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Grow 'yourself up, Brady Jenkins.

'., "You know Beth Rand?" Brady remembered asking, too
innocently to be sincere.

"No,",his father had said, breaking off a leaf and
'chewing on it. He rolled the shreds between his lips as he
spoke, so that they dribbled onto the front of his shirt.
"Never brought that one home."

"Dad."

"Well, what, Brady? Guy like me can't tell you nothing

withoutt meetin' the- gi,rl.1I .:'~

"I'm 'not after .appzova L, ,,'Brady had said. -He still

remembered t'hat part, because his father had leaned forward

on his bad arm-the one the rooster had opened all fhe way

down to' the bone-and cleared his throat with a little sigh.

His father could only have reacted to it one way anyhow, '

so Brady had just said it. Not the best, most comforting

way to tell a parent; but at the time, Brady hadn't exactly

thought his dad would want to be reassured of anything. It

was more a courtesy than a plea for help or a statement of

responsibili ty.' ,

"Grow yourself up, Brady Jenkins," his father had said. I
And then it had gotten ugly, and the both of them had been
-s cxe ami.nq for five minutes before his mother had' come out.
Then ,his,dad told her, just as outright as Brady had told
him, and she'd started to cry.

"But, Brady," his mother had said, her apron still floury

from her Monday boysenberry pie, "you're nineteen, a 'child,

a baby yourself ...." '

"Don't waste your breath, Lee;" his dad had said .."Too

it:late nohow to fix things, can't go back in time and make him
think rightly 'bout Stupid boy got no serrse in his head

and ain't no thinkin'going on' in his pari;ts." '.

Brady sat down on the bed that morning and thought of

his mother and father, sitting in the orchard with the

.basket of petches on the table between them. He buttoned up

his wrinkled white shirt and' shook, out his jeans, .tugged at

them, zipped, then laced up his Nikes. For a moment 'food

;~ros~ed his mind, but he Shook it'away·as he kicked his

legs and got up. Beth would ask him if'he wanted ahything,

and he'd politely decline, and for the rest of the day he'd

relish the depth of feeling something as personai as self-

inflidted'hunger. He le~t the rope coiled on the stepladder

beneath hi s bedroom ~indow, started up 'his Jeep and' rattled

down' the highway.with the windows rolled up and his shades

slipping down his nose. There was a bike marathon or some

such charity event going on, and a chain of tight-faced men

in streamlined helmets' and nasty fitness shorts buz zed past

on the shoulder.' ., .

She was ,wearing -wh i,te Gap jeans, and when she turned to