A Portion for Foxes

by Daniel Mitchell

  "Sometimes, God sends you help even when you don't think you deserve it," he said.

  He motioned again to the seat beside him. That time, I sat down.

  #########

  Saturday, we got started before dawn. I pulled the hay rake behind a Kubota borrowed from Mr. Johnson down the road while Dad followed on the Deere, sucking the rows of hay up into the baler. Cleared stretches of field and square bales of bluestem marked our progress.

  That evening, I walked beside the flatbed trailer Dad pulled with his old Dodge, tossing bales up to Will, who stacked them higher and higher. Every eighty bales, I scrambled up and rode to the dusty barn, where we restacked them in the fading light. By dark, we were finished, and I was exhausted. A quick shower and another round of Mom’s cooking found me lying in bed, aching, wondering how I’d gotten so out of shape.

  My dreams that night were full of color and clashing sound but no real sense of anything other than a feeling of hanging doom about to fall. I woke just before dawn and watched the light grow on the wall, slowly revealing my old room, the posters and pieces of a childhood I couldn’t feel anymore, as if I was lying in someone else’s life.

  I tried to read one of my old books, The Lonesome Gods, but the plight of the boy alone in the desert, which should have meant more to me, seemed hollow and sad. The promise of a hidden plan, a destiny behind the face of things, wouldn’t make sense to everyone, I guessed. But when I thought about how I’d survived and sometimes even thrived there in the woods, about things falling into place when I needed them most and prayed with gratitude instead of anger, it was harder to be cynical. I’d always heard the Lord works in mysterious ways, but geez. I didn’t think mysterious really cut it. Baffling was a lot closer to the truth. The joy I’d sometimes felt out in those hills, the sense of rightness even when everything was so wrong, left me wondering just how weird the Lord’s plan was going to get before it was over.

  I thought about when I read Thoreau’s Walden the year before in Mrs. Moore’s class. It was a book about a guy who moved to the woods and found in his solitude something he could take back to his normal life and use, a kind of purpose in living without the usual things we relied on. At the time, I’d thought the story was amazing. I was jealous.

  Now, I knew what a joke he was. A guy in the wilderness. Right. He ate dinner most nights at his friend Emerson’s house. He lived on someone else’s property, off their handouts, in a shack made of scraps taken from a demolished house. He had no idea what living alone in the woods really was.

  Killing to live—that was reality. That was the truth of things. In order for me to live, something had to die, something that was fighting to live.

  If Emerson hadn’t fed his wack-job buddy Henry, he’d have been just another vagrant found dead in a woman’s coat, and if Joseph hadn’t stepped in, I would’ve been bones in a cave. That was reality. No universal revelations, no bean crops and loons on the water—just the struggle, with death waiting at the end.

  #########

  Church the next Sunday was weird. Of course, our church was always a little weird. I guessed most churches were. I didn’t want to go. I knew God didn’t care if I prayed on a pew or a rock bench on a cliff. Mom had other ideas.

  She sang in the choir, and Dad took his usual place on the second row after greeting the deacons at the door. I managed to slip into my old spot at the back. No one looked very surprised to see me. A few of the oldsters came by when the preacher had us all stand and shake hands, welcoming visitors and the like. They said “God bless you” and “Welcome back” with a range of handshakes from the weak and arthritic to those crushing farmer hand clamps that ground your bones together and left you screaming behind a forced smile.

  While I was distracted, Jenny Mason snuck up behind me. When I sat down, I found her smiling on my left. I smiled back warily and wondered when the questions would start. Surprisingly, she just said, “Welcome home. I’ve missed you,” and crossed her arms. When I did the same, she inched closer and touched my hand under our crossed arms so that the preacher couldn’t see. Some things didn’t change.

  I’d never asked Jenny out. She had a boyfriend from Madill, but he never came to church with her. We had played a game for years, flirting in the back row, not talking about it anywhere else—just a touch here, a faint caress there during the service then parting with a smile during the invitation. The only difference that day was that she held my hand for the whole service, until long after my fingers went numb, sitting close enough that our arms touched from shoulder to elbow, fingers questing gently—just that tiny sense of warmth without promise or regret.

  Her expression looked different from before, and I couldn’t make sense of it. She was saying something important, but I had no idea what, so I just kept smiling and tried to act casual.

  The smell of her was almost enough to induce tears. Hair spray and lotion mixed with makeup and the faintest whiff of flowery perfume flared up a longing, a needing to do more than just touch that left me feeling guilty and breathless.

  I realized with a start the preacher was talking about Christ’s time in the wilderness and his temptation by the devil. Jesus had had the perfect answers in his temptation. I had an overwhelming ache for a girl I’d never kissed.

  I tried to distract myself by looking around at the white walls. The large wooden crosses I remembered hung here and there between the cheap stained-glass windows. The same fading red carpet and matching upholstery covered the floor and the scratched oak pews. The preacher stood on the stage up front behind the same dark podium, a large, gold-painted cross hanging over the baptistery behind him. He wore his usual black slacks with a shirt and tie that matched a little too well. It was a safe bet they came in a prematched package from JCPenney.

  I tried to imagine how much better the pews and altar would look with some carving and inlays. I listened hard to make sense of the verses and the explanations of their meaning, but my mind drifted back again and again to Jenny’s pink sweater and blue jeans and just how pink and flushed her skin might be beneath them, how those restless fingers would feel on my neck.

  When Brother Lovell said, “Please rise for the invitation,” I dropped her hand and all but jumped to my feet. I leaned on the pew during the prayer, and Jenny did the same, her pinkie just close enough to brush mine, and she made sure it did repeatedly.

  While every head was bowed and every eye closed, she leaned over so that I could feel her breath on my neck just below my ear and said, “I broke up with Tommy two weeks ago.”

  I was usually lost when it came to girls and their hints, but with the final amen, she gave me a last look that said she was also thinking about bare skin and much more than holding hands.

  “Call me,” she mouthed silently and walked off to join her parents as they filed out the back.

  In a long line, the people were shaking hands and exchanging a few words with the preacher and his wife. I waited for Mom and Dad to reach me then joined the line and did the same with sweaty palms.

  #########

  So much time had passed since I'd been to town and my attraction to Jenny was so all-consuming I couldn't talk myself out of it. I convinced myself that going out in public was safe. The Stanglers wouldn't do anything near witnesses even if they did see me. The last thing they would expect was for me to stroll into the movies. A little voice muttering “Still a moron” somewhere back in my brain was drowned out by too much hopeful logic.

  I should have been thinking about Lauren, but honestly, cute and sweet though she was, Lauren was never this hot and had only once let me briefly brush second base through a thick hoody. Jenny seemed likely to let me run the bases my first time at bat. My faint twinges of guilt and fear didn't stand a chance against the fantasies throbbing through my brain since Sunday’s service.

  The movie was about some pretty boy who had never looked twice at his female friend while growing up. Then they didn’t see each other for years and she got all hot, so when
he did see her, there was this long awkward hour or so of stupidity before he suddenly noticed, and they finally made out—standard chick flick.

  I saw only bits and pieces of the movie. I barely even noticed its title when I paid for the tickets. I let Jenny pick. I was too busy trying not to get caught staring at her curves in that skin-tight top and long loose skirt with an inch or so of tanned skin showing between. She'd brushed her breast against my arm once in the truck and twice as we waited in line for tickets. No way was that an accident. At least, I hoped not. I could hardly wait to get into the dark theater to see what she would do with no preacher watching.

  I wasn’t disappointed. That girl did things with her tongue that made my throat seize up. I had a jaw cramp after the first fifteen minutes and couldn’t have cared less. By that time, her hand was creeping up my thigh, and my mind was a complete blank. She generated this incredible suction when she kissed that left me wondering if I would still have tonsils at the end of the night.

  When she reached through the buttons of my shirt and tweaked my nipple, I let out a yelp that had the old couple in front of us glaring over their shoulders. At least, the woman was glaring. The man laughed and looked a little envious.

  Just before the end of the show, Jenny suggested we slip out early and beat the crowd. I was far beyond arguing. Whatever she wanted was hers: my wallet, my keys, my soul.

  In the lobby, she squeezed my butt then headed for the bathroom with her green shirt riding up and that long white skirt swirling around her legs with a faint outline of dark panties beneath. When she was gone, I headed for the men’s room and spent several minutes dousing my face and neck with cold water.

  While I was waiting in the lobby after regaining control of myself, I saw Lauren standing in line just inside the doors. I stepped behind a pillar near the wall and stared. She had cut her hair and added some blond highlights, but I knew that stance, head held high and proud, shoulders back, one leg thrust slightly forward. Even apart from that, I couldn’t have mistaken that tiny, perfect nose and those high cheekbones. I wondered if she would react with anger, surprise, or joy when she saw me. She glanced around the lobby, and I fought the urge to step out into plain sight just to see her face. After several seconds, I noticed the guy she was with, and my guilt turned to shock. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but seeing how quickly she’d moved on still hit me hard. I’d left with no explanation, so I couldn’t really blame her, but seeing her smiling with someone else stung. I was so intent on hoping she’d look up and catch my eye I didn’t notice Jenny until her hand slipped into mine.

  They finally got their tickets and were heading for the snack bar as Jenny pulled me toward the door. I was too angry to hide. I wanted her to see me, to see Jenny and know. That was petty, I guess, but then Lauren froze, and an instant later, so did I. I wasn’t staring at Lauren, though. Her date was Randy Stangler.

  His hair was longer. I’d never seen him without a buzz cut before, and he was dressed like some kind of rapper in a white Nike windbreaker and matching hat. An oversized fake-diamond watch flashed on his wrist, and a silver anarchy medallion hung from his neck. I guessed he’d finally outgrown redneck chic and swapped his combat boots for the MTV look. Apparently, that’s all it had taken to get my girl.

  Randy looked more surprised to see me than I was to see them together, if that was possible.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  Despite the little voice screaming at me to get the hell out of there, I followed him out to the side of the building. I glanced quickly around the parking lot, looking for mullets, and was careful to stay in the light.

  I glanced back once. Jenny was chattering at Lauren behind us. They had plastered on oversized smiles, but Lauren's looked sick somehow. Her eyes were a touch too wide, and her lips were slightly parted. I turned back to Randy, slipped my right hand into my pocket, and gripped the reassuring weight of my knife.

  "You have got to be the dumbest son of a bitch I know," he said. "The hell did you come back for?"

  "How’d you get Lauren?" I asked. "Did you give her some weed? Is that all it took?”

  “Other than you being dumber than a sack of hammers, I never had anything against you, Sam. You want to live, get in the wind and stay gone this time.”

  “A little late to hide now, don't you think?”

  “I’m trying to help you, dumbass,” he said. "Hiding is the only thing that's going to keep you breathing."

  “Help yourself and leave me be. Your brothers are going to pay for Mike, one way or the other.”

  “Dude, you are out of your damn mind. Don’t say you weren’t warned.” With that, he walked back to Lauren, took her hand, and led her inside.

  She kept looking back over her shoulder until they were out of sight.

  I walked quickly to my truck with my heart pounding. Jenny hurried to catch up.

  With Jenny firmly pressed against me on the old bench seat of the Dodge, I cranked up the Godsmack CD in the stereo and drove through the back streets, almost oblivious to the traffic around me.

  "What was that about?" Jenny finally asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Oh, come on. I saw the look on your face. I thought y’all were going to fight for sure."

  I ignored her, eyes on the road, mind someplace else entirely.

  "Did you see the look on Lauren's face when she saw me with you? Stuck up bitch."

  I turned the stereo up a notch.

  With an exaggerated shrug and a muttered "boys," she let it go and dug through the old CD cases in the glove box.

  Paul, the old man who always seemed to be at the Quick Check register no matter the time of day or night, was known for assuming someone was old enough if they paid with cash. I’d bought from him only once before. He took one look at me and said, “Twenty dollars even,” without actually ringing the purchase up. He was charging more than the retail price plus tax, but at seventeen, I wasn’t about to argue. I had a six-pack of Budweiser and a four-pack of fruity wine coolers for Jenny. If Paul made a few extra bucks on the deal, more power to him. After that little scene at the movies, I would’ve paid twice as much for the beer. Right then, I needed the mental fog that came with it.

  I headed to the interstate and turned north. When Jenny asked, “Where are you taking me?” I tried to smile.

  “You’ll like it,” I said.

  Thirty minutes later, I pulled into a mountaintop overlook near Turner Falls and led her down some steps to a little stone balcony someone had built there long before I was born. Five hundred feet below us and about a quarter of a mile to the west, the falls were lit up red, white, and blue in honor of the recent passage of the Fourth of July.

  “This is so beautiful,” she said. Turning toward me, she added in a much different voice, “And romantic.”

  Leaning back against the stone wall, she set her second empty bottle down and stretched in what I was fairly sure was an invitation. Her breasts strained the fabric of her thin shirt. Even though the midnight breeze was obviously chilling her and doing even more interesting things to the shirt, I was only vaguely aware of it. Her shirt was almost the same shade of emerald as Lauren's eyes. I drained the last of my beer in a swallow so large I thought my throat was going to split open.

  Refusing to be ignored, Jenny grabbed my hand and pulled me against her. Her kisses were even hungrier than before. All thoughts of Lauren and Randy drifted away.

  Some time later—might’ve been minutes, might’ve been hours—headlights flashed across the parking lot above us. I broke away from Jenny and dropped my empty can over the edge of the cliff. It clattered away into the darkness below.

  “Let’s find someplace else,” I said. “Too many people here.”

  “Yes, please,” she responded with a tipsy giggle and let her hand trail down my chest and stomach and a little past my belt as I turned to go.

  Back on I-35, I set the cruise control to sixty-five. Twenty minutes later, the wine cooler fog li
fted just enough for Jenny to stop sucking on my earlobe and notice we were pulling into her driveway.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “It’s only ten thirty!”

  “I told your dad I’d have you home by eleven.”

  “He’s asleep in the recliner by now. He’ll never know if I came in at all until breakfast.”

  “I told him eleven, and I meant it. Eat one of these mints so he doesn’t smell that Bartles & Jaymes on your breath. Kiss him good night and go to your room.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Maybe,” I replied, “but if you’re still awake in an hour and waiting around that curve, this asshole might be driving by. Dear old dad will think you’re safe in bed and I’m a good guy.”

  When I pulled into the driveway of an empty house around the corner forty minutes later, she was already waiting in the bushes. She wasn’t Lauren, but the six beers I’d drunk said she was close enough. If I knew Jenny, by the next weekend, Lauren would know all the details, and so would half the town. Some spiteful little voice in my head wanted exactly that. Besides, Lauren had never once sucked my tongue.

  Chapter 10

  Thunder woke me the next morning. Summer storms in Oklahoma could shake your bones. Each crack of thunder started a deep rumble I could feel through the walls and floor, trembling its way up the legs of my bed like a mini earthquake. The first one jerked me half out of bed. I was still tangled in covers, sure Stanglers were in every corner. I needed several minutes to control my breathing. I was going to have to tell Dad soon about having seen Randy, but I was afraid if I did, I wouldn't get out of the house again, and maybe he would ship me off to some Kansas cousin for real. He needed to know what might be coming.

  The time was eight in the morning, and the power was off. The only light was coming from my phone and the brief flashes of lightning that turned the room on and off like a flashbulb. They came faster and faster, jumping over each other until they were a constant flare and rumble. That kind of weather usually sent Mom heading for the cellar and Dad, Will, and me to the porch, hoping to catch a glimpse of a wall cloud or a tornado’s tail. Rain lashed down, hitting the tin roof in tiny gunshots a thousand times a second.