The Warmest December

by Bernice L. McFadden

  We were off. Me, Malcolm, and many other laughing children. I sat and watched as the towering buildings and smoky gray horizon of New York City was quickly replaced with stately evergreens and a placid blue sky. I pressed my nose against the window to take in the sprawling emerald pastures and dozens of grazing cows and horses that seemed to fly by us as we traveled down the road.

  The wide-open spaces and clear blue skies unlocked something in me—a place not even Foch Boulevard had been able to reach. I felt free for the first time, I felt absolutely and completely free.

  I leaned back and thumped Malcolm on the side of his head.

  “Ow,” he whined and rubbed at the spot I’d violated. I smiled at him and reached over and hugged him hard. He smiled back and let me.

  Malcolm was homesick for the first three days. He cried for Delia and wet his bed twice. I talked to him and cooed and cuddled him as I had seen Delia do, but my heart wasn’t in it. On the third day I became frustrated and dragged him into the wooded area behind his cabin.

  I stood before him, my hands folded across my chest, and glared down at him. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and crying and he had his thumb stuck in his mouth. “Take it out, Malcolm,” I said sternly.

  The other children had already started teasing him about his habit. They called him a baby and a pissy mama’s boy.

  “Listen, you better pull it together or they’re going to call Delia up and have her come for you.”

  His eyes brightened and I realized I had said the wrong thing. I changed my strategy.

  “But Delia won’t be the one to come for you. Hy-Lo will come and get you and he’ll beat you in front of all of the other campers for having him travel so far. Then he’ll beat you again for being such a sissy thumb-sucking baby.”

  Malcolm’s eyes widened again, but this time in fear. He popped his thumb back in his mouth.

  “Then he’ll beat you all the way back home,” I continued.

  “But you know the worst part of the whole thing, Malcolm?”

  He raised his eyes and waited.

  “He’ll beat Delia for having sent you to begin with, especially after he told her not to.”

  Malcolm just stood staring, mulling the information over in his head.

  I pressed: “Do you want Delia to get a beating, Malcolm?”

  He shook his head slowly back and forth.

  “Well, then you better stop all of this crying and bedwetting or else that is exactly what’s going to happen.” I slammed my fist rapidly into the palm of my hand for emphasis. The hard punching sounds reverberated through the woods behind us.

  Two weeks went by quickly. I was having the time of my life. I mailed a letter a day to Glenna describing the new friends I’d made, the activities that went on, and more importantly, the man I’d met.

  He was a man—much more than a boy. Tall and lightskinned with hazel eyes and long, wavy black hair that he kept pulled back in a ponytail. He told me his father was black Irish and his mother was just plain black. He was eighteen years old and I was twelve.

  “How old you is?” he asked one day as I dumped the contents of my food tray into the large garbage can. I had seen him around—emptying garbage cans and clearing the ground of fallen leaves. He was a young black girl’s dream man. A man who would certainly father a pretty baby with good hair. We all swooned in his presence.

  I was frozen. Was he speaking to me? I turned my head to look behind me and met the wide surprised eyes of one of my peers.

  “Hey?” his voice came again. His tone was gentle and teasing. He reached out and brushed the top of my hand with his fingers.

  I jumped and answered, “Twelve.”

  His eyes went wide and then slanted. “You ain’t no twelve. Why you lying?” His hazel eyes rolled the length of my body and then back to my open mouth. “You look more like fifteen.”

  There were soft giggles behind me. I straightened my back and pushed my small bosom out. “Blame my mama for that,” I said, suddenly feeling grown. Suddenly feeling powerful.

  “Umph,” he sounded and shook his head.

  It was over so quickly. The sound of lunchroom chatter and clanging trays became loud around me, pulling me back into reality. Someone pushed a tray into the small of my back. “C’mon,” an annoyed voice came with the nudge and I moved along, wondering if the exchange had taken place at all.

  “What’s his name?” I asked Mildred. She was a small, dumpy girl who could barely walk a mile, much less run one. She had been coming to Camp Crystal Lake since she was five years old and the counselors were as familiar with her as she was with them.

  Mildred was the water girl and the cabin monitor; there wasn’t much else she could or would do. Her world was locked away in her comic books and that’s where they left her. She glanced up from her Josie and the Pussycats comic book, pushed her glasses back up to rest on the bridge of her nose, and squinted at me. “What?” she said and blinked.

  “What’s his name?” I repeated and nodded at the tall figure dressed in white shorts and black T-shirt who was making his way across the grounds toward the recreation hall.

  “Oh, um, that there is Mousy,” Mildred said and returned to the comic book.

  I watched him until he disappeared into the building.

  “Mousy. What kinda name is that?” I asked, not expecting a reply, and Mildred did not offer one.

  I found out that this was Mousy’s second summer as an employee of Camp Crystal Lake. Before that he’d been a camper, but he’d always been the object of affection.

  Every single female there wanted him—campers and counselors alike. Of course, the female counselors wanted him in a way that our young bodies were not ready to handle. Our eyes had caught glimpses of those acts in R-rated movies and our minds had replayed those scenes late in the night as our fingers rubbed the small pointed flesh between our legs.

  “You braid?”

  Our second encounter came four days later. The day had been rained out, making outside activities impossible. After breakfast we either retired to our cabin to play jacks or read, or headed over to the recreation hall to play board games. I was seated at the old piano, my fingers lazily picking over the black and white keys as I stared absentmindedly out the window.

  “What?” I turned toward the voice.

  “Hair?” He had extended a long thick lock of hair toward me. It gleamed beneath the room’s fluorescent lighting.

  I was flustered and nodded my head yes. He considered me for a moment and then cocked his head and turned to walk away. I looked around and saw that no one had noticed the exchange, and furthermore, there were no counselors present. I stood on legs of Jell-O and followed him out the door into the gray wet day.

  The “green room” was really a solarium but served as a lounge for the counselors. It was connected to the dining area, though its windows had been covered with black cloth to keep out prying young eyes.

  My stomach jerked and pulled inside of me as we stepped over the threshold. I was nervous at the thought of being alone with him and I was scared at the thought of being caught—alone with him.

  “Be careful,” his voice came to me in the dark. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was close. I could feel the heat of his body and smell the light scent of Ivory soap as it sailed off of him and assaulted my senses.

  The light came on. I found myself standing in a small room that was made even smaller by a large brown couch and six milk crates turned on their sides scattered here and there. They were makeshift tables that held ashtrays, magazines, and empty soda or beer bottles. The air was musty with the smell of pubescent sweat, cigarette smoke, and the lingering aroma of marijuana.

  “Sit down,” he said and I did.

  He came and stood in front of me. His muscular frame stretched out long before me. I shivered even though my body was on fire. I crossed my legs at the ankle and averted my eyes to the wall behind him.

  “You ready?” he asked, his voice laced with
seduction.

  I had forgotten why I was there or how I had even arrived at that soft, worn place on the couch. I stared blankly back at him and nodded yes.

  “You sure, now. I’ve got a lot of it, you know. It’s long and thick,” he said and took a step closer to me. His crotch was six inches from my face and I could see clearly the faded place in the material where his penis rested.

  Suddenly I heard my mother’s voice calling to me from somewhere way in the back of my mind. It was a shrill sound warning that danger was near. I stood up quickly and tried to take a step forward on one wobbly leg.

  My eyes must have looked like those of a deer caught in headlights because he laughed a small laugh that got lost in the four corners of the room, and then reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a black, thick-toothed comb. He held it up before me and smiled.

  It was then that I remembered why I was there. I slowly sat back down.

  “Damn, I forgot the radio. You want music?”

  “Well, only if you do.” I tried to make my voice sound like a teenager. I tried to get my body to relax and slump comfortably against the couch like a sixteen-year-old. What would Marcia Brady do? I asked myself, and stared down at my hands.

  “Nah, it’s all rainy and my cabin is too far away.” He turned and plopped down on the floor in front of my legs and then began to slide backward.

  I panicked; my knees were locked and refused to part. I mentally commanded them but they only pressed tighter and then his back brushed against them and they magically disengaged. My thighs spread wide open, allowing him to slide comfortably between them. I shuddered.

  For an hour, I combed, parted, and plaited his thick locks while he hummed the melodies to his favorite Al Green tunes. The sound of his singing and the easy way the comb slid through his hair lulled me into a comfort I had never known before. My body relaxed and my thighs closed in around his shoulders. He looked up at me and grinned.

  I felt heat brewing in the base of my stomach and a fire spread through my body, making it hard for me to breathe. He felt it too and ran his hand down the length of my calf. His fingertips were as hot as the fire that stirred within me and a sound escaped my mouth that seemed older than my twelve years. He looked at me and grinned again as I wrapped the last thin plait around my index finger. “Done,” I said and was surprised at how foreign and grown my voice sounded.

  He didn’t move and neither did I, we just remained that way, him humming and me wrapping his hair around my fingers while the rain tapped at the roof above us.

  Afterward, he did not thank me or tell me how pleased he was with my work. He patted my behind and told me I had a nice ass. He said he would stop by the pool the next day to see what I looked like out of my clothes.

  “Promise?” I said, feeling dizzy from his touch and the words that had followed it.

  “Yeah, sure. I promise,” he said and smiled a smile that shook my insides.

  I giggled and handed him back his comb before I halfwalked, half-ran between the raindrops toward my cabin and the pale pink stationery that awaited the words I would use to describe to Glenna my first step into womanhood.

  I walked into my cabin and my heart sank. There, sitting on my bed, legs crossed and smiling smugly, was Hy-Lo. I stopped and thought that I would drop dead right there on the hard wood floor. I heard thunder boom in the distance and then the sound of the rain coming down heavily on the roof above me. I couldn’t speak; all I could do was gulp at the air.

  He stood up and walked toward me. His face shifted as the wild thing inside him struggled to get out. I could smell the liquor and the gasoline grime from the highway and I knew he had drank all the way up with the windows open, his feet easing up on the gas just long enough to get past the state troopers who lay hidden off of the shoulders.

  “No hello for your father?” he said and took a step closer to me.

  I stepped backward. “H-hello,” I answered and my eyes moved around the cabin in search of Delia.

  “What about a hug for your dad,” he said and stepped closer.

  I swallowed hard. I had never hugged Hy-Lo; the only physical contact we ever made with each other was when he hit me. He moved in and embraced me. I stiffened and all the blood in my body ran cold and drained down to my feet, numbing them. I held my breath and waited for it to be over.

  I felt his heart thumping against my chest and then he let go.

  “Get your stuff together, we’re going home.” He moved away and cleared his throat, embarrassed at his effort and my resistance, and turned to walk out. I saw the imprint of the pint of Smirnoff in his back pocket as he moved through the door. “Don’t keep me waiting, Kenzie,” he said as he skipped down the steps and tried to duck the rain that fell in buckets around him.

  I jammed my belongings into my duffel bag and tried hard to fight the tears back. I heard the horn blow between the cracks of thunder and the announcement that was being made over the PA system: “Field day has been canceled due to the weather. All campers should report to the recreation hall for fun and games.”

  My life had been canceled due to Hy-Lo and I was reporting to a green Oldsmobile for a trip home. What a fucking life!

  I looked out the window and saw Mousy leaning against the wooden post of the recreation hall. He was talking to a counselor, but his eyes were on my cabin. I watched him for a long time before I shoved my remaining items into my bag. He would be a sweet memory; that’s all Hy-Lo had allowed.

  The horn blared again and I grabbed my bag and hurried out into the rain and toward the car. Hy-Lo was tilting the bottle up to his mouth when I swung the car door open; Malcolm was huddled in the backseat, his eyes wide and confused. Delia sat up front beside Hy-Lo, her face like stone, her eyes staring straight ahead.

  “Hi,” I said. It came out small and lifeless.

  “Hi,” she said and turned her head a bit to look at me. Her eye was swollen and the skin was cut at the bridge of her noise. I looked at her and shook my head in disgust, then leaned back into the hard leather of the seat and turned my face away from her eyes.

  “You always sorry,” I muttered to myself as Hy-Lo took one last swig from his bottle before shoving it between his legs. He turned the radio up and backed the car slowly out of the parking space.

  “Say goodbye to the country, kids,” he laughed as we did ninety toward home.

  I rolled my eyes and shot him the finger behind his back, Malcolm giggled in his hands, and then we settled back and watched the trees fly by until they were gone and we were home.

  Chapter Eight

  Hy-Lo stirred and groaned as if reading my thoughts. He did that on and off for some time, his groans coinciding with the howl of the wind outside the windows.

  Death was close now. I could feel it in the room. Waiting. Just like me. Waiting.

  I had been waiting for Hy-Lo to die my whole life, not knowing that my whole life I had been watching him die. Every drop of liquor he ever drank had put him a step closer to where he was today. And somehow he’d managed to take me along with him.

  What the hell was I doing there, so close to him after spending a lifetime trying to avoid him?

  I looked at him, his open gaping mouth and swollen purple tongue, and willed him to speak, to offer a few words of solace and a lifetime of apologies that would finally, maybe, make my life normal.

  He just lay there, taking. Still taking.

  “You are so selfish,” I muttered angrily and slammed my leather-gloved fist down onto my thigh. “You won’t die and you won’t let me live. Why?”

  I left without getting an answer, not that I expected one, but I desperately needed one. I roamed the streets for two hours, maybe more. The winter night was dark except for the snow flurries that shattered the darkness and littered the sidewalks by the time I arrived at the school.

  The muscles in my legs thumped against the forced exercise I had imposed on them and my sweatshirt was soaked through under the arms. I didn’t
care; no one in that room cared whether I was sweaty or not. What they cared about was getting better.

  I stood behind ten people who’d lined up for coffee. I was beginning to recognize the faces, able to place their stories with their eyes. I was still an enigma to them, I could tell by their greetings. “Welcome,” someone would say and then squint their eyes and search their memory to find me. But they couldn’t and so I was always a new face to them.

  But that would change tonight.

  I filled my cup with the hot, bitter black liquid and moved to the front of the room. The chairperson was a young Korean girl; her hair was dyed green at the ends and her face was covered with angry red pimples.

  “Hi,” she greeted me and stuck her hand out. I took her tiny hand in mine and she shook it and pulled me toward her. “You ready now?”

  My eyes went wide with surprise. She knew me. “Yes,” I replied and turned to face the crowd. She smiled and patted me on the back.

  “Welcome,” she said, and for the first time I finally actually felt welcomed.

  “Hello, my name is Kenzie and I’m an alcoholic.”

  I said it and my heart went light—a weight had been lifted with those few simple words. I took a breath and began at a place in my life where the hurt was personal and the reality all too genuine for a child just becoming familiar with her teenage years.

  When I turned fourteen years old I got a cat for my birthday. She was a black-and-white pure-bred Persian, with large round eyes the color of ebony under moonlight. We were immediately taken with each other and she, like me, avoided my father as much as possible.

  I named her Pricilla, because at the time I thought that was the most beautiful name in the world and she was the most beautiful thing in my life.

  She loved to lie on the windowsill of my bedroom and bask in the warm sunlight, and at night she slept at the foot of my bed, her head resting contently on the sole of my foot.

  Pricilla was smarter than any cat I’d known and her strength was equal to that of a small dog.