The Nickel Boys: Part Two, Chapters 4–7

Bill Y.’s eyes, for their part, had been punched black, purple, and lurid.

The brown, pear-shaped birthmark on his right cheek added another hue to his mottled face.

The first time was for being recalcitrant; he was back for truancy.

The first time was for being recalcitrant; he was back for truancy.

Spencer was fastidious with his dark blue Nickel uniform; every crease in his clothes looked sharp enough to cut, as if he were a living blade.

An Ace, he said, listens to the housemen and his house father, does his work without shirking and malingering, and applies himself to his studies.

He was familiar with Elwood’s “situation”—his intonation swaddled the word in euphemism.

He was familiar with Elwood’s “situation”—his intonation swaddled the word in euphemism.

He’d learn that most of the kids had been sent here for much lesser—and nebulous and inexplicable—offenses.

He knew he couldn’t let the boys see him weep, so he turned over in the bunk and put his pillow over his head and listened to the voices: the jokes and taunts, the stories of home and distant cronies, the juvenile conjectures about how the world worked and their naïve plans to outwit it.

He knew he couldn’t let the boys see him weep, so he turned over in the bunk and put his pillow over his head and listened to the voices: the jokes and taunts, the stories of home and distant cronies, the juvenile conjectures about how the world worked and their naïve plans to outwit it.

A bugler and his brisk reveille woke them most mornings.

Work, comportment, demonstrations of compliance or docility, however—these things counted toward your ranking and were never far from Desmond’s attention.

Work, comportment, demonstrations of compliance or docility, however—these things counted toward your ranking and were never far from Desmond’s attention.

Desmond turned away and said, “Man, I got to make it to Pioneer.” His grown-up man’s voice, coming out of his scrawny body, made it a poignant wish.

Elwood, who did all of Mr. Marconi’s accounting in his head, took the rudimentary math lesson as an insult.

He shared a primer with the boy next to him, a fat kid who burped up breakfast in powerful gusts, and they started a dumb game of tug-of-war.

Elwood kept the indignation out of his voice when he asked if Nickel had advanced classes for students who were looking forward to college.

He was younger than the house father and carried himself like a stickler.

Birdy patrolled the first floor with the clipboard and pencil that were the trappings of his office, humming happily “This one will rat on you in a second,” Desmond said, “but get a good captain and you can scrape up some nice merits for Explorer or Pioneer.”

The state cars were brown Chevys, the ones that roved the grounds all day on simple errands but at night became harbingers.

The state cars were brown Chevys, the ones that roved the grounds all day on simple errands but at night became harbingers.

Her father died in jail after a white lady downtown accused him of not getting out of her way on the sidewalk. Bumptious contact, as Jim Crow defined it.

Dr. Cooke had an office next to the examination rooms, where he smoked cigars and harangued his wife on the telephone all day, bickering over money or her no-account relatives.

The potato-y cigar smoke permeated the ward, covering the smell of sweat and vomit and gamey skin, and dissipated by dawn, when he’d show up and perfume the place again.

Nurse Wilma grunted around most days, hale and brusque, slamming drawers and cabinets.

Nurse Wilma grunted around most days, hale and brusque, slamming drawers and cabinets.

Elwood’s bedpan was a particular affront—she looked as if he’d pissed in her outstretched palms.

He was a good whistler and for the remainder of their friendship his performances provided a score, capturing the mood of the escapade or fluting a countervailing commentary.

Plopped down a stack of battered natural-science books that by accident provided a course in ancient forces: tectonic collisions, mountain ranges thrown up to the sky, volcanic bombast.

All the violence roiling beneath that makes the world above.

They were big books with exuberant pictures, red and orange, in contrast with the cloudy, white-gone-gray of the ward.

The doctor thought the radio was therapeutic; Nurse Wilma saw no reason to coddle the boys.

His grandmother turned off the radio when Amos ’n’ Andy came on, with its carousel of malapropisms and demeaning misadventures.

If he looked the other way, he was as implicated as the rest.