Characters in Nona

“You know.” “No I don’t.” I scratched and Billy added a ball to the table. He ran six and while he was running them I went over to put a dime in the juke. “Betsy Malenfant.” He lined up the one carefully and sent it walking up the rail.

I started hanging out there when I was a high-school sophomore. One of my acquaintances, Bill Kennedy, was working there three nights a week and if there was nobody waiting for a table he’d let me shoot some pool for free.

The expression on the Hollises’ faces when I showed them the financial-aid papers is the best memory of my life. One of my “brothers,” Curt, ran away. I couldn’t have done that. I was too passive to take a step like that.

They said I was alone. I was alone when they found me, almost frozen to death in that graveyard by the stones that mark my father, my mother, my brother Drake. But that only means she left, you can see that. Any fool could. But I’m glad she got away.

The bodies of Blanchette and the kid from the pickup truck had been found. They suspected that we had taken the cruiser. The cop’s name had been Essegian, and that’s a funny name. There used to be a major-league ballplayer named Essegian—I think he played for the Dodgers.

His body tumbled loosely all the way to the bottom, head over heels, like the ragbag man Mr. Hollis had me put out in the cornfield every July. I went back to get Blanchette. He was heavier, and bleeding like a stuck pig.

The mother snatched it up and ate it. I fled. Halfway up the stairs I fell and broke the jar of beans. Mrs. Hollis thrashed me, and I never went into the root cellar again unless I had to. • • • I stood looking down at the cop, remembering.

All she needed was that face, that hair, that look. She was exquisite. That’s the only word we have for her in English. Nona. I sat two stools down from her, and the short-order cook came over and looked at me. “What?” “Black coffee, please.” He went to get it.

It scared me, the way ticking from a wrapped package might scare me. “My name’s Blanchette,” he said. “Norman Blanchette.” He waved his hand in our direction to be shaken. “Cheryl Craig,” Nona said, taking it daintily. I took her cue and gave him a false name. “Pleasure,” I mumbled.