yard the muted school bus is parked beneath a pecan tree, brown leaves drifting across the orange hood. Nathan dresses with care, sliding a shirt over his pale body, buttoning buttons with lingering fingers, standing near his window so he can watch the other window. Now and then Roy's shadow crosses the visible wall.

After breakfast Nathan hurries to the bus. Roy waits in the driver's seat with sullen wariness. He speaks, for the first time going beyond a hoarse greeting. "I'm glad you're early, I like to leave a little bit before I'm supposed to," he says, and blushes and closes the door as Nathan takes the seat behind him. It is as if Nathan is drawn down into this seat by Roy's voice. They sit in silence, and Nathan watches the back of Roy's head. A line of red rises above Roy's collar, then subsides. Something has happened; Nathan puzzles at what it might be.

He feels as if there might be more. There is a kind of hidden movement in Roy, as if words are rising and falling in his throat. He races the engine of the bus and checks the play of the gear shift. Then, with an almost visible surrender, he abandons words and turns and looks at Nathan, simply looks at him.

"What is it?" Nathan asks.

"Nothing." Turning at once, Roy maneuvers the groaning, lumbering bus out of the yard.

The early ride is silent. There are no other families along the dirt road, called Poke's Road, that leads away from the farm. Even when other children climb aboard, Nathan watches Roy, the curve of his shoulders and the column of his neck. Roy steers the bus neatly on its tangled route. After their arrival at school, Nathan is the last to leave the bus. Roy has already begun sweeping the long aisle.

This new school has required the usual adjustment. It is Nathan's second school since the fall term started, though Mom says they will live here for a while. Dad has made promises this time, she says. Nathan has gotten used to moving and hardly believes this time will be different. So here at school he is the new face again, sitting alertly in his desks in the various classrooms, answering the usual questions. We used to live in Rose Hill and then my dad got a job where he moves around, he's a salesman, he sells farm equipment, he works in Gibsonville now. We live near Potter's Lake on Poke's Road. We live next to Roy and his folks.

He remains serene. Already there are faces that he recognizes in each of his classes. Some of them have already heard from the teachers, who have heard from the guidance counselors, that Nathan skipped third grade in Rose Hill. That Nathan is very bright. The morning classes pass quickly, but then comes lunch, which is harder. He has been eating lunch at a table with kids he met in his sophomore Spanish class. He is not sure if he's welcome, but at least they do not chase him away. But at lunch this day, when Nathan heads for the table with his tray, suddenly Roy appears across the dining room.

Nathan sits, quietly. Roy wanders with his own lunch tray toward the same table. He studies the rest of the cafeteria with a troubled scowl, as if it is very crowded. Burke and Randy are following him in some confusion, since this is not their usual territory. Roy swings into a seat across from Nathan but at a slant from him. He glances at Nathan as if only seeing him at that moment. "Hey, Nathan."

His presence surprises the kids from Spanish. Roy is a senior and he hangs out with older kids who smoke on the smoking patio, like Burke and Randy, who are now making jokes about Josephine Carson and the black mustache on her upper lip, visible across the room. When Roy laughs, the deep timbre of his voice makes Nathan shy. In the watery light of the lunchroom, Roy's face seems full and strong, his nose almost in the right proportions. He goes on eating solemnly. Nathan fumbles with his fork. "You like your new house?" Roy asks.

"It's nice. I have the whole upstairs."

"We used to live over there. That room you got was my bedroom. Then Dad built us a new house." Something uncomfortable stirs at the back of Roy's eyes. He stares with seriousness at the plastic, sectioned plate.

With this remark, Roy has somehow included Nathan in the group with his other friends. Burke glances at Nathan as if wondering who he is, but he goes on sitting next to Nathan without comment, propped on thick elbows. As Nathan listens, the boys talk about their weekend at the fishing camp at Catfish Lake where a lot of high school kids go to park or to get drunk. Burke drank too much beer this past Saturday, and pulled off all his clothes and ran up and down the lake shore whooping and hollering.

"You like to get drunk, Nathan?" Roy asks.

"Not much."

"That's because you're younger than us," Roy says. "I don't like it much either. It gives me a headache."

"You're full of shit, too," Burke says.

"Naw, I mean it. I drink a little bit, but it don't mean that much to me."

Nathan eats and stands. Roy has cleaned his plate too, then pushes it away and stretches. As if by accident he follows Nathan with his tray to the dishwasher's window.

There, Roy says he wants a smoke. He says this as if he has always included Nathan. Behind, Randy and Burke are scrambling to follow.

On the smoking patio, Randy, plump, round, and blond, addresses Nathan familiarly. Burke remains hidden, as if he hardly realizes Nathan is present at all. Some of the girls on the patio seem to notice Roy in particular, but he pays no special attention to anyone. Roy is famous for having a girlfriend at another high school, an achievement of real sophistication for a boy his age. He lights a cigarette, propping one foot on the edge of the round brick planter, which overflows with cigarette butts. His smoking a cigarette makes him seem harder, more aloof to Nathan, who stands beside him trying to look as if he belongs. Fresh wind scours the fields, stripping away layers of soil. Roy stands at the center of his friends; they are talking about deer hunting season. Burke's Dad bought him a new rifle, a Marlin 3030. Roy has a different type. They discuss the guns casually. They talk about going camping in the Kennicutt Woods. None of the talk includes Nathan, who owns no gun, stalks no deer. But with an occasional glance, Roy holds Nathan in place, without explanation.

When Nathan walks away from the courtyard at the sound of the lunch bell, he carries a cloud of Roy. He is distracted during his afternoon classes. Because of his scores on standardized tests, he is taking math and English with kids in the junior class during the afternoons. That day he has a hard time paying attention; he is thinking of Roy with the cigarette drawling from his lip. The math teacher asks if Nathan is sick at his stomach, he has such a pained expression on his face. The older kids, who are resentful of Nathan's presence, find the question funny.

At the end of the day, Nathan hurries to the bus, nevertheless too late, even after rushing, to claim the seat behind Roy. He is only temporarily disappointed. During the course of the ride, he works himself gradually forward, empty seat by empty seat, confident of eventual success since he will be riding to the last stop. Roy, efficient, steers from one dirt driveway to the other, and the orange bus discharges its passengers in clusters of neat frocks and clean blue jeans. Only two riders remain by the time Roy steers right at Hargett's Crossroads: a mumbling brunette girl named Linette, wearing blue butterfly barrettes, and an older black girl with bad skin, who sits directly behind Roy and talks to him every so often. Pretty soon the mumbling Linette steps out of the bus beside her mailbox, and within moments so does the girl with pocked skin. He and Roy ride alone on the bus to Poke's Road and all the way home.