The other three laughed, Chris a little louder than necessary as the tension melted away. “Yep, I’ll walk you. Um, you might wanna put shoes on,” Chris said.
Amy looked down at her feet then back out to the road before replying, “Nah, I’m good.”
“Go ahead, take your time kiddies,” Jenny said. “Me and Jimmy will unload the car.”
As they started to walk, Jimmy called after them, “Watch out for the Rangers!”
Before they had returned from their bathroom run, Jimmy and Jenny managed to empty the car, set up the tent and fill the collapsible water jug from the spigot that was out by the road. They were both inside the green canvas tent, having just pushed up the final center pole. It was called a “four-man tent,” but putting four real men in there would have been very tight indeed. “Think we’ll all fit okay?” Jimmy asked. “I think we may have to snuggle a bit but yeah, plenty room,” Jenny answered, and leaned forward from her kneeling position to kiss Jimmy again.
This time he was ready for her and he kissed her back, hard, and long, touching her tongue for the first time and tasting the spearmint gum she had been chewing when she was in the trunk. She let herself go and they kissed like that, his hands exploring parts of her body while she stroked his hair. Their eyes were both open and her amethysts welcomed him in, there was a primal force, a learning, a mutual exploration. Then the voices in the distance got closer and closer and Jenny pulled back. “To be continued,” she said, straightening her hair with her hands before exiting the tent.
* * * * *
Jenny had made up her mind that she was embarking on this journey with reckless abandon. She would hold nothing back and vowed to experience everything possible. At no point, had she conveyed this part of her plan to Amy, she thought now, somewhat guiltily. While she had come to this decision gradually, laying in her bed at night and imagining the trip, she had thought it would be a metamorphosis that would take some time: The caterpillar did not become a butterfly overnight. She now found herself questioning that analogy, she thought perhaps she might spread her wings that very first night.
When the boys took off to search for firewood, she confronted Amy. “So, what do you think of Chris?” she asked.
“I like him,” she replied, “He’s a great guy. We had a nice talk on our walk.”
“Hmm, naughty girl, is that all you did is talk?” Jenny teased.
“Well, I don’t like him like that. He’s just…really cool. Looks like you and Jimmy are getting along pretty good.”
“Oh my god, you have no idea. He is such a hot kisser, he made me melt inside,” she said, and then leaned in and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “He made me wet!”
“Whoa, too much information,” Amy said, and her friend for the first time thought she saw hints of jealousy mixed with her response.
* * * * *
“I probably should have said something before we left but, I’m not holding anything back on this trip. I want it all. I’m gonna live like every day is my last day, I want to do everything.”
Amy thought about that a moment before answering. “You mean sex? You’re going to lose your virginity to him? You hardly know him.”
“Not just sex, no, everything,” she said emphasizing the word everything. “But sex is definitely part of everything.”
“It’s your body, just be careful. Showing up in L.A. with a baby in your belly would be the surest way to end your dreams of stardom,” Amy cautioned.
It was not easy for her to put into words, the feelings that were going on inside her, the thoughts bouncing around her head like pinballs. It was a silent resignation that Jenny would never be hers. It was a jealous confusion of emotion. She liked both boys very much but despised that it had resulted in this. She had to reserve a solitary thought in some small, out of the way compartment in her brain, a thought that once Jenny got to experience “everything,” she would realize who her one true love was.
* * * * *
The boys had also needed a heart-to-heart and took the occasion of their separation from the girls to do just that. The woods they walked through had a sense of ancient wisdom. There was a quiet solitude accompanying them for a while, broken almost constantly by the songs of birds they did not see, a woodpecker’s rat-a-tat-tat, and the hoot of an owl. Sometimes the whoosh of a truck out on I-90 provided a distant reminder that they were not just explorers on expedition.
Finally, Chris broke the silence when he asked in a hushed and very even tone, “What are we gonna do with them?”
“Huh?” Jimmy asked, genuinely having no idea what his friend meant.
“Well, tomorrow we’ll be crossing the Mississippi into Minnesota.”
“Yeah, so?” Jimmy replied, still not following.
“We can’t cross state lines with a couple of sixteen-year-old runaways, man. The fucking feds will be all over us. I mean, playing house for a few hours is one thing bro, but taking them with us from here, damn that’s kidnapping. I won’t do it.” Chris had never gotten excited or raised his voice. His entire discourse was one of rational, indisputable logic.
Jimmy did not match his seriousness. “Okay, so how’s this. We drop them off on this side of the river and drive across. We wait for them to walk over and then start hitching on the other side and we pick them up again,” he said, laying out his plan in a whimsical tongue-in-cheek manner.
“I’m fucking serious man, someone’s already looking for them, believe me. Once it becomes an APB we don’t stand a chance. This can’t go past tonight. If it does, just drop me at the nearest bus depot.” Chris bent down to pick up two good sized logs that were lying on the ground.
“Okay, okay, I don’t know what the fuck to do now that you’ve put that killjoy on me. Let me think, we’ll talk about it later, okay?”
“Yeah sure, but there really isn’t anything to talk about,” Chris said.
“Just try to have fun tonight, okay? Promise me that?”
“I’ll have fun, I wouldn’t spoil your party,” Chris said but did not sound convincing to Jimmy.
After a dinner of hot dogs and corn on the cob, Jimmy grabbed the six pack of beer that he had chilling in the nearby stream and offered one around. They all accepted. They were sitting on two park benches which they had moved away from the table and were now positioned on opposite sides of the roaring campfire pit. The boys shared a bench on one side and the girls the other. When he finished his first beer, Jimmy went to the car and got his guitar, a six-string Gibson J-30 with a sunburst face. He strummed a few chords and then stopped to adjust the tuning.
Chris pulled a joint from a small leather pouch that was attached to his belt and lit it. He pulled in deep, allowing the smoke maximum access to his lungs and held it there, passing the joint to Jenny. She looked at Amy who shook her head ever so slightly back and forth. Ignoring the gesture, Jenny mimicked what Chris had done and passed it to Amy just as Jimmy started singing the Tracy Chapman song, “Fast Car.” She held it for a moment, hoping Jimmy would reach out his hand for it but that didn’t happen. Jenny stared her down after releasing the smoke she had taken in, imploring her to participate. She did.
When the beer was gone, a whiskey bottle seemed to materialize out of thin air and it was passed around, a pint bottle of Seagram’s 7 that Jimmy had swiped from his house. It was the first time either girl had tasted whiskey although both had drank beer and wine before. Jimmy’s voice was smooth and cool and his guitar playing, evidence of the ten years he had spent perfecting his talent, without a single lesson. From time to time Jenny or Chris would join in, sometimes in unintended harmony and other times just joining the lead line. Four kids from very different backgrounds with a common thought running through all their brains at this very moment and threading them together: I can’t believe how close we’ve all become so quickly.
In the distance, a smattering of campfires lit the darkness haphazardly, an ember or two rising into the night sky. The indigo ceiling above them held an
extravaganza of stars, bit players to the full moon that was center stage. When Jimmy started “Candle in the Wind,” even Amy sang. When he was done, there was applause from the road and when they looked there were two kids there, boys maybe nine or ten years old. “Hey guys, thanks,” Jimmy said. “Why don’t you come join us?” The two boys did just that and stayed for another couple songs before saying they needed to get back before their parents got worried.
When they left, Jimmy got up and said he had to take a leak, so he headed toward the woods. He was pretty buzzed, but his gait was steady and strong as he stepped over and around rocks and roots and fallen limbs until he was sufficiently away from the group. There was a sound to his left, footsteps in the leaves, someone or something was walking. “Chris?” he said questioningly. No answer. Whatever it was had stopped.
From back at the campsite came the voices of all three of his friends talking. Then the footfalls began again. “Who’s there?” He said, regretting not having brought a flashlight despite the brightness of the full moon. The hairs on his arms bristled as he hurriedly completed the task he had come for. He turned to head back and was startled to see a dog blocking his way. He jumped, startled, but the dog didn’t move. It was a medium-sized dog with matted, muddy brown fur. It was a stray with no collar. It had an oversized head and although its ribs were showing, there were clearly defined large muscles on its back legs. It appeared to be appraising him and fear gripped Jimmy by the throat for a brief moment before it turned to more of a creepy skin crawl.
Stay calm, he thought, don’t show fear. “Hey boy, you lost?” he asked, although he had no idea what the sex of the dog was. He made a wide arc around the dog and headed back in the direction of the fire. He didn’t look back but sensed for a moment that the dog was following. When he arrived at the edge of the woods he did turn, but nothing was there.
“Freaky man,” he said to his friends as he approached. “Be careful if you head to the woods, there’s a pretty big dog out there. He didn’t growl or anything, but he looked creepy.”
“Wow, I was just about to piss. Guess I’ll head to the bathrooms instead then,” Chris said.
“Hang on, I’m coming too,” Amy said, but when she stood up she wobbled from side to side before slipping down on one knee and ripping her tights.
“Oh my god, you’re so drunk,” Jenny said gleefully.
Amy stood back up and seemed to put all her concentration into the simple task of walking. It was working as she carefully put one foot in front of the other. “Am not, see you later,” she said, as she caught up to Chris. They walked away with their arms around each other.
Jenny got up from the bench and walked around the fire to where Jimmy was sitting. He watched her walk and the combination of the full moon shining through the canopy and the fire glow reflecting in her eyes cast her giant shadow on the trees and gave her an ethereal radiance. She pulled her sweatshirt up over her head and dropped it on the ground. She was not wearing a bra. There was an immediate stirring between Jimmy’s legs and he thought that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
She sat on his lap facing him and they kissed like lovers. Her dreamy, half-lidded eyes shone a shimmering amethyst desire. He tasted the whiskey in her mouth and she stared deeply into his eyes as she rocked back and forth on him. His hardness grew, and he knew she was feeling it, knew that she was aware that she was creating it, as she rubbed herself on him. That thought, for Jimmy, was extraordinary. His senses were heightened to an almost painful degree, as though he had never heard nor tasted nor felt before. He was fully erect beneath her and the stimulation was creating a sensation in him that would have culminated way too quickly if he didn’t do something.
He stood up with her still on his lap and she wrapped her legs around his waist, knowing exactly what to do as if they had done it a hundred times before. “Should we go in the tent?” he asked, without really separating their lips. “Do you have protection?” she whispered back, in a throaty voice that she did not even recognize as her own. “Yeah, I’ll meet you in the tent,” he answered.
Leaving her sweatshirt where it was, she walked backward toward the tent, watching him the entire way. He headed for the glove compartment of the car and when he pulled out the box of Trojans, the vile of cocaine fell to the floor. He scooped it up and ran to catch up to her. On the way, he passed a trail of two black Keds, two white socks, tights, and panties strewn along the ground.
Chapter XXI
“What the fuck?” was the only thing he managed to say. His feet were stuck in something, a gooey red molasses-like mess was washing over his Converse high tops and stopping his forward motion. It was running like a river down Second Avenue toward the Village. The colors around him were surreal, too vibrant, and too red. It was like the sky was on fire, or the street, or maybe the whole goddam city, but he didn’t see the flames. He was trying to decide if he knew the man standing next to him, or if he just reminded him of someone, like an actor or something. He had thought it was his father, but that was impossible, his father had put a shotgun in his mouth more than three years ago.
“Hold on son,” the man said, as he slapped Jimmy on the back, hard enough to make it sting. That’s when he realized, he didn’t have a shirt on and God was it hot. The man was pointing in the distance, towards where the Hospital should be, but for some reason, it wasn’t. “See that gaggle of girls?” he asked. Damn, it sure sounded like his father too. “They’re all yours, son, all you have to do is say yes.” Jimmy looked up at the man who towered over him and realized then, that it wasn’t his dad, this man was way taller. The man looked down and met his eyes, his wispy silver hair swirling about his head like a makeshift halo. He had dark, deep-set bloodshot eyes, and his crooked yellow teeth were spaced very far apart. One of the front two on top was missing. It was suddenly crystal clear, almost matter-of-factly, that the man bore no resemblance to his father at all. This guy looked nothing like the man that had tortured him for so many years. Goodbye and good riddance, dear old dad, he thought.
Jimmy looked at the group of girls walking toward him, each one prettier and sexier than the other. They were all walking as a group behind a small mangy looking mutt. Some were in miniskirts, some in bikinis and one girl, a stunning raven-haired beauty, was wearing nothing at all. Her firm, high breasts were pointing right at his face and she smiled a smile that he could not mistake, “fuck me,” it gleamed. Damn, she looked familiar. Never-the-less, he was experiencing an internal conflict. He wanted to say yes but there was nothing about this stranger that felt right or good. “Five seconds to make up your mind son,” the man cackled and rubbed the top of Jimmy’s head. His hand was like sandpaper.
The two of them stared out at the approaching throng. The redhead was oh so close now, her perfume was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. He looked down to see the swelling start of an erection, as he watched her lick her red-painted lips. He hadn’t realized, he wasn’t wearing pants either, he was stark naked. “four…” The redhead reached a hand for his erection. “three…” It felt so good as she took him in her cool hands. She kneeled in front of him as the rest of the girls gathered around her. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” they began to chant. He looked down at her beautiful face with the painted red lips and those beautiful amethyst eyes, “two…”
“YES!!” He cried out, just as the skin started bubbling on her face. It was the eyes. The amethyst eyes. He realized then that it was Jenny as a melting clump took her lips away. Her skin was dripping, like a wax mannequin in a fire and exposing the pale gray skull beneath. He tried to scream but couldn’t catch his breath, he bolted awake, startling himself and crying, “What the fuck?”
It was still dark in the tent. Jimmy reached up and wiped the beaded sweat from his brow. He was drenched from perspiration. It was so hot. His erection was shrinking away double time. He was naked on top of the sleeping bag into which Jenny was neatly tucked away, still sleeping, he thought. The events of the night b
efore were a smoky haze. So, this was what they meant by “the morning after.”
He had gone to bed a virgin, with a virgin, and there were no virgins in the tent this morning, that much he knew. They had made love for what seemed like hours. He had cum more than once and was pretty sure she had too. They had done it all. His hand found something in the dark and he picked it up and brought it close to his face, it was an empty brown coke vial. What a night, he thought. He looked down at her head, her jet-black hair was peeking out from beneath the sleeping bag, she was facing away from him. He wanted to turn her over and see her eyes, make love to her again, but he decided to let her sleep.
It was then he realized that there was no one else in the tent and he wondered where Chris and Amy were. Through the netted door of the tent, the campfire still glowed red outside and just the hint of daylight was beginning to find its way through the trees. After pulling on his jeans, he stepped through the tent door, feeling the coolness of a Wisconsin morning that chilled his bare skin. The sounds of the morning in the woods were so different than those of the night, happier, more optimistic. Chris and Amy were huddled beneath a brown sleeping bag, nestled up close to the fire. There was a small pile of logs that they must have scavenged the night before and Jimmy dropped a couple of them on top of the fire. The dead wood ignited almost immediately, and the new flames licked the chill from the air and spread their warmth. Chris rolled from his side to his back and looked up at his friend.
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