You Can Never Spit It All Out

by Moore, Ralph Robert

  Her beauty got her noticed. Women touched her shoulder. Girls tried to find fault with the rest of her, anything. Men asked how old she was.

  One day when she was fifteen she was helping her mother carry flour out of the general store, and this big man stood in front of her, grinning. "Well, look at you! Never saw a pack horse this thin before!"

  Her mother, ahead of her, turned around. Backtracked to where Audrey and the man stood. "Honey? Just keep walking. We got a lot to do today." Glared at the man.

  He touched his right index finger to his eyebrows. "How are you today, on this beautiful, beautiful morning, Emma?"

  Later on, back at their shack, Audrey asked her mother who that man was. Her mother just put her hands on her hips. "Stay clear of him. He′s no good."

  Well, telling a young woman to stay away from a specific man, and that he′s no good, may in fact have an effect the opposite of what is intended. It has been known, in fact, to cause the young woman to become a bit intrigued with the man she′s forbidden to see. Not much discussed, but there can be an element of self-destruction in curiosity.

  So the next time she ran across this man, this time by herself, walking home from school, she decided to let him engage her in conversation, just to find out more about the adult world, which she was coming around to believe was both dangerous and exciting.

  She was on a turn in the dirt road headed home when the car pulled up beside her progress, engine idling. She immediately recognized the face behind the steering wheel, as it leered out at her. "Well, we meet again! As if by destiny!"

  She turned up her nose, having observed how her fellow classmates treated inquisitive boys. Waited.

  The man let out a deep, masculine chuckle. "I can see right through you, girly. So…indifferent to my advances. But between you and me, out on this deserted road, your mama nowhere around this time, I bet that little sparrow′s heart of yours is just a-thumping against the delicate bird bones of your rib cage. Would you like to go on a ride with me?"

  Audrey, nervous, knees jumping, gave a frightened laugh. "You think you can lure me into your car that easy?"

  The man considered. "I don't know. But it was worth a shot. I was just driving along, and I saw the vision of you on the side of the road, and I just had to stop. You looked like you just arrived from Heaven."

  Audrey, not used to male compliments, blushed. Confused, she said nothing.

  "I'm a wealthy man. I don't want for nothing. I could put clothes on you that came from all the way across the ocean. I could take you for a ride up in an airplane. Goddamn, you're a pretty one. That hair of yours? It looks like sunshine on ginger ale." He swung out the front passenger door of his car. "Now, you could keep walking down this dirt road, and wind up back at your mother′s, and spend another boring evening indoors, or you could climb your beautiful young self up into my car, and I'll take you places you′ve never seen. I′ll give you an adventure. An adventure you can recollect about when you′re alone in your bed at night, listening to the night insects. An adventure you′ll be eager to continue next time I swing by to pick you up in my car."

  Once she got in his car, he reached over her lap, locked her passenger side door. "You made a wise choice."

  He didn′t talk to her while he drove along the dirt road, and that was fine with her. And her heart was thumping. Little sparrow′s heart. Delicate bird bones of her rib cage. Nobody had ever described her like that before. Nobody had ever described her in any way. She liked having someone, a man, tell her who she was.

  He veered off the road up a trail, low-hanging branches bruising across the car′s windshield.

  Up at the top of a rise, he braked his car. Turned off the engine.

  She put her small hand on her passenger side latch. "Should I get out?"

  He grinned at her. "Yep. We′re where we want to be."

  While she smoothed her hair standing outside the car, he went around back and got a blue blanket from the car′s trunk. Carried it draped over his muscular forearm to a sunny patch in the clearing. She followed behind, uncertain.

  Once he had the blanket spread across the ground, he sat down on its blueness, patted the wool beside him, for her to join him. Which she did.

  "What′s your name, little girl?"

  "Audrey. What′s yours?" She was blushing.

  "Hollis." Grinned at her again, with his bald head, big nose. Reached into his pants pocket. Pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "You ever smoke a cigarette before, Audrey?"

  She watched his long fingers jiggle out a pair. "Family couldn't afford them."

  "Family couldn't afford them. I hear that."

  He stuck two cigarettes in his mouth, cupped his palms around his match′s glow, lit the first cigarette, then the second. Took the second out from between his lips. Passed it to her, smoke curling from its orange end. Shook his head, giving her a stern look. Her hand, which had risen to receive the cigarette, obediently dropped back down to her lap. He angled the unlit end himself between her lips. "Now you can hold it." Her hand rose, obediently. Eyes squinting at the smoke, the smell.

  Audrey copied him as he drew in on his cigarette, her gums and teeth feeling the warmth of the smoke inside her mouth. Still watching him sideways, she inhaled the smoke, all that grayness swirling down the back of her throat. Little bit of coughing. After all, it was her first time. But not too much.

  "Good girl."

  She grinned at him. Intensely aware her lips had wrapped around the same white cylinder where his lips had been. Like kissing him, a little bit.

  She took another puff, self-conscious about this man her daddy′s age watching her. Looked down at his big hands.

  "Audrey, you ever play a game called North or South?"

  "No, I haven′t." Feeling a little dizzy.

  "That′s okay. The rules are very simple. I don′t like games with complicated rules. Do you?"

  "No, I don′t."

  "What I′m gonna do is, I′m gonna place my right hand, this one here, on some part of your body. But don't worry! It′ll be an innocuous part. Then all you have to do is, you tell me if you next want me to place my hand north, or south, of where it is. Sounds pretty easy, right?"

  She took another puff on her cigarette. "I guess so. If I don't want your hand to go north or south, can I just say, Equator?"

  Hollis reared his head back in genuine surprise. "My, you really are a treasure. Oh and look at you now, my little bird! There you go with that lovely blush spreading across your cheeks again, and also, if I may be so bold to notice, the top of your chest. In answer to your question, I'll tell you what. How about the first time I put my hand on you, I allow you to say Equator if you want to? But no other time?"

  "I guess."

  "That′s my good little girl. You ready to start playing our game?"

  She nodded, taking a puff.

  He drew in a breath, reached his right hand out, towards her. Looking down she saw his strong fingers coming. Sat up on their blue blanket.

  His fingers settled around her throat.

  The feel of a man′s hand resting on her throat, it was….She felt it, all over her body.

  "Tell me where next, little darling."

  She had to catch her breath. "Equator."

  "Equator goes around the earth, so my hand′s gonna go around your neck. That′s fair. I′m not cheating. That′s playing by the rules."

  Her eyelids fluttered as his big, strong hand circled right, away from her throat, onto the side of her neck and then, still sliding, around to the back of her neck, those manly fingers scratching lazily across the delicate blonde hairs at the nape of her neck, sending all kinds of sensations up and down her body.

  She couldn′t contain her moan, maybe even her first ever woman′s moan, letting those oh so blue eyes slide left, lips parting, nostrils flaring.

  "Bet you didn't know you had that button back there, didja?"

  Hung her head, big sloppy grin, luxuriating in what he was doing to her
.

  "This is just one of my hands. And still on the Equator. Imagine what both of these big ol′ strong hands could summon up in you, if you don't turn scaredy cat."

  Her head rolled back as he kept up his slow, patient tickle at her nape.

  "You ready for me to put my hand somewhere else? Shall the game continue, little bird? With your bird bone delicate rib cage?"

  Long blonde hair hanging in front of her eyes, like a drowning victim. Helpless nod. But enthusiastic.

  "Where will this big ol′ hand go next? Where ever the dickens will it land on this beautiful angel′s beautiful body?"

  His hand molded itself comfortably around the knob of her bare knee. "Oh! There it is."

  Those lips of hers. Secret smile.

  "North or south, babe? You just know where my fingers are twitching to go."

  From out that curtain of hanging blonde hair, a little girl's voice. "North."

  The hand slid off her knee, up onto the muscle of her warm thigh just above her knee.

  Her head jerked back. Big smile.

  "Now where?"

  Huge inhale of breath through those small nostrils. "North."

  The big hand took possession of a long, lovely stretch of her inner thigh. "You′re in charge, darling. What′s this big strong hand gonna grab next?"

  "North."

  He cupped his hand against the warmest skin of her upper thigh, just below where her two legs joined.

  She raised both her arms, frantically swinging her hair away from her blue eyes, so she could see. See his grinning face, see his muscular forearm buried deep up her dress.

  "In your limited travels at this point in your young life, you ever hear of the word ′cunt′, sweetie-pie?"

  Her cheeks a darker red now, the red of shame, surrender. Blue eyes frightened, vicious, like a bird′s eyes when it′s first put in a cage. She nodded, breathing through her mouth.

  "North? Or south?"

  And that was all it took. Usually with Hollis, but not always, that was all it took.

  After the four-legger Audrey had given birth to was alive and kicking, and kicking, Roy and she took him home to their own small shack.

  Nothing beats being in your own sanctuary. Your walls around you. Falling asleep in the woods with your wife, the familiar smells and shadows of your shack.

  But away from her mother's place, in the quiet of their own home, Roy felt disappointed. Like most decent boys, he had looked forward to his first born, with male shyness, but he expected it to be normal, with hands. Plus although it looked a lot like Audrey, it didn't look much like him. The eyes weren't right, and the nose, even small as it was, was too prominent.

  But like most decent boys, he vowed to give little Scowtt the best childhood he could. After he'd come home from the sawmill each day he'd take up his rifle and go out into the woods, shoulders aching, thinking his thoughts, looking for squirrels and birds on the many limbs not too far a walk from their shack. Whatever he brought home, and dressed, Audrey would boil then mash-up, mixing it with her own milk, pulling her nipples above a glass bowl, so Scowtt could be weaned off her breasts.

  Even with his hoofs, they both loved the boy. That special time in a young couple's life, when there's a wide world outside the windows, but inside their modest home, and indeed it was modest, there's that hearth fire of a young couple starting out, snub noses and thinness, still getting to know each other, being gentle with each other, so many soft words during the day, adjusting against the warmth of each other's bodies in bed, playing after dinner with the baby between their knees. That was a special time, an isolated time, an island green and breezy, both of them would forever have in their memories. It brought out their best qualities. The little girl who chopped all those onions so she wouldn't stand apart. The little boy who took flowers to celebrate his admiration of what was good in the world.

  After about a year, young Scowtt was clomping all over the floor of their shack, like a spider with four legs. Half-circle scars across the wooden planks. A bit rambunctious. Outside, by their stone-lined cooking pit, Roy would throw a stick, and damn if Scowtt didn't gallop down the dirt road, snatch up that crooked stick in his mouth, trot back with it, eyes blazing.

  Roy tried to teach the boy to stand up on his hind legs, like a human, even offering it food as a reward if it did so, a fire-roasted squirrel thigh, held at Roy's waist, a real treat, but it was clear, after a number of attempts, Scowtt's front legs falling back down heavily, clip-clop, onto the floor, he just wasn't going to ever be a boy who walked upright. Which caused some sorrow to Roy, and perhaps to Audrey. They never discussed it between themselves, but he accepted that. If his boy had to walk on all fours, that was all right. It was his boy clip-clopping.

  Whenever the family went into town, there was of course a lot of attention paid to little Scowtt. From children, because you would expect that, tugging on their parent's sleeve, pointing; but also from the parents themselves, who should have known better. But Audrey and Roy both held their chins high, caught each other in the marketplace doing so, and smiled that shared smile between the two of them, in public circumstances, that bespeaks great strength in a couple. Young and poor, dirt poor, yet in love, and proud of that love, like it was gold coins.

  Saturday nights, the three of them sitting on the porch outside their shack after dinner, in the whippoorwill wilderness, the fire in the stone-lined pit in the front yard still guttering blue and yellow within moon-lit grayness, tree trunks flickering in the distance, Roy sipping some of his family's moonshine from a jar, sharing a cigarette and small talk with Audrey, were their happiest times.

  Then school started.

  Scowtt didn't do well in school.

  For one thing, he couldn't fit comfortably within the attached desk and chair arrangements used in most schools. Front hoofs clacking on the desktop, vibrating off the wide schoolbooks. His spine just didn't work that way. Too much pressure on his hind side, while the teacher talked for an hour about Romeo and Juliet, or the wonder of parallelograms. Just wasn't going to work. He'd come home after school walking crooked on his four legs.

  So Audrey started home schooling him.

  A treat held high in the fingers when he learned the capital of Argentina, for example, and could spell it.

  But like any home schooling, this isolation from other children his own age made him even less socially adept. When the three of them travelled to the market, even though they'd release him, pat on his head, to approach others, those other children would draw away, frightened. Hard for them to get past this child who probably had the same interests as them, but was down around hip level, clopping around, trying to follow the clique. Children have limited coping skills.

  The only place Scowtt really felt at home was when he was with family.

  One Fourth of July, Roy's Uncle Hollis threw a big party on his front lawn. Didn't say why. All the clan gathered. Skinny men with eyes that were too blue, women in old fashioned dresses. Kids chasing each other around with sticks. Lots of orange coals glowing in grills, spirals of ruby and pearl sausages sending up smoke.

  A couple of peculiar things happened at that picnic.

  For one, Roy was sitting on the grass under a tree with Audrey, who seemed very uncomfortable, not as animated as she usually was, when he saw Scowtt running on all fours off in the distance, down by the river, chasing blue jays. But how could that be? Scowtt was still by their side, sad look on his face, because he knew it was useless trying to mix with the other children.

  The other thing was, as soon as Uncle Hollis came out of his shack, holding up the newspaper full of sausages he was going to cook, Scowtt raised himself up on all four hoofs, went galloping off towards Uncle Hollis.

  Roy trotted behind. Couldn't have Scowtt eat raw pork.

  "Come back over here, Scowtt. Here, boy."

  A battle over who Scowtt was going to trot towards, Roy or Uncle Hollis, based on their calls.

  Both men wiggling their f
ingers down by their knees, looking at the other.

  Uncle Hollis was laughing with his cronies, real hillbilly men, foreheads that weren't right, when Scowtt reached him. As much affection as Scowtt showed Roy, he was jumping all over Uncle Hollis.

  Roy caught up. "Maybe he thinks the sausages is his treat."

  Uncle Hollis was scratching Scowtt's scalp with his free hand, holding the other upraised hand with the sausages away from the jumps, as if he were the statue of liberty. "Or maybe something else." Country boy wink at his cronies.

  Roy was confused. "Something else like what?"

  Uncle Hollis chucked his fingers under Scowtt's chin, grin on his big-nosed face. "Ask your wife, boy."

  Which made Roy even more confused. 'Boy' was a sign of disrespect, for someone his age. He had a regular job, down at the sawmill. He turned to Audrey, who had caught up, reluctantly. "Do you know what he's talking about?"

  A few hoots from the cronies, sucking on their corn cob pipes.

  Audrey was old enough now, and had been through enough, she longer blushed, but she did look nervous. "Your Uncle Hollis is just having fun with you, Roy. Just ignore him."

  "Yeah, just ignore me, Roy." Went back to petting Scowtt. Couldn't resist adding, looking down, "Up this close, I certainly do see your wife in Scowtt's face." Squinted, pretending to be puzzled. Not a good actor, deliberately. "Sure don't see you yourself in Scowtt's face though, boy."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  But with the smell of those sausages rising up in the air, carrying on the breeze, a whole group of young four-leggers broke out of the tree line, galloping towards Hollis.

  Roy was stunned. There were others?

  Only some of them wore clothes. But they all sure seemed to love Uncle Hollis. "Hey, now. Calm yourselves down. This food ain't ready yet."

  Scowtt swung his head left, right, surprised at this herd of boys and girls down around Uncle Hollis' waist level who looked like Scowtt. He started talking to them, shyly at first, but excited.

  Uncle Hollis turned over one of the spirals of sausage, half gray now, half still pink, smoke rising. "Little Scowtt? Anytime you want to mix with your own kind, you just trot over here to my place."