by Tito Perdue
Coming from separate rooms, they gathered at the table and waited for the woman to seat herself. Lee couldn’t fail to see that his father had a daub of shaving cream beneath his chin; however, it wasn’t the time to remind him of it. The man hadn’t had his coffee yet, and meantime the radio was sputtering badly. Moreover, the little bit of news that came to them was about the Soviet Union. Lee reached for the toast and jelly and, putting on a concerned face, ate a good part of it before his mother pointed him back to the oatmeal. Very soon now, his brother would be spilling orange juice down his bib and, often as not, into his lap as well, a tradition the family was too courteous to mention.
He loved these smells, Lee, of coffee, grits, and eggs. They mixed with the other indefinable scents that invested the house and seemed to be implicit with it. A thousand years might go by, it would still smell the same. With the curtains shut, the four people now bent over their meal with renewed seriousness, aware at all times that in other parts of the world there was no food at all. A plane flew over, fouling the radio waves. Far away, a dog was grieving in the hills, while from town itself there came the sound of bells warning of the dangers of a brand-new day.
He went a quarter of a mile without treading upon a single crack and then halted and began rummaging through Mrs. Person’s persimmon tree, finding not a single fruit. Preston dashed past on his bicycle, chased by a small, square dog on inch-long legs. He saw men in automobiles, all of them heading off to places where they must spend the next eight hours in the sort of useless confinement that had put Lee in fear of growing up. It was bad enough, life, without having to work for it. If he were lucky, he might run down Sonya Hunter on her way to school, and if not lucky, might run into a spate of eighth-grade boys who would want to rob him of his lunch. He stopped to check his wallet, his homework, and pencil box, finding everything intact.
Today it was Sonya Hunter. He hurried and managed to catch up with her at the intersection,
“Hi,” he said in his indifferent way.
“Hi.” She was a well-presented individual of Lee’s favorite size and type. In her case, however, she wore a blue dress with a velvet collar of some kind and a belt with a silver buckle. He understood perfectly why girls were as insane about clothes as they were, owing to the effect.
“Get your homework done?”
“Most of it.”
“Most of it? Shoot, I did mine in five minutes!”
The girl said nothing. He thought he saw a trace of annoyance cross her heart-shaped face and decided to pursue it.
“I don’t know why you people have so much trouble with your homework. It’s easy!”
“Well, what about you! Maybe that’s why nobody likes you, did you ever think about that?”
“Cecil likes me.”
“Oh, Cecil. Nobody else.”
“Smitty likes me.”
“Well, sure, he likes you! He’d like anybody.”
“No, actually, he hates most people.”
“Well, no wonder.”
Lee laughed, or tried to. He could hardly believe that at one time, before he’d gone bad, this girl had been an exceptionally good friend of his. Thinking of it, he fell into the moroseness that was nearly always the aftermath of his affiliations with girls.
“Remember that old crate that was in your back yard? We used to play in there sometimes.”
The girl said nothing.
“We were in the third grade at that particular time.”
He saw a second look of annoyance that was very like the first.
“We weren’t going steady, or anything like that.”
“No.”
“We could have been, but we weren’t.” And then: “Marlene is going with Steve right now.”
“I know.”
Preston, hoping to usher his dog back home again and still arrive at school on time, hurried past on his bicycle. Lee waved to him and then turned to the girl in his insouciant way.
“You’re not going with anybody at this particular time, are you?”
She agreed that she was not. They were moving past a landscape of deep lawns and expensive homes that seemed to be looking down their noses at them. Certainly, the economy was good in these areas, better even than it ought to be, according to his preternatural instinct in these matters. The girl, too, came from a good economy, whileas for the people in passing cars it must have seemed that she had become “his girl” once again. He knew better than to ask to carry her books, however.
“We have a horse,” Lee said suddenly. “Actually, it’s my horse, but we keep him on a farm. Want to go riding someday?”
Her eyes brightened.
“And then we could start going together again. If that’s what you want.”
Her eyes dimmed. They were moving through the poor section, Lee at all times appalled by the possessions (a ruined sofa, an upside-down washing machine) that sat at random in the yards. People were stagnating on their porches, and through the open doors one could see into the hallways and out into the open field that bordered the town on that side. Money was scarce, for those as didn’t have some already. And how about this, that the less one needed it, the easier it was to get. They passed a garbage can lying on its side—no one cared—a battered item disgorging coffee grinds and other sorts of filth out into the road. Neither Sonya nor Lee had anything to say about this, understanding, as they did, that it wasn’t polite to talk about people.
“There’s going to be a dance on Thanksgiving,” Lee said suddenly. “That’s what they claim, anyway.”
The girl didn’t speak.
“You going?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Me neither, I haven’t decided neither. I might.”
Far away they heard the 7:45 bell, a portentous noise that came from the Episcopal building down on Ninth Street. Lee turned and checked on his brother, following palely at a remove of about two hundred yards. Otherwise, it promised to be a pretty good day. The Sun was large and spotless, and Lee had accrued a good five, possibly six hours of medium-grade sleep.
“Well if you don’t go to the dance, what are you going to do?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can find a way to pass the time.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“We might go to Florida.”
He could feel his gorge rising. Every time he saw her, she seemed to have become prissier.
They came to school in time to loiter about for a few minutes before the klaxon summoned them inside. Lee looked for Cecil and, failing to find him, went and stood next to Craig, a part-time friend of his whose father was employed in the same occupation as Lee’s. Suddenly he realized, Lee, that Cecil was standing off to one side with Gwendolyn, who was much more beautiful at that time than fated to become later on. “Good Lord!” he said, moving a step or two in their direction. They were so near, their twenty toes were almost touching one another. Lee worked his way around to the other side, where his view was clearer and had fewer people in the way. Dressed as she was in a grey skirt and a scarf that had been chosen deliberately, she comprised the perfect match for Cecil, who had just the height for her. And then, too, he had an identification bracelet made of massy links that weighed a great deal. Came then to mind a famous saying that Lee had heard, namely that “the greater the distinction between boys and girls, the happier girls and boys will be.” That was when the klaxon sounded.
But time was passing, and he had less than one hundred fifty seconds before he’d have to climb the stairs and sit in place for the next several hours. Accordingly, he ran to the boys’ room and had managed to urinate almost to completion before one of the ninth graders came in.
“Hi!” Lee said, getting no reply from the boy, a red-headed individual of about twice Lee’s size. It intimidated him, the way these people could pee in plain open view without the least nervousness. That was when Smitty came in and, taking up the adjoining position, began also to urinate while standing shoulder to shoulder with the red-headed boy, his o
wn worst enemy.
“Hi!” Lee reiterated, waiting to see if these two would begin smiting each other with their free hands. No, they finished up quickly and went their ways, all except Smitty, who stayed behind with Lee.
“You been helping Cecil, hadn’t you?”
“Little bit.”
“Math, stuff like that.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, shit, how come you ain’t helping me?”
“I figured Craig was helping you.”
“Craig, shit, he’s even stupider than me!”
“Naw, he’s not anywhere near as . . .” He stopped.
“Besides, I ain’t got time for all this shit.”
“Me, neither! Shoot, I have to practice, I have to mow the lawn, I have to . . .”
“Practice what?”
“Clarinet.”
“That’s not what I hear. You hadn’t practiced in years, is what I hear.”
That was true.
“And besides, I have to go to ballroom lessons on Saturdays.”
“Go what?”
“Ballroom.”
“Great God A’mighty. I never know what you’re going to say next!”
“Hey, we got to hurry or we’re going to be late.”
“I’d like to go to one of these ballrooms someday,” he said in dreamy fashion. “See what y’all do in there all the time.”
He had taken out a cigarette, but then had put it back when he remembered the time. Lee had expected and had hoped that the bell would already have rung by now. He waited briefly as Smitty again took out a partial cigarette and began making preparations to urinate for a second time within the past two minutes and a half.
Truth was, he preferred, Lee, the more civilized ambiance of a room with girls in it. His teacher had bad eyes, but Lee even so felt pretty sure that no one would attack him or take his books as long as she still held any sort of sway over the place. Moving slowly (he was late), he broached up to his desk and slipped in behind Cecil, who appeared still to be in a “Gwendolyn” mood, as it were. Lee bent forward and whispered at him.
“I saw what you were doing with Gwendolyn.”
The boy reddened, but declined to turn around.
“I thought you were going with Beth! You said you were.”
From outside came the sound of several things, including especially that of a plump brown bird who had taken up a stance on the windowsill and was reproving, as it almost seemed, the twenty-six students. Shielding his mouth, Cecil hissed back at Lee without turning around.
“I’m going with Gwen now.”
“Yeah, but . . . !”
“Besides, it hadn’t got anything to do with you, anyhow.”
That was it. Henceforward, the boy could do his own mathematics, and Lee, who would never have a chance with Gwen, was free to look upon Beth in a new light entirely. That was when a message came by, a two-page affair in yellow ink. Lee passed it on and then, seeing that the teacher was looking in his direction, put on an expression of maturity and concern. It distracted her from Smitty, who moved slowly from his desk to the door and then from door to hall. The bird had gone. Lee observed then how the Sun was running through Ramona’s fine brown hair that scintillated every few seconds in sparks of gold. It distressed him that she was again wearing what looked like a set of her father’s cast-off shoes, and that her ankles were as thin and muddy as they were. Except for those, he had warm feelings for her. Thinking of that, he felt as if he might be able to hunker down in Cecil’s shade and recoup a few moments of sleep.
This day, he hoped to cross to the cafeteria along with the others; instead, that moment, Cecil came up behind and began steering him to the Teen Canteen.
“Where you think you going, Sloan?”
“We’re going to get in trouble.”
“Then I guess you might just as well go on back home and climb into bed. Is that what you want?” And then: “You get that math done?”
He had done the math and the civics, too, and today the Canteen was running over with laughter and music. Putting on his expression, Lee now pushed his way inside and began to work his way between the high school girls in their perfume and sweaters and, in some cases, their cigarettes. He was under the influence of these people, already he was, and the corruption was beginning to show in his face. And as if that weren’t already too much, the jukebox now once again was playing “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” a popular song of the times that should never have been allowed into public circulation. A fat man in an apron was cooking hamburgers on the grill, and by the time Lee came to the head of the line, the fellow was at the end of his patience.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing,” Lee said, remembering at the last moment that he had brought no money. “Never mind.”
“You people, you come in here. Say, how old are you, by the way, hm?”
He could feel himself, Lee, getting confused. Where was Cecil? Meantime the music had come down to the lewdest part of the whole piece while Lee, his eye continually adjusting to the dark, had begun to make out the silhouettes of people dancing in the adjoining room. Suddenly he plunged for his money, coming out with but a single dime and two pennies, one of them lead. He could leave this place and not come back, a thought that came to him in an inspiration of delight. And that, of course, was when Cecil came up behind, took him by the collar, and whispered seriously into his right-hand ear.
“I got to watch you every minute of the day—is that what it is? Here, take it, take it, take it.”
Lee took it, an American silver quarter that appeared to be almost new. Never would he understand it, how these boys from the other side of Noble Street disposed of so much money. On this occasion, Lee ordered a cheeseburger and Orange Drink and, after waiting with an expression of final impatience for the man to pry off the cap, went to the same table as yesterday. From this vantage one could see what was happening, both on the floor and in the “Green Room,” so-called, where the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old junior and senior girls were largely to be found. The music had meantime switched over to a Teresa Brewer song—even given the chance, he wouldn’t want to leave the place while this one was singing—Teresa Brewer. He saw two football players wearing jerseys with numbers on them, and then the boy called Clarence who had been expelled last year and now spent his days washing dishes in the Canteen or loitering about the grounds. Where was Cecil?
Suddenly, he perceived two high school girls at the next table who seemed to be smiling at him in a maternal sort of way, whereupon Lee went quickly over into a fresh expression that made him look even younger and smaller than he was. That was when a policeman entered, a large man with a baton and a hat with a glossy bill. Lee, who had never wanted to be present during any of the knife fights that sometimes went on here, was pleased to see him. Pleased, too, when the very beautiful “Tennessee Waltz” came on. It had an effect upon the girls, that music, making them prettier as it were, and more prone to dancing he would have said, and more vivid withal. From out of his future readings this thought came down to him: that girls do have a mission in life and are impatient, most of them, to make a start on it. It was that moment there came to him the following voice: “Hi, cutie pie.”
Lee froze. Where was Cecil? He hadn’t forgot there were two high school girls at the next table, nor forgot that they had been smiling at him. This, however, he had never expected.
“Cutie pie. I’m talking to you.”
He declined to look at them. Instead, taking up his Orange Drink, he drank deeply, his face exposing a bored expression. He was only eleven years old, and these twelfth graders, as he reckoned them to be, would quickly tire of him, he supposed.
“Okay, cutie pie, I already told you once to come on over here. I’m not going to tell you again.”
His hand and knees began to tremble. And where was Cecil when he most was needed? Even now he could have leapt up and run outdoors, and would have done so except for the Orange Drink. At last, he turned and looked the gi
rl full in the face, the first time he had done so. She had long hair and lipstick—his vision clouded over—and was beautiful in every way.
“Are you coming?” she asked. “Or not?”
“No,” Lee said quickly, looking off into another direction. “Don’t have time.”
“Don’t?”
“No, ma’am.”
He heard laughter. There were now three or four tables paying attention to him, all of them grinning in his direction. He drank hurriedly, hoping to finish the stuff before it was too late. Outside, he saw a group of boys of his own size and type moving past happily, all of them free of the sort of pressures that hung over him. The girl now stood—she was as tall as a woman—and began moving toward him. Lee hummed. Sometimes he could make himself think of other subjects, of books he had read, or stamps and films.
But of all those things, the very last he had expected was for the girl to take up a handful of his hair and pull him into the standing position. Lee stood, looking off into the same direction in which he had looked before. Something was about to happen. It surprised him even more when the girl then forced his head back in such a way that he was actually looking up at the ceiling. Her face was near and beautiful and her perfume so sweet that he didn’t know what to do. He observed the face grow nearer still, and then testified that she was kissing him full on the lips. No sleep tonight! He could hear laughter coming from several places. A little more of this and his neck began to tire, such was the angle. It came then to him that he might actually suffocate. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said. “But now I have.” Opening his eyes, he discovered Cecil standing off at a distance, his face full of surprise.