Another photo at the exhibition showed two black boys and one white boy playing with plastic guns, grinning straight into the lens. The hand of one boy had extended with a pistol that pointed at the viewer, one eye closed in a squint like bang. It had surprised Max to see the black boys and the white boy playing as friends, as if they liked one another. All three boys looked poor, and Max wondered if it was the poverty that had united them. There were many things about Alabama he already didn’t understand. Max brought the photo to the front of his mind and placed it beside the image he had of Wes and Davis, their helmets in their hands, staring at him like he was the camera, walking toward him. This didn’t seem like the same Alabama from the photos.
Wes said, We’re going to stay late today and I’m going to teach you how to catch.
First game’s coming, said Davis. You might not start, but we don’t want to lose those legs of yours. They can be, like, a secret weapon.
Wes stood before him in his blue practice jersey. Not the hunter green school colors they’d wear on the first game.
Wes ran him into the ground. He arced ball after ball into the air and Max missed them all. Max looked over his left shoulder just in time to hear the ball crash into the grass over his right.
Wes said, Let’s go again.
Patience came easy to Wes, who explained the rules two times. Three times. Seventeen.
Wes showed Max the three-point stance. How to burst off the line of scrimmage. Wes crouched beside him.
Now try it a dozen times, said Wes. Then a dozen more.
The sun tipped behind the trees and the blue above them slanted into orange and then purple. Wes kept throwing. Fireflies turned on and blinked like stars in the space over the field.
You’re getting it, said Wes.
Never cradle a ball to catch it.
Hold your arms away from your body to receive.
Keep your thumbs together, spread your hands as wide as possible.
Beautiful. Yes, that’s how you catch. That’s how you do it, son. Three in a row. Beautiful!
MAX HAD NEVER KNOWN PRIVACY like the kind he had in Alabama. His bedroom was giant and had its own bathroom attached. He could regard the green lawn outside his window. Down the street were houses just like his. Rows of them. He could see, if he looked, the same blue television in the window of each living room. The trees that lined the wide, well-paved lanes grew to the same height because they had been planted at the same time. These were nothing like the unkempt forests that lined the country roads.
At six o’clock every evening, an old woman with a stick for fending off stray dogs would stride down the road in front of his house. Walking was so out of place in Delilah that the sight of her caused Max to pause whatever he was doing and observe her from his bedroom window. There was something rebellious about the sight of her. That night Max did not see the woman because he needed to get ready for Pan to come over.
His thighs and hands ached, and Max welcomed it. Wes had called him son, had said he was beautiful. Max combed his hair slick to his head. He spat at his reflection in the mirror and watched the bubble cry down the glass. Max did not see beauty. He tussled his curls. Nothing sat right. Max’s face usually pleased him but now it made him want to rip his own shirt from his shoulders. An ogre stared back. Pan was scheduled to come any minute. They had planned to build a magnetic field that was stronger than the earth’s.
Pan arrived late. When the doorbell rang, Max sprang from the recliner he had been sulking in as if nothing was wrong. Pan didn’t apologize for his tardiness. At dinner, he would only eat potatoes. Vegan.
Aren’t you supposed to live on red meat and friend chicken around here? asked Max’s father.
I don’t identify as around here, replied Pan.
Max’s father stared at Pan for one long beat, perhaps unwinding the meaning of what he said, perhaps wondering if he should probe further into the subject of around here. Max and his mother stuck forks into the meat on their plate. The blood had been baked brown. The texture was the right amount of chew.
Take whatever you like, Max’s mother told Pan.
So, what do you eat then? asked his father. If not meat?
I’m a fan of Spaghetti Hoops, said Pan. They’re my favorite. My number one. The perfect portable food item.
Max had been relieved at the sight of Pan in Carhartt overalls, not leather chaps or a lace bodice or even a delicate dark chemise. He did not want to sit at the dinner table with Pan in girl clothing and his father stroking his khaki beard. Max could almost see the boy scout Price had told him about. He noticed the hint of another person, a previous self, in the way Pan wore the overalls almost like a man. His stubble was coming through on his chin.
I was going to order a bucket of thighs from the Chicken Shop but now I’m glad I didn’t, said Max’s mother as she passed Pan more potatoes. I get so nervous when I think about cooking Southern food. You know I read in a regional cookbook to sprinkle potato chips on top of casseroles? For the topping.
Common as apple pie, said Pan.
I was maybe a vegan once, Max’s mother said. But I couldn’t manage to get the protein.
You never were a vegan, Max said.
I was, she said. But I ate eggs and fish. Does eggs and fish count?
I’ll let it slide, Pan said.
What will you let it do? Max asked, wondering if this was part of the American politeness he’d heard about. But she was not vegan. Egg is not vegan.
I’ll count it, said Pan.
And where are you from then? Max’s father asked, as if he couldn’t help himself any longer. Originally?
Max looked at Pan, at his high cheekbones and deep tan. The way his genes came together on his face meant foreign, but foreign from where was hard to tell. Max would have believed it if Pan told him he had appeared from somewhere spectacular like thin air.
Mexico? His father asked, settling back in his chair with his glass of milk.
Max stared into his lap. He’d never felt embarrassed by his father before, but now the sensation was as real as the meat on his plate.
I’m not from Mexico, said Pan. I’m from right up the road. Born and raised. Unfortunately.
Where are your parents from then? Max’s father asked because the answer didn’t satisfy him. Mexico?
Pan said his mother was from Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico, said his father. Bingo! He said this with pride, like he’d won a prize, like Mexico and Puerto Rico were the same thing.
He smiled and tugged at his beard but let it go at that.
When Max shut the door to his room upstairs, he apologized for his father.
He doesn’t care actually where you’re coming from, said Max, feeling his face heat up again. He wants only to know because he’s curious.
Honey, said Pan. It’s as depressing as a jail cell in here. You seriously need to decorate.
Max stared at his blank walls as if seeing them for the first time, and at his bare dresser with the lone blue comb atop it, his clean beige carpet, and the T-shirt folded on his bed.
Pan asked Max if he had ever met a witch in real life. When Max said he guessed not, Pan asked if he believed in witches.
In ghosts I believe, said Max. In dead things I believe.
Thought so, said Pan. That’s close enough by me.
Is it? Max said.
The way Pan stood in the center of the room, so calm and confident, made Max fidget. He tried to stand in the most normal way possible, hands tucked into his pockets, chest pitched proudly out. In his head he repeated: Not nervous, not nervous, not nervous. It was a mantra. A manifestation. And it worked zero percent.