In Tall Cotton

by Charles G. Hulse

  The emphasis on horses was a bit overwhelming but the whole place fascinated me and I was determined to learn everything I could about these superb animals—another species altogether from the mules and plow horses I’d known back home—from the ground up if necessary. And that’s where I started, raking up the shit from the riding circle after Rosalind’s workout. She claimed that she was sitting on a horse before she could walk. I have no reason to doubt her. Her singular devotion to that four-legged beast matched mine for her and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been born on one.

  She didn’t exactly think she was a horse—she knew perfectly well who she was; the prettiest girl in the fifth grade, heart-breaker of the highest order, rivaled for the highest marks in class only by one Carlton Woods, who, along with her proud parents and colored mammy, doted on her. She was also the proud possessor of a wall full of blue ribbons and trophies won in horse shows as far away as San Francisco and Chicago. Those were just for show-riding and jumping. On the other side of the room were the trophies won in rodeos and western-style shows and events. She was as comfortable in English saddle as Western, in jodhpurs as in Levis.

  My devotion to her continued undiminished even when I realized there’d never be the remotest possibility of anything resembling the sweet puzzle games I’d shared with Mary Ann. I’d have to consider that kid-stuff, something outgrown. Besides, if I had wanted to touch an intimate part of her body, the only way that could be managed would be to turn myself into a saddle. Or better yet, saddle-blanket and then bore a hole up through the saddle so that when she posted up and down, up and down on my … . Whooee, a fantasy so outrageous that it made me laugh thinking that not even Mary Ann could come up with something so bizarre.

  The closest I got to that part of my beloved was the polishing and waxing the places where it spent most of its out-of-school time. I became an expert with saddle soap and wax, could make brass reflect in the dark, and the amount of horseshit I shovelled would have compared favorably with what Dad was floating on the irrigations ditches right over there. I actually heard his voice at the corner once, and thanked God for the high walls. If he’d seen me cleaning out the stables, he’d probably have suggested that charity begins at home.

  My unstinting efforts were rewarded in one positive way—I was allowed to ride once in a while and was becoming familiar with the intricacies of the English saddle and bridle, posting with increasing ease and authority. Cleveland, the head groom and husband of Rosalind’s mammy, allowed I was developing a good seat. He was a kind, gentle man and it was he would let me ride, saying it was the least he could do for all the work and time I put in helping him.

  I’d been riding with Rosalind in the center circle with Cleveland calling out instructions in his quiet voice when she suddenly bent down and whispered something to Cleveland and galloped out of the ring, down the drive and out onto the main road. I started to follow her since we often gave the horses a good run along the nearby country roads, but Cleveland caught my horse’s bridle and said softly, “You better git down, Lil’ Carl.” I could tell from his face that something was wrong. I swung my leg around and slid down to the ground.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, it’s like this,” he led the horse toward the stable and motioned with his head for me to accompany him. “Mr. Rawlings, he thinks you spending too much time over here. Taking up too much of my time.” He chuckled. “I told him you was turning into a pretty good stable boy.” He stopped and stroked the neck of the horse while I patted her and wondered what this was all about. “And … he says … Mr. Rawlings says… Well, they don’t know your folks and they think you and Missy getting pretty thick … And well, they think it’s maybe a good idea to well … separate you two for awhile. I mean, you see each other at school all the time and … ”

  “And they don’t think I should come around here any more. Is that it?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why Missy make me tell you this.”

  “I don’t under …” I couldn’t believe what I was beginning to believe. “We live right over there, Cleveland. We’re neighbors. We go to the same school…”

  “I know, I know, Lil’ Carl. But he says … Mr. Rawlings says … oouuaah,” it was sort of a strange sighing noise, “so many new people comin’ in … strangers … Okies and the like … and he …”

  I didn’t hear any more. I was running as fast as my legs could carry me. I made it to the road as fast as Rosalind had made it on the horse. If there’d been cars coming, even one, I could have been killed because I was blinded by the tears that were streaming down my face and I was in the middle of the road, running, running, running, choking on sobs until I was well out of sight of the Rawlings property and then I slowed down to a walk, a very slow walk, one foot slowly being put down and the other even more slowly being picked up. This would be the last time I’d ever walk on this road. That much I knew. I’d walk forty miles to school if I had to. I’d face those wild rock-throwing Mexicans and battle them until I was bloody but I wouldn’t ever as long as I lived walk down that road again. I turned into North Twelfth Street. The beige adobe walls looked protective and warm. Home. I hit the wall with my fist and then my forehead with my fist. God! What a dummy!

  “What’s happened to the big romance,” Junior asked when I suggested we take the old way down Missouri Avenue to school the next day. “The horse finally win out?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” It was a bit soon to joke about. If I was ever going to be able to.

  He looked at me closely. “You sad?”

  “Kinda’.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said putting an arm around my shoulder. “You were just blinded by her unearthly beauty.” He squeezed me to him. “And her earthly goods.”

  “Probably.” Her house was really nice. But as I thought about it, I realized I’d only been inside once. To the room where the trophies were—a sort of playroom or family room, whatever they called it. I hadn’t even seen all the inside. Okies weren’t allowed in. “Well, anyway, I was learning how to ride. A bit.”

  “I was only joking. I mean, I was just teasing … What happened?”

  “Aw, she’s just a stuck-up snot.”

  “Wow! Never thought I’d hear you say that. About the sweet, sweet Rosalind.”

  “They’re all stuck-up. Big house, horses, a whole bunch of cars. Live-in help.”

  Junior stopped. I stopped and turned to look at him. “So have the Joneses,” he said evenly.

  “But the Rawlings have Negroes … old family retainers, they call them.”

  “Live-in help comes in all colors, honey chile.” Suddenly I understood it all. White trash Okie servants.

  I just stood there looking at him for a long minute. “Well. Ah’ll be dawg-goned.” We burst out laughing in the middle of Missouri Avenue. What better place. And what better place than with the Joneses’. We were living better than we ever had—servants or not. The only great loss was Mom’s giving up teaching.

  Facing Rosalind in school was a dread so intense that it cut off my breathing. I found that just the thought of seeing her on the playground or in the classroom, knowing what she and her parents thought of me cut some vital connection between my head and body. That I could have been so insensitive, so unaware of their real feelings about me while I polished their fucking brass and shovelled their horseshit, struck me as beyond idiocy. Dumb. Real dumb. When I thought about it, I don’t think it was a blind rage that affected my eyesight, it was just a blindness about how to go about my daily life with others and still hold my head up.

  I resolved it by deciding that I was going to be the best in my class. Best in everything. I would read and give more book reports than anybody else. I’d work on the multiplication tables until I could say them in my sleep—Junior swore I did. Whatever activity was being arranged, I’d head it and lead it. I’d instigate things— outings, class projects for geography, history, natural science— anything so long as I ran
it. I even appointed Rosalind to committees on my projects more often than not. She was never to know that I knew for sure, no matter what Cleveland reported back to her. What I wanted her to know was that this white-trash-Okie-servant was smarter than she was. It was not easy to prove.

  I burned the mid-night oil as long as Junior did. I was caught with my nose in a book as frequently as he. Mom was wide-eyed with delight. Dad just threw up his hands at the prospect of having two bookworms to contend with. I won on the battlefield I’d chosen—the classroom—but I was still not invited to her birthday party just before school was out in June. Reba Jean had been excluded by her classmates in Galena and now I had been. I really did know now how she must have felt. We had a common bond now, besides the secret of Clementine.

  During spring baseball practice, the varnished station wagon was parked on the playing field several times a week. It was such a familiar sight that the kids had stopped staring at the flat still figure of the captain on the cot in the back. The bearded face straining up from the pillow was full of interest and the sharp eyes followed the play intently. The captain’s interest was keen so long as his glass held fortification. Dad said without the bourbon to push things along the heart couldn’t possibly pump the blood through that immobile body. When Dad heard the clink of the empty glass dropping into its metal ring it meant it was time to go. The refill was more important than baseball even if Junior were up to bat or was pitching.

  “Such are Dad’s sacrifices,” Junior intoned dramatically, “having to leave when I’m just about to slide into home.”

  “On your fat ass,” I muttered and we’d roll around on the grass in a strenuous wrestling match. It was here that I really could hold my own. I was slippery as a snake and very rarely did Junior or any of the other boys pin me down and make me say “uncle.” Perhaps choking on that word—thanks to “Uncle” Roy—inspired me to extraordinary feats of supple defense. Then, too, the positions in wrestling got awfully close to playing puzzles again and I found some were giving me those tingling sensations and superhuman efforts were often required to keep from getting a hard on. Simple horsing around and wrestling couldn’t be allowed to become a forbidden game.

  I’d had enough forbidden games. I didn’t need any more. Guilt had been applied with a trowel. In layers. I could feel it getting thicker, like a tree growing a new circle every year. I felt that if my core, that secret core somewhere there under the rib-cage where the guilt stabs deepest and shame is stored, were dissected, a stratified cross-section would show those layers—some with names on them, others, nameless.

  One of the forbidden games was swimming in the irrigation ditches. Not a terrible thing in itself, but forbidden is forbidden. And that was most definitely NOT ALLOWED. I tried to excuse it by saying it was a case of self-preservation. It was. Sort of. I was all but forced into it.

  Since the after-school route home past Rosalind’s place was out I was going to have to face the terrifying Mexicans on Missouri Avenue. And alone. Junior’s after-school baseball practice saw to that. There was no choice.

  The first afternoon I ran into absolutely nobody. And ran is the word. I flew past the main ditch so fast I didn’t even notice it was dry. I was over the back gate, home-free earlier than I had been in months. The second and third days were the same. The long black ribbon of road with the few houses close to the school on the left and irrigated lemon and orange groves on the right was lonely, but safe. No marauders. I began to feel secure and carefree and paid less and less attention to the place where we’d first encountered the boys who were so violently opposed to the idea of bese-ing my coula. They were, we’d found out, the children of the poor Mexican itinerant fruit pickers who apparently didn’t go to any school. They were called “wetbacks” with the same snarl that people used when spitting out “Okie.” I thought at first they got the name by swimming in the irrigation ditches which was illegal—NO SWIMMING signs were posted at intervals—and were breaking the law.

  They were breaking the law so quietly one afternoon that I didn’t see them until one jumped out onto the road in front of me to head me off while I saw three others start to move around between the school and me, all slickly wet-backed and menacing. Fear and my week’s practice at racing down this road gave me a bit of an advantage. I took off like a shot, dodging the boy in front of me somehow and headed for the gate, my feet barely touching the tarmac. I could hear the running bare feet behind me as I jumped from the road’s shoulder down the slight incline to the big gate. I was up it, clinging to the top when my left foot was grabbed by two very strong hands pulling me down. I kicked furiously with my other foot before it too was grabbed and then I felt both shoes being pulled off. Was the attacker after my shoes? Having just one pair of school shoes can make you want to protect them. I let go of the top gate slat and dropped down. Straight on top of my attacker. I felt his body under me and I was elated. This was wrestling and once on top I knew he wasn’t going to get me off. In a flash, I had my knees on his upper arms and his thick black hair in my hands. I was bent over him like a jockey on the final lap to keep his thrashing legs from locking around my upper body. My face was so close to his I couldn’t focus. I could see my eye reflected in his big black one. I lifted his head slightly off the ground and banged it with considerable force into the gravel of our back entrance. His breath was in my face, hot and straining. I banged his head again. A bit harder. He cried out. I could hear the other three there on the road stop dead in their tracks.

  “I’ll beat his brains out if you come any closer,” I called not even looking up. I kept my eyes on my opponent who I could now feel relaxing under my weight. “Tell… them … I’ll… bash … your … brains … out … if … they … come … one … step … closer.” I accented each word with a bump of his head on the ground like Dad had done with Coot Jenkins at the Domino Café. His teeth were clenched and he was rolling his head from side to side as much as my grip on him would allow. “Tell them!” He screamed something I didn’t understand as I put all my weight on his head and ground it into the gravel. Then his body went slack.

  We stayed where we were, breathing into each other’s faces, my grip on his hair a death grip, I was fighting for my life. I could feel nothing except my own shuddering breathing and my determination to hold my captive where he was until … until … hell freezes over is all I could think. The other three stayed frozen in their positions on the road. I glanced up at them at the sound of an approaching car. I tried to signal with my eyes that the car would bring me help. They suddenly turned and fled.

  I looked back into the big black eyes that had softened and for a moment I thought they were filling with tears. But then the corners of his mouth twitched into a smile. I could see the shadow of a dark moustache beginning on his upper lip. He muttered something I couldn’t hear. I bent down closer. “Bueno,” he whispered. I didn’t understand. “Usted. Bueno.”

  My grip loosened on his hair and I felt the tingle of relaxed effort in them. I shook my head uncomprehendingly. Our positions hadn’t changed, but we both breathed more normally now. “No understand.”

  He lifted his head a fraction and whispered again. “Usted.” He was willing me to understand with his eyes. “Usted, bueno.” He licked his lips and bit the lower one and frowned in concentration. “Goo … Good,” he finally burst out with a flashing display of perfect teeth.

  “Me? Good?”

  He nodded as best he could. “Amigos. Yo. Usted. Good amigos.” Amigos I knew from cowboy films. The Lone Ranger and Tonto were amigos. I nodded and relaxed my grip a bit more. His dark eyes narrowed and he moved his body slightly underneath me. The gravel must be eating into his back. He was wearing only wet underwear which wouldn’t give him much protection from the sharp stones. I eased one knee cautiously from his arm, releasing my hold on his hair and transferring my hand to his wrist and then did the same thing on the other side. I held his arms spread-eagled which drew our faces even closer together. How do you say
“uncle” in Spanish? Or even “give up”? I tried to explain, speaking softly and clearly. “If I let you up, will you promise not to chase me or throw rocks?”

  He watched my face intently, concentrating on what I was saying, even moving his lips to try to form the words I said. Then he shook his head and let it drop back. “No comprendo.”

  I grinned. “I no comprendo.” We smiled at each other. That eased the tension. My grip on his wrists relaxed but then tightened with sudden apprehension. It could be a trick. I’d let him up and then the others would suddenly appear and I’d lose everything I’d gained. I was only the winner so long as I was where I was. We couldn’t strike any bargain because of the language problem. I sighed and shook my head. I smiled into his eyes again and shrugged. How were we going to call a halt to this?

  His eyes smiled back at mine and he shook his head and mimicked my shrug. He lifted his head again close to mine and whispered, “Amigo” breathing his last syllable against my cheek. “Amigo, amigo, amigo,” the breath became a touch, his cheek on mine, the fuzz on our cheeks tickling, “amigo, amigo, amigo,” he chanted so softly that it wasn’t so much heard as felt. That unfamiliar tingle was filling my body. I turned my head slightly and his lips brushed mine, still breathing the word. I felt myself going faint. All thought suspended as his lips brushed my cheeks and lips and then suddenly his tongue ran across my lips and set me on fire. I sat up and at the same time pushed my body back along his until my bottom hit an obstacle. I rose on my knees and looked through them. He had a hard on, straining at his damp shorts, looking big and vulnerable in the broad daylight. My God! Anybody could see us. I scooted back a bit further and dropped down on top of him to hide the hard on which dug into my groin next to my own erection. Could we pretend to go on wrestling? I still had my clothes on but our groins were rubbing against each other as my hold on his wrists relaxed. He slowly lifted one arm and put it around my neck and held my head against his with our mouths pressed together. I doubt if anybody would have thought we were wrestling, but it didn’t last very long. I came in my Levis. Roy hadn’t explained what I was supposed to do about that.