In Tall Cotton

by Charles G. Hulse

  My birthday in March fell on a Saturday and a family get-together had been arranged at Aunt Dell’s. It would be the first time we’d had dinner away from 1548 since we moved in the first of October. I think Mom and Dad had felt that they were on 24-hour call because of Captain J’s condition. Indeed, they had been called in several times during nights when he was having trouble with his breathing and needed to be lifted up and moved about.

  I took the North Twelfth Street bus from the corner at Missouri Avenue and went down as far as Van Buren and then got out and walked to the Tucson Hotel where I had a date to meet Sister. We were going to have an “outing” she said. Sister was never on time but I was early by over half an hour. I strolled from in front of the hotel down to the corner looking in the shop windows, admiring the richness of the displays rather in the way one looks at things in a museum—they were as unattainable for me as if they were priceless and belonged to the State. A small window glittering with silver and turquoise jewelery did make my mouth water—the turquoise held me hypnotized, it was like water, the deepest pools that went to the center of the earth, bottomless but where you didn’t drown but floated in a slow-motion dance of pure delight. I had to force my eyelids down and closed and then make myself turn away like a blind man and head back toward the hotel entrance before I opened them again.

  There was a clock above a big door on a bank across the street. Still twenty minutes to go. I walked in the other direction, determined to avert my eyes if I passed another jewelery shop, particularly one with the Indian handmade silver and turquoise. I strolled, watched the people, counted out-of-state license plates on the cars pulled up at the stop lights, found myself crossing the street with some other pedestrians then turned back toward the hotel. The light had changed and I was standing on the curb when I saw Sister come out of the hotel. I started to call but she darted across the street right through the traffic which caused me to catch my breath in fear and disappeared behind the cars. I stretched up on tiptoe to look over the tops of the cars, but I’d lost her. I panicked. That clock must be wrong and she’d been looking for me and couldn’t find me and probably gone to call Mom. Finally the lights changed and I ran down the street and stood on the long marble step that led into the hotel lobby, making myself as tall and visible as possible. All of a sudden I saw her crossing the street with other pedestrians at the corner. She saw me and waved, her white teeth flashing in her suntanned face. My chest filled with pride at being smiled at by so beautiful a creature and looked around me to see if anybody had noticed.

  “Oh, honey,” she called breathlessly when she got near me. “Am I late?” She glanced over her shoulder at the clock on the bank and then hugged me. “No. Not for me.” We laughed. “You just get here?”

  “No, I’ve been …”

  “Oh, honey, you’ve been waiting, haven’t you? Oooh, how I hate that bus. It takes forever. And Saturday traffic. Well, I finally just jumped off and ran. That’s why I’m so out of breath.” She took a deep breath and stood back and looked down at me. “And don’t you look fresh and sweet.” She grabbed me by the hand. “Come on, I want to show you off.” She led me through the lobby door that she’d come out of a few minutes before.

  “Why are we going in here? You were just …”

  “I’m showing you off, honey, that’s why,” her spirits soared over the questions forming in my mind, sweeping them up and away.

  She smiled radiantly at the doorman who winked and made a vague saluting gesture toward his cap. She seemed to know him. Maybe she was going to show me off to him. I smiled what Junior called my “cutest” smile.

  “This way, honey,” she led me across the wide carpeted lobby at such speed that I could hardly take in its luxury. She went sailing through a pair of swinging doors marked “Saloon” into a dimly-lighted bar, unlike anything I’d ever seen. Not even in the movies. There were low dark brown leather (real, I ran my hand across the back of one) couches placed around big low square glass-topped tables in symmetrical groupings all over the room, separated now and again by potted plants that were more exotic than anything the captain produced in his greenhouses and I wondered how they could grow in the dark. We headed toward a long bar at the far end of the room in front of which were tall leather-topped stools. There was a man in a white jacket bending down at the far end of the bar with his back to us. He straightened and turned when Sister called a cheerful, “Howdy, Jim.”

  His face beamed and his bald head gleamed as he came toward us with arms outstretched in greeting, “Ah, my lovely. Oh, it’s almost a sin. It’s too much. The beauty of Ginny is blinding.” He shaded his eyes from her brilliant smile and bubbled with nonsensical good humor. “How’d it go last night, baby,” he said confidentially, doing a little dance with his head and eyes.

  Sister’s eyes widened and she seemed to stiffen in a sort of warning. “Fine. Good Friday crowd. We got a good band this week. The Duke. Ellington.” She was talking as fast and as breathlessly as she had since we’d met in front of the hotel. “But that’s work talk. I brought my real boyfriend in to show you.” She put an arm around me and drew me to her. “This is Tot … ah, Carlton Woods. My baby.” We were using our proper names—Virginia and Carlton—which always gave me a sense of lost identity. For both of us.

  Jim leaned over the counter and stuck out his hand which I took and shook. “Well, hello down there, little feller. Didn’t see you at first.” He glanced from one of us to the other. “By golly, he’s almost as pretty as you. Yours?”

  “Sure, Jim. All of us hillbillies have babies by the time we’re ten.” We all laughed. Jim uproariously. “But he might as well be mine. “I’ve took care of him since he was born. Cousins.”

  “And now you’re just takin’ care of Ginny. Right?”

  “Weeelll,” she said, coyly rolling her eyes and easing her bottom insinuatingly onto the stool and opening her big handbag. She pulled an envelope from it and waved it teasingly in front of Jim’s face. It had the name of the hotel stamped on its corner. “Sometimes I take care of you too, don’t I?”

  He clutched his hands to his heart and looked up at the ceiling. “I swear you’re just too good for the likes of me.”

  “You take care of me,” she said snapping her handbag shut with a metallic click, “and I’ll take care of you. Buddies, right?” “Right, my lovely, right.” He bowed his head over her hand as though he were going to kiss it but lifted the envelope in his teeth and straightened up with his hands in the air. “Look, Ma, no hands!” he said with a comic leer through clenched teeth.

  Sister laughed and turned to me. “Let’s get out of here. This man is keer-aaa-zzy!” She was off the stool and halfway across the room with me at her heels when she called over her shoulder, “Bye, Jim. Thanks a lot. Call, y’hear?”

  “Whenever I can catch a live one, my lovely. You know that.” When I glanced back and waved, he was waving the envelope at us.

  Heads turned when Sister walked by. She wore her beauty like a thoroughbred, not arrogantly, just with a sparkling pride. She walked tall, shoulders back, head up, with long confident strides. She knew where she was going. Her dark suntanned skin she let shine. And it did, with a healthy glow. “Powder just clogs the pores,” she claimed and she wore no makeup but a touch of mascara and lipstick. She was only a year or two older than Bradford but of a totally different generation. I was proud and amazed by her. It amazed me how well she knew her way around the city— how she could walk into the elegant hotel as if she owned it and be on first-name basis with the bartender, how she handled the salesmen in the shops with just the right amount of flirtatiousness and sophistication. Her brilliant smile melted all obstacles. I wondered how she did it and wondered if I could learn. I was still puzzled about many things, but I knew she didn’t want me to know that she’d come out of the hotel, and I respected her wishes.

  She started to turn into Goldwater’s Department Store but suddenly took my hand and said, “I guess not here,” and we walk
ed on a few paces before she looked down at me and smiled, “Want an ice-cream cone?” We got the giggles right in the middle of the sidewalk.

  I managed to choke out, “No, but I’d love a milk-shake. I’ve never had one.”

  She looked wide-eyed with disbelief. “You poor underprivileged child. Come on.” We went into a chrome and glass icecream parlor and sat down at a table. She ordered me a chocolate milk-shake and a coke for herself. The milk-shake was like eating silk. It was a new experience that I wanted to last as long as possible. I sipped and played with it, wanting to get inside the tall glass like getting inside a turquoise. They had something in common.

  “Come on, honey. Stop dawdling. It’s your birthday, baby, and we’re supposed to be home having a party. Oooohhh. Just look at the time. Your folks’ll be there before we can get you in your new outfit.

  I knew she’d got me Levis and a shirt but she’d made the purchases at J. C. Penney’s with me outside after I’d had my waist and inseam measured. They were gift-wrapped and I had to open them in front of everybody and pretend I didn’t know what they were. Well, I hadn’t seen the shirt yet, but they’d all done the same thing for Junior’s birthday in October and what one of us got, the other eventually got too. Sometimes by a hand-me-down.

  Aunt Dell and Mavis oohed and aahed at my Levis as though they’d never seen a pair of them in their lives. The shirt I oohed and aahed over because it was turquoise blue (how could Sister know?), cut western style with a yoke in the back, tight fitting and little smiling pockets on the chest. It had white pearl-faced buttons that snapped. I was overjoyed.

  “I’ve got something for you out here,” Uncle Roy said. “Come on. I’ll also give you the basic pointers on the wearin’, carin’ for and feedin’ of Levis. They are a special breed and have to be handled with the utmost consideration. You gotta’ tame ’em just like you would a bronco.”

  In Roy’s room behind the garage, I spread out my loot on his single bed while he kept up a running monologue, half to himself, muttering and humming—not songs but sounds—as he gave me instructions. “Yes, put them things down there. Uh-huh. That’s right.” He moved around the room with preoccupied concentration. “Yes. Well, you can’t put on Levis over your other pants. Better get outta’ them. And your shoes.” He was pulling what looked like an old army trunk out from under the bed. “This ought to do the trick. Yeah, that’s better. More room. Better height.” He shoved the trunk around with his feet, pushing it back near the wall. He’d picked up my new shirt and was looking at it carefully as though he were checking the seams to see if it were well made. “Now, that’s a dandy. Real dandy. Good color.” He glanced at me and frowned. “You can’t wear that undershirt with this. Ain’t nothin’ supposed to be wore under a shirt like this. See them tucks there? That’s the real western cut. It all flows together in a line.” With my undershirt off, I was standing not too patiently in my socks and underpants. I was anxious to get into my new clothes. “You want me to help?”

  “Nope.” He was unsnapping the buttons. “Got ’er now.” He bit his lower lip and looked around him. “Come on over here, Tots, and git up on this trunk.” I looked at him questioningly. “You’re too damn short to git at. Come on over here.” I obeyed. “There we are.” He held the shirt for me to slip on.

  “The sleeves are just right,” I said holding out my arms. “Tailor made.” He turned around and held my Levis up between us. “Them’s the real McCoy. The little leather label and them brass brads. That’s how you know.” He shook them out. “This is the hard part.” He chuckled. “They’re really stiff, but that’ll loosen up in the wash.” He pushed his arm down the legs and shook out some of the stiffness. They crackled with a nice fresh new sound and smell. “You have to git them underpants off.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. “What?”

  “Git them underpants off. You can’t wear them knitted things under these pants. They’ll bunch up and drive you crazy.” We’d always worn underpants. We’d been brought up to think it was … well, indecent not to. Mom never said so in so many words, but that was the feeling I got. “But, I’ve never not worn underpants.”

  “You ever had real Levis before?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you are. You don’t know then, do you?”

  “Don’t know what?”

  “How to wear them, that’s what. I been wearing Levis purt’ near all my life and I know. They ain’t like regular pants. Like I told you, they are a special breed.”

  “How?”

  “They’re cowboy pants. Right?” I nodded. “Well, a cowboy has a special job to do, don’t he? And these pants was designed for that special job.” I nodded again. “Now listen, this can git a bit… well, technical. That’s why I’m showing you all this. These is men’s pants. Real men’s pants. Now …” He crossed his arms across his chest and then put one hand up on his cheek and sort of thumbed his fingers against the side of his face. “How to git this … Well, let’s start at the beginning. We are men. We are made different than women.” His eyes twinkled. “You followin’ me so far?”

  “Yea-up.”

  “OK.” He reached over and slipped my underpants down before I knew what was happening. “Now just step outta’ these useless things …” I took hold of his shoulder for support as I did as I was told. “There.” He stood back and looked at my naked lower body. I started to cover myself but he grabbed my wrists. “No need to do that. We’re both men together.” He stared at my crotch. “Well, we’re gittin’ there.” He reached out and cupped my parts in his hand. “Yes, sir, we’re gittin’ there.” He moved things around as he inspected me as impersonally as if he’d been a doctor. “The hair’s so blond it don’t show much, but it’s coming’ along. It’s all comin’ along.” He held the Levis open at trunk-top level. “OK. Now let’s git into these.” I slid a foot into one leg and he bunched the stiff material up the leg until my foot came through the bottom. Then the other one until the Levis caught at about my knees. “This is, as you can see, no easy chore. Everybody needs help that first time. Now, grab and pull.” I did and got them just up to my hips. “Uh-oh. ‘Most forgot.” He went over to a chest of drawers and took something out of the top drawer. He grinned and handed it to me. “From me,” he said shyly, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. “My little birthday present.”

  I felt pretty silly opening a present with my pants half on and naked in the middle. It was a belt. A beautiful one. “Real Hand-Tooled Leather” it said on the little cardboard box with the cellophane opening showing what was called a “Real Silver-like Buckle.” It would complete my western outfit. I was really going to be decked out. “Oh lord, Uncle Roy, that’s just… just perfect. Thank you.” I smelled the real leather. “Just smell that …” I leaned over. “Oops, sorry.” My crotch was practically in his face. “Excuse me …”

  He waved my apology aside. “Like the belt? It’s got that double bit there that kinda’ laps over the other. Real cowboy belt.” He started fitting it through the loops around the top of the pants. “Just check the size … I wasn’t too sure just what …” His arm was around my waist and the other one was reaching behind to pull the belt through on the other side. His cheek brushed against my exposed parts. He seemed to almost rub his cheek against me. His whiskers gave me a funny sensation and I pulled back.

  “I’m sorry. I keep getting things in the way …”

  “Now that’s just what I wanted to talk to you about.” He went on adjusting the belt, “as I said, these pants are made for a special … a specific job. When you’re in a western saddle and you’re roping steers or just plain riding along, well, this here,” he cupped my privates again, “is goin’ to rub against that front part of the saddle—there where the horn is. Right?” He was still holding on to me and I was beginning to feel something in his hand that wasn’t so impersonal. “This part of you is goin’ to push up against that front part every step that horse takes … like that, see?
” He pushed his big hand up against my crotch, pressing my parts up toward my body in a rhythmic motion. “And there … see what happens? You start to get a hard on.” I was. My knees were beginning to feel weak and I took hold of his broad shoulders for support. “Well. That’s what any man would do. You git your cock rubbin’ up against something warm like that and it’s goin’ to happen to any man.” He kept the gentle rhythm going. “Now, if you’re just ridin’ along even, you don’t want everybody to see your hard on.” He looked up into my glazed eyes and grinned as he took his hands away and spread them out to his sides. “There’d be a hard on because you had on them damned underpants! Don’t you see? They got you all bunched up like this,” he demonstrated by cupping both his hands around me and exerting the gentle pressure again. I thought I was going to faint. “Whereas, if you have it all like this,” he straightened me out and lay my cock gently along my thigh, “ain’t nobody goin’ to notice anything. See?” Mine felt so hard that I couldn’t figure out where it could go if it couldn’t go upright. “And everything is comfortable over to the side …” He was trying to hold me against my thigh but it hurt not being able to spring free. I took his hand off it and it flew up.

  “Well, that don’t look like it’s goin’ to fit in them pants sideways, does it? We’d better fix that…” He leaned his head forward and took it in his mouth just as his hands touched my buttocks and pulled me slightly forward. I think I did faint.

  I felt suspended in air. His hands on my backside supported me and moved me gently back and forth in his mouth. I was dead from my knees down. Suddenly the same tingling sensation Ronnie had created in me returned, starting in my finger-tips at the back of my scalp, where his fingers kneaded my bottom, in my toes and feet that were useless except as conduits for this electric current carrying this storm that was gathering in my groin and was going to explode into the deep silky bottomless haven of milkshake, turquoise, and fresh peach ice-cream that was Roy’s mouth. I collapsed with a cry over his left shoulder, sobbing as I had with Ronnie, not knowing what had happened, but knowing that this was something as rare as those special things I thought about while it was happening.