“You’re gay?” Stuart Lethbridge asked skeptically. “Are you going to be around tomorrow? Would you be interested in being part of the parade? I think we could find a spot for you.”

“I’ll have to pass.”

“Oh, I get it. When it comes to standing up for your rights, for supporting others in the community, you can’t be bothered.”

“Stuart,” Lawrence said, “it’s just possible you have an inflated sense of what will be accomplished by being in the Braynor fall fair parade. I mean, why do you even want to be in this parade? With school bands and cheerleaders and the 4-H Club? It’s very uncool. And for that matter, what are you doing running a comic book shop? I figured, at the very least, it would be a bed-and-breakfast place.”

“What’s wrong with a comics store?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s wrong with a comics store?”

“Whatever I do, I have a right to raise awareness about gay and lesbian issues,” Stuart said.

“Yeah, for all three of you,” Lawrence said, shaking his head. “Listen, Stuart, I’m sorry. Aside from me, is anyone else giving you a hard time about this? I notice someone’s been trying to redecorate the front of your store.”

“I’ve gotten egged so much, I’ve given up trying to get it off,” he said. “Plus there’s the petitions and the hate mail.”

“How about threatening phone calls? Death threats?”

“Well, I might be getting them, if the phone worked. I couldn’t pay the bill last month and they cut it off. The store hasn’t been doing that well, and I still got to get someone to run it tomorrow, when the parade’s on. Saturday’s the only busy day, when kids living out in the country come into town.”

Lawrence sighed and said, “Stuart, do you have any idea how much shit you’ve stirred up? And all to be in a parade no one with a dime’s worth of sense would want to see anyway?”

“There’s going to be racing lawn tractors,” I reminded him.

“Let’s go,” Lawrence said to me.

But before we left, there was something important I needed to know. “That Flash comic in the window. How much is that?”

While Stuart went to check, something under the tables that supported all the boxes of comics caught Lawrence’s attention. He bent over and dragged it out. “What is this?”

“Are you kidding?” Lethbridge said, like he couldn’t believe someone wouldn’t instantly know. “Those are Star Wars figures.”

“No shit? Like from all the different movies? Okay, you got a Lando Calrissian here? And a-Zack, what’s the other guy?”

I had to think for a moment. “Mace Windu.”

“Yeah, that guy.”

Lethbridge said, “They might be in there somewhere, but I don’t have the original boxes or anything. Some kid brought those in, traded them for some Alien figures.”

Lawrence started picking through the box, tossing aside several figures, including a weapon-wielding Boba Fett and a gold-colored C3PO. There were so many figures in the box, and they were all a mystery to Lawrence, who was quickly getting frustrated.

“I know I’m looking for a couple of brothers, but could I get some fucking help here?”

Lethbridge found him a used Lando, and a new Mace, still in the packaging, from the display case. “Twenty-five dollars,” he said.

Lawrence didn’t argue, handed over the cash.

“A gay nerd,” said Lawrence as we got back into the Jag. “Who’d of thunk it?”

26

DRIVING BACK TO BRAYNOR, Lawrence slipped a Miles Davis CD into the dash. He said, “When you fight for the right to do things that don’t matter, it diminishes your fight for the right to do things that do.”

“Okay,” I said.

“You think I shoulda bitch-slapped him?”

He’d tucked the plastic bag containing two Star Wars figures into the center console. I said, “A little something for Jeffrey.”

“I knew you were the guy to bring along. You figure out everything.”

“You haven’t said anything about him. Not even after what he said to you.”

“About inferior races,” Lawrence said, hunting for a track on the Davis CD.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not his fault. I guess you could argue it’s not his grandpa Timmy’s fault either. Maybe he was raised that way, too. But Timmy Wickens is older now, he’s had time to figure things out, and he’s got no excuse for being an ignorant, racist pinhead. But Jeffrey, he’s what again?”

“Ten.”

“Yeah, well, there still might be time to save him.”

“And his mother?”

“That’d be nice, too,” Lawrence said.

“You heard him talking about Timmy taking a belt to them, sending him to bed with no food.”

“I heard it.” Lawrence seemed to grip the wheel a little tighter. He turned up the volume a notch. “Listen to this.”

I listened to Miles for a while, then turned to Lawrence and asked, “How’s the thing?”

“The thing?”

I pointed to my own abdomen, in roughly about the same spot where Lawrence had been stabbed the year before. “Here. Where you got stabbed.”

Lawrence thought a moment. “Changes your outlook,” he said. I waited for him to elaborate, but instead, he skipped ahead to a different Miles Davis track. “Listen to this.”

I listened.

We were heading down the road into Denny’s Cabins, passing by the gate to the Wickenses, when Lawrence spotted Jeffrey. He was sitting on the top of the gate, one leg on each side, and bumping up and down, like he was pretending it was a horse.

Lawrence stopped the Jag, lowered the window.

“Hey,” Lawrence said. “Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You got a sec?”

Jeffrey hopped down and approached the car, staying about ten feet away from the door. “Yeah?”

Lawrence tossed the bag from the comics store at him. “Found those. They’re yours.”

Jeffrey looked into the bag and his eyes went wide. He quickly had the two Star Wars figures in his hand, a broad smile on his face.

“This is great!” he said. “Where did you get these?”

“Comic store in Red Lake. One of them’s used, but I figured you wouldn’t care.”

“Wow!” He took a couple of steps closer to the car. “Thanks,” he said.

“No sweat,” said Lawrence, holding his foot on the brake.

Jeffrey gave him a cautious look. “I’ve been told to watch out for strangers with gifts.”

“That’s a good rule,” Lawrence said. “Sometimes, people give you stuff and want something in return. Sometimes things that are bad.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Why’d you get me these? You want something bad?”

“All I want is for you to make judgments for yourself, not let others make them for you. You understand?”

Jeffrey took a moment. “Maybe.”

“Good enough,” Lawrence said. “We gotta go.” The window went back up and he shifted his foot to the gas. As we came round the bend and the cabins came into view, I saw Lana’s car parked next to Dad’s truck.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“What?” Lawrence didn’t know the car. I told him whose it was.

“Maybe she’s just visiting,” I said, “and Dad hasn’t told her what happened. Or maybe they’re just getting their stories straight, before I walk in.” I paused. “I guess I kind of precipitated a crisis.”

“Hard to believe, you doing something like that,” Lawrence said. He parked the Jag by my Virtue out back of cabin 3. As he was getting out, he noticed the late Leonard Colebert’s backpack in the back seat, and grabbed it.

“Your dad wants this to give back to that guy’s family when they get here.”

Lawrence popped the trunk and grabbed his overnight bag. “Where am I staying?”

“You’re bunking in with me,” I said. I had the screen door open for Lawrence when I saw Lana Gantry pop her head out of cabin 1.

“Hey, Zack,” she said. “Got a minute?”

“I’ll be back,” I whispered to Lawrence. I reached for Colebert’s backpack. “I’ll drop that off for you, too.” As I walked over, I said, all innocent, “How are you, Lana?”