David Westhaven lashed the rope of his small fishing boat to the piling on the Roanoke River dock at the back of his new house—the biggest in Mountainvista, Virginia—handed the fishing rods to Danny Foster, and, when he joined young Danny on the river bank, pulled his T-shirt back onto his muscular torso and took back the fishing rods while Danny pulled his own T-shirt on.

Handsome, buzz cut Westhaven was still magnificently fit, at thirty-nine, in keeping with having been a U.S. Marine between college and law school and being interested in being a formidable force in Mountainvista politics ever since having returned home after UVa law and opened the town’s premier law office. A lawyer in the town for years, in November he was running for mayor of Mountainvista, a town of 3,500 residents that hadn’t gone much of anywhere since Route 29, down from Charlottesville and up from Lynchburg, was bypassed. Westhaven had designs to get the economy going again by getting it out of the hands of the banks and back in those of businesses.

He had ambitious plans to bring the town, where he’d been born, back into the limelight. If anyone could do it, he could. The decision the people of the town had to make was whether they wanted to be in the limelight and were willing to work and sacrifice to get there. His opponent was the manager of a bank in town and was quite pleased with the status quo, not unreasonably pointing out the him being black and a bank manager itself showed phenomenal progress for a Southern town.

Westhaven’s choice for a fishing companion was a bit odd. Fourteen-year-old Danny Foster, of mixed parentage and having inherited the best-looking traits of both, was a bit of conundrum in the town. His single-parent black mother, who ran, singly, a barber and beauty shop under highly gossiped circumstances, let the boy just roam as he would. He was somewhat of a wild child, although he hadn’t been in trouble and no one could complain about the boy’s disposition or actions. Thus he could be thought more as a free spirit, always roaming around on his bicycle, seen here and there, doing this and that—not pinned own in what was otherwise a conservative, buttoned-down town—well, except for his thirty-year-old mother, LaBell Foster, who quite obviously was much too friendly with certain men in town, and didn’t give a fuck who knew it.

And there was the obvious fact that, as beautiful and perfectly formed as the boy was, he was neither here nor there in heritage. His mother was clearly black, but he wasn’t wholly so. Mountainvista was a Southern town. The mixing of races was still something to titter about. There was no father in evidence and never had been—and LaBell Foster didn’t seem to care who turned up their nose about that. LaBell did very much protect any information on where her beautiful young son had come from, though—who she’d coupled with in the white community to create Danny. LaBell had never been out of Mountainvista, so all of the white men of the town were under scrutiny for that one.

When the news went around the town grapevine recently that the boy would be going over to Chatham, between Mountainvista and the Blue Ridge Mountains, to attend a junior and senior high boy’s military academy, Hargrave Military Academy, a sigh of relief went around the town. The sigh came with a question, though. Who was paying for it? Surely LaBell’s business was barely enough to put food on the table, even though she owned the building near the corner of Broad and Main streets her business was located in and they lived in the upstairs apartment there.

But better out of sight, out of mind, although there wasn’t anyone in town who would say that that boy wasn’t friendly and helpful. He just was ... different ... and somehow undefined. It might be better if the boy wasn’t so friendly and helpful some said, accompanying that with a meaningful look. If nothing else, he definitely was from the wrong side of the tracks, and, as Mountainvista sat where two major rail line crossed, there were multiple ways of being from the wrong side the tracks here.

Looking out of the kitchen window, David Westhaven’s wife, Misty, saw the man and boy get out of the fishing boat and pull their shirts on. She dropped a teacup on the floor and gave out a “Shit.” When the family maid, Dorothy Johnson, came into the kitchen to find out what had happened, Misty, normally a proper Southern lady in all circumstances, cursed the woman, and Dorothy beat a hasty retreat.

Westhaven and Danny heard the crash and the curses as they walked up from the river bank, but neither said anything.

“Sorry we didn’t catch anything we can bring home,” the man said.

“That’s OK. It was good to be able to get out on the river,” Danny answered. “Thanks for taking me. And the tuition at Hargrave. I want to—”

“Don’t mention it,” Westhaven quickly said. “You deserve a good education. It would be good not to say anything about it in town, though.”

“Of course,” Danny said. He wasn’t dumb. He knew there was an election coming up and it would be inconvenient for him to be in town during the campaigning for that.

“Are you going back to the beauty shop from here?” Westhaven asked.

“Yeah. Mom has something for me to do.”

“I have some papers to give to the police chief. The department’s between here and the beauty shop. You think you could drop them off for me? They should be handed directly to Michael Johnson. Campaign stuff.”

Everybody in town knew that Westhaven was aligned with the police chief in this election—that Johnson, who was the brother of the Westhaven’s maid, Dorothy, and was the first black man let on the force in Mountainvista, let alone having risen to the position of police chief, would keep his job if Westhaven was elected and wouldn’t if the bank manager running against Westhaven won.

“Sure,” Danny said.

“If you wait in the drive by your bicycle, I’ll go get the papers,” Westhaven said. Danny knew he wouldn’t be invited into the house, and he knew why.

“Sure, great,” he said. “And thanks again ... for everything.”

“Don’t mention it,” Westhaven called over his shoulder as he entered the house—and Danny knew that the man quite literally meant that.

Riding his bicycle back, northeast, to downtown Mountainvista from the Westhavens’ riverside house, Danny had to cross two sets of railroad tracks—the Norfolk South line, running north and south, and the CSX, running east and west. The tracks crossed not more than two blocks from his mother’s barber and beauty shop in the old central store district of the town.

Danny had long taken Mountainvista as being a two opposing-tracks town as symbolic of his own two-track existence, neither white nor black and “different” from others in his natural interests, even at fourteen, in a conservative small Southern town. He was neither here nor there, and with two sets of train tracks going in different directions moving in the town, there were multiple ways of living on the wrong side of the tracks. This was a town where someone could be an outcast for living on the wrong side of the tracks in multiple ways. That certainly defined the attitude of the people of this town toward Danny. No matter how friendly and helpful he tried to be here, he was always on the wrong side to these folks.

It was a good thing he’d be off to the military academy over in Chatham in a couple of weeks. He’d just turned fourteen, so he was entering at the lowest grade they had, but he could be there for five years—living there with just vacation visits back to Mountainvista—as long as there was money to pay for it. If he had too, he might be able to pay for it himself. He made money here—good money for a fourteen-year-old. He did a lot for folks who wanted something for their money. He did wonder, though, if David Westhaven would be stepping up to pay for the residential tuition at the Hargrave Military Academy if he weren’t running for mayor in November. There was every reason, of course, for it to be inconvenient for Danny to be in town then and in the short campaign that ran up to the vote.

Danny didn’t have any trouble getting the police chief, Mike Johnson, to come out to the front desk at the police department in person to receive the papers Danny was delivering for Westhaven. The two men were cooperating closely on this election and had stuff going back and forth they wanted to keep a close hold on. There was another reason, though, that Danny knew that just passing his name and that he needed to see the police chief personally would draw Johnson out to the front. And he could see it in the man’s eyes as soon as he came forward. Danny was used to seeing that from men—and from some women in town too. Danny knew he was a real honey of a looker. And he knew that Johnson liked to look.

“Good to see you, Danny,” Johnson said, when he came out. “I heard that you’re off to Hargrave in a couple of weeks.” He reached across and touched Danny on the forearm, but not before looking around to see if anyone else was looking at them. They weren’t.

Danny left his arm there. He wasn’t afraid of men—not even big, black men, which Mike Johnson most certainly was. He wasn’t interested in the police chief—not in that way, not in the way that Johnson was obviously interested in him and maybe showed it a bit too much for a policeman in a small Southern town. But Danny saw no reason not to be nice to the man. It certainly helped in Danny being able to move freely in the town, even with his family’s reputation, without being hassled a lot. There was no reason not to let the man have hopes. In a couple of weeks Danny would be gone and the possibilities there just would wither and die without the need for any unpleasantries.

“Yes, Mom thinks the military discipline will be good for me—and for my grades too. She wants me to be able to get into the University of Virginia.”

“You gotta have good grades to get in there,” the police chief said. “So, I guess it’s a good idea that you build up backing for that.”

His face didn’t indicate he thought it was all that great of an idea for Danny to leave town, though. And Danny hadn’t been straight about it being anything his mother wanted. LaBell had ranted and raved about him leaving her for a residential school, even as close as Chatham was. It was only twenty-five miles away. But she’d seen the wisdom in him going, and she was relieved she didn’t have to find the money to pay for it.

“It won’t be for two more weeks, though,” Danny said. “I’ll be sure and come around and say good-bye before that.”

The police chief perked up at that. He’d spend a good part of the rest of the workday glowing that Danny would make a special trip to say good-bye to him—and it was only twenty-five miles away and the kid would be coming home on vacations. There was time to develop something.

When Danny got home soon thereafter, his mother’s shop being only three blocks away from the police station, she was downstairs in the shop, cutting a guy’s hair. Although she billed the place as both a beauty shop and a barber shop and had all the equipment she needed, working the shop alone, there were very few women who came in here for work on their hair. That wasn’t because LaBell wasn’t good with hair; she was. That was because it was a small town, and most of the women had a pact to squeeze LaBell out if they could. LaBell made most of her money from something other than hair and it revolved around the barber business. Everything was done by appointment, and appointments could take an hour or more each. But they paid very well.

LaBell had been left the building the shop was in by a devoted customer—some called him her sugar daddy—she’d once had been renting the shop and upstairs apartment from at a cut rate. There were two shops on the ground floor, side by side, her hair salon and a consignment store. Upstairs, reached by a staircase walled off on one side of her shop, there was a two-bedroom apartment. Right at the top of the stairs there was a separate bedroom and full bath—separate from the apartment.

When Danny came into the shop, LaBell turned and said, “You’re a bit late. You got a customer upstairs.”

“Sorry, I had to stop at the police department,” Danny said, as he went over to the doorway to the staircase going upstairs.

“What cha have to go there for?” LaBell asked, her voice laced more with curiosity than suspicion. She knew that Mike Johnson was mooning over her son, but she hadn’t decided whether that was a good idea or not. Now she didn’t have to decide. Danny was being helped out of town. Although it ached her heart, she had to accept that that was a good idea.

“Just delivering some papers for someone.” He didn’t say who. That was a sore subject with LaBell.

When he got to the top of the stairs and opened the door to the separate bedroom, he wasn’t the least bit surprised at what he saw waiting for him.

Thirty-two-year old police captain Gordy Simpson had started without Danny. The muscular, but burly blond buzz cut policeman, who was starting to lose the beer belly fight and was sneery about it, was sitting on a straight chair, khaki cop’s shirt on, but unbuttoned and flared, and trousers and briefs off. He had his cock in hand and was in erection.

“You’re late. You made me wait.”

“The time was for just ten minutes ago,” Danny said, “and you usually get here later than that.” But then, seeing the “don’t sass me, boy” look on the cop’s face, Danny added, “Sorry, I was sent on an errand that took longer than I thought it would.”

He didn’t say he had taken some papers from the lawyer, David Westhaven, to the police chief, Mike Johnson, because he knew Simpson would think there was some campaign strategizing going on between the two, which Danny thought was probably true, and Simpson not only supported the other candidate in the mayor’s race, but he also anticipated that he’d wind up as police chief if his guy won.