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STANDING ON THE BOARD SIDEWALK beside Jenkins’s display as the dapper local photographer, Scooter Willems Today he looked extra-fashionable in a seersucker suit with a straw boater As always, he had his camera and tripod with hiraphed me in action

“Where’d you learn to fight like that, Ben?”

“Boxing teae,” I said

“No, I mean, where’d you learn to put your thuht in the street,” Scooter said

“I reckon I just have the instinct,” I said

“Mind if I take your photograph, Ben?”

I ree Pearson “I do mind, Scooter My clothes are a mess”

“That’s ouldsmile

“Maybe for you Not for me Don’t take my picture”

“I will honor your wishes, of course” Scooter folded the tripod and walked away

I tucked ainst my chin, it came back bloody

Moody Cross stepped out of Sanders’s store with a sack of rice on one hip and a bag of groceries on her arm She walked toward me

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“You are beyond learning,” she said

I used my handkerchief to wipe off the blood “And what is it I have failed to learn, Moody?”