Meteors in August (6 page)

She promised to show me something secret if I'd go to the gully with her.

“What?” I said.

“The pond.”

“I've seen it.” The beavers had built a dam across the stream and the water backed up into a marshy pool.

“Everybody's seen it, but you haven't seen this. Trust me.”

We scrambled down the steep slope of the ravine. Pricker plants and weeds grew thick and dry; they scraped our hands and our bare legs, leaving white lines that slowly filled with dots of blood. Mosquitoes buzzed around my head and I told Gwen this had better be worth it.

Gwen turned as we approached the pond, holding one finger in front of her mouth. I wondered what she'd found: a band of mountain people setting up camp in the gully for the winter? A small tribe of Indians bent on reclaiming sacred ground? A dead body so bloated and black that no one would ever know who it was? Nothing less could surprise or interest me, so I was disappointed when we crouched in the tall reeds and I discovered Gwen had led me through the brambles just to get a good look at her brother and Coe Carson taking an evening dip.

I'd seen plenty of naked boys—down at Moon Lake the summer before Jesse drowned; all four of Arlen's boys stripped and plunged. Nina giggled and Daddy threatened to smack her across the mouth, told her to sit in the car till we were ready to go, and stuck to his word. He wouldn't let us go back for a whole month after that. He got it in his head that Moon Lake was a dangerous place, deeper than we knew, with gaping trenches that could swallow a body and never give it back; he said that in those crevasses too deep for light sturgeon grew bigger than men. But we learned that the deep water was safe and still, and a boy could drown in the bright shallows.

I didn't think there was anything wonderful about seeing boys without their clothes. I thought they looked funny, especially when they came out of the water shivering and shrunken, but Gwen wasn't laughing. She was pushing the reeds apart to get a better look.

Coe Carson wavered, a pale ghost beneath the surface. He turned tail up to make a dive, exposing his skinny white ass before vanishing, sucked down by the murky pool. Zack slapped at the water, shattering a reflection of trees and clouds. When Coe came up behind him, Zack leaped and yelled, “I'll get you for that, you sonuvabitch.” Then Zack was the one to disappear and Coe was the one to squawk.

I couldn't see what they were doing to each other and I didn't care. The mosquitoes were eating me alive. The last yellow light filtered through the trees, a golden haze; Gwen's face gleamed with sweat. I wanted to go back to her house and lie in the grass. I wanted to start a story and let Gwen finish it, the way we always had. I tugged at her arm, but she batted my hand away. My feet sank into the soft wet ground. Muck oozed into my shoes.

Zack jumped Coe and shoved his head below the surface, let him up, dunked again. The third time, Coe came out sputtering. Zack sprinted toward land, arms slicing, legs a furious flutter. He crawled up on the slick grass while Coe slogged through the thick water. Zachary did a jig, taunting Coe, his penis flopping up and down as he whooped and pranced. Gwen giggled, then clamped her hand over her mouth. I should have told her how Zachary killed Myron's cat, how he snapped its neck and left it for Myron to find. Maybe she would have understood why I didn't find her brother so amusing.

Grabbing at the slippery weeds, Coe tried to pull himself out of the pond. Zack called him a wimp and a wussie, kicking at his chin. When Coe finally struggled to his feet, he lunged and laid Zack out flat. But he had no chance. Zachary arched and heaved. They rolled in the mud, arms clutching each other, legs entwined. At last Zack twisted free, straddling his friend. Coe's scrawny legs jabbed at the air. Zack laughed, shaking his wet curls, splattering Coe's face.

“Give up,” said Zack.

“I give up,” Coe wailed.

“Say, ‘You're the master.'”

“You're the master.”

“Master of all masters.”

Coe squirmed and stayed silent.

“Say it, pussy breath. I can keep you here all night.” Zachary bore down on Coe with his full weight and Coe groaned. “Say it.”

“Bastard of all bastards.”

Zack clutched Coe between his legs and Coe yelped. This time the force of his kick threw Zachary, and they lay there, panting in the grass, dirty boys streaked with mud and torn leaves.

Zack wiped his nose with the back of his hand and punched Coe's arm. “Fucker,” Zack said. “You gave me a bloody nose.”

“Come on,” said Gwen, “before they get dressed.”

Zachary Holler would pummel us both if he caught us spying on him. Or worse, he'd wait for some unexpected chance and pay us back in a way I couldn't imagine—some heartless way, like the way he paid Myron Evans.

I took one last look. I never understood why Nina took to boys the way she did. Something bad lurked in Zachary Holler, something threatening in his sunburned neck and hard thighs. As he grew older and his chest thickened I could see meanness blooming up in him, a living thing. And Coe, mild Coe, must have had an empty place inside his ribs, a place that could only be filled by Zachary's cruelty. Nina would have found Zack handsome: she liked dark-eyed boys with strong arms, and she would have brought out a kindness in him, false and fleeting. I saw Zack's turned-up nose. I saw his horrible hands, hands that could break the neck of a cat. To me he was half imp, half monster; but to Nina, he would have been just another pretty boy. I knew exactly what she'd think of Coe Carson too, because I knew how she treated his brother, Rafe, after that day Mother caught him with his hand stuck down Nina's bra. He became one of the boys who squatted behind bushes or climbed high in trees to call her name. She called him by his real name—Raphael—made him speechless so she was free to tease and tempt him.

Still, Rafe Carson found a way to redeem himself. He achieved a mythic status in 1964, when he managed to get himself locked up for trying to rob a gas station down in Rovato Falls. He was the only boy we knew who'd been sent to the detention school in Miles City, though many fathers had threatened their sons with such a fate. Nina and her girlfriends talked of it in whispers and hushed if they caught me listening. His name was their chant: Raphael, Raphael, my prisoner, my love. I imagined my sister and her two friends, their hands clasped, dancing. Trapped in their circle, I saw Rafe Carson, his wrists tied with the pink and yellow ribbons from their hair.
Prisoner
, they whispered,
love
. Years later I heard Rafe Carson got himself in real trouble over in Washington, but no one knew for sure and Coe wasn't talking.

“Didn't I tell you?” Gwen said as we climbed up the hill. “Didn't I tell you there was something to see?”

I shrugged. “I didn't think it was so great.”

“That's because you're sweet on Myron Evans. He's the only one you want to see with his pants down.”

I refused to answer. Catching Myron didn't interest me in the least, not since I'd seen him press his face in the fur of his dead cat.

At the crest of the gully, Gwen grabbed my arm. “Have you ever kissed a boy, Liz?” I shook my head. She knew damn well I hadn't, unless you wanted to count the time Jesse cornered me on the playground in second grade and licked me from my chin to my nose. I could still feel his rough tongue, the slobber I couldn't wipe away fast enough. I was almost in tears, too surprised to slap him. He flipped my dress to expose my underwear to a gang of boys. Jesse ran and the boys scattered. Later I learned it was a dare. My cousin earned half a dozen nickels by making a fool of me.

“What do you think it's like?” Gwen said.

“Nothing special.” I realized that most boys didn't kiss like Jesse. I had seen women swoon in movies; I had seen them surface from a deep kiss, gasping for air but not displeased.

“Do you think that if I kissed you and pretended you were a boy that it would be the same as really kissing a boy?”

“I s'pose.” I figured it would be a lot like kissing Aunt Arlen on the cheek, only wetter and probably worse. It still hadn't occurred to me that Gwen actually intended to try it out.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Let's see.”

Kissing was kissing. I had no idea why Gwen had to go to the trouble of pretending I was a boy, not that it took much imagination: I was already five foot six, bony as Aunt Arlen, flat-chested as Coe Carson.

“Be Gil Harding.”

“I won't,” I said. “Anyone but him.” In my opinion, Gil Harding was a greaser; his hair was hard and shiny, combed into a tail in back, and all his pants fit too tight. Gwen liked him because he was two years older, because he wouldn't even look at her. “Just for a minute,” Gwen said, “just for me.”

“He's got rotten teeth,” I said.

“You've never been close enough to Gil Harding to see his teeth.”

“Don't have to see 'em to know.”

She kicked at the dirt. “Are you ready?” she said.

“I'm ready.” I puckered my lips and closed my eyes.

“No, stupid. You're the boy. You have to come after me.” I bent toward her; her breath in my face was grassy and sweet. She opened one eye. “Don't you know anything? You're supposed to put your arms around me.”

I thought of my cousin Marshall, his hand gripping the bare breast of the girl who peed on Arlen's lawn. I saw the bruises from his rough fingers, the girl's smeared mouth, lipstick rubbed all the way up to her nostrils and halfway down her chin. This was as much as I knew about kissing.

Olivia Jeanne Woodruff, that strong young woman, lured Elliot Foot off in her Winnebago. Was she wearing him down like Arlen said? Was she kissing him to death?

Nina flung herself into the arms of Billy Elk. Nina threw herself on Jesse and tried to save him with her own breath. This was all I knew of love and mercy. The line blurred. Passion and salvation seemed like the same thing, like something I'd wanted my whole life.

I lurched forward and clutched Gwen's waist, gave her a fast moist smooch on the mouth—almost on the mouth. My aim took me high and I ended up getting more of her nose than her lips. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and spit on the ground. I was as sloppy as Jesse. She turned and ran. I stood, stupidly staring at the red scar of the setting sun. My eyes burned. I was nothing but a stand-in, a ridiculous failure.
Let me try again
, I thought. But I was sure she never would.

I watched Gwen's hair swing from side to side as she sprinted down the road, so you couldn't help thinking of a horse's tail, an animal's rump. Yes, she could have Gil Harding if she wanted. She could have any boy when she was ready. Soon she wouldn't have to bother with me and my false, clumsy kisses.

I ran after her. It was almost dusk, but she wanted to walk downtown. Boys in trucks and souped-up Mustangs dragged Main. They hung their heads out their windows, whistled at every girl they saw. They didn't care if she was fat or old, pimple-faced or bowlegged. Anything female was worth a blast of the horn. Gwen didn't seem to notice their lack of discrimination. She grinned every time they hooted, certain that each call was for her alone.

Later, we lay on our sleeping bags in the trailer. I said, “This is our cabin. We live alone in the woods.”

“I'd be glad to live alone and be rid of my parents,” said Gwen. “Ruby doesn't do shit now that she's working four to midnight. She's a slug all day and gives me hell if I don't do the laundry and clean up after Zack and Dad. She says it's high time I learned to do a woman's job. A woman's job? Christ. I'm no genius, she tells me, I've gotta be able to do something.” Gwen kicked off her shoes and stripped down to her underwear. “Fourteen years old and my mother wants to get me
trained
so I can marry some fat slob like my dad and wipe up his muddy footprints off the floor when he comes home from hunting and throws a bundle of dead ducks in my sink.” We unzipped our sleeping bags so we could have one underneath us and one on top. “Not this girl,” Gwen said, draping her warm leg over mine, “no sirree. This girl's going to have a good time before she thinks of promising to love, cherish and obey. Obey? Who thinks up this shit anyway?” She rubbed her leg up and down against mine, and I felt the rough stubble of her shaved calf. I tried to forget our miserable kiss, tried to pretend nothing had happened and nothing had changed.

I stared out the window, watching the sky. “My parents sure as hell don't obey one another,” Gwen said. “Dad's been on her back ever since she got the night shift. She says it's twice the money, and he says, ‘What're my wages—chopped liver?' Same conversation, five times a week. She wants her own money, never tells him what she makes. She's stashing it and I know where. Makes her feel free to have it. I think she's getting me
trained
so she can split. Like hell. If she screws, I'll be right behind her.”

I gazed past Gwen. She nudged me. “What're you looking at?” she said.

“The sky.”

“What for?”

“I'm waiting for the first star.”

“Tell me the rest of the story,” she said, “about our cabin in the woods.”

“A crazy trapper built a shack in these parts too.”

“Why's he crazy?”

“He married an Indian girl. They lived near the timberline, but her three brothers found them. They tied the trapper to his own stove and kidnapped their sister.”

“Where'd you hear this story?”

“Everybody's heard this story. The trapper struggled for a week. The fire burned out. The wind roared through the cracks of the log cabin and the trapper dreamed he was falling down a crevasse in a glacier.”

I kept looking out the window as I talked. Already the sky had gone from blue to black, filling with stars that disappeared behind the ragged ridge of the Rockies. “The ropes cut his wrists and thighs, but he was too numb to feel his own blood,” I said.