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By Root 2324 0

on the ground, red and weak with laughter, not able not to think of her smacking his goddam head in. He said the words over and over to himself and after a while he stopped laughing. He said them again but the laughing had gone out. He said them again but it wouldn’t start back up. All that chasing for nothing, he thought again. He might as well go home. What did he want to be sitting around here for? He felt suddenly like he would if people had been laughing at him. Aw, go to hell, he told them. He got up and kicked his foot sharply into somebody’s leg and said, “Take that, sucker,” and turned into the woods to take the short trail home.

And as soon as he got in the door, they would holler, “How did you tear your clothes and where did you get that knot on your forehead?” He was going to say he fell in a hole. What difference would it make? Yeah, God, what difference would it make?

He almost stopped. He had never heard himself think that tone before. He wondered should he take the thought back. He guessed it was pretty bad; but heck, it was the way he felt. He couldn’t help feeling that way. Heck … hell, it was the way he felt. He guessed he couldn’t help that. He walked on a little way, thinking, thinking about it. He wondered suddenly if he were going “bad.” That’s what Hane had done. Hane played pool and smoked cigarettes and sneaked in at twelve-thirty and boy he thought he was something. ”There’s nothing you can do about,” their grandmother had told their father, “he’s at that age.” What age? Ruller wondered. I’m eleven, he thought. That’s pretty young. Hane hadn’t started until he was fifteen. I guess it’s worse in me, he thought. He wondered would he fight it. Their grandmother had talked to Hane and told him the only way to conquer the devil was to fight him-if he didn’t, he couldn’t be her boy any more-Ruller sat down on a stump-and she said she’d give him one more chance, did he want it? and he yelled at her, no! and would she leave him alone? and she told him, well, she loved him even if he didn’t love her and he was her boy anyway and so was Ruller. Oh no, I ain’t, Ruller thought quickly. Oh no. She’s not pinning any of that stuff on me.

Boy, he could shock the pants off her. He could make her teeth fall in her soup. He started giggling. The next time she asked him if he wanted to playa game of parcheesi, he’d say, hell no, goddammit, didn’t she know any good games? Get out her goddam cards and he’d show her a few. He rolled over on the ground, choking with laughter. “Let’s have some booze, kid,” he’d say. “Let’s get stinky.” Boy, he’d knock her out of her socks! He sat on the ground, red and grinning to himself, bursting every now and then into a fresh spasm of giggles. He remembered the minister had said young men were going to the devil by the dozens this day and age; forsaking gentle ways; walking in the tracks of Satan. They would rue the day, he said. There would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ”Weeping,” Ruller muttered. Men didn’t weep.

How do you gnash your teeth? he wondered. He grated his jaws together and made an ugly face. He did it several times.

He bet he could steal.

He thought about chasing the turkey for nothing. It was a dirty trick. He bet he could be a jewel thief. They were smart. He bet he could have all Scotland Yard on his tail. Hell.

He got up. God could go around sticking things in your face and making you chase them all afternoon for nothing.

You shouldn’t think that way about God, though.

But that was the way he felt. If that was the way he felt, could he help it? He looked around quickly as if someone might be hiding in the bushes; then suddenly he started.

It was rolled over at the edge of a thicket-a pile of ruffled bronze with a red head lying limp along the ground. Ruller stared at it, unable to think; then he leaned forward suspiciously. He wasn’t going to touch it. Why was it there now for him to take? He wasn’t going to touch it. It could just lie there. The picture of himself walking in the room with it slung over his shoulder came back to him. Look at Ruller