A week to the day after Joseph Goodhope made his backroom deal with Pop, I was dragging my feet westward on Sixth Street, making the walk between school and work last as long as I could and thinking how I hadn’t seen Addie in an age. The air was warm even for spring, and the Oklahoma wind blew stiff enough to make you hold your hat.

“April Fools’!”

Ruby popped out from behind the corner of a building, hopping up and down and giggling. I jumped myself, only out of fright.

“You should see your face, Will Tillman! Looks like you seen a ghost!” she said, cackling like a tiny madwoman.

I put my head down and tried to push past, saying, “You’re no ghost, Ruby Goodhope, just a pesky little monkey.”

Which made her scramble back ahead of me, scowling to beat all.

“Joseph says when white folks call black folks monkeys it shows they’re ignorant.”

Unaccustomed as I was to being sassed by little girls, that stopped me short. “Oh yeah?” I said.

Ruby crossed her arms over her chest and glared.

“Mm-hmm.”

“And how exactly does Joseph figure that?” I asked.

She glared harder.

“He says we all come from monkeys. Or apes, maybe. I can’t remember. But people come from monkeys ’cause science says so.”

To which I replied that what she’d said was blasphemy, and little girls shouldn’t talk like that, and did she want to make God mad?

“I reckon it makes God madder when people don’t use the brains he saw fit to give ’em,” she said.

I gave her a nasty look and was about to lecture her on how she shouldn’t question the Bible when a wind gust lifted the cap off my head and sent it flipping and rolling on its edge down the sidewalk. Ruby took off like a shot, zigging and zagging around parked bicycles, ducking in and out of the shade from striped store awnings, weaving through a display of shovels and rakes outside a hardware store. Each time she’d catch up, the wind would carry the cap further. I ran after her, stumbling over bootlaces I hadn’t even noticed were untied. “Wait!” I hollered, kneeling quick to fix them. The cap flew into the road. Ruby followed. That’s when I heard the rumble of an engine over the wind.

Everything happened so fast I can’t say exactly what transpired. First there was Ruby, small and quick-winged, darting into the middle of the street with her braids flying. Then there was the big black milk truck behind her, bearing down so fast I knew it couldn’t miss.

Only it did.

Or, rather, she missed it, snatching my hat midbounce and hopping away so nimbly that the driver had only just started to swerve. But swerve he did, cutting his tires hard into the curb. Glass bottles clinked and clattered. Square metal baskets tumbled out a side door, the empty milk bottles inside them shattering against the brick-paved street like icicles off a roof. And all the while, Ruby paid no mind to the chaos. She gave a deep curtsy, holding out my hat like it was grand prize at the county fair, saying, “Your chapeau, mon frère.” I don’t believe she even saw the white-uniformed milkman stomping towards us.

“What in hell’s name do you think you’re about, you little—”

I got myself between Ruby and him quick, keeping her behind me with my good arm while the fingers of my casted hand clutched my cap.

“It was my fault, sir,” I blurted. Which surprised me even as the words left my lips. “I sent her to fetch my hat without checking for vehicles first. She’s a good girl, sir, doing as she was told.”

The milkman’s mouth clamped shut just ahead of him calling Ruby whatever ugly name had been on the tip of his tongue. His jaw hardened down like dark-stubbled granite.

“Well, she’s lucky not to be dead in the street right now,” he said in a way that made me think he wouldn’t have minded overmuch if she were.

Ruby tried to pull free behind me. I held her arm tight and yanked her back.

“Am not!” she shouted, hopping up to try and see over my shoulder. “Ow! You let me go, Will! I wasn’t nowhere close to gettin’ hit!”

The milkman’s skin flushed underneath the purple lines threading his drinker’s nose. “I thought you said she was a good girl,” he growled. “Seems to me she needs to learn her place. Her mama work for your folks?”

Ruby wriggled, and I squeezed hard enough on her thin arm that she whimpered. Our maid, Angelina, was old as the hills, and had finished raising her boy before she ever entered our employ. Still, there was no sense quibbling with the man over details, especially when they were so conveniently incorrect.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “She sure does.”

He mulled that over while I sent up silent prayers that Ruby would have the good sense to keep quiet. Then he rubbed some softness back into his jaw, saying, “Somebody oughta take a strap to that girl, teach her a lesson. And you oughta know better than to send a stupid little pickaninny into the street.”

An automobile honked just then, cutting off whatever invectives Ruby was about to let fly. “Get that thing out of the way!” its driver shouted. The milkman spun about sharp with murder in his eyes. But the vehicle was a beaut of a brand-new Lincoln, and its driver a goateed man wearing expensive gray summer flannels and gold-rimmed spectacles that gleamed in the sun. He looked important. Rich, at least. Enough so the milkman thought better of mouthing off and only touched his cap, saying, “Yes, sir. Just a moment.”

By that point I’d made a quick mental tally of the cost of the broken bottles in the street and had dug enough money out of my wallet to cover it.

“Here, sir,” I said, tossing in a few extra coins for good measure. “I hope this will cover the damage.”

The milkman took the coins and jiggled them in his palm.

“Plus this, of course.” I forked over my last four dollars. “For your trouble.”

The creases in his forehead eased as he pocketed the coins and grunted. Then he shot me one last mean look and hustled off to move his truck. And though it would have been proper to help him clear the street, I was worried enough over what Ruby might do or say that I didn’t.

“You let me be!” she howled as I dragged her off. “Or I’ll tell your ma!”

I grumbled something ungentlemanly and walked faster.

“Ooh—I’m gonna tell her you said that, too. She’ll blister your hide!”

And on and on she yammered, hitting at my good hand, threatening and wheedling by turns, until I finally stopped and faced her, saying, “Now, listen good, you little brat! You near got yourself run over back there, and don’t think that man wouldn’t have backhanded you or worse if I hadn’t stepped in! You don’t belong in this part of town, Ruby Goodhope. Go on back to Little Africa where you belong!”

Her big eyes fell. Her left hand rubbed at the bruised spot where I’d held her.

“He couldn’ta caught me,” she said, only with none of her usual swagger and sass. And suddenly it wasn’t a colored girl I saw before me, but a girl, plain and simple. And she was so small and sad and scared that my anger drained out of me like pus from a boil. I squatted down to her height. Said, “I didn’t mean that, Ruby.”

“Yes, you did,” she whispered.

Which was partly true, but not entirely. For the man could have slapped or spanked her right there in full daylight. And though a few passersby might have disapproved, no one would have stopped him. To most folks, Ruby may have been a little girl, but she was a Negro first.

Still, the rest of what I’d said had gone too far. And I hadn’t liked seeing Ruby cut down, never mind nearly killed. I hated it so much that I reached out and wiped away the teardrop slipping down her cheek. Counting my handshake with Joseph and grabbing her arm, it was the third time I’d touched a brown-skinned person. Fourth if you counted getting shoved by Clarence. Yet it was the first time I’d actually wanted to.

I told her I was sorry and that I shouldn’t have hurt her arm or said those ugly things, God strike me dead if I was lying. And she must have sensed my sincerity, for she looked up again and said, “I ain’t no crybaby. My eyes just water when I’m mad.”

Two more tears slid down her cheek and darkened the fabric of her blouse where they landed.

“I came to see you ’cause I need a favor,” she said. “I want you to write out a receipt for Joseph’s payments on that Victrola. It ain’t right, him giving money to your pa without your pa giving him any account in return. Way things stand now, he could take every dime Joseph pays, then laugh in his face when it’s done. Joseph knows it’s a rotten deal, but he wants our ma to have music so bad he’s willing to put up with it. I ain’t.”

And while I wanted to answer back that Pop was an honest businessman and would never cheat a customer, the leftover shine of tears in Ruby’s eyes kept me from it. Instead, I told her that the best I could do would be to write up some sort of receipt myself. It wouldn’t carry any authority with Pop or anyone else, but the notion satisfied Ruby enough to win me a shaky smile.

“Joseph’s bringing this week’s payment to your shop just as soon as he gets a break in his deliveries,” she said. “You give him that receipt when you see him, and don’t say nothin’ about talkin’ to me. Please?”

Which took me aback, both because she’d said please and because I figured she’d want to see for herself that I’d followed through with my promise. But I told her I’d do as she asked, and she nodded and thanked me and walked away.

I watched her go, thinking how very straight her back was, how her shoulders never slumped and her head stayed high. And I wondered how it was that a girl most of the world thought so little of could carry herself so proud. Then I put on my cap, leaned into the wind, and set off for work.

The shop did a brisk business that afternoon. Pop sold a midpriced Victrola to a skinny roughneck trying hard to impress his girl, and four different people came in wanting a copy of Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra playing “Caresses.” Two others hummed off-key versions of different songs that I recognized, and they bought the recordings, easy as you please.

But there was no sign of Joseph Goodhope; not hanging about on the front sidewalk, not zipping past on his bicycle. I was watching, too, keeping an eye on the street. For I’d made a promise to Ruby, and thickheaded as I was about some things, I was beginning to suspect that being righteous had less to do with whipping straps and beating Negroes than it did with keeping your word.

I never did see Joseph, though, and Pop neither glanced at his watch nor gave any other sign he was waiting on someone. It was as if he’d already decided the best outcome for the whole arrangement would be for Joseph to default on his hundred-dollar down payment. That way Pop would be able to return the Model 14 to the factory for $125 and still have more money in his pocket than he’d started off with. I’d told Ruby my father was honest, and to my knowledge he always had been. But I wasn’t so sure he’d pass up free money, especially if it meant he wouldn’t be left holding the short straw in a deal with a Negro.

Come six thirty, Pop declared it a full day’s work and flipped the sign on the door to CLOSED. “Get your things,” he said. “I’m ready for supper.” Which didn’t surprise me, since Angelina made his favorite chicken fried steak with white gravy every Friday. But food was the least of my concerns just then, what with the memory of the milk truck and Ruby’s tears heavy on my mind. So, casual as could be, I said yes sir, but didn’t he want to wait to make sure that Negro boy had a chance to pay his five dollars before we closed?

Pop fixed on me so hard I could near feel his eyes bore through my skull. But I’d had enough practice looking innocent and enduring skeptical glares that I didn’t flinch. And that alone must have convinced Pop I wasn’t up to anything too untoward, for he shrugged and put on his hat, saying, “That boy showed up ten minutes before you today, William. He’s not a dawdler.”

Then Pop went to lock up the storeroom, leaving me to gather my schoolbooks and hat and ponder why it was that I suddenly felt so much better about the world.

The next day found me so distracted, worrying Ruby might show up at work to read me the riot act over not giving Joseph the receipt, that by the time lunch rolled around, I’d broken one record and tripped twice over the most expensive Victrola we had in stock. It was so bad that come noontime, Pop took three dollars out of the register and laid them on the counter, saying he’d forgot his lunch, and would I please go down to Shackle’s Drugstore and get him a chicken salad sandwich. Plus I should order something for myself at the counter and take my time eating it.

Normally that would have thrilled me no end. But when I got to Shackle’s, my foot tapped and my eyes watched the clock as I waited for the soda jerk to work his way towards me along the crowded counter. And it wasn’t until I’d near choked to death wolfing down the first half of my egg and olive that I had the sense to slow down and ponder the true and proper source of my impatience. Which, painful as it was to admit, boiled down to the fact that I wanted to see Ruby.

I made myself take smaller bites, then ordered a chocolate phosphate soda and sipped it slow. Still, I found myself reaching into my pocket every now and again to touch the receipt I’d written up for Joseph, wondering if Ruby had stopped by the shop while I was gone.

She never did show up that day, or on Monday, or the next few days after that. Yet I thought about her and Joseph more than Addie, even, which was a worry and a relief all rolled into one. So to put my mind at ease, I played hooky from my last class that Friday and made for the shop, thinking I’d beat Joseph there for sure.

Of course, it being near forty-five minutes earlier than Pop expected me, I couldn’t go inside. And I couldn’t pass the cigar shop’s window, either, since Vernon Fish always watched the street like a hawk. So I tucked myself into a dusty alleyway, leaned against the wall, crossed my ankles, and did my best to be invisible.

It was to no avail. For not five minutes later, the stink of a Maduro Robusto crawled inside my nose and stuck there like smoke from a burnt offering. Then Vernon Fish himself walked past, stopped, switched a paper-wrapped package from his right hand to his left, and walked back.

“School let out early, Half-breed?”

The cigar smoke made my eyes water, and it took every ounce of willpower I had not to back away.

“No, sir, Mr. Fish,” I said.

He pinched the cigar between his thumb and forefinger and leaned even closer. “Then what are you doing here?”

And maybe it was fear, or maybe it was all the practice I’d been getting lately, but I smiled like I was about to share the biggest secret in the world and let the lie slide off my tongue, slick as buttered glass.

“My history teacher doesn’t know his ass from his armpit, and I’d had all I could stand for one day.”

Vernon narrowed his eyes, wedged the cigar between his broad lips, and slugged my shoulder so hard I winced. “I like your moxie, boy,” he said. “World’s full of saps who think book learnin’s the same as a real education. Not me. Got my degree from the school of hard knocks, I did.”

I nodded, hoping the conversation would end there. But Vernon tossed me his package, scowling when I fumbled it with my bum hand. “Carry that,” he said. “I’m gonna show you something.”

At the door of his shop, Vernon chucked the wooden Indian on the chin for luck and said how if ever I wanted to earn a nickel an hour, I could bring my Injun headdress and stand outside in the statue’s place. Then he let out a mean whoop of a laugh and flipped the BE RIGHT BACK sign on the cigar shop door to OPEN as we went inside.

I’d been in that store plenty of times, mostly to fetch Pop cigars he’d never smoke. Even so, it always surprised me how tidy the place was. On top of cigars, Vernon sold candy, cigarettes, loose tobacco, and rolling papers. The whole kit and caboodle was arranged neatly behind the counter. He kept pipes as well, from plain and cheap to fancy and not, each one polished bright and displayed alongside gleaming cigar cutters. There was never a speck of dust to be found, and Vernon worked the creaky wooden floors to a high gloss twice a week himself. Even the stink of his Maduros was more bearable inside, tempered as it was by the sweet scents of pipe tobacco and wood polish.

Which isn’t to say that the state of Vernon’s store made me like him more or fear him less. Truth was, the thoughtfulness behind it, the attention and care, made him all the scarier. Vernon wasn’t just mean, he was meticulous.

Once he’d closed the door and hung his fedora on the hat rack beside it, Vernon told me to go to the counter. Then he settled himself onto a stool without offering me use of the spare. I stood like an albatross, awkward and itching to hand over his package just as soon as I could.

Only Vernon didn’t ask for it. He said, “I’m gonna give you the honor of opening that parcel, Half-breed. I want you to see for yourself what’s inside.” Which made my normal fear of him bloom into full-on dread.

“Now, Mr. Fish?” I asked. Vernon stubbed out what remained of his cigar, took a fresh one from the shelf behind him, fished around in his pants pocket for his double guillotine cutter, and lined the end of the new Maduro up between its blades. “No time like the present,” he said, squeezing the cutter quick so the cigar’s tip dropped into the ashtray in front of him.

Well, my hands weren’t all that steady to begin with, and the cast didn’t help one bit. But I managed to pick the knotted string loose from the package and set it aside. I glanced up after that, unsure whether or not to keep going. Vernon lit his cigar, took a puff, and nodded that I should.

The box underneath the wrapping was plain and white. “Go on,” he said. “Open it, already!”

So I did. And at first, the folded whiteness inside looked for all the world like a stack of tissue paper. But as I lifted the top piece away, a triangular outline against a bed of white fabric came clear. Then Vernon’s own eagerness must have got the better of him, for he stood up, leaned over, and snatched the triangle from the box.

“Ain’t that a glorious sight?” he said, all breathy like a kid on Christmas morning. The fabric in his hand fell open into the shape of a big white ice cream cone.

“You know what this is, don’t you, boy?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“It’s a badge of honor.”

Vernon set the cone down, lifted out the layers of cloth left in the box, and draped a big white choir-robe-looking thing over the counter. He smoothed the creases from it, fussing like a girl over a gown. Then he recovered a bit, straightening up and blowing smoke into my face.

“What you’re looking at, boy, is the bona fide, real and true Ku Klux Klan regalia worn by God-fearing patriots across this great land of ours. And this”—he picked up the cone and laid it next to the robe—“is our crowning glory.”

I looked at the getup, unsure what to say. Which proved to be a good thing, for Vernon kept right on talking about how no laundry in town knew how to starch Klan hoods proper, so until he’d found a wife and trained her to do it, he’d take care of it himself, thank you very much. Then he put the hat on, unstarched as it was, so that the tip flopped down and made him look a fool.

From the expression on his face, you’d have thought he’d just come back from war to parades and pretty girls lined up in waiting. And that’s the honest truth, though it’s just as true that I should have made sure my thoughts didn’t show on my face. For before I knew it, Vernon was sizing me up through eyelids narrowed to slits.

“What’s that sneer about, boy?” he said, all low and quiet. Cold flushed through my insides. I lowered my gaze and said I was thinking how fine the robe was, and how proud I’d be to wear a cap like that myself. Which was a lie, but one good enough to make him take the hood from his head and cradle it close, saying: “You can forget about that, Half-breed. This cap’s for white men, not mongrels. I’m just showin’ it to you out of pity, on account of you not having a proper mother.”

He was calm. Smug, too, watching to see how I’d react. And though the blood rushed loud in my ears, I muttered I was sorry and never meant any disrespect, hating myself a little more with every word. After which Vernon set his cigar on the lip of his ashtray and folded the robe up carefully and put it back in the box with the hood on top.

When that was done, he tucked the cigar into the corner of his mouth and propped his elbows on the counter, saying, “You shining me on, boy, or you mean it?” And I swore seven ways to Sunday that there was no living soul more sincere than I, until the side of his face without the cigar pulled up into a wicked smile.

“Good,” he said. “You wait here and I’ll show you what the Klan really means.” Then Vernon disappeared behind the cloth curtain covering the doorway to the back, and I closed my eyes, thinking that when he returned, I’d say I needed to get to work. And I felt Joseph’s receipt in my pocket, and hoped he hadn’t already come and gone.

Only, when Vernon came back, I forgot all about Joseph and the receipt, and about hiding my feelings, too. And he fed off the fear he’d put in my heart, letting his lopsided sneer go bigger as he aimed the pistol in his hand at my chest.

“Maybelle,” he said, “this is Half-breed. Half-breed, meet Maybelle.”