by Owen Egerton
On our ninth day it rained. A cool rain that bounced off our faces. We could smell the clouds, smell the electricity of the sky. How long had it been since we had not run from rain, not thrown an umbrella or newspaper over ours heads and dashed for shelter?
Then it was over, a brief cloudburst, and the sun came out, heating the air and ground. In the warmth the ground gave up all its history in rich, muddy aromas. We could smell its layers, its rot, its roots and worms and stones and growth. The hot air drifting up pant legs, squeezing past buckles and billowing into shirts, gathering at necklines, and puffing through like invisible steam with all the smells of the earth. A smell so strong we held our breath.
The Girl I Never Made Love To
My mind wandered as we walked, just bouncing around inside my head. It’s the same inside this basement. I think about things I haven’t thought about in years. Some things I haven’t wanted to think about in years, other things just got lost in the shuffle.
Maybe it was Beddy’s youth, or maybe I was feeling younger, but during those first few days of walking, I kept thinking about my high school sweetheart: Jessica Waller. She was treasurer of the student council, listened to country music, had hazel eyes and a slightly crooked nose. For years after, a whiff of the peach-syrup perfume she wore would make my crotch ache.
We’d park near the baseball fields in my mother’s beige Cadillac, trying to get at something. Me rubbing on the outside of her shirt and counting off thirty seconds until I tried for under the shirt. Careful now, be subtle, keep the kissing going. Of course, how subtle can a seventeen-year-old boy be? How subtle did she want me to be? Even then I knew this backseat dance was a ritual that had been performed a million times. Something my father must have done and my grandfather and my great-grandfather. A rite of passage, a thrilling and embarrassingly clumsy exploration.
That summer, before my senior year, Jessica and I spent our days at Lake Ray Hubbard. Her dad owned a jet ski and we’d tow it out and ride the choppy waters, the sun baking our shoulders and noses. And if the shore was quiet, or if the jet ski stalled in the waves and we were left standing up to our chests in lukewarm water, we’d go to pressing against each other. Laughing. I named her breasts Bert and Ernie. She named part of me Big Bird. And I was eager as hell to reach her Grover.
Grover worked as a name, but secretly I thought of her warmest spot, always hidden behind humid panties, as Oscar’s trashcan. That strange, unseen realm from which Oscar produced toys, food, furniture. Always amazing, Oscar would disappear into his can and you could hear his feet descending a long staircase, make out the rattling of junk, before seeing him emerge again with some found wonder. That’s where I wanted to go. But I was still only bluntly caressing cotton, my hand shaking at the nest-like texture of the hairs I wasn’t quite yet allowed to touch. Soon, I knew, I would. I would stay the course, run the race. I knew she would be my first and I would be hers.
Jessica had to go to a church summer camp for a week in July, and we were both dreading the time apart. The night before she left, my hand slipped under the panties and my fingers first encountered that dreamy wetness. I saw her off the next day and she cried a little.
“And Grover will miss you too,” she whispered in my ear, and I blushed. I had never understood longing until that week apart, that interruption of our months of foreplay. I spent my time imagining places we could be alone, hidden rooms with soft pillows and a stereo. I must have deflowered her a thousand times in my mind, mixing what I knew of her body with images I’d seen in contraband porn magazines. I was ready to explode by the time she returned.
“I’ve got so much to share with you,” she told me in the church parking lot. I thought I knew what she meant, knew what she wanted to share. I was wrong.
“I’ve fallen in love with Jesus,” she said once we were in the car. I laughed at the phrase, but she only stared back with complete sincerity.
That night, over hamburgers and cokes, she told me all about Jesus. How good he was. How he had died for her sins. How she had “accepted him into her heart.” I nodded along. It sounded like pretty standard church stuff. It wasn’t till later in the back of that trustworthy Cadillac, my hand palming Ernie, that she told me that Jesus would want us to “slow down the kissing stuff.”
I was naturally concerned, but I smiled and removed my hand, silently wondering how long this inconvenient development would last. As it turned out, it lasted a very long time. Jessica, who had been only nominally involved with her church, was now a regular attendee. Youth group pizza parties or overnighters became higher priorities than trips to the lake with me. And the we-should-slow-down conversation was becoming a common post-make out event.
Jessica was conflicted. A battle waged in her deepest parts between her newfound faith and every single bubbling hormone in her body. For me there was no conflict at all. Jesus is fine, but sex is better. We still rubbed, touched, pressed, but I had to be more subtle, more seductive, counting higher and higher before letting my hands proceed.
“No,” she’d say, pushing my hand away. “That’s too far.”
“Okay,” I’d say and return to my counting, gently pushing her boundaries out and out towards that distant coast.
She enjoyed our steamy encounters, but afterwards she’d be bombarded with guilt. Jesus moving as subtly and seductively as me, but pushing her boundaries in the opposite direction—further inland. He showed her verses in her pink-leather bible or spoke to her through her youth group leader, an overly enthusiastic twenty-two year old saving up for seminary.
“He sees us, you know,” she said one night when I had managed to get her shirt all the way off. “He’s watching right now.”
“What a pervert!” I said. That lost me ground.
Over the next few months, I progressed bit by bit. It was exciting, dangerous. Hours were spent in that Cadillac, pushing ourselves forward. Then she would feel guilty and I would comfort her, and then we would begin pushing again. Slowly moving forward, onward, eyes on the prize. But at the final border, Jesus stonewalled us. There was orgasm, at least for me, soiling my jeans. But those panties stayed on and true intercourse, Jessica assured me, would not happen until she was a married woman. That’s what Jesus demanded.
Her language gave our virginity eternal significance. We were daring damnation. Heaven and Hell witnessed our groping, took sides, and cheered or jeered.
I pushed the battle out of the backseat and waged war against the man himself. With teenage logic and passion, I argued that the suffering in the world proved that no god existed.
“That’s people’s doing, not God,” she protested.
“Why doesn’t He help?”
“Free will, our free will. People don’t follow Him and there’s suffering,” she said with a condescending shrug. “No Jesus, no peace. But know Jesus—that’s know with a ‘k’—and know peace.”
This, I knew, was a one-liner she had heard from her youth group leader,
“So God just watches their suffering and then sends them to Hell?” I asked.
“They choose Hell by not choosing Jesus.”
Another brilliant one-liner. He had also taught her such gems as, “His pain, your gain” and “Jesus was asked how much he loves the world, and Jesus said ‘This much.’ He spread out his arms as far as they’d go and died.”
My favorite was: “If you were the only person in the universe, Jesus would still die for you.”
“If I was the only person in the universe, who would nail him to the cross?” I countered.
“Well,” she looked worried. “I guess you would.”
I should have listened to that.
Of course, none of my arguments worked. She explained how I couldn’t understand. I didn’t have Jesus in my heart, so my judgment was flawed.
We dated our entire senior year, coming so close to sex that someone watching would have a difficult time discerning whether or not coitus had been achieved. But we never crossed that line.
>
When I finally did lose my virginity my first semester of college, to a girl more than willing, it was a let down. A quick rumble-tumble with an anticlimactic climax. I missed the thrill of taboo, of creatively pushing the line without actual penetration. And I missed the audience. God wasn’t watching me anymore, and I was disappointed.
So I thought of Jessica while walking. I thought about her being married. I had heard she married the youth leader and had four kids.
She’s old now, of course. Maybe dead. I’d like to write her. Tell her I was thinking of her. Tell her that not having sex with her was the best sex of my life.
The Bath Tub Incident
Today I couldn’t get out of the bath. I tried, but my arms buckled and I splashed backwards and under. It was the hot tub all over again, except God was using age to hold me down instead of Harold. I pushed myself above the surface and called for Peter. He was there in less than a minute. With professional efficiency he lifted me from under my arms and sat me on the commode. He handed me a towel. I think my nakedness, or maybe my helplessness, embarrassed him. He tried not to look. I don’t blame him. I try not to look too. I have de-evolved into a mole. A tall, lank mole that can’t dig. I can’t escape. I can’t stab anyone’s neck. I’m weak. I’m the mole in the Mole Hole. I thanked him for the help.
“Just doing my job,” he said.
I asked him how long he had been a Haroldian.
“I’m not,” he said. “I just work for them.”
“Do they know you’re not a believer?” I asked while pitifully trying to dry my back.
“It was a job requirement,” he said as he took the towel and patted my back.
“Did they think if you were a believer, I would be too much of a distraction?”
“I think they were afraid I’d hurt you. Most people here,” he glanced up to the ceiling, “would love to hurt you.” Peter hung the towel on a hook. “I’ll get you a robe.”
Possum
Irma didn’t like me. She wasn’t rude exactly, but she wasn’t nice either. For the most part she ignored me. So I kept my distance.
I usually walked with Gilbert. Irma didn’t seem too wild about him either. She thought he was crude and a bragger, which he was, but that was his charm. I liked his stories about sexual escapades with young divorcees, his rants against union leaders, his claims that the Masons use the credit card companies to control population growth. I liked the way he told us the workings of his body as if he were reporting the weather. “Oh, my colon is acting quirky,” he’d say. “Chances are it won’t settle down till tomorrow afternoon.”
We were on the outskirts of Clarkston, ten days walk from Figwood, making our way along a two-lane farm road with flat fields on either side, when Gilbert announced, “Goddamn blue jeans are chafing my nuts.” He stopped walking. “I can’t do this. Hold up. Ladies, keep your eyes to the road,” he said, taking his jeans off and hanging them over his shoulder. “Men, I advise you not to look either. Envy, I am told, is a sin.”
“You’re not wearing underwear?” I asked.
“Never. Waste of fabric.” He pulled his shirt as low as it would go, put his shoes back on and continued walking. Thankfully, the shirt was long enough to keep Gilbert respectable, but only just. The hemline hovered in the middle of his pale thighs like a curtain waiting to be raised.
“Put your pants on, child,” Irma said, without looking back.
“I’m fine, I’m decent.”
“Harold,” Irma said. “Shouldn’t the man have pants?”
“I don’t mind,” he said.
“See. I’m fine. It’s like a man-dress,” Gilbert said. Beddy laughed.
“Lord, forgive them,” Irma mumbled.
A moment later, Shael came to a sudden halt. Harold stopped beside her. Soon we were all standing and staring ten feet ahead at a pink-nosed possum sitting on the dusty shoulder of the road. It took a few steps towards us. We all stumbled backwards and Irma squealed. The possum froze and its gray and white hairs bristled. It seemed to study us, size us up, and consider its options.
“Shouldn’t it be asleep?” Beddy asked.
“Maybe it’s sick,” Shael said.
“Shoo,” Irma said. It didn’t move.
Harold moved forward, slowly.
“Careful, Harold,” Gilbert said. “It could be deranged.”
Harold sat down and folded his legs a few feet from the possum. Still moving absurdly slow, he put out both his hands, palms up, and laid them on the ground in front of him. The possum looked at him and squinted its red, pea-sized eyes. It wobbled forward and sniffed the air. A little closer, a step or two, and it sniffed Harold’s fingers. Then it stepped onto Harold’s hand and crawled up his arm, dragging its ribbed tale like a dead earthworm behind it. It curled up on Harold’s shoulder and nuzzled its snout into his hair. “Who’s a good possum?” Harold cooed. “You’re a good possum.”
This is my clearest image of Harold. Sitting on the side of the road in his baggy red poncho and smiling like he’d brought peace to the world by befriending a possum.
The moment was short-lived. A police car pulled up behind us with its lights flashing. The possum, spooked by the lights, flexed its claws and, using Harold’s scalp for leverage, propelled itself into the group. We went screaming in every direction. The police, seeing us scatter, jumped from their car and yelled for us to freeze. We froze.
“Hands above your head!” one cop yelled. Unfortunately, with his arms raised, Gilbert’s shirt was no longer covering what it had once been covering.
“Oh, Christ,” said the other cop.
“Yes?” replied Harold, blood dripping from his face. At this point, I knew that we were going to jail.
Another police car slammed to a halt next to the first. While the rest of us were being frisked, Gilbert was told to wrap a blanket around his waist.
“Why don’t I just put my pants back on?”
“Sir, I don’t see how you can do that without exposing yourself again.”
“Ah, you’re flattering me.”
“Just use the blanket, sir.”
We were detained on “suspicion of vagrancy” and taken downtown. Not that the town of Clarkston had much of a down to speak of.
“You know my lawyers can eat your ass, don’t you? They can eat you,” Gilbert said from the backseat. He, Harold, and I were in one patrol car. Irma, Shael, and Beddy were in another.
Harold kept his face to the window, but I could tell he was pleased with himself. And although I wouldn’t show it, I was loving it too. I loved the look of the wire mesh between me and the cops and being on the wrong side of it. I loved the crushed feeling in the backseat. I loved how it started to rain as we drove through the small town. I was being taken in. I was an outlaw.
It wasn’t much of a jail. Two cells with two sets of cots. We were the only ones there. They put the men in one cell, the women in the other. They were generous, lending us extra blankets and bringing in burgers and fries for dinner. I was disappointed. I had been ready to righteously suffer in the hands of unjust authorities. Instead it was the most comfortable we’d been in days.
After the others in my cell had fallen asleep, I sat against the wall, next to the bars. A single florescent light over the door that led out to the desks flickered and made a quiet buzzing sound. It was like the light that had been above my cubicle, the fake white light that lit my days for so many years. Too clean, too unreal. The NutraSweet of lights.
“Is anyone awake over there?” I heard Irma ask from the other side of the wall.
“Just Blake,” I whispered.
“Oh.” She was hoping for someone else.
“Don’t you hate florescent lights?” I asked.
“Humph,” she said.
“It’s got be a health hazard.”
“Humph.”
“Irma, you don’t like me, do you?”
After a long pause, she answered, “Not much.”
“Why? Because I’m
white?”
“It’s not about who you are,” she said. “It’s about how you treat me. Or treated me. You don’t get to treat me anymore.”
“I paid you well.” As I said it, I wished I hadn’t.
“I hated your neighborhood. Ladies explaining how to mop and how to use the washing machine, speaking slowly as if I had no kind of mind. Children seeing me like a pet. You and your wife. Calling me by my first name, but I called you by your last name. Never once did you invite me to use your first name. Even your little girl could call me by my first name. I bet I’m the only adult in the world she doesn’t respect enough to call Mrs. That or Mr. This. And I know I’m the only black person who has ever stepped into that house.” She paused for a moment, maybe giving me a chance to correct her. I didn’t.
“I’m going to tell you something now and you’re not going to like it, but I’m going to tell you anyway. A few months ago I was on my way to clean your house. Your wife asked me to come an extra time that week because you were going to have a dinner party. I stopped at the HEB to get some bleach for the whites, ” she laughed a little. “Bleach for the whites. That’s funny. Anyway, I was in one bad mood. My plumbing wasn’t working and my grandson was sick. I’d been up half the night at my daughter’s apartment. She was staying home with the boy, so I knew I’d have to clean her houses too. It was the pretty HEB I went to, the one near your house. Same name as the one on my side of town but cleaner and nicer and the fruit ain’t rotting. I was just mad and tired and felt like dying or killing. Yeah, killing was sounding pretty good. The whole aisle of cleaning products was temptation. Just a spoonful in your coffee or milk, you know? And all the names had new meanings. Shout, Gain, Cascade, Cheer. So I started filling up my cart, piling up all those pretty bottles. I got lots of bleach, ’cause it makes whites whiter.”
She let out a low chuckle and took a deep breath. I didn’t make a sound. “Ah, I know I was acting crazy, but I was feeling happy and whistling. Then I turned into the frozen food section, and there’s this girl handing out samples of little sausages. I popped one in my mouth and swallowed. That’s when I felt the cutting in my throat. And the girl says, ‘Ma’am, we have a little trash can for the toothpick.’ And I just knew it. God was punishing me for all my hate, punishing me with the toothpick and sausage in my throat. I couldn’t even breathe. And I looked around at all those smiley white people and walked away with my cart. I was not going to die begging them for help. I knew I was going down, but I was going to keep my pride. Now, my throat was really hurting, but I hid it, even when it started tensing up and twitching. I started crying but kept wheeling the cart and gripping the handle with all I had. But I lost my legs and fell down. The cart came with me and all those colorful bottles went spinning. A bottle split open and some thick, blue detergent oozed out. People came running and slipped on the stuff and fell all over the place like they were dancing. It was funny. My ear was pressed against the floor so when they fell it was like thunder in my brain. I could see them all staring and scared ’cause I was turning so pale. I think they were afraid I was turning white, that’s what I think. I was ready to die. Ready to let it go. But before I could, I saw Harold kneeling over me. I promise I knew then and there. ‘It’s Jesus,’ I told myself. ‘Jesus is in the HEB store.’ And Harold put a hand on my cheek and just like that I could breathe. Then he left and I didn’t see him again until the day I quit your house.”