A Death On The Wolf (37 page)

Mary Alice put her hands to her face and said, “Where are we?”

“
This is Frankie’s dad’s farm,” I said. “It looks like the storm killed a lot of their cows.” The few cows we had in our pasture had survived the storm, but so far we’d only found three goats. Daddy figured the 165 mile an hour winds had literally blown the rest of them away. For all we knew, if they survived the ride, most of our goats were over in Hancock county grazing in someone’s yard.

Frankie’s house looked like a bomb had gone off inside it. It was easy to see why anyone in there would have been seriously hurt. The remnants of the house, and all its contents, were scattered in a streak 50 yards long, filling most of the backyard. As I turned the car around in the front yard, I caught a glimpse of a colored man in my rear view mirror. He was waving for me to stop. I did and he ran up and asked me if I knew where Mr. Frank was. I recognized him as one of the men Frankie’s dad had employed on the farm. I had to tell him that his boss was dead and I didn’t know what was to become of the dairy farm where he worked. He told me Frankie’s dad hadn’t paid him last Friday and he needed money, that his house had been badly damaged by the storm. I knew if he lived in one of those dilapidated shanties in colored town, it was a miracle that his home had merely been “damaged” and not destroyed. I pulled out my wallet and gave him all the money I had, $14. He thanked me profusely and told me he’d pay me back.

“
That was nice of you to help that man,” Mary Alice said as we headed back down the drive to the road.

I didn’t say anything, partly because I didn’t believe I’d helped him all that much. What was $14 in the face of the destruction Camille had surely brought down on that man and his family? I wished I could have done more.

Main Street in Bells Ferry was busy. Most of the glass from the broken storefront windows that had not been boarded up was gone. And all the downed power lines that had littered the street had been removed. We’d seen the power crews working on that yesterday when we’d gone to Hattiesburg. Since I hadn’t seen or heard from Dick in nearly a week, I stopped by the station. Dick was there, out at the pumps filling up a car with gas. It took a minute for that to sink in and I pulled up beside him and yelled, “You’ve got power!”

“
Just came on about ten minutes ago,” Dick said, looking over his shoulder at me. “Where the hell have you been? I was beginning to think the hurricane had blown you away.”

“
Trying to clean up the mess,” I said. “How’re things at your house?”

“
Lost a few shingles and a bunch of trees. Nothing major. You?”

“
Aunt Charity’s house is fine. Our house got moved off the foundation. Daddy says we’re gonna have to tear it down and build a new one. And our barn is gone.”

Dick frowned. “That’s too bad. At least y’all are okay.”

“
Is it okay if I don’t come back to work until next week? Daddy needs me to help him clean up the mess.”

“
Yeah, I think I can handle things.”

I waved bye to Dick and we headed on out of town, taking 53 toward Poplarville, the very route I would be taking tomorrow to return Mary Alice to the Masonic home. When we got to the bridge over the Wolf River, I slowed and looked at the water. The level had receded, but was still up. I briefly thought about Peter Bong, but then pushed him out of my mind, trying to take to heart Sheriff Posey’s admonition that this matter was closed.

Mary Alice and I spent the next hour riding around, me looking at the damage Camille had done, and her listening to me describe it. Her brother had called us late yesterday evening, when our phone service was first restored, frantic with worry. Up in Jackson, they were getting all the TV pictures of the destruction in Pass Christian and Gulfport, and we had to assure Beau that while the damage in Bells Ferry was considerable, it was nothing like what he was seeing on his TV of the coast. Aunt Charity had called the Masonic Home to make sure everything was fine, and it was. They had weathered the storm with little damage in Poplarville and were looking forward to having Mary Alice back.

When we got back to the house, Mary Alice and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the front porch. Our power had come on back when Dick had told me he had power at the station, and Aunt Charity had her central air conditioning cranked up full blast. Daddy and Frankie had abandoned the front yard for the cool sanctuary of the den where they were now watching TV. Aunt Charity was preparing dinner and my sister was trying her best to annoy me by refusing to leave the front porch and give Mary Alice and me some privacy. I had a déjà vu moment, thinking back to that day I’d fought with Frankie in the front yard and broken his nose. Sachet was being a pill that day, too.

After dinner, Mary Alice and I went for a walk. We didn’t talk, we just held hands. I found it curious that so much of this, our last full day together, had been spent just being together. Except for my descriptions of the hurricane damage during our ride, probably no more than two dozen words had been exchanged between us. I could sense that for the first time, the heartsoreness that had plagued me at times over the past several weeks whenever I contemplated this moment was now visiting Mary Alice. As such, we were both adrift in a sea of sadness where words seemed vapid and superfluous. A plaintive expression, a momentary gesture, a fleeting touch: these were all enough to convey thousands of words of emotion that crowded our hearts and rendered our eyes heavy with tears.

Late that night, long after Daddy had gone to bed since he had to work tomorrow and begin to help with the repairs at the plant, long after Sachet had ceased her annoyances and succumbed to the land of little girl dreams, long after Aunt Charity had finished her evening routine and retired to the inner sanctum of her bedroom, long after Frankie had fallen asleep in the bed beside mine with a comic book still in his hand, I crept from my own bed in a restless fit of anxiety and went to the den. I had no idea what time it was. I walked over to the sliding glass doors and opened the draperies and looked out into the star-filled night sky. The moon was bright, nearly three quarters full, and its cool luminescence seemed to sooth my troubled spirit. I stepped over to the sofa and lay down and before long, with the moonlight streaming across the room and touching my face, I at last found sleep.

How long I slept, I didn’t know. I was half awakened by someone lying down with me. In the fog of slumber, I assumed it was Sachet because she would often wake up in the middle of the night and either come to my bed or go to Daddy’s. Once I put my arm around her and pulled her to me, I knew it wasn’t Sachet. It was Mary Alice. Holding my arm, she turned over to face me. Before I could react, she had found my lips with hers. I had gone to bed in just my underwear and her hands were roaming, exploring the bare skin of my chest and my back as our tongues met. I touched her face and felt the tears. Her heart was breaking now. All the bravado she’d shown the many times she had chastised me for dwelling on our coming separation had vanished and the reality of it all was hitting her hard.

“
I love you so much,” she whispered in my ear as she held me tightly, our bodies pressing each other. She rolled on her side to face away from me and we assumed the spooning position we’d shared on her bed the night of Camille. Except this time neither of us was fully clothed. I was nearly naked, wearing only my briefs and Mary Alice had on a thin summer nightgown. In the soft light of the setting moon, I could not discern the color but I knew it would be pink. I put my arm around her and pulled her close to me, and softly over her shoulder I said, “It hurts, doesn’t it?” My eyes were closed. I felt her nod and then felt her sobs. “Don’t cry, pretty girl,” I whispered.

As Mary Alice had done with me, I let my hands roam her body, though I could only wonder what the touch of her bare skin would be like as she was shielded by her nightgown. Tentatively, I let my fingers explore the curvature of her behind and then the length of her outer thigh. On the trip back up, feeling the outline of her panties through the cotton of her gown sent a jolt through me that nearly brought me to climax.

Mary Alice was letting me have my way, and with my hand resting on her hip just inches from the place I longed to touch, I knew I could go no further. “You better go back to your bed,” I whispered in her ear.

“
I want to stay here with you,” she replied. Her sobs had subsided, and I knew I could not press the issue and make her leave my side, especially since more than anything, I wanted her to stay.

I kissed her softly on the neck and said, “Let’s go to sleep.” I felt her nod and locked together we lay like that until sleep took us both away.

The next time I opened my eyes was to the smell of percolating coffee. The faintest signs of dawn were visible through the sliding glass doors. Mary Alice and I were still lying in the exact same position when Daddy walked in the den. He reached down and touched Mary Alice on the shoulder. I had closed my eyes, so I don’t think my father knew I was awake.

“
Mary Alice? Honey…” Daddy said.

I felt Mary Alice stir beside me and then she went rigid when she realized where she was and who was calling her name. She bolted upright.

“
It’s all right, honey, don’t be scared. You just need to go back to your room.”

“
I’m sorry, Mr. Gody,” Mary Alice said, sounding groggy. “We didn’t do anything,” she added.

“
I know that, sweetheart. I just don’t want you to have to explain that to Charity. It’ll be best if you’re in your own bed when she gets up.”

After Mary Alice went to her room, I got up and went to mine and got dressed. I found Daddy sitting at the bar in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. It was ten minutes to six.

“
Good morning, sport,” he said.

“
Hey, Daddy. You woke me up when you woke Mary Alice up,” I said.

“
I figured I did.”

“
She was telling you the truth. We didn’t do anything. We just slept.”

Daddy took a sip of coffee and eyed me. “You don’t have to tell me that, son. I know you wouldn’t do anything.”

“
I sure wanted to,” I said as I sat on the barstool beside him.

He chuckled and said, “You’re sixteen. I’d think something was wrong with you if you didn’t.”

“
Yeah,” I said and laughed. I thought back to my thirteenth birthday when Daddy had given me the “birds and the bees” talk. Most of the physicality I’d already picked up from listening to older boys at school, but Daddy lectured me that day on the necessity for subduing my passions until marriage so that I could truly enjoy the physical act of making love in the spiritual sense that God intended. When I asked him about jerking off, Daddy just smiled and said he figured if God was against that he would not allow boys to get erections while at the same time giving them a pair of hands. As with all of my father’s moral strictures, I took his lesson to heart. Earlier, as I’d held Mary Alice and almost allowed my hand to touch her in places I knew I shouldn’t, I had approached that bright line of impropriety that had been written indelibly on the pages of my conscience that day, and no matter what, I knew I could not cross it. It would have been very easy for us to have made love right there on Aunt Charity’s sofa, and I was sure had I initiated it, Mary Alice would have willingly submitted out of her love for me. But even setting the moral issues aside, I was nearly a man in stature and size, and I knew the full potential of my sexual prowess, inchoate as it was. Mary Alice was clearly much more sexually immature than the boy she loved and I would rather die than face the disastrous consequences that would surely come should I loose my unbridled passions on her. Physically, I was ready for it. But she wasn’t. And neither of us was ready for it emotionally.

As if reading my thoughts, Daddy said, “I can tell you and Mary Alice are in love, son. What y’all have got…well, don’t do anything to spoil it. If you’re lucky, you find that one person who was meant for you. I was lucky with your mama. I think you’ve gotten lucky with Mary Alice.”

“
I’m sure gonna miss her,” I said.

“
I know. But Charity said you’ve got that all worked out. Mary Alice will be spending weekends with us, right?”

“
Yeah, but it still won’t be like having her living here.”

“
I know. But you have to remember, you’re going to be in school and still working at Dick’s. And we’ve got a house to build after we get the old one tore down. It’s not going to be like this summer. The weekends will roll around before you can blink.”

I attempted a smile at Daddy’s assessment, and I knew he was right. Mary Alice’s absence would not be the only difference. The summer of ’69 was rapidly coming to a close.

Four hours later, Mary Alice and I were in each other’s arms, standing beside Aunt Charity’s Cadillac. All of Mary Alice’s things were packed neatly in the trunk. My aunt would be taking her back to Poplarville. Mary Alice had said she preferred it that way. She wanted our long goodbye to end here, on the very spot where we’d first met just six weeks ago. Six weeks. So much had happened in such a seemingly short span of time.

I gave the girl I loved one last kiss as Aunt Charity came out the front door with Sachet in tow. My sister was going too. Frankie was sitting in the swing. I was fighting to hold back the tears as I got Mary Alice situated in the back seat. If she was battling to do the same, she wasn’t having any success. I brushed the tears from her face and repeated my words from last night, “Don’t cry, pretty girl.” That just made her cry harder.