Bennie just stood there for a moment, his bare white toes wiggling at the ends of his feet like worms escaping from an overturned tin can. Daddy stared at the ground for a second. Then he looked up. Daddy cleared his throat and looked at me out the corner of his eye. Bennie laughed at that.
Old habits die hard.
Daddy smiled that silly new grin of his and said OK, kind of softly. Then he looked back at me and paused. This is my old friend Bennie from high school, Michael. I shrugged my shoulders. Daddy was looking at me again.