I still got this other one.
He stood up and lifted Bobby into the air, holding him aloft like some specimen for them to consider. He turned him toward the girl in the car.
How’d you like to suck his little dick, Sharlene?
The girl was looking at Bobby, she looked at each of them, but she didn’t say anything.
Below his mackinaw Bobby was white-legged and naked, shriveled up and podlike, as though he’d been skinned. He was crying now.
Leave him alone, Ike cried. Leave him alone. He fought against the redhaired boy. You son of a bitch. He didn’t do anything to you. Why don’t you leave him alone. You dirty sons of bitches.
I want you to listen to that little fucker’s mouth? the boy said. Can’t you shut him up?
I’ll shut him up, the redheaded boy said. He held Ike by the arms and suddenly tripped him forward onto the road, kneeling on him. He hauled Ike’s shoes off one at a time and jerked his pants down, threw them away, and hauled off his underwear and flung them backward over his shoulder. Finally he stood up and pulled Ike to his feet, holding him forward in front of the others.
He don’t have any fuzz yet either, the other boy said. You reckon anybody in that family’s got any? You figure their daddy’s sprouted his feathers yet?
I’m not even talking about that son of a bitch, the redhaired boy said. He shoved Ike forward. Ike was crying now too. He moved over to Bobby and together they crouched in the road. Stretching their coats over their knees, they looked like forlorn and misshapen dwarfs caught by some great misfortune out in the night on a dirt road, a long way from any help.
Let’s go, the other boy said. I’ve had enough of this.
We’re going, the redhead said, looking at Ike and Bobby. But you remember what I told you. Nobody better hear about this shit tonight.
They watched him, looking up at him from where they squatted in the road. They said nothing.
You hear me? You just remember what I said.
He and the other boy got back in the car which then roared away in the night with the dust boiling up behind it and the dim taillights fading to nothing above the narrow road.
Afterward they could hear it without seeing it. Then it was just quiet. Overhead the stars flickered, white and hard-edged, myriad and distant. The wind still blew.
Are you all right, Bobby? Did he hurt you?
Bobby shivered and wiped his eyes and nose on his coat sleeve. I can’t find where my shoes are, he said. He stepped barefoot in the cold dirt, looking. That girl never even tried to help us, he said.
He wouldn’t let her.
She didn’t try hard enough, Bobby said.
. . .
It was thirty minutes before they found their shoes and both pairs of their jeans and their underwear in the dark. The clothes felt cold and stiff when they pulled them on, and then they started south toward the clustered lights of Holt. The lights seemed far away.
We should stop at one of the farmhouses, Bobby said.
You want them to know? Tell them what happened?
We wouldn’t have to say.
We’d have to tell them something.
They walked on, staying close together. The road showed dimly before them, paler than the bar ditches to the sides.