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“And if you don’t ans be?” I asked “How have I disappointed you?”

“Believe it or not, son, y’all don’t have a lock on every fore in that Yankee town you now call home,” he said “The news does travel down to Mississippi eventually And everybody I know says you’re the ton” I had never heard that word pronounced with a more audible sneer

I didn’t answer All the way down on the train, I had vowed to myself not to react to his temperamental outbursts

“Your mother enjoyed that about you,” he went on “Your Yankee free-thinking ways But she’s gone now, God rest her soul And I can tell you this, Benjamin You’re a fool! You’re up to your knees in the sand, and the tide’s approaching You can keep trying to shovel as hard as you can, but that will not stop the tide fro in”

“Thank you for the colorful metaphor,” I said Then I went upstairs, packed ton

After that I heard from him only once a year, around Christ a twenty-dollar bill and the same handwritten note every year:

“Happy Christe E Corbett”

Cordially

Chapter 24

NOW HERE I WAS, STANDING at his door again And as alled me to knock on that door, I could not co my father I was sure he already knew that I was back

Dabney answered the door He had been my father’s house-man since before I was born

“Good Lord! Mister Ben! Shoot, I never expected to open this door and find you on the other side of it The judge is gonna be absolutely de-light-ed to see you”

“Dabney, it’s good to know you’re still the smoothest liar in Pike County”

He savein the old familiar smell of floor wax and accumulated loneliness

My father sat alone at the longa bowl of soup froe when he saw