The Professor (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #1)(58)

From the corner of his eye, Tom saw Bo cross his arms, but his former student didn’t say anything. Several seconds passed with the only sounds being Musso’s snoring and the chirps of several crickets.

“You’re serious?” Bo finally said, sounding disgusted.

Tom looked at him. “Yes, I’m serious. What can I do? I’m a sixty-eight year-old cancer patient. At the treatment this morning, they scoped me again and found some more of the shit. Not a full mass, just fragments of one. The doctor here thinks Bill probably just didn’t get all of it the first time around, which he said happens sometimes. Course, it could mean the cancer has already come back. Either way, I’ve got more surgery in my future.”

Bo’s arms remained crossed. “So what? You’ve got to have more surgery. You just gonna quit?”

Tom felt heat on the back of his neck. “Listen, Bo...”

“No, you listen, Professor. I’m not blind. I’ve seen all that mail piling up on your kitchen table. I bring it every time I come, and there’s a steady flow. You haven’t opened a letter in months. If that’s not quitting, I don’t know what is.”

Tom threw down his fishing pole and stood from the log, his legs shaking from the effort. “I don’t need a lecture from you.”

Bo also stood, walking in front of Tom. “I think that’s exactly what you need, dog. What the hell are you doing out here? Are you just gon’ stay out here the rest of your life?” Bo grabbed Tom’s shoulder, making him stop. “You know what I think?” Bo asked.

“No, Bo.” Tom turned around, brushing Bo’s hand off his shoulder. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re scared, Professor.”

Tom glared back at him. “You think I’m scared. Me?”

“As a prissy schoolgirl,” Bo said.

Tom felt a flash of anger and he wheeled towards Bo, his hands tightening into fists. “Now, you listen here, Bocephus. I appreciate all that you’ve done, but I’m about to...”

“You’re about to what?”

Tom blinked, hesitating.

“Go on, say it. You know what you want to say. You’re about to whup my black ass. Right? That’s what you want to say. When I challenged you, you came back at me. Now, you’re pushing seventy years old and eighteen hours removed from chemotherapy. I’m a six-foot-four-inch, two-forty-pound black man who did fifty pull-ups this morning and stopped cause I wanted to, not cause I couldn’t do any more. But when I threatened you, your first reaction was to fight. That’s what you do when challenged, Professor. You fight. That’s who you are.”

Tom turned away.

“So what’s the holdup?” Bo asked, continuing his rant. “The cancer? So it came back. So what? The doctor will take it out, you’ll go through some more chemo washes, and it’ll be gone for good. You’re old? So what? I’ve seen you work as hard as a man twenty years younger. You’re still strong as a bull, dog.”

“I don’t know what to do, goddamnit!” Tom yelled, unable to take it any more. “And, yes, you’re right, Bo. I’ll admit it. I’m scared, OK. Happy? The old Professor is scared. I’m sixty-eight years old, my wife is dead, I don’t have a job, my family has moved away, my old dog is about to die, and I don’t have a f*cking clue what to do.”

“What do you want?” Bo asked, his voice quieter.

“Part of me wants to go back. Fight...” Tom sighed. “The other part–” Tom glanced at his sleeping dog “–just wants to go where Musso’s going soon... see Julie again.” He stopped, feeling his chest swelling with emotion. “Bo, part of me was glad today. When the doctor said the cancer was back, part of me was happy. I...” Tom stopped, unable to continue. He stared at the ground, but looked up when Bo’s shoes came into his line of sight. “Look, Bo...”

“No, you look,” Bo interrupted, digging his finger into Tom’s chest, his eyes spitting fire. “You’re telling me you just want to die. That dying is an option here. Well, forgive me, Professor, but f*ck you. My daddy died when I was five years old. He was hung by a rope by twenty white men wearing sheets and hoods. You ask me why I practice in Pulaski. Well, I’ll tell you why. Cause every day, I want to show the bastards who hung my father that Bocephus Haynes hasn’t forgotten. I’ll never stop fighting, Professor. Never. Fighting’s in my blood. It’s what I was born to do. You can’t fake who you are. When I said you were scared, you didn’t hesitate. You rose to fight. By quitting, you’re going against who you are.” Bo stopped, breathing heavy.

“I’m not quitting,” Tom said. He glared at Bo, tiring of the lecture.

Bo glared back, but, after several seconds, his face broke into a smile and he glanced down at the ground. “We are who we are, Tom. And me and you, we’re like that bulldog over there.”

Tom wrinkled his face in confusion as he looked at Musso, snoring away.

“Yeah,” Bo continued, smiling at Musso. “You look at Musso, what do you see? A docile, sweet, dog that licks your face and likes to lay around all day. That’s how he is cause that’s how people for years have conditioned him to act. His ass has been domesticated. You hear me?”

“I hear you, but what are you trying to...”