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The man Daddy punched first was on his knees in the gravel, and his nose was busted and bleeding and the blood ran down his face and neck and onto his button-down shirt. He tried to wipe the blood off his face with the back of his hands, but it just kept on pouring out of his nose. He looked over to the yard where Mr. Thompson was trying to pull Daddy off the other man, and he put his hand down on the ground like he was about to stand up. I heard somebody hollering my daddy’s name, and I looked up at the road and saw my grandpa ru
My grandpa pushed Mr. Thompson up against the side of our truck, and Mr. Thompson stayed there and watched my grandpa try to get Daddy up off the man he was hitting.
“Ben,” I heard my grandpa say. “That’s enough.” My daddy’s fist was covered in blood, and his shirt was turned red from the man’s bloody face. “Stop it, Ben,” my grandpa said. He got Daddy up on his feet, and my daddy shook loose like he was going after Mr. Thompson now. “Goddamn it, that’s enough,” my grandpa said. He wrapped his arms around Daddy and tried to keep him from getting away. Daddy got free and turned around and pushed my grandpa in the chest.
“Get off me!” he screamed. “Don’t you ever touch me! Ever!” Daddy pushed my grandpa again, and then he turned around and faced the house and when he did I could see that he was crying. He put his hands over his eyes, and I saw they had blood all over them. He walked out toward the road where my grandpa’s truck was parked. My grandpa just stood there and watched him, and then he turned and looked at Mr. Thompson.
“Y’all need to go,” he said. “There wasn’t no reason for you to have come out here to start with.”
Miss Lyle stepped away from the window and unlocked the door and opened it and looked outside.
“Wait, Gene,” she told Mr. Thompson. “Let me get something to clean them boys up. After that y’all need to leave. Ben called the sheriff, and he’ll be here real soon. He don’t need to see any of this. It’s just going to make it worse than it already is.”
Miss Lyle closed the door and turned around and walked across the front room toward the kitchen. I could hear her in there opening and closing drawers and ru
DADDY WAS STILL OUT THERE WHEN THE SHERIFF PULLED UP WITH the red and blue police lights spi
Miss Lyle and two of those old women were out there with wet washcloths wiping the blood off those men’s faces. Somebody had given one of those men a sandwich bag full of ice, and he was holding it up to his nose.
“I think it’s broke,” I heard one of those old women tell him.
My grandpa sat on the porch steps smoking and watching Daddy out at the road. When Mama saw the sheriff, she walked through the dining room to the bedroom where Stump was still laying on the bed and she closed the door behind her. Before she left she told me to stay inside. I asked her if Daddy was crying, but she just told me to leave him alone and not bother him. I figured she’d never seen him cry either and it had probably scared her too.
I heard the sheriff walking through the gravel, and then I could just barely see him moving like a shadow until he stepped into the grass and the floodlights hit him and made that little star on his chest shine. While he walked he looked over his left shoulder out at the road, where I knew my daddy was standing.
“What in the hell happened here?” the sheriff asked. He said it like anybody who wanted to could try and give him an answer. Mr. Thompson looked up at him and pointed out to the road where Daddy stood by my grandpa’s truck.
“We just came out to extend the sympathy of the church,” Mr. Thompson said. “We came out in the spirit of faith and fellowship, Sheriff, and that man attacked us.”
The sheriff looked at Mr. Thompson, but he didn’t say anything to him, and then he walked over to the man who held that bag of ice on his nose. The sheriff reached out and picked up the hand that held the bag and he looked close at that man’s face where it was busted. He squinted his eyes like he was concentrating on what he was looking at, and then he looked over at Miss Lyle where she was trying to get the other man’s face to stop bleeding. The man Miss Lyle was working on had his eyes almost swollen shut, and there was a big, bloody cut under one of them. The sheriff let go of the man’s hand and the bag of ice dropped back on his nose. He let out a groan like he’d just been punched again.
“Well, I’m sorry if y’all came all the way out here and got your feelings hurt,” the sheriff said. “But that man’s just found out that he’s lost his son, so I ain’t pla
“We don’t know nothing about it,” Mr. Thompson said.
“You knew enough to come out here and bring these two boys with you,” the sheriff said. “And I find it fu
“I suppose Pastor will talk if the Lord leads him,” Mr. Thompson said. The sheriff stopped and turned around in the yard and looked at him.
“Then you’d better pray to God he’s led,” the sheriff said.