The first part of this story was published yesterday here.

“Well, you gotta do it. You just have to say the sinner’s prayer. And then you’re saved for sure. And then we can just play catch and ride bikes and stop worrying about this all the time. Don’t you just want to maybe just do it? Can’t we just say it? It’s real quick. And I know it by heart on account of my family always goes to church and I’ve heard it a million times.”

“Yeah, you go all the time. I don’t like church. Do you just hate going but you have to, so you just go anyway and everything? And just have to sit there?”

Foy saw a stick and picked it up. He wanted to bang in on the fence the way Mickey did. He stepped in front of Mickey and whacked his stick along the chain link fence three times as hard as he could. Continue reading →

Apologies to those of you who like the Foy stories, but get disappointed when I post them in parts. This one will be two or three parts. And I don’t have a title for it. If you prefer to wait, hopefully it will be done by the end of the weekend. When it’s finished I’ll decide on a title and move it over to FoyDavis.com.

This scene from Foy’s life will make more sense if you read “Bearing Witness.”

Fort Davis Texas
1969

On Monday morning Foy cut across his block, through the neighbors’ yards, past Fort Street, to Davis Street, where Mickey lived. The Wallace family lived in a sagging home on a double lot. Buddy Wallace had erected a ramshackle metal building that served as his workshop and garage. Two small sheds about the size of outhouses were attached like hermitages to one side of the workshop. Indeed, they may at one time have been outhouses. Cars in various states of disrepair filled the workshop and spilled out into the yard, where their rust was slowly bringing them into harmony with the colors of the rocks, the earth, the washtubs, and the old tractor engine that also lay in the yard. On the Wallace property, things sat in the yard until they became part of the landscape, sinking into the ground and changing colors slowly over the years. Above these things flew the colorful flags of the Wallace laundry, flapping in the West Texas wind on two parallel lines that ran from the side of the workshop to a laundry pole set into concrete near the only tree on the property, a scrubby juniper that Alice Wallace watered and cared for as if it was the only thing of beauty in her life.

Continue reading →