From A Buick 8
A Novel
Chapter One
Now: Sandy
Curt Wilcox's boy came around the barracks a lot the year after his father
died, I mean a lot, but nobody ever told him get out the way or asked him what
in hail he was doing there again. We understood what he was doing:
trying to hold onto the memory of his father. Cops know a lot about the
psychology of grief; most of us know more about it than we want to.
That was Ned Wilcox's senior year at Statler High. He must have quit off the
football team; when it came time for choosing, he picked D Troop instead. Hard
to imagine a kid doing that, choosing unpaid choring over all those Friday
night games and Saturday night parties, but that's what he did. I don't think
any of us talked to him about that choice, but we respected him for it. He had
decided the time had come to put the games away, that's all. Grown men are
frequently incapable of making such decisions; Ned made his at an age when he
still couldn't buy a legal drink. Or a legal pack of smokes, for that matter. I
think his Dad would have been proud. Know it, actually.
Given how muc ... read full excerpt from: From a Buick 8: A Novel ebook
