'You ain't got to get mad about it. I was just telling you what the guy said.'
'You thought anymore about college for next fall?'
'I was just never any good at schoolwork, Mr Holland.'
'Will you call me Billy Bob?'
'My dad don't allow it.'
I walked back to my car. The sun was yellow and pale with mist behind Vernon Smothers's house. He stood on his porch in work boots and cut-off GI fatigues and a sleeveless denim shirt that was washed as thin as Kleenex.
'You out here about Moon?' he asked.
'He's been known to nurse a grievance,' I answered.
'He puts a foot on my land, I'll blow it off.'
'You'll end up doing his time, then.'
'I busted my oil pan on your back road yesterday. You'll owe me about seventy-five dollars for the weld job,' he said, and went back inside his house and let the screen slam behind him.
Just before lunchtime, my secretary buzzed the intercom.
'There's a man here who won't give his name, Billy Bob,' she said.
'Does he have on a blue serge suit?'
'Yes.'
'I'll be right out.'
I opened my door. Garland T. Moon sat in a chair, a hunting magazine folded back to ads that showed mail-order guns and knives for sale. He wore shiny tan boots that were made from plastic, and a canary yellow shirt printed with redbirds, with the collar flattened outside his suit coat.
'Come in,' I said.
My secretary looked at me, trying to read my face.
'I'm going to take my lunch hour a little late today,' she said.
'Why don't you go now, Kate? Bring me an order of enchiladas and a root beer. You want something, Garland?'
His lips were as red as a clown's when he smiled, his head slightly tilted, as though the question were full of tangled wire.
He walked past me without answering. I could smell an odor like lye soap and sweat on his body. I closed the door, turned the key in the lock, and put the key in my watch pocket.
'What are you doin?' he said.
I sat behind my desk, smiled up at him, my eyes not quite focusing on him. I scratched the back of my hand.
'I asked you what you're doing,' he said.
'I think you're a lucky man. I think you ought to get out of town.'
'Why'd you lock the door?'
'I don't like to be disturbed.'
One side of his face seemed to wrinkle, his small blue eye watering, as though irritated by smoke. He was seated now, his thighs and hard buttocks flexed against the plastic bottom of the chair.