by Tito Perdue
“Good God A’mighty,” the boy said. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes!”
The girl meantime had drawn back and was asking, “Did you like that, cutie pie? Just a little bit?”
“No!”
Laughter. He was being examined by forty eyes.
“You’ll like it plenty,” one of the boys said, “when you’re a little bit older.”
“He likes it now. Look at him.”
“Hell, I been trying for years to get her to do that to me.”
He had been the center of attention for perhaps two minutes and already they were beginning to turn away, a pattern that would follow him to the end. Someone had taken his drink.
The balance of that day passed in a haze of conceitedness and shame. His standing with Cecil had improved markedly, but when he tried to describe things to Craig and the others, no one believed him. “You aren’t supposed to talk about stuff like that,” Cecil explained. “It’s private.”
“Yeah, well, what about you! And what about Gwen!”
“That’s private, too.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“So don’t talk about it. They don’t like that, girls don’t.”
“Oh.”
He was learning a great deal, he thought, about kisses and girls.
He slept that night between ironed sheets and then emerged at just after ten to check on his stamps. His collection needed a lot of work, but after twelve minutes during which he found himself thinking about other things, he got into his shoes and trousers and exited by way of the window. The Moon was large and white and had a circumference that was particularly well-defined on this occasion. It also served to reveal Mr. Jenson, a garrulous man, sitting on his front porch. He must be careful here, Leland, lest that person discern him in the dark and telephone his parents. Thus Lee, who could not fully relax until he had moved around the corner and had disappeared.
God, he did so love the night. It was as if everyone had died, and history was over, and he alone was left to try out different homes and go into department stores. Moving on tiptoes, he descried a weak lamp glowing greenly in the woods, whereupon he had an aesthetic experience on the spot. From someone’s radio, he heard a familiar voice reporting the last news of the day, a hasty summary that would have to suffice until tomorrow. He saw then that the light in Mildred Weston’s bedroom had not yet been extinguished, a sign that that most studious of all girls was still bending over her homework at 10:45 in late September.
He cheered for her, for all girls everywhere in 1950. Suddenly, just then, he saw that an automobile had turned into the street and was trundling slowly in his direction. Posting himself behind a shrub, he waited till the vehicle was even with him and then began running alongside the driver, a stunt that seemed to horrify the person and almost sent the car off into Mr. Lauren’s yard. He told himself that he needed to remember to tell Cecil about it later on.
His heart was more powerful and his head so much more functional at night that he couldn’t understand why civilization had chosen to operate in consonance with the Sun instead of the other way around—a mistake. And then, too, nighttime was so good at covering up the little flaws and bare spots that afflicted even the best of times in even the best of cities. That said, and feeling as he did that he had pretty well finished up with this evening’s exercises, he began cautiously to reflect back upon the dying day, a lengthy project culminating in a kiss.
Four
Came Saturday, he had an engagement with a friend whose dog had just turned two years old. Getting slowly into his white suit, his cologne, and a bowtie with the picture of a trout on it, he left home at just after lunch and walked the four blocks to where Preston dwelt amid a cluster of two- and three-story homes with double-glazed windows, where the economy was unusually strong at this time. He carried, Lee, a gift wrapped in blue paper and, in his pocket, a folding knife with a handle made of bone.
He had not gone half the distance before he began “woolgathering,” his mother called it. These houses, this neighborhood, they were exactly like the place where he himself had dwelled some thousand years ago or more, in that “other domain” that seemed to be pressing on him more and more as he grew older. But mostly it was the strangeness of things, and the certain feeling that he could have poked holes in the encompassing panorama and peeped out into the void. Or rather, that life was a drama being staged for his benefit alone, an act of generosity on the part of those who wanted to support his illusions for as long as they could. Indeed, he could imagine stagehands and set designers running back and forth to organize the scene.
Today, the world comprised a tidy and well-built neighborhood with two- and three-story homes full of girls and servants and high-grade furniture. He stepped past the sculpture of a negro picking cotton and then turned and bowed sweepingly to an actual negress housecleaner in a bandana, watching between the curtains.
He climbed the steps and rang the bell. He waited for Preston’s mother, and when she had opened for him, put on an innocent and wholesome expression as he handed over his gift.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, “we thought it would be real nice of us to get something for Ringo.”
She laughed. She was a tall woman with a necklace and a hairdo, both of them appropriate enough, perhaps, for the forty- or maybe the fifty-year-old she actually represented. He had no quarrel with these people, however, or anyway not while she was smiling at him in that motherly way that made him wish he had brought a gift for her as well.
“And who is that?” she asked, referencing a small person lagging some hundred yards behind.
“Aw, that’s just my brother. He’s not invited.”
He knew the general layout of this building, and although he was far from having seen all the rooms, he could quickly trace to its source the sound of laughter and squealing. It was irrational of him, of course, to think that a certain high school girl might also have come. Instead, he entered with an expression of mild annoyance and strode direct to the dog who had been dressed in a paper hat held on with a string. So far, Lee had not bothered to determine which humans might or might not be present.
“Lee!” someone called. But even then he did not turn around. The dog was excited and seemed to understand this was his special day. Had the dog been Leland’s instead of Preston’s, he would have been a German Shepherd or something of that sort.
“Lee!”
“What!”
“Brenda is here.”
It was true; already he had caught view of her sitting in the corner with two other girls who were much less well-known to Lee than she. “I see,” said Lee to himself. “They think we’re still going together, Brenda and me.” Speaking out loud, he said, “What y’all doing?”
“Playing cards. You want to play, too?”
“Depends.” After his experiences, it seemed almost too genteel to him, cards. Even so, he came reluctantly, and after studying the routine, decided to join them. That was when it occurred to him to take out some money and set it in the “pot.”
“Hey! We aren’t playing for money!”
The game had five people in it, most of them girls. He glanced at the one in the aquamarine dress, not certain whether she disliked him or whether that was admiration in her face. Bored already, Lee drew back his money and put it away.
“We always play for money,” he said. “Cecil and me.”
“Oh, Cecil!”
Long ago and far away, his mind began to drift. It was then that Preston’s mother came and took up a position on the divan, as they called it, pretending she were interested in what they were doing. She wore a large smile to prove what a good time they were having.
“And how are your parents, Lee? I haven’t seen them in so long.”
“Good.”
“And your father. I don’t know anyone who grows prettier roses than your father.”
“Yes, ma’am. He won a prize.” (He could see halfway up her dress, such was the position she ha
d assumed.)
“No! You must be so proud.”
Lee thought about it. Now that she mentioned it, he did begin to feel somewhat proud. “Yes, ma’am. And he caught two catfish, too.”
She wasn’t listening. Her chief concern was for the cake and ice cream, and whether these had been properly arranged on the table along with the doilies and noise makers and wooden spoons.
“And how about you Lee? We so wanted Linda to be here, too.” (She smiled knowingly.)
“Yes, ma’am. Actually, we aren’t going together at this particular time.”
“Oh?”
She wasn’t listening. The maid had fetched her a telephone with a very long cord, giving her the chance to speak to someone her own age. Lee waited as the conversation went on, not certain whether his interview was over already. Across the room, Reese and George had gotten into a struggle which they were trying to conduct in silence. He had no chance, George, but Lee couldn’t fail to be impressed by the effort. He glanced in Brenda’s direction, coming away with the distinct feeling that she had been staring at him. And yet he had no great wish to restore relations with her, not after the rather gloomy business of last year. Instead, he glanced to Preston’s mother. She was wearing hose of some sort, and where she was sitting, a person could see the upper reaches where the nylon turned from sheer to brown.
They were having lots of fun—such was the consensus, anyway. Feeling that he might be in danger of becoming bored, Lee turned to Bethany, a golden-headed girl good at cards.
“Cecil is going with Gwen now,” Lee said, watching her closely.
“Good.”
“Good? He used to be going with you!”
She put down her cards. “I don’t care who he’s going with. And besides . . .”
Lee waited for the remainder of the statement which, however, never came.
“I guess she’s just about the prettiest girl in school,” Lee went on, rolling his eyes in dreamy fashion. “Whew!”
That was when Preston came in, entering the conversation from twenty feet away: “She’s okay. But Barbara’s even prettier, if you want my opinion.”
“Aw, good Lord!” Lee could feel his gorge rising. “Just because she’s got those dimples? So what! And besides, Cecil used to go with her, too!”
“Sure. Until she broke up with him.”
“She did not break up with him. He broke up with her.”
“No, she did. Her mother made her.”
That was possible. Lee sat again, admittedly relieved not to have to get into a fight with the host of the party who, in any case, had more allies in the immediate vicinity. Meantime he had lost three consecutive hands and was becoming bored with the game. His face reflected that. And this: would there, or would there not, come a time for cake and ice cream and for dancing in the dark?
He stood and, while standing, finished off his goblet of sherbet. The room was paneled in dark wood and contained a series of Civil War etchings in the same corner as the pool table. Lee sauntered in that direction and then sidled up to Michael, who had been studying the drawings very seriously over the past few minutes.
“What is that, Bald Ewell?”
“Yeah.”
“What, they getting ready for ———?”
“Naw, you’re thinking about Longstreet. Ewell was just a Brigadier then.”
“Wait a minute—that looks like Cleburne!”
“Yeah. He got killed.”
“Killed at Franklin.”
“Right. We would of won if he hadn’t got killed.”
“We would of won if Jackson hadn’t got killed, too.”
“I know it.”
They came nearer. These people had a tragic look to them, as if they had always foreseen that no army could stand up to odds of thirty-to-one.
“We killed a lot more of them than they killed of us.”
“Yeah. But they had a lot more soldiers than we did.”
“Sure, but what kind of soldiers? That’s what matters.”
Reese came up. A minute ago he had pinned George to the floor, but even so had come away with a couple of scuff marks on him. He checked the etching and then took off his glasses and bent nearer to it.
“Kill ’em all!” he said. “We should of killed every last one of ’em when we had the chance.”
“We will. Next time.”
“Burn ’em out!”
“Yeah.” Lee could see the coals gleaming in Reese’s eyes. Was it feasible? To go back from 1950 and do it over again? Lee looked for but was unable to find anyone there who wasn’t willing to try.
He had been wrong about the ice cream—they were given as many helpings as they wanted, at the end of which time the music came on and the lights went down. He was grateful to the boy’s mother for that, who seemed to believe they were too naïve to fully appreciate what it (dancing in the dark) truly was. And then, on top of that, and as if the day had not already been well above average, the first tune they played was “My Foolish Heart,” his favorite in the world. It was too much, the dread combination of darkness and that song. He ran to Darlene, getting there before anyone.
“Want to dance?” he asked, taking her arm just above the elbow and guiding her onto the floor. This was a girl who once had gone with Cecil, but now was caught in the stronger of Lee’s own two hands.
She was wearing a perfume, no doubt about it, the scent of it mixing with yet other good smells, that of starch, for example, and pastel clothes washed in Clorox and suds. Lee reeled. Her body was of just the right composition, which is to say quite firm and yet willing to go in any direction he wished. For him there was nothing in this world like female flesh.
“You sure do dance good,” he said, drawing her closer.
“Hey!”
He drew back an inch or two. Her dress was of a pale blue, and she wore a brooch in the shape of a butterfly and yet, deep within, he knew that she was not the one who someday would be his wife. Meantime the song, his all-time favorite, was coming down to its conclusion just as he had always known that it would. Suddenly he began humming along with Billy Eckstine, causing her to pull back even further from his person.
It was dim inside the house, but still broad daylight without, and Lee, who never could be completely happy unless it were raining in the night, could feel himself falling into one of his moods. The music was ending, indeed had ended, and it was clear to him that this particular girl had no wish to stay out on the floor with him once the song was over. He let her go. He was not like Cecil, not yet, and very likely never would be.
His depression lasted only long enough for the beautiful “Tennessee Waltz” to come on. This great song, one of his favorites, alluded to an even finer piece of music that he had never actually heard. A gracious place, Tennessee, full of girls sitting about in lovely dresses having tea. He looked for a partner, finding her in the shape of a sixth-grader who appeared to be a little bit intimidated by the music and the dimness.
“Hi! Want to dance?” he asked, towing her out onto the floor. Having never viewed her up close before, her face was not exactly what he had supposed. Half-shielded in ambient shadows, he could see into but one of her eyes, a brown organ, highly dilated, full of rods and cones. He had chosen well, as he now conceded—she was prettier than he had attributed to her.
“I’m one of Cecil Price’s friends,” he said.
“I know.”
Far away, Reese had now gotten into a fight with a boy from another town. He simply couldn’t understand it, how anyone would wish to go up against Reese, far less someone from another town. Everyone feared Reese, but even Reese feared Cecil Price.
His sixth-grader didn’t know how to dance. Shielding her from view, Lee made a few swaying movements intended to persuade anyone who might be watching that she did know how so to do.
“Cecil and me, we do all kinds of things.”
“Yes, and you’re going to get in trouble someday, too.” And then: “What kind of things?”
But Lee wasn’t taking any more questions. Instead, he shook his head sadly and looked off into the distance. Crime lay in his future, he was sure of it, and a short, tragic life.
“Anyway, it dudn’t matter anymore.”
“How come?”
“Be dead long before that day comes around.”
The music was ending. Two of the boys were playing pool, an activity that Lee could never understand when one just as easily could be dancing. The cake, too, was less than half finished, and some three or four people, having clustered around it, were being served by the maid, a sweet woman, comely but black. Her hips were excessively large, however. Having carried the sixth-grader back to her station, Lee waited for the music. He had hoped they might replay some of the same songs, but was just as glad when instead they put on “Now and Then There’s a Fool Such as I,” an old-time classic that made him lean up against a nearby column for support. It was the beauty of things, of music, darkness, and the world. Panicked by it, he scanned the room for a girl, settling upon a nearby neighbor of his with whom he had never danced before.
“Hi!” he said. “Want to dance?”
She was strong, and he proved unable to actually bring her out of the clot of girls giggling in the corner. One of them wore a purple dress—his favorite color—but lacked the sort of face that might have drawn him to her. His future wife, was she lurking among that crowd? No, probably not. No, he still expected to find her in France or something like that.
And so thus Lee—he had thought all the best music had been played already when that moment, he heard the opening verse of “Everything I Have is Yours,” adult music, as he thought of it, which bore the most embarrassing and tantalizing title he had ever heard. In his desperation he headed for Mildred Weston, whose scholarly nature and good grades now fell away into absolute unimportance.
“Hi,” he said.
“I’m busy.”
She was not busy. Lee then turned back to Brenda, who had been doing a great part of the giggling. Truth was, he had pretty well satisfied himself with this person during their earlier associations, and he had far preferred to dance with Preston’s sister, a college-aged girl supervising the music. Taking his courage, Lee went to her.