The Boy
For the first time in my life, I was at loose ends with myself. It was a strange sort of feeling. It was not only there didn’t seem to be nothing to do: I didn’t want to do anything. Now that there wasn’t no purpose in going back to Charlotte Ainsley’s house, there wasn’t any reason to anything.

Even worse, for the first time I could remember, Billy didn’t seem to be with me anymore. It was only after he was gone – of course, he had been gone for a long time now, because he died of a fever when me and him were nine years old – that I realized just how much I had counted on him being there, somewhere just behind my left shoulder. In my mind, you see, I was always checking with billy. What would Billy do? Or what would Billy think? Or what would Billy feel? About this, that, or the other thing. Most important of all, as I passed through a day of life, what would Billy see in that day, take note of, appreciate, and enjoy? I had got so used to living life twice over, once for billy and once for me.

For a week or more I moped around the house, getting up early in the morning only to look at all that empty time up ahead before I could rightfully sleep again. I didn’t go swimming, I didn’t go sailing, I didn’t go downtown to shoot a game of pool.

I didn’t want to work. Mr. Adams found out I was idle, so he called two or three times, trying to persuade me to take up the grocery route. But even when he offered me one raise after the other, I couldn’t take interest anymore in that line of work.

Which was just about the strangest part of it all. Because I did like my old ladies. I enjoy doing for them. Not on account of the tips and the nice presents, either, but because it’s just a good feeling to be appreciated in this world. And they did appreciate me.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have my chances. Hardly a day went by that I didn’t get a phone call asking me to mow a yard or weed a garden. I told all these good friends of mine that, feeling under the weather as I did, I couldn’t see my way clear to take on a job of work just at this time. I tried to be nice about it. But I wouldn’t see my way to take on a job of work just at this time. I tried to be nice about it. But I wouldn’t see them.

It seemed like that Charlotte Ainsley, in doing her great piece, had used up the best part of me. She had burned me right down to the ashes, and all I had to show for it was the gold chain. I had that, at least; and I never took it off, except to take a shower, and I had got into the habit of fingering and feeling its heavy links as they hung down on my chest.

Not that I felt bad about what Miss Charlotte had done. I felt fine about it. Every time the thought crossed my mind of that statue being gazed on by thousands of people, it just made me feel great all over. The best part was, I knew that it would live forever, regardless of what happened to me. I would get old – why, I’d be thirty before you knew it – but the statue couldn’t get old. It would always and forever be sixteen, standing at full tilt and more alive than me.

I was empty. The magic that had been a part of me – it had been magic, too, for it seemed like any old lady in the need couldn’t take but one look at me without falling under its spell – had been transferred to the statue. So in one way Miss Charlotte’s statue had given me immortality, in another it had taken it away, leaving me a mortal man. No more to me than any other man.

The magic might now dwell in the statue; but it could still have its effect on my life. Because it was Charlotte Ainsley’s statue that brought Miss Ruby to me.

Two o’clock of a Thursday afternoon, hot and still. Out in the Gulf a thunderhead was building itself from the heat, towering there white and tall like a dream castle made out of hot air. No wind, so the sailboat or two I could see looked like they had been painted on the water. Just then, while I had been thinking for ten minutes I ought to go into the house and get a drink of water, a limousine pulled up to the gate. It was the longest and the prettiest automobile I had ever seen, sporting a special pain job of deep purple. Though I hadn’t ever seen one before, I knew from the hood ornament that it was a Rolls-Royce.

A tall fellow, old and settled-looking in his ways, though wearing a purple uniform to match the car, got down and came through the front gate that hadn’t been fixed for a good many years now, and so sagged on one hinge. He picked his way through the chicken droppings in the bare sand of the yard and stopped at the porch steps. Nobody around but me; my younger brothers and sisters down off in the willow thicket playing, Daddy downtown to enjoy the cool of the poolroom, Mama taking a nap in the back bedroom, which was the coolest place in the house.

He didn’t have any doubt that I was the man he had come to see, because, politely taking off his cap, he said, “Miss Ruby wants to see you.”

Like always these days, I was disinclined to go anywhere, do anything. “Who’s Miss Ruby, and where is she?” I asked.

“Miss Ruby is Miss Ruby,” he said. Then, nodding his head, “She’s in the car, waiting to talk to you.”

Having no desire to seem impolite, I figured I could bestir my laziness enough to walk that far. So I went out to the purple limousine, the chauffeur fellow following. When we got there, I still couldn’t see anything, because the back seat was shaded with window blinds. The chauffeur fellow moved around in front of me and opened the door.

“Get in here, boy, and let me have a look at you,” a deep, rough voice said.

I got in. The chauffeur fellow had left the motor running, so the air-conditioning had it nice and cool.

Miss Ruby was a woman big enough to match the size and deepness of her voice. Not that she was fat, though there was aplenty of that; just big, that’s all, her shoulders broad, her thighs like the twin boles of oak trees, and she had the chest of a pouter pigeon. Big hands, salted with flashing rings, and a broad face, pale in color, as though she didn’t ever let the sun get to her, and a tiny rosebud mouth that was as sweet and kind as her black eyes were sharp.

The automobile started moving. I said, “Wait a minute. I can’t be going nowhere.”

She didn’t pay me any mind; she was busy opening up a bar built into the back seat there, and putting ice into a silver cup.

“Want a shot of sour mash, son?” she asked, glancing at me.

“No, ma’am, I don’t drink,” I said politely.

She tossed back the shot and smacked her lips. “Better learn to drink, boy. At my age, sour mash is damn nigh as good as sex, and twice as handy.” She chuckled at her own saying, so I laughed too.

“How old are you, my boy?” she asked in a friendly tone.

“Eighteen,” I said, like I always did.

She kept on looking. “You’re a liar. Not a day over sixteen, and you know it.”

Well, now, how did she know that?

“Maybe you’re wondering why I’m here,” Miss Ruby said.

“Yes’m,” I said politely. “I reckon I am.”

She fixed herself another shot of sour mash and tossed it back neat, just one ice cube in the silver cup. Then she closed up the bar and sat back to study me.

“It just happened that I drove over today to visit an old friend, son,” she said. “Knew Charlotte Ainsley years ago in London, when she was first making her reputation.” Her whole body shook with laughter. “That was before she was less, I want you to understand. In fact, I didn’t know she had gone that route until I took note of that pretty girl she’s got living with her.”

She stopped, smacked her lips in remembrance of the taste of Jack Daniel’s, and went on.

“Saw that newest thing she’s done. Liked it. Tried to buy it. She wouldn’t hear of selling it, even to an old friend with the right size of money. Swore she couldn’t let it go except into a great museum, which she was sure it would do after her New York show this winter.” Miss Ruby’s chest shook with laughter. “Invited me to make the donation to a museum of her choice, but I don’t have a charitable bone in my body.” She stopped laughing as suddenly as she had started. “She’s right, of course. It’s a museum piece of the first water, if you don’t mind my saying so.” She chuckled all over herself again.

The limousine was creeping along slowly. We might as well have been in a private living room; the panel was closed between us and the driver, the window shades were drawn, the interior lit by soft hidden lights. There was music playing somewhere, soft and easy, just on the edge of hearing. Some automobile, all right; you couldn’t hardly tell that it was moving.

“Since I couldn’t own the work of art, I thought I’d have a look at the original. For some reason or other, Charlotte tried to keep you a secret. But I got it out of her finally, and since I’m a lady who makes up her mind in a hurry, I drove right over here.”

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to be said about all that she had told me.

Miss Ruby was still looking at me. “Did you like what she had done, once it was finished?”

“Yes’m,” I said. “I liked it a whole lot.”

Well, boy, I’m here to view the original,” she said. “So flop it out here and let me see it.”

I didn’t move. She waited for an instant; then she reached over, squirming around in her seat, to unzip my pants. Her large hand plunged in and dragged Him out. You would have thought such attentions would stir His interest, but they didn’t. She began to manipulate Him.

“Are you always this slow, boy?” she said.

I put one hand to the gold chain to feel its heavy links. “No’m, I reckon not,” I said. “I just ain’t been feeling any too well lately.”

Her sharp eyes studied my face all over again. “Well, we’ll just see about that,” she said strongly.

I must tell you, she had a kindly hand, and you know how He’s got a mind of His own. Before I hardly realized it, willy-nilly there He was, all of Himself.

Miss Ruby gazed upon Him. “I’ll be damned,” she said. “I’d have bet a hundred dollars she improved Him some, though Charlotte swore not. She was, by God, telling the straight truth, wasn’t she?”

Letting Him stand by his lonesome, she started rummaging around on the rear-window ledge and finally produced the last free-standing model Miss Charlotte had made. She held the clay model on my leg beside Him, nodding in approval.

“Absolutely,” she said. “That’s a fine cock you’ve got there, boy.” She looked into my face, laughing at my expression. “I bought all her working models, son, talked her into letting me have those, at least. Two hundred dollars each. But I’ve got an idea exactly what to do with them.”

It hurt me to know that Miss Charlotte had sold even the working models. I comforted myself by thinking that they had, at least, fallen into hands that would appreciate their quality.

Miss Ruby put away the model. “How’d you like to work for me, son?”

I shook my head. “Like I told you. I ain’t been feeling so good lately.”

“Anything physically wrong?”

I started fingering the chain again. “No’m. Not that I know of.”

“Are you working now?”

“Ain’t doing nothing but sitting.”

“Know anything about boats?”

I showed a spark of interest for the first time. “I’ve sailed a good bit, like any other boy raised in Pass Robin.”

She nodded. “That’s just fine. Son, let me tell you something.