Everything was blurry and black and all I could hear was Sissy saying, “I think you need to go inside. I really think you need to go inside and tell your mom.”
I wasn’t having it. I would play it cool, and I picked up the basketball and acted like nothing was wrong. I couldn’t see the rim due to the blur. I still picked up the basketball and shot it with my left hand. I missed the rim by ten feet.
Sissy stood with me and said, “I seriously think you need to go inside. I think you’re hurt.”
I walked over to her and put my arm around her and squeezed her shoulder’s tight and said, “You’re looking real pretty today. I mean earlier today when I could still see. You were looking real pretty then.”
Sissy had tears in her eyes. She had tears in her eyes and she was trying to push away.
I said, “Do you remember that turtle we found. Do you remember us carving our initials in him? I wonder if he’s still around here? I wonder if we could find him if we went looking for him?”
I felt something dribble down on my arm. It was blood dripping from my head. Sissy was backing up now with slow steps and I was moving towards her saying, “Hey where are you going? It’s just a little blood. I can almost see again. Don’t you remember the turtle?” I was following her with my arms stretched out like a Frankenstein. And she was moving away from me like someone from the land of the living. Then I stopped because you know what the living people do to the dead people when they find out they’re dead.
The next week I heard Derrick had a girlfriend. She was short and blonde and looked like she cut her hair with a knife. She worked at Hardees and one day I saw her walking home in her fast food uniform and Derrick was walking five feet behind her.
I asked him later that day, “Who was that girl you were walking with today?”
He said, “O, that’s Heather. She’s this girl I’m fucking. She’s crazy, man.”
I told him she was cute.
He said, “Yeah, she keeps telling me she wants to get married, but since I’m going into the army soon there’s no point in it.”
I said, “You’re going into the army?”
“Yeah, I’m leaving in a couple of weeks.”
Derrick had a girlfriend now.
I didn’t let it get me down though. I tried not thinking about Derrick’s girlfriend. That night, I went down to the end of the street and gathered around the broken streetlight to pick hiding teams and watched the bats swirling around. It was dark outside and as we picked numbers, all of the bats started swooping and circling and dropping and diving and swooping around us. I picked up a rock and tried hitting one with it even though I knew I never could. I picked up another and pretended like I didn’t care what team I was on, even though I really wanted to be on a team with Charity and her big boobs. I wanted to be beside her in the dark woods, away from everyone else. But when the teams were finally picked, I wasn’t on Charity’s team. I was stuck with Fatty Patty who was stronger than I was, and who now just stood beneath the broken streetlight with her pop bottle thick glasses, not looking nearly as cute as Charity—the girl I liked. Charity’s face looked like Derrick’s new girlfriend.
I still went into the woods with Patty and found a hiding spot over the hill where we could hide, and no one would find us. We sat behind this old tree watching the flashlights on top of the hill go back and forth, back and forth. Fatty Patty lay on the side of the hill beneath the trees and in a pile of leaves. I sat beside her for a couple of minutes thinking about Charity, the girl I wasn’t with. I thought about Derrick’s girlfriend. I thought about Derrick. I thought about Charity’s body for a couple of minutes and then I looked at the sky and saw the stars shining and then I s-l-o-w-1-y reached down and touched Patty’s breast. I don’t know why I did it but I kept looking off into the other direction because I was so embarrassed. I reached up under her shirt, pulled her bra down, and touched the softest skin I’d ever touched before, it was so soft.
She didn’t say anything.
I unbuttoned the button on her jean shorts and slid my tiny hand down into her underwear and felt around and said, “Does that feel good? Does that feel good?”
I said it because that’s what you said when you were with a girl.
I saw it on TV.
I rolled on top of her and pretended she wasn’t who she was. I pretended she was Derrick’s girlfriend. I thought about mountains without trees. After I was done I looked down and saw her little chubby face, and she looked at me with her big glasses—so thick I could see the moon and the stars sparkle and reflect in them. I told her just to make sure she knew, “Now don’t you think now that this makes us boyfriend and girlfriend because it doesn’t.”
I thought about how chubby she was and how everyone called her Fatty Patty which was a better name than they gave to her sister Lucy. Lucy Poosy. Even after I said it, I sat and thought about why I said it—but I kept thinking that I didn’t want any silly 14-year-old girls thinking the silly thoughts that a 14-year-old girl thinks. I thought about her telling Charity and the other girls. I thought about her telling Sissy. I thought about Derrick’s girlfriend finding out. I thought about Derrick finding out.
Fatty Patty didn’t say anything for a while but just rearranged her shorts and her pants and her bra.
Then she sat up and said in a quiet voice, “Oh, that’s okay. I already have a boyfriend and he lives in Virginia. I’m going to see him this weekend.”
She was lying. She was a liar.
So I got up and left her sitting by herself in the dark, dark woods.
I walked out of the woods and thought about how the moon looked shining in those pop bottle glasses. I walked to the pile of tree trunk timbers and smelled her smell all over me. I tried wiping my hands in the dewy grass to get rid of the smell, but I couldn’t get rid of it. I wiped my stinky pinky and all the rest of my fingers. I wiped my hands some more and thought about how I looked away so I wouldn’t have to see her face. I thought about the sound of her voice after I told her this didn’t make us girlfriend and boyfriend. I said, “Derrick has a girlfriend now.”
Then Bobbie B. sat down a couple of minutes later. Bobbie B. was this guy I played football with and he lived in Middletown. He started talking about this girl he liked who over in Middletown. He told me how hot she was and how she was working at Hardees. He told me her name was Heather.
I said, “Yeah, I know that girl. That’s Derrick’s new girlfriend.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he said and laughed. He almost fell off the timber he was laughing so much.
He gathered himself and said, “She’s not going out with him.”
Then he told me Heather was afraid to walk home after work now.
He said, “That fucking weirdo Derrick keeps following her home. He won’t leave her alone. Her stepdad even threatened to beat his ass, but he won’t stop. Do you actually believe someone who looks like he does could get a girl like Heather?”
I didn’t answer.
“He keeps telling people he’s going into the army like that’s some big fucking deal. What a bunch of bullshit. He’s not going into the fucking army.” Then he started talking about how Derrick was almost as weird as his cousin. He said, “My cousin was so lonely one night he went out and fucked the earth.” He laughed, “Yeah, he went and thumbed a hole in the ground and started humping the dirt. That’s the type of weird shit Derrick would do.”
I looked up into the sky and I saw the black sky. I wasn’t listening to him. The fat girl smell was gone from me now. I closed my eyes and imagined I was taking Derrick in my arms and holding his head against the soft pound of my beating heart. I touched his head. I whispered, “It’ll be all right Derrick. It’ll be all right.”
Then I listened to his cries and held him tight.
It was like he was my child now.
PORNO
We kept hanging out with Derrick because we thought he could get us porno. Derrick never wanted to, but I always asked him.
“What the hell?” I said. “I know you get it all the time for Old Man Bennett.”
Old Man Bennett was this old guy who lived on our road and who stabbed his son and started having an affair with his son’s wife afterwards.
Derrick kept shaking his head no and I kept asking. No. Come on.
He kept saying how he wanted to sight in his bow or how he didn’t have any money or how he didn’t have any gas in the truck. I reached into my pockets and pulled out a wadded up ten dollar bill and gave it to him.
I said, “Bobbie B. might come over and watch it too.”
Derrick took the money and kept his mouth shut. He grinned his embarrassed gummy grin.
“What do you want?” he finally asked.
I told him, “Bobbie B. just said he wanted big titties.”
I waited around for him to get it. Derrick got in his father’s truck and drove to the tanning bed/beauty salon/game checking station/video store/porno video store to pick it up.
I sat on the side of the mountain and watched Bobbie B. coming up the street dribbling his basketball between his legs and practicing his crossover dribble and reverse pivot move. “He going to get it?”
I shook my head—yeah.
“Cool. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings again but that dude Derrick is weird as shit, all that camoflauge and dried squirrel blood on his hands and those rotten ass teef. You can’t even call them teeth when they’re that bad. You have to call them teef. There’s something wrong with that dude.”
He looked up at the strip mined mountain and said, “Man they’re cutting that motherfucker down.”
He dribbled again and started spinning the basketball on the top of his middle finger and then he asked, “We’re not going to have to watch it with him are we?”
I tried to swat and then I tried to knock the ball out of Bobbie’s hands, but I wasn’t answering.
I finally said, “Don’t worry about it.”
Bobbie B. dribbled the ball between his legs and around his back and said, “Did you tell him I wanted big titties?”
I shook my head yes.
He started going on about something else, but I was only halfway listening to him. Then Derrick drove up the gravel road in his green truck. He pulled in the front yard of his house and set the emergency break and got out. He was carrying a paper bag with a giant plastic tape sticking out from the top. We walked over to him.
“Ah shit, we are going to have to watch it with him,” Bobbie B. whined.
I shook my head, “Don’t worry about it. It’s no big deal. He’s okay.”
So we followed Derrick into the house through the rusty screen door and sat down on the couch.
There was shit everywhere: magazines, Soap Opera Digest, half-painted ceramic knick knacks, crocheted crosses, ceramic ash trays full of cigarettes, empty fast food bags, pop cans with cigarette ashes in them.
Derrick fiddled around with the porno box and finally he put the tape into the VCR. I picked up the giant plastic cover the tape came in. There was a woman on the cover in lingerie blowing a kiss at us. “Ah God,” Bobbie B. said. “Big titties here we come.”
He sat back and held the basketball in his lap. The grainy video started playing.
“I really wish you wouldn’t have made me go get this,” Derrick said and turned the volume up by tapping his finger against the remote control. He went and sat down in the La-Z-Boy. Bobbie B. started making noises because he was nervous. We laughed. Derrick didn’t. Derrick’s teeth were rotten.
Bobbie B. started nervous talking about how he saw some of his cousin’s fucked up porn. I asked him if this was the cousin who fucked the earth and he shook his head yes. He told us about this beastiality video he saw with these fucked up Asian girls. There was this German Sheperd in the video named Max. He said the Asian girls seduced Max.
Derrick adjusted the tracking on the VCR and Bobbie B. quoted a line from the movie, “O Max he’s good dog.”
I shook my head, “That’s crazy.”
Derrick was watching breasts on the TV screen and this naked tattooed guy who was wearing cowboy boots. Then Bobbie B. started talking again about how his cousin was probably the first person to ever fuck the earth. He told us how his cousin went outside that night and thumbed a hole in the ground and just went to it. Then he told us about his cousin’s collection of geriatric porn.
He quoted a line from that movie too, “My George had a much bigger schlong.”
I laughed and watched the breasts bouncing.
Then Derrick said, “Shhhh.”
I shushed.
Bobbie B. kept making the nervous noises. He repeated, “My George had a much bigger schlong. You know once a man has sex with the earth, then really nothing is weird afterwards.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t have made me get this,” Derrick said.
He wasn’t joking now. His eyes were popped and bloodshot and his pupils were big and black. He was watching the video so hard.
Bobbie B. got up and said something like, “Ah man. I got to go take a shit.”
He walked to the bathroom and closed the door behind him and turned on the water faucet.
Derrick kept turning the volume up and repeated, “I really wish you wouldn’t have made me get this.”
I didn’t know what he meant. I thought about Bobbie’s cousin having sex with the earth.
I thought about Bobbie B’s cousin.
He kept saying, “I didn’t want to get it. I’m always fighting.” He looked like he was going to cry.
I still didn’t know what this meant.
I thought I heard him say, “Why?”
Then it was quiet again. I heard a buckle unbuckle and a zipper unzip. I heard spitting and then I heard the recliner squeaking. I kept telling myself I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing out of the corner of my eye or hearing what I was hearing, but he was doing it.
He was masturbating in front of me.
I shook my head and didn’t say anything. It had been years. I laughed nervous, but I didn’t leave. I couldn’t leave.
He was staring at the television and the bouncing breasts and he was going, “O god no. O god no.”
I heard the toilet flush in the bathroom and then Bobbie B. sprayed air freshener. Bobbie came out and flipped off the bathroom light. He was smiling.
Then he saw Derrick.
Bobbie B’s face turned mean.
Derrick didn’t stop. He kept going. It was like he was gasping for air.
Bobbie looked at me and said, “What the fuck, Man?”
I didn’t say anything.
I was sitting on the other side of the room.
Derrick quickened.
His hand was faster now. Then he groaned and came.
It was accomplished.
Derrick didn’t say anything, but he cowered and bent over trying to hide himself. He grabbed at a shirt on the nasty couch. It was the flannel Bobbie B. was wearing tied around his waist.
“What the fuck,” Bobbie B. said and ran over and grabbed at it.
He ripped his flannel shirt out of Derrick’s hand.
Derrick grasped for a wadded up fast food napkin, but it wasn’t big enough for the mess. Then he reached for a scrap quilt on the back of the couch. He wiped himself with it.
“You’re fucked up,” Bobbie B. shouted. “You know everyone thinks so. You totally freaked that girl Heather out and I know you’re lying about the fucking army. I guess I’m going to have to kick your ass.”
Bobbie B. shouted and yanked him up out of the La-Z-Boy. Derrick fell to the floor. Since Derrick’s pants were around his knees, he landed on his face. He looked helpless with his hairy red ass hanging out. His body looked so small and sad.
“I’m sorry,” Derrick said. “O god no.”
Bobbie kicked him once and kept yelling, “What the fuck are you doing trying to jerk off in front of me. Nobody is going to wipe their shit on my shirt.”
Then he stopped and tied the
shirt around his waist and shouted, “My mom got me this shirt.”
Bobbie B. looked at me and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here, man.”
He took his basketball and hit Derrick in the head with it. The basketball bounced off of Derrick’s head and back into Bobbie B’s hands. I got up and walked towards Derrick. Derrick reached for me and said, “No, don’t go. Please. I’m sorry.”
I moved my leg.
I stepped over him like he was a dog.
“O god no,” Derrick repeated and tried pulling up his pants. “Help me.”
“I ought to bust that motherfucker up,” Bobbie said as we walked down the muddy drive. I didn’t say anything.
He kept twirling his basketball around his waist and said, “If he wants to jerk off let him excuse himself like I did. Tell people you have go crap or something. Have some fucking manners.”
We walked some more. Bobbie B. dribbled the basketball. He bounced a pass to me. I dribbled a couple of times and smacked it back to him with my fist.
He bounced it back to me and I bounced it once and then kicked it back to him like a hacky sack.
“What a fucking weirdo,” he said. I shook my head yes. I agreed he was a fucking weirdo. I agreed he was fucked up. I agreed Bobbie B. could kick the shit out of him. I agreed there are some sick people out there. I agreed the world was a fucked up, sick place.
I went home.
I shut the bathroom door behind me.
I thought about the TV screen.
I masturbated.
That night I dreamed about flying turtles and forest fires and fucking the earth. I dreamed about Bobbie B’s cousin fucking the dirt. The next morning I awoke and I listened to the tree company tearing away the woods and the timber. I heard the chainsaws ripping outside my open window and I heard the dynamite exploding all the mountain tops away for the black rock below. And instead of feeling sad like I did most mornings, I felt something else now. I found myself saying, “Explode. Explode you mountains. Rip them down you fuckers. Take this stinking dirt and leave this land with hatred and death.”
Hill William Page 7