In Tall Cotton

by Charles G. Hulse

  Junior was bused back to Ventura to the Junior High School, while I was forced to transfer to a two-room country school about a mile from our new house.

  Mom registered me with the principal, Mr. Harris, who was also the teacher of the fourth, fifth and sixth grades, just before Thanksgiving vacation.

  I had been there less than three days when we broke on Wednesday afternoon for Thanksgiving vacation but I’d got my classmates straight in my head. The Oklahoma girls were sisters. Nola and Noreen Whittaker. The silent Mexican beauty was Louisa Fernando and the painfully shy one, Rosa Torres. The good-natured boy was Boyd Beavens. The brooder, whom I still distrusted wasn’t Mexican, but Italian, Victor Scrittorale. Distrust is perhaps not the right word. Fear, quite honestly, is what I felt. He looked like one of those bullies who would get you cornered and insult you to the point where you had to fight.

  With holiday homework under my arm, I took off up that lonely mile stretch toward home with nothing on either side of me but acres of burgeoning lima beans. The little black ribbon of road was like all the others—dead straight, following the squared off farmland boundaries. I seemed to be the only one who took this road—the others all spread out in different directions, mostly headed over on the other side of the railroad tracks. Being so close to the tracks and painted yellow, the schoolhouse looked like a small wayside train station and it was always surprising to find there was no waiting room with a big pot-bellied stove or a little man behind a ticket-window in a green eyeshade.

  I’d gone only about a hundred yards when I heard an ear-splitting whistle and looked over my shoulder. The whole school-house area was deserted as though a train had carried everybody away. Except for one figure. Victor. He was standing at the corner where a road crossed the one I was on with the little finger of each hand in the corners of his mouth. He created the shrill whistle again and motioned for me to come back. I hesitated. If he wanted to fight, he’d have to run after me. There didn’t seem to be anybody around and traffic was rare on these roads. I couldn’t dash off into the lima-bean patch and hide. The plants were only about knee-high. I walked back, trying to figure out an avenue of escape if there was going to be trouble. Junior said I was fast, so if necessary, I’d just let him swallow my dust if I had to make a break for it. Nobody was there to report my cowardly running away.

  He just stood there, legs apart, his arms folded across his chest, looking much bigger and more aggressive from a distance than he did when I got nearer.

  “Where you goin’?” he called.

  “Home.”

  “Why that way? It’s hot as hell. I know where you live. On Alligator Ranch, right?” I nodded. “Well, we’re just up behind you.” He pointed over my head and to the right. “Just above that slope. See? Where all them small trees is planted?” I wasn’t quite sure but I nodded anyway. “Well, that’s our place. Papa’s growin’ citrus fruit—oranges, lemons. Four hundred acres.”

  He was so matter-of-fact that I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to be impressed or feel sorry for him. “Good,” I nodded. “Nice.”

  “Yeah.” He pushed his thick dark hair back from his forehead. “Let’s go.” He turned and headed back along the road in front of the schoolhouse. “See up there? Them trees? At the end of the bean patch? Well, there’s a path through there. Shady. Nice. Comes out just below our place. You’ll have to double back a bit to get to your house, but it’s better’n that old bare road.” He led us on for about a quarter of a mile and turned to the left under some big evergreen trees. “Cypresses. Like they got in Italy. Papa says they’re the best wind-breaks in the world. He’s trying to buy this land here just because the cypresses are here, I think.” He smiled for the first time. “My papa is real Italian. He’s trying to make a little Italy here.” He waved his arm in a wide gesture taking in the whole area. We walked along in silence for some time, then he turned and looked at me. “You don’t like baseball, do you?”

  “Ooh, I can play …”

  “But, you don’t like it. I’ve watched you at recess.”

  I laughed. “My secret is out. It’s unAmerican, but I don’t.”

  Now he laughed. “Blessed Virgin,” he made a funny little gesture in the air in front of himself. “You’re the first one I ever saw who says so.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m supposed to. Papa may be making a little Italy, but we boys have got to be as American as we can. We have to go to school. We have to study. We have to do everything American. All of us.”

  “All of you?”

  “We’re five brothers but Momma’s making more.” He held his arms out in front of him making a big ball of a stomach. “Two older than me—Gino and Umberto—and two younger. The two older ones go to school in Ventura on the bus.”

  “So does my brother.”

  “We’ll all be together next year. On the bus.” His face clouded. “If I pass. My readin’ ain’t so good.”

  “I can help you maybe. If you want me to.”

  “Sure. That’d be swell. I can’t get my brothers to help me and Papa says if I don’t pass he’ll beat my ass off.”

  “If you work hard, I don’t see that there’d be any problem.”

  “Hey, you can come to my house and we can go off and read and have lots of fun.”

  “Study isn’t all that much fun.”

  “I’ll see to it that it is.” He grinned at my slyly. He stopped and took me by the hand and led us off the path up behind one of the trees. “Let’s see each other first.” He was undoing his belt and unbuttoning his pants. I stood frozen to the spot. He stopped at the last button. “What’s the matter?”

  “Well, I … I don’t know what …”

  “It’s just to look. We can fuck later.”

  “Fuck?” I hadn’t heard the word used that way since Crane and Mary Ann.

  “Sure. Don’t you do it? You have a brother. You said so.”

  “Yes, I have a brother, but we don’t f … We don’t do anything like that …”

  “Why not? What’s the matter with you? Here, let me see.” He reached over and had my fly open before I could protest. Which I realized was the last thing in my mind. As he felt around in my underwear for my cock, my hand automatically went to his open fly and reached into his underwear and we released each other into the bright daylight at the same time. “There. You see. We’re both hard.”

  We certainly were and our heads were leaning together touching as we looked down at ourselves. He was bigger than I, long dark and velvet and I stroked it, feeling soft hair at the base as though I were caressing a silken little animal. We were both making little purring animal sounds. He lifted his face to mine, “Can you come yet? I only started a few months ago, myself. But it makes a difference … OOooops!” He felt my body begin to contract and dropped to his knees and took me into his mouth. My knees sagged as I had that fainting feeling.

  I was holding onto him for support as he raised his head and looked at me, smiling. “No need getting that all over your pants. Besides it shouldn’t go to waste. Come on down here,” he said. I dropped weakly down on my knees in front of him.

  “Come on down here?” he laughed. “You sure can. Ooh, do you taste good. Not like Gino. Gino tastes bitter—you’re sweet.” He still had his hand on me, caressing me, pulling on my cock rather like Grandpa taught me to strip a cow after she was milked, watching for the few drops of fluid that came out which he rubbed into my cock like a lotion. His other hand was on himself, stroking gently and I reached over and put my hand on his. We moved our hands back and forth on his velvety cock with his hand dictating the speed and pressure. I could feel that he was increasing the pressure and was stricken with horror. Did he expect me to do the same thing for him with my mouth?

  My hand came away from his cock as if it had been burned. “Ah, Vic … I, uh … ah, I can’t do …”

  “Can’t what?” He stretched up on his knees, hips thrust forward, “Just watch! Look how far I can shoot. Hey, lo
ok out! Here she comes!” His hand was working wildly on himself, his chest curved in, hips out and then a great jet of fluid spurted from him as he let out a whoop of joy. “Just look at that, Carl. Ain’t that something?” I applauded his performance which made him roar with laughter. “Should I go on the stage?” I admitted to myself that it was a more impressive performance than the Wilkins boy’s. He fell forward and leaned his face on my neck at my shoulder, breathing hard and laughing. “Well, thank God I can do it. It was starting to be a family problem. Gino had been playing with me for years. So had Umberto. They worked on me every way they could think of and they just couldn’t make me come. Then, oh, when was it? I guess just before school started—Gino had been sucking on my cock for what seemed like hours and Umberto was fucking him and then they both came and I was still hard. And dry. Gino said, ‘I give up. You try, Bert. I mean how am I going to have enough come if I don’t get any? I mean, you gotta’ take it in to have any to come out.’ Well, Bert is sixteen. He says he needs as much come as he can get because he’s going to start fucking girls and if he doesn’t get a regular supply, then he won’t be able to get a hard on and fuck a girl. He’s got a girl now and he says she’s just about ready to give in. And he didn’t feel that he was going to get enough from Gino and I was going to be needed.”

  “You mean that’s where it comes from? Come? You have to swallow it?”

  “Sure. Didn’t you know that? That’s what makes you a man.” He made a gesture with a clenched fist and held up his forearm. “Strong. Like that. And big. So you can make babies and …”

  “You mean you can’t make babies if you don’t … if you don’t do what you just did?”

  “Well, I don’t know for sure.” He paused and thought for a minute. “Momma’s making a baby now. Right this minute. I don’t know where Papa gets his come. He’s always working in the fields. I don’t see how he’d have time …”

  “Maybe after a certain age, it starts growing by itself, inside you, like growing a beard or hair …” I wanted to look at Vic’s body naked to see how much hair he had on his body.

  “Maybe that’s it. Maybe you just have to lay on a certain amount at the beginning and then it can develop on its own. Like Momma puts a bit of bread dough that’s ready to bake into the new fresh batch that’s just been mixed before it rises. She says that’s what makes it rise. Maybe that’s what makes our cocks rise. We take a bit of come from each other and that starts the other thing working … you know, like the yeast.”

  I didn’t understand a word he was saying. But if that was his excuse for sucking my cock, I wasn’t going to tell him he wasn’t making any sense. “Yeah, that must be it.”

  “Anyway, Bert took over from Gino and he starts working on me. He’s been at it longer and he really knows how. He could take me all in his mouth. This,” he held onto his balls, “this too.” That struck a familiar bell and I knew how good that could feel. “Yeah, I know.”

  “You do? Boy, that’s something, isn’t it?” His hand on himself was beginning to caress again. I moved over just slightly, pretending I was making myself more comfortable, but getting my cock within his reach in case. “We never kissed much, Bert says that’s sissy, but for some reason Gino started kissing me on the neck and Bert is determined to make me come and bit by bit, I feel Bert’s hand moving up to my ass. Well, I haven’t been fucked yet. Gino tried, but he’s too big. It hurt too much and he’s not even as big as Bert, so he never did try. Gino likes to be fucked so there was no need for me to get in on that. But what Bert did to my ass with his hands and fingers didn’t hurt at all. I mean it seemed to add something … a different feeling that went all through my body. I began to sort of understand why Gino likes to be fucked. But still, fucking wastes the come.”

  I was in a daze of incomprehension. I was doing our puzzle games in my mind and I simply couldn’t come up with any reason able image of what Vic was describing. “No, if it makes you manly, you shouldn’t waste it.”

  “Let’s face it, I was the center of attraction. I have to admit I kinda liked that. Up to now, I was just the younger one, fitting in wherever there seemed to be space or a reason. You know, wherever I was needed. Now there I was getting the works. I had Gino’s cock in one hand, and Bert had moved so I could hold onto his.” He reached over and took hold of mine. “I was jerking on them both.” He proceeded to do it now with the cocks available, “when Gino all of a sudden started nibbling and kissing me across the chest and belly and then up to my mouth and kissed me with his mouth open and his tongue fiddling around in my mouth! Wow! I tell you, Carl, I went off like a volcano! Papa always talks about seeing Vesuvius or one of them mountains in Italy erupt with hot smoldering rocks and lava and shooting fire for miles up into the sky … Well, that’s the way it felt. I’d have screamed my head off if Gino hadn’t had his mouth on mine.” He was stroking us both now with a purposeful rhythm. There was a faraway look in his eye, a sweet little smile on his lips, “Oh boy! That first time. There’s nothing like it.” He leaned forward to me and smiled directly into my eyes. “Was it like that with you, Carl?”

  “Something like that …” I reached for his hand to slow down the motion, but he dropped forward and took me into his mouth again. I came in gasping spurts and he swallowed me at the same moment that I could tell he’d come too, into his hand. I hadn’t been taking any in, but I certainly seemed to be able to keep up a running supply. Could there be something lacking in his knowledge of biology or body chemistry or whatever it’s called? Just bodily functions, I guess you’d call it. Or was I made differently? All I was absolutely sure of was that no matter how it was made, it was much more fun to have somebody else extract it for you.

  I met all the Scrittorales—Momma so big and fat you couldn’t tell she was pregnant unless you’d known her before; Papa, also big but not fat, shy about not speaking English very well even though he’d been here since 1920. He had the biggest hands I’d ever seen and they were so gnarled and calloused that it was always a surprise to see them bend and move, especially with the delicacy with which he handled the seedlings for his grove. Gino and Umberto were big and muscular and worked so hard along with their papa both before school and after that I decided Vic’s stories about what they all did together were fantasies. When would they have the time or energy?

  The two youngest boys, Enzio and Luigi, were eight and almost six. “Your momma seemed to have skipped one in there between you and Enzio,” I joked one day. “Sixteen, fourteen, twelve, and then nothing until eight. Did she go on strike?”

  “Naw. Lost it. Born dead. A little girl.” He shrugged. “I was too young to know anything about it but I sure do remember Luigi’s arrival.” He laughed. “Momma almost didn’t get back to the house before—pow! Out he came.”

  “What do you mean ‘back to the house’? Didn’t she go to the hospital?”

  “Hospital? We’as all born right here. Papa knows what to do. But Luigi was a surprise. Momma always says he didn’t knock on the door. She was out in the vegetable garden weeding—I was there helping—when she all of a sudden lets out this scream. Scared the daylights out of me. ‘Momma mia!’ she yelled. ‘Get Papa!’ She went running toward the house and I ran hollering my head off for Papa. We heard Luigi screaming bloody murder before we got back to the house. Momma says he was the noisiest baby she ever had. She figures since he’d been so quiet about letting her know he was coming, he must have been saving all his energy to scream after he got here.”

  Could babies just arrive like that? “Does she know when this next one is going to get here?”

  “She thinks about Christmas so that makes names easy. Maria, if a girl and Christo for a boy.”

  They seemed to have everything worked out so well. They had their own house, hundreds of acres and once all the trees were producing would be rich. Again, I was struck with envy but tried to squelch those sinful thoughts. I did help him with his reading and he did improve in spite of the fact that our concen
tration was mostly on our cocks.

  Our families didn’t socialize in the sense of going to each other’s houses for dinner or tea or that sort of thing, but we were all very friendly through us boys. Gino and Junior practiced baseball endlessly. Endlessly on Sundays which was the only day the boys didn’t work on the ranch. They’d all pile into an old beat-up pickup truck and drive to El Centro to early mass and then the rest of the day was theirs. And often spent with us.

  Little Maria arrived just after New Year’s. Mom went up to help and she said she’d never felt so useless in her life. “It was remarkable,” she said. “I don’t think she actually went into labor—not like I remember with you two. She winced a couple of times, but didn’t cry out. And there was this perfect little creature—as though she appeared from nowhere. I’d have screamed my head off. I’ve never known such pain. Both times.” Then she hugged us. “But it was worth it. But never again.”

  We’d had some Christmas cards. The Joneses, “ … Brad seems to be improving … Bradford joins me in wishing …” Aunt Ed, “… Grandpa Woods keeping the local widows happy (ha ha)… Ronald enjoying high school in Blue Eye (and scrawled on top was ‘Like heck I am. Hiya, Tots—Ronnie’) … our prayer meetings here at the house are filled to overflowing … The Lord is truly working his miracles. We pray for you daily.”

  “Shit,” said Dad.

  A letter from Aunt Dell saying she’d write more later. That made the holiday season for us all. “She’s been fallin’ down so often, she’s knocking her marbles loose,” Dad laughed. “And they never was packed in all that solid.”

  Mavis’ card had The Griggs printed on the bottom. Nothing else. The card unsullied by pen and ink. “Tacky,” murmured Mom.

  Somehow I pulled Vic through the mid-term tests in February with a “C” average. His parents were overjoyed and kept sending us fresh vegetables, cakes, fruit by the basket.