Windchill Summer

by Norris Church Mailer

  I did need a job. Since I was taking the drawing class, I couldn’t pose for it. I looked over at Mama. Tripp was sure entertaining the women. They were laughing their heads off about something. She wouldn’t mind if I worked here, now that she saw what a great place it was. I had to get over this reflex of mine to always ask Mama and Daddy’s permission for everything, like I was a little kid.

  “Sure. I’d love to.”

  “Great! Now that you’re an official employee, help me with these cups.”

  Mama and the aunts and Lucille left soon after that. Lucille would have probably liked to stay and dance, but she was a mother now and had to go home and take care of her baby. I began to see what Mama was talking about when she said all that stuff about tying yourself down. I kind of felt sorry for Lucille, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  “I’ll probably spend the night at Baby’s, Mama. Don’t worry about me.” I kissed her good-bye. Tripp kissed her, too, and she got a little flustered.

  Most of the older people had come and gone, and more and more kids were coming in. The band tuned up, then blasted out the first song, “Light My Fire.” Tripp grabbed me by the hand, and we were off, dancing like maniacs.

  Tripp was a really good dancer, of course. I hadn’t found anything yet that he wasn’t good at. I am okay, but only in a crowd, so nobody can really see what I am doing. I try to keep my elbows in and not go too wild with my arms, because a time or two I have hit somebody in the head. I once even crunched a girl’s high heel and broke it, which really made her mad. But if I stand in one spot and just sort of wiggle around, I can get by.

  We must have danced more than an hour without stopping, but then I had to take a break.

  “I gotta sit down for a minute, Tripp. I need something to drink.”

  I was about ready to pass out, it was so hot in there. There must have been over two hundred kids packed in. You could hardly move, and the air was full of smoke.

  Tripp went and got us two great big cups full of Hawaiian Punch. I gulped the whole thing down without taking a breath. He did the same.

  “Fill ’er up again?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  He got us two more. It was good punch. Had kind of a funny aftertaste, though. Something made it a little whangy. I drank the second cup a little slower, and then Tripp went and got us a third. It was so hot in there. My stomach was feeling a little rocky.

  “I’m going outside for some air, Tripp.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  —

  It was cooler outside. We stood in the parking lot for a minute, but I wasn’t feeling much better. I had a bad feeling that I was going to be sick at my stomach. Now I started to worry that the punch had gone bad. Maybe it was botulism, which we learned about in Home Ec class. What was it the teacher had said? You should test the ends of cans by pressing them to see if they bumped, and if they did, it was full of botulism. Maybe Rainy Day had never taken Home Ec and didn’t bump the cans.

  “Go on back in, Tripp. I want to be by myself for a minute.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “I think I’m going to throw up. I think the punch was bad.”

  “It wasn’t bad. Just a little spiked. Bean snuck in a quart of cherry moonshine.” Oh. Of course. I wondered for a minute if Tripp was making fun of my name or if the moonshine was made out of cherries. I looked up at the stars, and they were going around and around, like I was on a merry-go-round. My head was swimmy. Now I knew I was going to throw up. I remembered what all Ricky Don had said about moonshine, how it ate up your kidneys and all. Trust me, Tripp had said. Boy, was I a fool. If I died tonight, I would definitely drop right down the chute into hell. I tried to worry about it, but it was too hard. The parking lot was doing some crazy dips and swirls. I had to lay down before I fell.

  “I’m just going to lay down here and rest for a minute, Tripp.” My tongue seemed like it was thick. “You go on back in.”

  “Here? On the gravel? I don’t think so. Come on, I’ll take you for a ride.”

  “I don’t want to go for a ride, Tripp. I’ll get carsick and ruin your car . . . let me lay down just for a minute. Please. I’ll go to the grass. I need to take a nap.”

  I tried to walk over to the grass, but my legs wouldn’t work right. Just as my knees started to buckle, Tripp picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. He carried me across the parking lot to where Ramblin’ Rose was parked. With every step, his shoulder dug into my stomach. He opened the door, which was not easy with me draped across him, and just before he put me in, the entire contents of my stomach came up and cascaded down his back, then onto the ground. I should have been horrified, but I really didn’t care. He shouldn’t have jostled me around like that.

  I slid off his shoulder and he threw me into the front seat. I slumped over and immediately fell asleep. At least, I thought I was asleep, because I remember thinking, How silly. I’m falling asleep. In reality, I had passed out, and was too stupid to know.

  —

  The next thing I knew, I was lying on a bed. It was a room I’d never seen before, and the bed felt odd and lumpy. There was an open window right above the bed. It was soft and gray outside, the first light of morning. I started to sit up, but the top of my head felt like it was going to blow out. I grabbed it to hold it on, lay back down, and realized that next to me was a body, and it wasn’t Baby. I reached out and felt of it. A naked body. The head that stuck out from under the blanket was covered in long wheat-colored hair. And then I realized that I was naked, too.

  “Tripp Barlow! What have you done?” He moved a little, like he was going to wake up, but just fixed his pillow under his head and fell back asleep. I shook him. Hard.

  “Tripp, wake up! What happened? What am I doing here?”

  He turned over, put his arm around me, and pulled me under the covers. I was touching every inch of his naked body.

  “No! Stop it! Let me out!” I tried to throw off the blankets and get out of bed, but they were in such a tangle that I only succeeded in wrapping them around my legs. I fell onto the floor. By this time, he was awake, watching me with a sleepy grin.

  “Good morning, sunshine. How did you sleep?”

  “Like the dead. Ow! My head! You poisoned me! Where are my clothes? Did you undress me? What else did you do?”

  “In the closet. Yes. Nothing. What do you think I’d do to a woman who was passed out? What kind of man do you take me for?”

  I managed to get up off the floor and wrap the blanket around me. Then I realized that I had left Tripp lying there uncovered. Naked. He was tanned except where his bathing suit had been, and that part was pearly white. He lay on his back, put his hands under his head, and grinned as I stood looking at him, horrified, and tried to figure it all out. The first thing I noticed, of course, was his penis, rosy and pink, jutting straight out of a nest of honey-colored hair. I realized he knew what I was looking at, but I couldn’t help it. It was the first one I had ever seen, in the daylight. Or in the dark, for that matter. So that was what they looked like. They were a lot bigger than I thought.

  Then my attention was taken by a long red scar that seemed to be growing from the hair above his penis, up across the whiteness, into the tan of his belly, and on up until it tapered off just under his rib cage. It was like a big red rope, raised and shiny, about two inches wide. It obviously had healed, but was still angry-looking. For a minute there, I wanted to reach out and touch it, but I pulled my hand back almost before the gesture was begun. I didn’t know what to do, whether to turn away, where to look, what to say. So I did nothing. Just stood by the bed and gaped.

  “Come here,” he said in a gentle voice, holding out his hand like you would to a dog. “Come on. Don’t be scared. Just sit and talk with me for a minute. We won’t do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He seemed real comfortable, naked like that. Not at all self-conscious about his scar or anything,
like I would have been. For some reason, the fact that he wasn’t ashamed of his scar relaxed me a little, and I sat down on the edge of the bed. I was still clutching the blanket, though.

  “What happened to your stomach?”

  “I fell into a pit that the VC dug and embedded with punji sticks. It was my ticket home from Nam. I just wish it had happened a few months earlier. I was short—only had two months left.”

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “Not anymore. I just can’t eat as much at once as I used to. The body has a whole lot of intestines, thank goodness. The red will fade with time. Do you want to touch it?”

  I reached out my hand and touched it then. Delicately. It felt smooth and hard, like a tube running under the skin. There was no hair on it. My middle finger traced the scar from the top to the bottom. When I reached the soft hair, I stopped. But I didn’t take back my hand. Tripp lay unmoving, watching me. It felt like time stood still. The air was thick. A shaft of light crept over the potted red begonia on the windowsill and lit up thousands of motes that boiled in the early-morning sunbeam, then spread like melted butter across a patch of dim worn rug, bringing out shades of coral and rust and lemon and blue. A clock ticked somewhere.

  He put his hand over mine and brought it gently down onto his penis. I had never felt one uncovered before. It was hard and warm, the skin like soft pink velvet, like the belly of a week-old kitten. I held it without moving, and it was alive in my hand, like a small animal.

  He reached up and took the blanket away from my body, and I was as naked as he was. The sun was warm on my back.

  “You look like you were made on the moon.” There was awe in his voice.

  I had always imagined the first time I made love would be in the dark. But there was no more perfect place than here, in the morning light. I was glad for the sunshine. I wanted to see all of him, and I wanted him to see all of me. I forgot about my flat chest and pale nipples that stuck out like pink jelly beans. It didn’t matter if I was skinny and my legs were too long, my feet too big. I saw myself in Tripp’s eyes, and I was beautiful.

  I leaned down and we kissed, one of those kisses that made my heart and stomach melt and pour into my you-know-what, and he lay me down beside him on the bed, stretched his body against mine from our toes to our mouths, and kissed me again. I thought I would pass out.

  Then he licked my neck until the skin was covered with chill bumps, and he worked his way south, over my nipples—sucking them and making them stand out even higher—down my belly, and finally into the white Brillo patch between my legs; pushed them wide apart and comfortably settled in. I didn’t even know you could do what he was doing, but it seemed natural and not nasty at all. After a few minutes it started to feel really good, and at the edge of my consciousness, it was like a volcano began to bubble, far away. My body tensed, every muscle straining. My breath was ragged. My fingers dug into his arms, and it must have hurt, but he didn’t notice or stop what he was doing. It seemed like I was hanging on the edge of a high rock cliff by the tips of my fingers. Then I let go and fell through the air; hot lava gushed from deep inside and melted over my body, and I think I started to scream.

  He raised himself over me then, and I felt the hard pink velvet touch me once, then plunge as I raised myself up to meet him. There was a sharp pain. Then the lava flowed again and swallowed everything up, and the sun burned red in my eyes.

  —

  “I didn’t know you were a virgin.”

  “I don’t go around advertising it. I mean, didn’tgo around advertising it. Most girls my age are not. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  He kissed me on my forehead, both eyes, my nose, and my mouth. Almost like a blessing.

  “Thank you.” There were tears in his eyes, and also in mine. One ran down across my cheek. He licked it off, and we both laughed.

  “I had no idea it was going to be like this.” I snuggled in his arms.

  “It’s not, usually.”

  “Why? What is it usually like?”

  “Hmm. Let’s just say a lot less . . . everything. I don’t think I ever met anyone quite like you.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Oh, yes. That is good.”

  I could tell by his voice that he meant it. I felt like I was glowing like a lightbulb. I had never felt this relaxed in my life.

  “Have you had a lot of girls?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have asked him that. I really didn’t want to know, and besides, it was none of my business. But I waited to hear what he would say.

  “None until now.” He kissed me again, lightly. “Are you thirsty?” he asked.

  “I could drink the Arkansas River, mud and all.”

  He got out of bed and went to a fridge in the corner, poured me a glass of orange juice. Nothing had ever tasted as good as that thick, sweet juice. Or maybe it was him. It was like I had been crawling in the desert and he was a cold drink of water. He lay down beside me and watched me gulp.

  Then he took the empty glass out of my hand, put it on the table, and it started all over again.

  So this was what love was like.

  29.Baby and Carlene

  By the early spring of 1968, Baby had nearly forgotten what Bean looked like. She had a lot of pictures of him that he had sent to her from Nam, but the GI with a tan and a mustache, wearing aviator sunglasses and squatting next to a pile of captured VC weapons, didn’t look like the Bean she remembered. His letters weren’t much in the love department, either. They were mostly about the war, filled with language she only half understood, like diddy-bopping, loach and lurps, gooks and dinks, boo koos of this and boo koos of that, klicks and grunts and zips. He didn’t even explain; just figured that it was normal language everyone would know. Sometimes she only half read them. If she had had more of a romance with Jackie, she might have written Bean and told him she couldn’t wait for him any longer, but with Jackie, it was never a question of love, and it was comforting to know that Bean was there on the back burner, so to speak.

  However, she wrote to him faithfully every few days, and she was the one who told him about Jerry Golden getting killed. She heard it from Carlene, who came in one evening for her shift with her eyes all red and swollen from crying and said Jerry’s mother had called her that afternoon to tell her the news. She thought it was decent of Mrs. Golden to call, knowing how much she hated her. Or maybe it was because Mrs. Golden blamed her for his going to Nam and wanted Carlene to hurt like she was hurting. If she did, it worked; Carlene was in pain.

  Jackie offered to let her take the night off and go back home. She shook her head.

  “It’s all right. I’d rather stay and be here with y’all, if y’all don’t mind.”

  “Okay, beauty,” he said, putting his arm around her. “But take your time. You don’t have to start work right away. Go out and sit on the patio for a little while. Meditate. Rita and Baby can take care of the early birds.”

  “I’m not much in the meditation department, Jackie. Maybe Baby could go out and sit with me, if she doesn’t mind.”

  “Sure. Take all the time you want. Go to the kitchen, get Park to give you something to eat.”

  Park gave them thick mugs of coffee with cream and packed a basket with sweet rolls, hot from the oven. They carried it down the path to the end of the promontory where the lake branched off from the river, and settled themselves on a rock. It was the second week of April, but as the sun dropped behind the mountain, there was still a chill in the air. The river was the same color as the coffee, and it swirled around a sandbar, making café-au-lait ripples. Down further, the dam stretched across to the far bank, cutting the river in half. From their perch, they could hear the water rushing through the locks. Years before, when it hadn’t rained for a long time and the river was low, some teenagers thought they would wade out to the sandbar right near this very spot, but the water was deeper than it looked and they stepped into a sinkhole and drowned—two brothers and a
sister. The river was treacherous. You didn’t fool with the river.

  Three or four old beer cans floated by. People were such pigs, using the river for a dumping ground, Baby thought. The rock was icy on her behind, and the cold seeped into her bones through the thin material of her uniform. She wished she had her sweater.

  They got as comfortable as they could, sipping their coffee in silence. In her head, Baby went over all kinds of things she might say to offer comfort, but none of them seemed right. She couldn’t say, “I know how you feel,” because she didn’t. She couldn’t say, “Don’t think about it,” or, “Time will heal,” or, “It was God’s will,” or any of the other stupid things people always say when somebody has died, because there was no way you could notthink about it. So Baby didn’t say anything. Finally, Carlene blew her nose and cleared her throat. “We were going to get back together. Did you know that?” she said.

  “No. You didn’t tell me that.”

  “We would have, when he came home. We’d gotten real close again, in the letters. Sometimes you get to know a person better from letters than if you were with them every day. Jerry changed in Nam; grew up a lot, in those four short months.” She wiped her eyes, which, it seemed, couldn’t stop leaking. “I just knew he was going to make it back home. I never thought for one minute he would get killed, not even when he told me all the horrible things that were happening over there. I felt like he had a guardian angel or something. But I guess there’s no such of a thing. Do you think there is?”

  Baby took a drink of her coffee and thought about it.

  “I don’t know if I think there is or not,” she finally said. “It sure would be nice if there was. I’ve read a lot of stories about people being saved by what they thought were angels.”

  “That’s just to sell magazines. If that was true, then why are so many people not saved? In this world, you have to take care of yourself. If you won’t, nobody else will.”

  “Ain’t it the truth.” Baby nudged a loose rock with her toe. It bounced down the bank and plunked into the water.