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and started screaming at his kid to pick up his Goddamn books. Rufus
took his time in the bathroom.

When he came out, (he figured five minutes) his old man was yelling

again. Actually, he had never stopped. Rufus, with his head low, just
picked up his books and didn't say a word.

His old man stopped yelling, and then said contemptuously, "Whatsa
matter, you deaf er something?"

Rufus just looked up, touchingly sad.

His old man squinted at him, and said quite softly, "Hey, something on
your mind, boy?"

Rufus didn't know what to do, his old man had never come down to his
level before. He couldn't explain it all; he didn't have time, knowing his
father's attention span and limit on patience. So he decided to sum it up in
one word, a-never-before-understood-word_but_perfect_for_the_occasion. It
gleamed in his brain, and as it rushed out he knew the golden place to look
for the answers to everything that had been bothering him.

"I guess I got the blues, Pop."

His father's face flushed, he turned his head away guickly, and then back
as quickly to Rufus' expectant grin. Embarassment covered with anger.
Grimly, he said, "The blues are for niggers and hippies. Boy."

Rufus was stunned. There was, a moment before, a realization of what
things in the world were about-"Coping with the blues." But just as snd-
denly as his mystical understanding became clear, his father had clouded it
with (and he understood yet another previously hidden word) bourgeois fears.

Nevertheless, the realization remained with him. He and his father never
spoke to each other after that, with the exception of Rufus asking, in the
morning, "Coffee?" or saying Goodnights. He never did both in one day
for fear of giving his presence away.

His father died shortly after he got out of school, and the memory of
their last real conversation never left him. It was a memory such that he

would always insist to himself that, not only were the blues for whoever
caught them, but he knew that blacks and hippies must be the people in
whom it was inherent, and he wanted to emulate them and know the depths
of blissful despair.