With this remark, Roy has somehow included Nathan in the group with his other friends. Burke glances at Nathan as if wondering who he is, but he goes on sitting next to Nathan without comment, propped on thick elbows. As Nathan listens, the boys talk about their weekend at the fishing camp at Catfish Lake where a lot of high school kids go to park or to get drunk. Burke drank too much beer this past Saturday, and pulled off all his clothes and ran up and down the lake shore whooping and hollering.
"You like to get drunk, Nathan?" Roy asks. "Not much."
"That's because you're younger than us," Roy says. "I don't like it much either. It gives me a headache."
"You're full of shit, too," Burke says.
"Naw, I mean it. I drink a little bit, but it don't mean that much to me."
Nathan eats and stands. Roy has cleaned his plate too, then pushes it away and stretches. As if by accident he follows Nathan with his tray to the dishwasher's window.
There, Roy says he wants a smoke. He says this as if he has always included Nathan. Behind, Randy and Burke are scrambling to follow.
On the smoking patio, Randy, plump, round, and blond, addresses Nathan familiarly. Burke remains hidden, as if he hardly realizes Nathan is present at all. Some of the girls on the patio seem to notice Roy in particular, but he pays no special attention to anyone. Roy is famous for having a girlfriend at another high school, an achievement of real sophistication for a boy his age. He lights a cigarette, propping one foot on the edge of the round brick planter, which overflows with cigarette butts. His smoking a cigarette makes him seem harder, more aloof to Nathan, who stands beside him trying to look as if he belongs. Fresh wind scours the fields, stripping away layers of soil. Roy stands at the center of his friends; they are talking about deer hunting season. Burke's Dad bought him a new rifle, a Marlin 3030. Roy has a different type. They discuss the guns casually. They talk about going camping in the Kennicutt Woods. None of the talk includes Nathan, who owns no gun, stalks no deer. But with an occasional glance, Roy holds Nathan in place, without explanation.
When Nathan walks away from the courtyard at the sound of the lunch bell, he carries a cloud of Roy. He is distracted during his afternoon classes. Because of his scores on standardized tests, he is taking math and English with kids in the junior class during the afternoons. That day he has a hard time paying attention; he is thinking of Roy with the cigarette drawling from his lip. The math teacher asks if Nathan is sick at his stomach, he has such a pained expression on his face. The older kids, who are resentful of Nathan's presence, find the question funny.
At the end of the day, Nathan hurries to the bus, nevertheless too late, even after rushing, to claim the seat behind Roy. He is only temporarily disappointed. During the course of the ride, he works himself gradually forward, empty seat by empty seat, confident of eventual success since he will be riding to the last stop. Roy, efficient, steers from one dirt driveway to the other, and the orange bus discharges its passengers in clusters of neat frocks and clean blue jeans. Only two riders remain by the time Roy steers right at Hargett's Crossroads: a mumbling brunette girl named Linette, wearing blue butterfly barrettes, and an older black girl with bad skin, who sits directly behind Roy and talks to him every so often. Pretty soon the mumbling Linette steps out of the bus beside her mailbox, and within moments so does the girl with pocked skin. He and Roy ride alone on the bus to Poke's Road and all the way home.
Now that the moment has come, Nathan sits, stupefied. He gauges the few remaining empty seats between him and Roy. Roy glances at him in the general surveillance mirror. Finally he says, "Why don't you come up here?"
The question echoes. Nathan moves behind the driver's seat. A slight flush of color rises from Roy's collar. Nathan leans against the metal bar behind Roy's seat and hangs there, chin to seat back. The orange bus lumbers down the dirt road.
The feeling is restful. They can be quiet together. Nathan is glad, and wishes Poke's Road were longer.
Roy parks the bus beside the barn and sits for a moment. His face has taken on a strange meaning for Nathan, registering expressions Nathan would never have expected from someone older. Roy listens acutely, as if for some signal. It is as if he needs something but he cannot speak about it. Nathan lingers too, taking a long time to stack his books, straightening them carefully and arranging them largest to smallest. Roy says, reaching for his own books, "I have so much stuff to do on top of my homework, I'm about to go crazy?
"You have to work?"
"I got chores for my dad. There's always something to do around here." Roy grimaces, gathering his tattered notebooks and light jacket. "And I got to write a paper in English, and I don't want to."
