The Rock and the River Read Free

hadn’t said anything to me for several hours was a bad sign.
    People came and went from the waiting room. Every once in a while, Father approached the nurses at the desk to ask about Stick. At first, they told him the doctors were busy with other patients and they’d be right with us, but eventually, it got so they saw him coming and got real busy real fast. What was so hard about stitching up someone’s head?
    I got up.
    â€œWhere are you going?” Mama said.
    â€œBathroom,” I said, but I didn’t really have a destination in mind.
    I walked past the nurses’ desk and down the long hallway.I strolled into the hospital gift shop. The man behind the cash register glanced up from his book and eyed me as I entered. I walked by a wall of get-well cards and a bunch of little baskets with IT’S A BOY and THINKING OF YOU balloons tied to them, then squeezed the foot of a bear with a heart sewn into its chest.
    I stopped in front of a basket of fuzzy knit hats and mittens. The mittens made me think of Maxie Brown, the girl I might someday ask to be my girlfriend. If I could ever get her to say more than five words to me at a time. I thought of her standing in the schoolyard, her cold, bare hands balled up in fists at the ends of her sleeves. The sign on the basket read: MITTENS $2.50. HATS $4.00.
    I stuck my hand in my pocket. I had a couple dollars on me, but I wasn’t sure it would be enough.
    â€œPut it back.” The voice startled me, and I turned. The old man behind the counter glared at me.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œI said, put it back.” He moved out from behind the counter and approached me, shaking his fist.
    â€œPut what back?”
    â€œDon’t give me sass, boy. You think I can’t see?” He came up and grabbed my wrist, yanking my hand out of my pocket. Two dollar bills and some coins dropped onto the floor as he pried open my fingers.
    â€œI don’t understand,” I said. I glanced over his shoulder at the door. “I didn’t take anything.”
    â€œTurn out your pockets, both of them.” I inverted the linings in my other pocket. The man frowned.
    â€œAll right, now, get your sticky fingers out of my shop, you little”—he called me a couple of names that would have had Stick tossing fists, or made Father turn cool and stoic as he walked away—“Get out before I call the police.” I stood there and took it.
    I stared at my two dollars and change spread on the floor beside me, then at the purple mittens. Father would say, pick up your money, walk out right now, don’t give this man the satisfaction of humiliating you, and take your business elsewhere. Stick would say, if you want the mittens, don’t let this racist jerk stop you from getting what you want.
    I bent over and gathered up the spilled cash. I took a deep breath as I straightened out. “I want to buy those mittens. The purple pair.” I pointed.
    The man stood there sizing me up. I waited. I’d have to brush past him to get out of the shop, and I didn’t want to get that close. The man picked up the purple mittens and pointed in the direction of the register. He made me walk in front of him until we got to the counter. He moved around behind it, keeping an eye on me all the while. He shoved the mittens into a small paper sack and placed it on the counter.
    â€œTwo fifty,” he said. I handed him my two dollars and counted out fifty cents. He recounted it twice, then pointed to the door. “Now get your thieving behind out of my shop, and don’t come back here.”
    I reached for the bag and cleared my throat. “Can I have the receipt?” I said. No way I’d let him accuse me when I walked out.
    The man ripped the little piece of paper clear of the register without moving his eyes from me and I watched him tuck it into the bag. I swallowed the automatic “thank you” that formed in my throat and