“I'm not crazy,” he said aloud in the car. He unrolled the window swiftly, letting in summer heat and the smell of dust and corn and manure. He turned on the radio loud and caught a Patti Page song. His headache went back a little bit.

It was all a matter of keeping yourself under control and-and keeping your record dean. If you did those things, they couldn't touch you. And he was getting better at both of those things. He no longer had the dreams about his father so often, the dreams where his father was standing above him with his hard hat cocked back on his head, bellowing: “You're no good, runt! You're no fucking good!”

He didn't have the dreams so much because they just weren't true. He wasn't a runt anymore. Okay, he had been sick a lot as a kid, not much size, but he had gotten his growth, he was taking care. of his mother -And his father was dead. His father couldn't see. He couldn't make his father eat his words because he had died in an oil-derrick blowout and he was dead and once, just once, Greg would like to dig him up and scream into his mouldering face You were wrong, dad, you were wrong about me! and then give him a good kick the way -The way he had kicked the dog.

The headache was back, lowering.

“I'm not crazy,” he said again below the sound of the music. His mother had told him often he was meant for something big, something great, and Greg believed it. It was just a matter of getting things-like slapping the girl or kicking the dog-under control and keeping his record dean.

Whatever his greatness was, he would know it when it came to him. Of that he felt quite sure.

He thought of the dog again, and this time the thought brought a bare crescent of a smile, without humor or compassion.