"Mr. Cheever says you've been hanging around the rec building over there."
"I sat on the step once. In August. It was hot."
"He says you got aggressive with him."
"I asked him why he erased my name."
"That's not how he tells it."
"I know," Ruel said, and then he did not say anything else, because there was nothing to say to that. There was no sentence in the language that could take apart that is not how he tells it. You could only stand there and let it sit on you.
Perpetua stood up. She was a foot shorter than Ferrol and she had to tip her head back to look at him under the brim of her visor. "Officer, I'm the board steward for these courts. I have a letter from Parks. I was here when this young man wrote his name."
"Ma'am, I appreciate that." Ferrol did not look at her. He was still looking at the ID. "Is this your grandson?"
"No."
"You related?"
"No. I'm his tennis partner."
Ferrol looked up then, finally, and there was something almost like amusement in his face, gone as soon as it came. Then he handed back the ID and put his notebook in his pocket, and Ruel knew before he spoke what he was going to say, because he had heard the shape of it before, in other voices, on other days.