Schick is drawing pictures. That’s what he mostly does here. He brings a book sometimes, but mainly he draws. When he can borrow a notebook he draws on lined paper; otherwise he uses napkins from the Havanap on the table. You’ve tried napkins yourself, but either they tear under the point or the ink spreads into blobs. No real loss, of course, since you can’t draw.

But Schick has mastered a light, deft stroke with his PaperMate Flair so that lines remain lines and dots are dots. This is well, for Schick can draw.

You look over tonight’s work. A truck, on the side of which big letters spell out “Magna Cartage.” One or two gorillas. Scenes from movies, real and imagined. Right now he’s at work on a portrait – himself and Black, posing casually in front of their Land Rover during an African safari. This hasn’t actually happened yet. He’s just getting ready. Black has checked out the Rovers at the dealer in Lake Forest. He goes at night to look at the three used ones in the lot. There’s not that much call for Land Rovers in these parts, nor, for that matter, are there parts.

In the drawing Black and Schick both have beards. Black’s is dark, of course, and unruly, of course. Schick’s is blonde and improbably bushy, like Santa Claus in that Christmas cartoon they show on television every year.

The box is playing “Cleo’s Back.” Not exactly the theme from “Daktari,” but you like it. Even better is “Cleo’s Mood.” Cleo seems like a person to know.

You haven’t been invited and you sort of hope you won’t be, because you’re not sure how to explain that you don’t think you want to go to Africa. It seems like you ought to. Travel, adventure, intrigue. Guy stuff. But then, heat, sweat, flies, smells, snakes, god knows what to eat. Enjoy, guys, you think, and tell me about it when you get back.

If they don’t go, Schick thinks he’ll become an over-the-road truck driver. You asked him, the first time he announced this, what other kind there is. He didn’t know. It was just a phrase he picked up from an ad on TV late one night: Train to be an Over-the Road Truck Driver! Every so often you hear him singing, softly

I got ten forward gears and a Georgia overdrive
I’m passing little white lines and my eyes are open wide
Just passed a Jimmy and a White, I’ve been passing everything in sight
Six days on the road and I’m gonna make it home tonight

Nope, you think, you’ll take a pass on that one, too. Night vision not very good. Not since football. Jeez. Three years you ran laps, pushed a blocking sled, memorized plays, and sat on the bench. Then you moved to a school so small even you made varsity. Hundred sixty-five pound offensive tackle. Two games. Recovered a fumble at Clinton, and that turned out to be your career stat. That guy at practice, what was his name? Finger in the eye, bam, gray. Stayed gray until it went black. A few stitches for the sliced eyeball, all she wrote. Temporary hero. Oh and two with you, oh and seven without. Basketball town anyway.

While waiting for his passage to Africa, Schick plans to make a little book of his drawings. His father has a print shop, and next weekend you and he will go out to the shop and get started. His father promised to help at the beginning. Nice of him.

Your father didn’t come to your football games. You don’t know why. He liked football. You used to watch together when you were little. Frankie Albert, Crazy Legs Hirsch. Used to go out to the street and throw it around. He loved to punt. Took you years to learn to catch a punt. And then after a while you didn’t play together so much, and then not at all. And then he died.

You look up quickly when you hear those notes from the jukebox. Two quick, low notes on the piano, then two more a fifth up, then repeat. The beat takes you immediately. Four bars, and then the sax and trumpet come in. Dad taught you to love jazz, but he only loved it up to the Big Bands. He remembered his mother chasing him away from the jazz band at the county fair. He took you to see Earl Hines and Jack Teagarden once. But when jazz changed after the war, he couldn’t follow.

But he could change. Afterward you learned about the series of little strokes before the big one got him. Little explosions in the brain that slowly changed Dad into Not Dad, but you didn’t know that then. You just thought he didn’t like you. So you were pretty sure you didn’t like him. Later you tried to tell yourself that it was Not Dad who didn’t go to your games. Thinking that helped some, but not much. It’s mostly Not Dad that you remember now.

Piano solo. So deft, so delicate, so swinging. One big reason you keep coming here. No other box like it, Byers says. Byers knows these things. It is said that he can tell you the label for any song you can name.

You get up to get some more coffee. You pour some for Schick, too, as he carefully shades in around the Rover. Dark Continent. No need to go.

The song fades out with that same piano figure that began it, and then the conclusive thumpthump! You’re not breathing.

Stephen Dedalus asked “Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son?”

It’s OK, Dad. Horace Silver loves us both.

Next: ...and Then There Were None