Couldn’t say as I blamed her. This kid, who had torn up three magazines and drank out of all the paper cups at the water cooler and stuck his gum on the doorknob leading out of the office, wasn’t someone you wanted to look at much.

He was about eleven, and spent a lot of time scratching his red head as if it were full of lice. He had a nose that ran like an open faucet, and he was eyeing me with an intense look that reminded me of the squirrel’s expression just before it clamped its teeth on my arm. I wanted to ignore him, but I feared if I looked away he might spring.

He asked me some questions about this and that and I tried to answer politely, and in such a way as not to encourage conversation, but the kid had a knack of turning a nod into an invitation. He told me, without my asking, that he didn’t go to school, and that his parents taught him at home, and would continue to do so until LaBorde “built a Christian school.”

“A Christian school?” I said.

“You know,” said the boy, “one without niggers and atheists.”

“What about nigger atheists?” Leonard said, coming into the waiting room.

The kid eyed Leonard’s black skin as if he were trying to decide if it were real or paint. “Them’s the worst kind,” the kid said.

The Pentecostal mother opened one eye, then closed it quickly.

“How would you like me to kick your nasty little ass?” Leonard said.

“That’s child abuse,” said the little boy. “And you used a naughty word.”

“Yep,” Leonard said.

The boy studied Leonard a moment, fled to a chair next to his mother, sat there and glared at us. His mother seemed not to be breathing.

“Come on, Hap,” Leonard said. “I’m clean. Or as the doc said, no little dogs swimming through my blood. I’ll run you over to the hospital. Hey, you, you little shit-”