No Fourth Commandment

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I’M GOING TO KILL MY FATHER,” said the boy.

“If I ever find him, I won’t bother to tell him who I am, or say hello, or anything. I’ll just walk up and kill him.” He was a tall, thin kid, with a hungry look in his green eyes.

“Butwhy? ” I asked. “Why do you want to kill your father?”

“You should see my mother. She looks like she’s fifty.”

I still didn’t understand. “So?”

“She’s only thirty-six.”

He didn’t say anything more, and I didn’t think I should bug him, so I went back to picking the strawberries. I’ve been out on the road enough years to know when to leave a body alone when he don’t want to talk. But this kid was different. I was kind of drawn to him — I don’t know why — maybe ’cause I never had no wife and kids his age.

It was one of those real warm, pleasantish days when you know there ain’t no place better to be than on a farm.

Even so, I felt a chill. The sun was beating down on me, naked to the waist in the middle of a strawberry crop, I was sweating like a pig, and I was chilly.

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