Page 47 of Havoc

"Say them."

He does.

And it's the second time in a week that a man has stood in this kitchen and said my father's name out loud to me while I hold my face still, except this time it's a boy with sweat rings under his arms saying it like scripture, and when he gets to the sixth one he stops.

He doesn't stop long. Half a second.

But he stops.

"What," I say.

"Nothin'."

"Cricket."

"It ain't my place⁠—"

"I'm asking you a question in a kitchen." I set the towel down. "Nobody's going to fine you for it."

He works on it for a while.

"Prez says 'em every New Year's," he says. "The whole room's quiet and he goes down the list and we say 'em back. I've heard it twice now." He turns the water glass around on the counter. "Six of 'em he says the same. Same voice, same speed, like a man readin' a list off a page.

"Then he gets to that one and he says it different."

The refrigerator hums.

"Different how?"

"Slower. And he don't look at the paper when he says it, he looks at the table." Cricket shrugs one shoulder, and he's already regretting the whole thing, I can see it happening. "It ain't anything. I just noticed 'cause I was new and I was watchin' everybody."

"Has anybody else ever said anything about it?"

"No ma'am."

"Not one man?"

"No ma'am. And I ain't gonna be the one." He picks the glass up and drinks the rest of it in one go, which is what he does instead of leaving. "Reckon I should get on. Told him I'd be back by one."

At the truck, he stops with his hand on the door.

"Ma'am?"

"Lennox."

"Lennox." He nods to himself, filing it, and I watch a twenty-one-year-old put my first name away somewhere he thinks he might need it. "Can I say a thing that ain't my business?"

"You've been saying things that aren't your business for two hours."

"Yes, ma'am." He grins, and it's gone. "He ain't right. Havoc. He ain't been right in about a week and everybody in that buildin' knows it and don't nobody say it out loud, and Friday he came in and stood at the bar for an hour and didn't drink the beer he got."

"Okay."

"I ain't sayin' it's you."

"You're a little bit saying it's me."

"No, ma'am." He opens the door and stands behind it. "I'm sayin' whatever it is, he's carryin' it by hisself, and that's how men get got. My daddy says you don't go in the water alone even when it's shallow. Especially when it's shallow."