Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [13]
A small boy sticks his head around the doorway and stares at William, rather coolly, from under his long lashes. It is the same look David gives him, now pasted onto a round brown face. William knows he knows the boy, who he is and his place in the world (third grade, grandson of the cleaning lady; Clare likes him; Charles wouldn’t know him if he fell over him), but nothing else, like his name or why he is wandering around Clare’s house, comes to mind.
“You have company,” he says. Small boys are not his department. Small girls are delightful; he would entertain a roomful of little girls, if it were necessary.
“Hey, Nelson.” Clare waves to the boy. The boy doesn’t say anything.
“Nelson Slater, come on. You’ve met Mr. Langford before. Last summer.”
Nelson nods. Clare sighs. It’s not the short, vicious hiss that signals her annoyance. It’s not the mild, watery sound she makes when her children call while she’s working. It’s the sigh of some one settling in for a short, satisfying tussle. If she were upright, Clare would roll up her sleeves.
The boy sits down across from them on the floor. Clare and William smile helplessly. He slides to the floor so easily, he glides right down, and later, he will spring right up. It is a lovely thing to watch, the way gravity barely holds him.
Nelson has come to play checkers. Clare taught him when he was a little kid, and since the accident, Nelson makes a point of coming by every few days, eating the cookies that are always on the coffee table, and fitting in a quick game. His grandmother is collecting old clothes for church, from the garage, and he has fifteen minutes, she says. He might be able to beat Clare in fifteen minutes. It would be better if the fat man went outside, but it’s okay—Nelson can just keep his eyes on the board and on Clare’s skinny hands, looking closely at the tree of veins on the back of each one, blue branches pointing toward the fingers.
“All right,” Clare says, like she’s giving in, like she isn’t completely ready to kick his ass. “Set it up.”
Nelson plays as he always does, death in a bow tie, moving his front line cautiously but already dreaming of the queens slaughtered in their castles, gazing down at his men in terror and admiration, flames leaping orange and blue across their wooden walls.
“Game of Pharaohs,” William says. The kid must study Egypt. Mummies and Cleopatra’s negritude and the pyramids are what pass for history now. Half an hour left, and they’re going to spend it with Clare’s little friend.
Nelson pauses in front of one of Clare’s pieces. It’s not an advantageous jump.
“If you can jump, you must,” William says.
“Shut up. He knows.”
Clare rolls her eyes so Nelson can see: Ignore him. Nelson nods. He has met some very nice white people, but none of them have been men. He jumps Clare’s piece, and she jumps his.
“Watch yourself, young man,” Clare says.
“You watch yourself,” Nelson says, and laughs.
“Tough guy,” William says, and Nelson smiles tightly and looks away.
William sees Nelson’s opportunity, an unguarded square that will open up the board for him. You have it, William thinks, you may as well take it. He looks closely at Nelson, as he used to look at his daughter when they played Scrabble. See it, he thinks, see it. Do it. Nelson looks at William as if he’s spoken and scans the board. Nelson thinks hard. The man’s face is all lit up with wanting Nelson to win. Nelson and the fat man are going to beat Clare, is what Nelson sees. Nelson jumps like crazy, bouncing his man two, then three times and pounding his fists on the floor.
Clare claps.
“Good God. Well. Let’s see what I can do with this … ruination.” It is short work after that. Nelson’s men saunter around the board picking off Clare’s pieces and when she has trouble reaching to discard them, he scoops them up for her, tossing them in his palm once or twice and laying them on the side of the board in a neat line. They look good, one big red dot after another.
Mrs. Slater honks the