Uncle Sean

by Ronald L Donaghe

  And Daddy fished with questions I could see right through, like what do Uncle Sean and I talk about when we’re off by ourselves, and I tell him the truth that Uncle Sean says we ain’t going to win that war over in Vietnam, and that we’re killing women and children.

  Only I know what Daddy was really fishing for, cause him saying that picture of Uncle Sean and his buddy looked like faggots, he was trying to find out if Uncle Sean was doing things to me. At least I got that much out of what faggots are, just like that word, queer, I hear sometimes.

  ***

  One day, Uncle Sean says he’s gonna go up to Lordsburg. It’s about 40 miles northwest of here, where I got this tablet. I wanted to go with him, cause there wasn’t nothing doing in the fields, except irrigating. Him and me got up at four that morning to set the water. But he says he’s sorry, but he’s got to go fill out some papers and I’d just be bored. Then Mama and the girls say they’re gonna go on over to Deming and do some shopping, and that’s about 50 miles northeast of here, and so it’s me and Daddy and he says he don’t need no help. So I’m in the house by myself.

  I didn’t mean to, but I got this idea. If I put everything back the way I found it, Uncle Sean won’t know I been in his room. I been in there a couple of times when he let’s me come in. But I don’t like to bother him. He likes to read or something, but sometimes after supper, I knock on his door and come in and sit on the edge of his bed and ask him stuff, like how come he ain’t married, and who’s the guy in the picture on his dresser. But he don’t like to answer questions like that, especially after what Daddy said, so I think he’s hiding something. Maybe what makes him mad and quiet.

  So, for awhile after everybody was gone, I just watched television, listening until the house was real quiet. And then I went in his room. I could feel my heart thumping like a John Deere tractor, but I saw Daddy go outside, and from the bedroom window, which ain’t got no curtains, any more, I can see from there to the barn and see where Daddy went.

  The room is a lot emptier than when my sisters were there. They slept in a double bed, and it’s still got the same spread on it, the pink one with the yellow flowers. But the walls are bare, except the outline of where posters of James Dean hung over the bed, and nails where they hung their other pictures. There’s a bureau with drawers where Uncle Sean keeps his t-shirts and under shorts and socks, and the top drawer is full of stuff like keys and his dog tags that he kept for some reason. I would’ve thrown mine away. There’s a dresser, too, but the drawers are mostly empty, except for paper and envelopes and stuff and even some sewing stuff Mama keeps in there.

  Uncle Sean don’t have too many clothes hanging up in the closet, and some of his dirty clothes is laying on the floor of the closet. But there’s a box I seen the first day I helped him unpack that’s stuck high up on a shelf. So I pulled up a chair from next to the bed and pulled the box down.

  I don’t mean to be a snoop, but I got to find out what’s wrong with him, cause everybody that knows has clamed up. But what Daddy said got me wondering.

  I set it on the floor outside the closet and see how the flaps are folded, so I can fold them back just like they was. It’s funny how books smell when they been stored, but these were really strong with that musty odor, like they’d been wet on or something. I think how smart he must be, cause most of the books don’t even have pictures, and I flip through the pages and smell the musty dust. One of ’em is a hard back with pages like in a notebook, and it’s written in. Pages and pages of lists of things I can hardly read, and each page has a date, like 1967, Saigon, which I never heard of.

  I was about to put it up when a picture fell out. One of them instant pictures from one of them Kodak cameras that spit out the picture a minute after you take it.

  It was kind of faded, but I could tell it was a naked man, wearing something tied around his head and smiling, and holding one of them home-rolled cigarettes. And I can see that it was hot when the picture was taken, because the man is sweating, and his skin is all shiny with it. I flipped it over and it said, “to my man. T.S.” I grinned a little that Uncle Sean had a picture of a real naked man not just from the National Geographic like I seen. It’s kind of hard for me to breathe, too, seeing how pretty T.S. is. So I get real jumpy and sweat pops out on my face, cause I didn’t see right where the picture came out of the book.

  So I just stuck it in the middle of the book, and almost set the book back down in the box when something shiny caught my eye underneath a big envelope in the bottom of the box, and I pulled the envelope up and saw this tin box with all kind of squiggly lines and dragons etched into it. So I opened it and found more dog tags. Only these weren’t Uncle Sean’s, and they’re bent funny, like something hit along one edge, like if I was to take a hammer and a nail and tried to knock a hole in the metal, and like I was to miss and just graze the edge. And they’re all dirty like, with rust spots that flake off, and the chain is broken.

  But something in my belly said something was wrong, so I felt the raised words and turned the tags to the light, where I could read the name above a bunch of numbers. It said Theodore Seabrook.

  I knew something. It was like I could shut my eyes and hear every tiny sound in the room, the way the beads on the chain on the tags settled back into the tin. I felt funny about the way the rust kind of fell off, too, and flaked on the envelope, which I blew off. I could hear the way the paper rustled when I settled the envelope back down over the tin box. I could even hear my heart pumping my blood as I set the books back in the box.

  I knew something that must’ve made Uncle Sean sad, cause I just bet he pulled those tags off his buddy there in Vietnam, and you wouldn’t do that less he was dead.

  I felt real guilty like, as I put everything back and moved the chair back to where it was, and then I sat down on the edge of Uncle Sean’s bed and took that picture off the dresser. It was him and his buddy, T.S., and in the picture they’re both wearing their dog tags. And I hugged it. I couldn’t help it.

  Two

  ———————▼———————

  Ever since I seen that picture in the box and found them dog tags of Theodore Seabrook I knew something about Uncle Sean. Though it’s like seeing something and not knowing what to call it. So then I get this idea.

  The layout of our house is like this. The living room and kitchen are on the east side, and everybody comes in the kitchen door, cause that’s where the driveway stops. Then off the living room is a hall that runs right down the middle of the house with the bathroom at one end. And Uncle Sean’s bedroom is off the hall right near the bathroom, and the window in his room looks south. Then Mama and Daddy’s bedroom is up the hall from that, and their window looks west. Then the girl’s room is next to Mama and Daddy’s, and mine is on the other end of the hall, and I have two windows. One looks north and one looks west. I have the best room in the house when it’s hot, because I get cross breezes. And it’s really good for sneaking out at night, because I can crawl out the north window, and nobody hears me.

  And that’s what I did one night, cause I had this idea. It was so hot, everybody had their windows open and were probably laying in bed with no covers on and sweating like pigs. So I climbed out the window and it was a dark night with no moon and no breeze. I walked barefoot, quick as you please all the way around the house, knowing right where the hydrants were so I wouldn’t stub my toe, and when I came around to the south side, I sidled up next to the house, my heart pounding, and I could hardly breathe. I almost changed my mind because I seen that Uncle Sean’s window was throwing a square of light into the yard.

  It had to of been past midnight, though, cause Mama and Daddy watch Johnnie Carson, and I waited a long time after they shut off the television before I got up. So I figured either Uncle Sean sleeps with the light burning cause there’s something wrong with him and he don’t like the dark, or he’s maybe reading. So I took a long, deep breath and let it out real slow. I already had a boner, cause you’re n
ot supposed to be a Peeping Tom, and that’s just what I was.

  I inched my way along the wall, and when I got right up to Uncle Sean’s window, I just pulled my head away from the wall and could see into his room, right onto the bed. But he weren’t reading. He was laying there holding that picture of him and his buddy, his head was propped up on the pillow, and one arm was under his head. I could see the side of his face, too. I was only about three feet away.

  He looked so pretty there, sweat shiny on his neck and chest, and it was rising and falling so peaceful like. But more’n that, he didn’t have no clothes on and, except for the way the picture blocked my view a little, I saw down there. The head on his thing is just as pretty and pink as his lips, and it was just laying there kind of moving a little as his breath went in and out.

  Then he kind of turned his face to the side, and I saw his face was wet, but it wasn’t sweat. Then he kissed that picture and reached out and placed it on the dresser.

  I should’ a left then, walking backwards a few steps, then turned and run. But I couldn’t. I wanted to call to him in a whisper, but I didn’t do that neither. I couldn’t move at all, and I could feel the tears start rolling down my cheeks, and the inside of my chest felt all wet.

  I knew he was like me. Somebody as pretty as him—with those cornflower eyes and Revlon pink lips and slender hands with no hair on the back of them—had to love somebody, never mind like me it was Uncle Sean I loved, never mind like him it was T.S. ‘my man’ he loved, who more’n likely got killed over there in Vietnam.

  So I stood there watching him, couldn’t take my eyes off his smooth skin, the way the little blond hairs caught the overhead light in his room, and the sweat kind of shiny in the ripples of his stomach, and his chest was rising and falling so peaceful like.

  And I knew if he’d let me, I’d lay up next to him in his bed, there. And I wouldn’t have no clothes on, neither. Just that thought, just kind of aching to see what it would feel like to kiss his lips, made my boner hurt, until I felt myself having a wet dream right there in my underpants, only it wasn’t a dream—what I hear the boys on the bus say they do, only they got to jerk off or something.

  I never knew what that was until right then, cause as soon as I wet my shorts, my knees began to shake, and I backed up from Uncle Sean’s window and ran off into the yard. As soon as I was out of earshot, I just pulled down my underpants and took hold of myself down there and did like those boys on the bus talk about. But there weren’t no pleasure in it, cause I hurt so bad for Uncle Sean.

  ***

  Ever since that night, I just got to see Uncle Sean naked and, since it’s so hot, I came up with this idea. There’s this stock tank up on the Hill place off the lower south end of the field. So one day when May and Daddy weren’t there, I tell Uncle Sean we ought to go skinny dipping. I say I even did it with my sisters, because there ain’t nobody for miles to see us. It was near a hundred degrees and we was hot and sweaty, and I let on as to how I couldn’t stand it. So I tell Uncle Sean we ought to wash off the sweat and the dirt. So he pulls off his boots and shucks his fatigue pants and I couldn’t take my eyes off him, except when I shucked my own boots and pants and peeled off my shorts. I had a boner and ran past him real fast and dove in the water, not caring how cold it was, and then when I come up in the middle and swam on my back, I see he’s standing on the bank, naked, and his legs and butt are blinding like, and he’s taking a leak, not holding himself, but kind of looking down at it, and I pretend I’m rubbing water out of my eyes so I can keep on looking.

  When he dove in, he swam out to where I was, and I stood up in the middle of the tank, gripping the soft mud on the bottom with my toes. The water was up to my chin, and so I could take hold of myself down there without being seen and check to make sure my boner went down.

  So now we swim there almost every day, and every day, he likes to walk around on the bank naked. But finally, like in gym class, I don’t get a boner every day, cause I’m sure if I did, he’d get suspicious.

  ***

  We was out working in the cotton patch close to the water tank where old man Hill’s cattle drink. It was just a week or so after I went and spied on Uncle Sean. It was just me and him and he was talking about when he was a kid about my age. He said he was lonely, and I told him that’s just how I used to feel.

  Except now that he was here I said I wasn’t lonely no more. It was good to see him laugh. We was chopping weeds from between the cotton stalks, which were about boot-top high. It was hot as the dickens, and we both had our shirts off, and I was glancing at Uncle Sean ever five seconds, and thinking about how good he looked.

  So he grins at me and says, “Not lonely because I’m here? Are you sure you’re not about ready for a girl friend, though?”

  I didn’t like that question, not one bit, cause I wanted to tell him so bad that I want him and me to be boyfriends, so I just kept chopping weeds for a minute or two, watching my hoe dig into the dirt. It sure was full of dirt clods and you had to be careful when you chopped at a weed that you didn’t move one of them clods and make the cotton plant come up with it. When it’s watered and cultivated in a few more days, the clods will break down, but Daddy wanted us to get the weeds from between the plants first, cause as soon as he waters, the weeds’ll outgrow the cotton and shade it out.

  But Uncle Sean, he kept looking at me with a smile on his face, and it made me mad, cause he was acting like a grownup and I already figured he was more my age than he was Mama and Daddy’s, and I was near as tall as he was. I’d looked at myself in the mirror a long time the other night and besides my same old face, I looked at my own lips and eyes and hair, and me and Uncle Sean favor.

  But he says, “Well? Don’t you have a girl friend?”

  “Don’t want one,” I said, finally, looking straight into his eyes and near saying I just wanted him to be my boyfriend.

  “Boys your age,” Uncle Sean says, “need girl friends.”

  But I knew something about him. I’d seen him kiss that picture the other night, seen that picture in the box, too, from T.S.

  Then I said something I wish I hadn’t, cause it made him look real funny. I said, “Do you think I’m pretty?”

  Like I said, he looked real funny for a minute, turning his back on me and walking ahead a little chopping weeds, then looking off out over the field where we’d already been. I followed his look, but kept my mouth clamped shut, cause I knew I was red-faced.

  Then all of a sudden he stops and I keep chopping weeds ’til I finally get even with him. I stopped too. And waited.

  He fiddled in his pants and fished out an old pack of Camels and his lighter. Then he fishes out one of his home-rolled from the pack, holding it between his thumb and first finger. He holds it out to me.

  “Your Daddy calls this devil’s weed, Will. Do you know why?”

  “I don’t,” I say. “Why?”

  “Because it’s marijuana. Do you know what that is?”

  I say I do, but I don’t care.

  “Well, over in Vietnam,” he says, looking around as if he’s afraid someone will hear him, even though we’re like two miles from the nearest jack rabbit, “I got started smoking it, same as the rest of the men I served

  with.”

  “So?” I say. “It’s just strong stinky tobacco, ain’t it?”

  He says it ain’t. He says, “it makes you kind of drunk, but not really drunk, but that’s good enough.”

  “Then why do you smoke it?” I say.

  “Because it dulls things that hurt,” he says, smiling, but kind of looking sad, too.

  “What kind a hurt?”

  “Hurt that I got over in Southeast Asia, hurt that went down deep,” he says. “Hurt like you should never have to feel.”

  It was like a dark, heavy cloud full of hail had moved over us, but Uncle Sean holds me with his eyes.

  Then he lights up and I can smell that burning tumbleweed smell, again.

  “Will you g
ive me another shotgun?” I ask.

  He says no, he shouldn’t have done it that night.

  “Cause you think I’m just a kid, don’t you, Uncle Sean?” I ask him. But he don’t seem to of heard me, like when I ask him questions he don’t want to answer, he goes deaf. I’m not mad that he won’t give me a shotgun, cause I don’t care about his home-rolled. But I sure would of liked to get close to his lips, again.

  He takes a couple of deep drags off the devil’s cigarette, then puts it out on his tongue and sticks it back in the Camel pack.

  “Are you feeling hurt now?” I ask. “Is that why you just did that?”

  This time he smiles, and looks so pretty I can hardly breathe.

  “No. I’m not feeling hurt, Will. You asked me an important question, and I just wanted to take the edge off, because it’s also a dangerous question.”

  For a minute, I didn’t know what he was talking about. “What question? That you think I’m just a kid?”

  Then he pulls me up next to him and puts his arm around my shoulders. I can already feel myself stir down there, but I haven’t popped a boner, because I’m afraid.

  He kind of hugs me to him, and I can feel how hot and slick his skin is under his arm, and even smell his sweat. It’s musty and sharp, and I wish I could just settle into his chest.

  “You asked me if you were pretty,” he says, not looking at me for a minute, then he does—sideways. “That’s the wrong question for a boy. You should ask me if you’re handsome. There’s a difference.”

  “Well, am I handsome, then?”

  That made him laugh and I watched him, because I knew he weren’t laughing at me. “You are a very handsome kid,” he says. “Don’t you think girls would be glad to have you as their boyfriend?”