Barker sat still for a minute and a half. “What else?” I asked.
“You sure?” He turned my way. I nodded. He took a breath.
“Well, I hung out in my new cabin a lot. It was just two blocks from the busiest service station in town but it seemed way off by itself. Nobody used the fairgrounds except for October and the County Fair. You could smell pine straw. At night, cars parked for three and four hours. Up one pine tree, a bra was tied—real old and gray now—a joke to everybody but maybe the girl that’d lost it. Out there, pine straw was all litterbugged with used rubbers. I thought they were some kind of white snail or clam or something. I knew they were yucky, I just didn’t know how they were yucky.
“I’d go into my house and I’d feel grown. I bought me some birds at the mall with my own money. Two finches. I’d always wanted some Oriental type of birds. I got our dead parakeet’s cage, a white one, and I put them in there. They couldn’t sing, they just looked good, One was red and the one was yellow, or one was yellow and one was red, I forget. I bought these seedballs and one pink plastic bird-type of toy they could peck at. After school, I’d go sit on my man-sized sofa, with my bird cage nearby, finches all nervous, hopping, constant, me reading my comics—I’d never felt so good, Dave. I knew why my grandad liked it there—no phones, nobody asking him for favors. He’d take long naps on the couch. He’d make himself a cup of tea. He probably paced around the three empty rooms— not empty really: full of cobwebs and these coils of wire.
“I called my finches Huey and Duey. I loved my Donald Duck comics. I kept all my funny books in alphabetical order in the closet across from my brown sofa. Well, I had everything I needed, a couch, comics, cups of hot tea. I hated tea but I made about five cups a day because Grandad had bought so many bags in advance and I did like holding a hot mug while I read. So one day I’m sitting there curled up with a new comic— comics are never as good the second time, you know everything that’s next—so I’m sitting there happy and I hear my back door slam wide open, grownups.
“Pronto, I duck into my comics closet, yank the door shut except for just one crack. First I hoped it’d be Grandad and his bust-out gang from the state pen. I didn’t believe it, just hoped, you know.
“In walks this young service station guy from our busy Sunoco place, corner of Sycamore and Bolton. I heard him say, ‘Oh yeah, I use this place sometimes. Owner’s away awhile.’ The mechanic wore a khaki uniform that zipped up its front. ‘Look, birds.’ A woman’s voice. He stared around. ‘I guess somebody else is onto Bobby’s hideaway. Don’t sweat it.’ He heaved right down onto my couch, onto my new comic, his legs apart. He stared—mean-looking—at somebody else in the room with us. Bobby had a reputation. He was about twenty-two, twice my age then—he seemed pretty old. Girls from my class used to hang around the Coke machine at Sunoco just so they could watch him, arm-deep up under motors. He’d scratch himself a lot. He had a real reputation. Bobby was a redhead almost a blonde. His cloth outfit had so much oil soaked in, it looked to be leather. All day he’d been in sunshine or up underneath leaky cars and his big round arms were brown and greasy like … cooked food. Well, he kicked off his left loafer. It hit my door and about gave me a heart attack. It did. Then he was flashing somebody a double-dare kind of look. Bobby yanked down his suit’s big zipper maybe four inches, showing more tanned chest. The zipper made a chewing sound.
“I sat on the floor in the dark. My head tipped back against a hundred comics. I was gulping, all eyes, arms wrapped around my knees like going off the high dive in a cannonball.
“When the woman sat beside him—I couldn’t believe this. You could of knocked me over with one of Huey or Duey’s feathers. See, she was my best friend’s momma. I decided, no, must be her identical twin sister (a bad one) visiting from out of town. This lady led Methodist Youth Choir. Don’t laugh but— too—she’d been my Cub Scout den mother. She was about ten years older than Bobby—plump and prettyish but real real scared-looking.
“He says, ‘So, you kind of interested in old Bobby, hunh? You sure been giving Bob some right serious looks for about a year now, ain’t it? I was wondering how many lube jobs one Buick could take, lady.’
“She studies her handbag, says, ‘Don’t call me Lady. My name’s Anne. Ann with an E.’ She added this like to make fun of herself for being here. I wanted to help her. She kept extra still, knees together, holding onto her purse for dear life, not daring to look around. I heard my birds fluttering, worried. I thought: If Bobby opens this door, I am dead.
“ ‘Anne with an E, huh? An-nie? Like Li’l Orphan. Well, Sandy’s here, Annie. Sandy’s been wanting to get you off by yourself. You ready for your big red dog Sandy?’
“ ‘ I didn’t think you’d talk like that,’ she said.
“I wanted to bust out of my comics closet and save her. One time on a Cub Scout field trip to New York City, the other boys laughed because I thought the Empire State Building was called something else. I said I couldn’t wait to see the Entire State Building. Well, they sure ragged me. I tried and make them see how it was big and all. I tried to make them see the logic. She said she understood how I’d got that. She said it was right ‘original.’ We took the elevator. I tried to make up for it by eating nine hotdogs on a dare. Then I looked off the edge. That didn’t help. I got super-sick, Dave. The other mothers said I’d brought it on myself. But she was so nice, she said that being sick was nobody’s fault. Mrs…..the lady, she wet her blue hankie at a water fountain and held it to my head and told me not to look. She got me a postcard so, when I got down to the ground, I could study what I’d almost seen. She acted so kind. Now, with her in trouble in my own shack, I felt like I should rescue her. She was saying, ‘I don’t know what I expected you to talk like, Bobby. But not like this, not cheap, please.’
“Then he grinned, he howled like a dog. She laughed anyway. Huey and Duey went wild in their cage. Bobby held both his hands limp in front of him and panted like a regular hound. Then he asked her to help him with his zipper. She wouldn’t. Well then Bobby got mad, said, ‘It’s my lunch hour. You ain’t a customer here, lady. It’s your husband’s silver/gray Electra parked out back. You brought me here. You’ve got yourself into this. You been giving me the look for about a year. I been a gentleman so far. Nobody’s forcing you. It ain’t an accident you’re here with me. But, hey, you can leave. Get out. Go on.’
“She sighed but stayed put—sitting there like in a waiting room. Not looking, kneecaps locked together—handbag propped on her knees. Her fingers clutched that bag like her whole life was in it. ‘Give me that,’ he snatched the purse and, swatting her hands away, opened it. He prodded around, pulled out a tube of lipstick, said, ‘Annie, sit still.’ She did. She seemed as upset as she was interested. I told myself, She could leave. I stayed in the dark. So much was happening in a half-inch stripe of sunshine. The lady didn’t move. Bobby put red on her mouth—past her mouth—too much of it. She said, ‘Please, Bobby.’ ‘ “Sandy,” ’ he told her. ‘You Annie, me Sandy Dog. Annie Girl, Sandy Boy. Sandy show Annie.’ He made low growling sounds. ‘Please,’ she tried but her mouth was stretched from how he kept painting it. ‘I’m not sure,’ the lady said. ‘I wanted to know you better, yes. But now I don’t feel … sure.’ ‘You will, Annie Mae. Open your little Orphan shirt.’ She didn’t understand him. ‘ “Blouse” then, fancy pants, open you “blouse,” lady.’ She did it but so slow. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I don’t know about you, Bobby. I really don’t.’ But she took her shirt off anyhow.
“My den mother was shivering in a bra, arms crossed over her. First his black hands pushed each arm down, studying her. Then Bobby pulled at his zipper so his whole chest showed. He put the lipstick in her hand and showed her how to draw circles on the tops of his—you know, on his nipples. Then he took the tube and made X’s over the dots she’d drawn. They both looked down at his chest. I didn’t understand. It seemed like a kind of target practice. Next he snapped her bra up over her coll
arbones and he lipsticked hers. Next he threw the tube across the room against my door—but, since his shoe hit, this didn’t surprise me so much. Bobby howled like a real dog. My poor finches were just chirping and flying against their cage, excited by animal noises. She was shaking her head, ‘You’d think a person such as myself … I’m having serious second thoughts here, Robert, really … I’m just not too convinced … that … that we …’
“Then Bobby got up and stood in front of her, back to me. His hairdo was long on top, the way boys wore theirs then. He lashed it side to side, kept his hands—knuckles down—on his hips. Mrs… . the lady must have been helping him with the zipper. I heard it slide. I only guessed what they were starting to do. I’d been told about all this. But, too, I’d been told, say about the Eiffel Tower (we called it the Eye-ful). I no more expected to have this happening on my brown couch than I thought the Eye-ful would come in and then the Entire State Building would come in and they’d hop onto one another and start … rubbing … girders, or something.
“I wondered how Bobby had forced the lady to. I felt like I should holler, ‘Methodist Youth Choir!’ I’d remind her who she really was around town. But I knew it’d be way worse for her—getting caught. I had never given this adult stuff much thought before. I sure did now. (Since, I haven’t thought about too much else for long.) Bobby made worse doggy yips. He was a genius at acting like a dog. I watched him get down on all fours in front of the lady—he snouted clear up under her skirt, his whole noggin under cloth. Bobby made rooting and barking noises—pig then dog, dog and pig mixed. It was funny but too scary to laugh at.
“He asked her to call him Big Sandy. She did. ‘Big Sandy,’ she said. Bobby explained he had something to tell his Orphan gal but only in dog talk. ‘What?’ she asked. He said it—part-talking part-gargling, his mouth all up under her white legs. She hooked one thigh over his shoulder. One of her shoes fell off. The other—when her toes curled up then let loose—would snap, snap, snap.
“I watched her eyes roll back then focus. She seemed to squint clear into my hiding place. She acted drowsy then completely scared awake—like at a horror movie in the worst part—then she’d doze off, then go dead, perk up overly alive, then half-dead, then eyes all out like being electrocuted. It was something. She was leader of the whole Methodist Youth Choir. Her voice got bossy and husky, a leader’s voice. She went, ‘This is wrong, Bobby. You’re so low, Robert. You are a sick dog, we get in deep trouble, Momma’s Sandy. Hungry Sandy, thirsty Sandy. Oh—not that, not there. Oh Jesus Sandy God. You won’t tell. How can we. I’ve never. What are we doing in this shack? Whose shack? We’re just too … It’s not me here. I’m not like this.’
“He tore off her panties and threw them at the bird cage. (Later I found silky britches on top of the cage, Huey and Duey going ga-ga, thinking it was a pink cloud from heaven.) I watched grownups do everything fast then easy, back to front, speeding up. They slowed down and seemed to be feeling sorry—but I figured this was just to make it all last longer. I never heard such human noises. Not out of people free from jail or the state nuthouse. I mean, I’d heard boys make car sounds, ‘Uh-dunn. Uh-dunn.’ But this was like Noah’s ark or every zoo—out of two white people’s mouths. Both mouths were lipsticked ear to ear. They didn’t look nasty but pink as babies. It was wrestling. They never got all the way undressed—I saw things hooking them. Was like watching grownups playing, making stuff up the way kids’ll say, ‘You be this and I’ll be that.’ They seemed friskier and younger, nicer. I didn’t know how to join in. If I’d opened my door and smiled, they would have perished and then broke my neck. I didn’t join in but, Dave? I sure was dying to.
“By the end, her pale Sunday suit had black grease handprints on the bottom and up around her neck and shoulders. Wet places stained both people where babies get stained. They’d turned halfway back into babies. They fell against each other, huffing like they’d forgot how grownups sit up straight. I mashed one hand over my mouth to keep from crying or panting, laughing out loud. The more they acted like slobbery babies, the older I felt, watching.
“First she sobbed. He laughed and then she laughed at how she’d cried. She said, ‘What’s come over me, Sandy?’
“ ‘Sandy has,’ he stroked her neck. ‘And Annie’s all over Sandy dog,’ he showed her. He blew across her forehead, cooling her off.
“She made him promise not to tell. He said he wouldn’t snitch if she’d meet him and his best buddy someplace else. ‘Oh no. No way,’ she pulled on her blouse and buttoned it. ‘That wasn’t part of our agreement, Robert.’
“ ‘Agreement? I like that. My lawyers didn’t exactly talk to your lawyers about no agreement. Show me your contract, Annie with an E,’ then he dives off the couch and is up under her skirt again. You could see that he liked it even better than the service station. She laughed, she pressed cloth down over his whole working head. Her legs went straight. She could hear him snuffling down up under there. Then Bobby hollered, he yodeled right up into Mrs. … up into the lady.
“They sort of made up.
“After adults finally limped from sight and even after car doors slammed, I waited—sure they’d come back. I finally sneaked over and picked up pants off my birds’ roof. What a mess my couch was! I sat right down on such wet spots as they’d each left. The room smelled like nothing I’d ever smelled before. Too, it smelled like everything I’d ever smelled before but all in one room. Birds still went crazy from the zoo sounds and such tussling. In my own quiet way, Dave, I was going pretty crazy too.
“After that I saw Bobby at the station—him winking at everything that moved, making wet, sly clicking sounds with his mouth. Whenever I bent over to put air into my new bike’s tires, I’d look anywhere except Bobby. But he noticed how nervous I acted and he got to teasing me. He’d sneak up behind and put the toe of his loafer against the seat of my jeans. Lord, I jumped. He liked that. He was some tease, that Bobby, flashing his hair around like Lash LaRue. He’d crouch over my Schwinn. The air nozzle in my hand would sound like it was eating the tire. Bobby’d say, real low and slimy, ‘How you like your air—regular or hi-test, slick?’ He’d made certain remarks. ‘Cat got your tongue. Too-Pretty-By-Half?’ He didn’t know what I’d seen but he could smell me remembering it. I dreaded him. Of course. Dave. Sunoco was not the only station in town. I worried Bobby might force me into my house and down onto the couch. I thought, ‘But he couldn’t do anything to me. I’m only eleven. Plus I’m a boy.’ But next. I made pictures in my head—and I knew better. There were ways. I bet …
“I stayed clear of the cabin. I didn’t know why. I’d been stuck not nine feet from everything they did. I was scared of getting trapped again. Too. I wanted to just live in that closet, drink tea. eat M&M’s. praying they’d come back. Was about six days later I remembered: my birds were alone in the shack. They needed water and feeding ever}’ other day. I’d let them down. I worried about finches, out there by their lonesomes. But pretty soon it’d been over a week, then days, twelve. The longer you stay away from certain things, the harder it is— breaking through to do them right. I told myself, ‘Huey and Duey are total goners now.’ I kept clear of finding them, stiff on the bottom of the cage. I had dreams.
“I saw my den mother uptown running a church bake sale to help hungry Koreans. She was ordering everybody around like she usually did, charming enough to get away with it. I thought I’d feel super-ashamed to ever see her again. Instead I rushed right up. I chatted too much—too loud. I wanted to show that I forgave her. Of course, she didn’t know I’d seen her do all such stuff with Bobby. She just kept looking at me, part-gloating part-fretting. She handed me a raisin cupcake, free. We gave each other a long look. Partly, we smiled.
“After two and half weeks. I knew my finches were way past dead. I didn’t understand why I’d done it. I’d been too lazy or spooked to bike out and do my duty’. The house felt different. I belonged in prison—Finch Murderer. Finally I pedaled my bike i
n that direction. One day. you have to. The shack looked smaller, the paint peeled worse. I found the key under three bricks, unlocked, held my breath. I didn’t hear one sound from the front room, no hop, no cheep. Their cage hung from a hook on the wall and, to see into it, I had to stand up on my couch. Millet seed ground between my bare feet and the cushions. Birds had pecked clear through the back of their plastic food dish. It’d been shoved from the inside out, it’d skidded to a far comer of the room. My finches had slipped out their dish’s slot. Birds were gone—flown up a chimney or through one pane of busted window glass. Maybe they’d waited a week. When I didn’t show up and treat them right, birds broke out. They were now in pinewoods nearby. I wondered if they’d known all along that they could leave—if they’d only stayed because I fed them and was okay company.
“I pictured Huey and Duey in high pines, blinking. I worried what dull local sparrows would do to such bright birds, hotshots from the Mall pet store. Still, I decided that being free sure beat my finches’ chances of hanging around here, starving.
“Talk about relief. I started coughing from it, I don’t know why. Then I sat down on the couch and cried. I felt something slippery underneath me. I wore my khaki shorts, nothing else, it was late August. I stood and studied what’d been written on couch cushions in lipstick, all caked. Words were hard to read on nappy brown cloth. You could barely make out ‘I will do what Bobby wants. What Sandy wants. Whatever Sandy needs worst. Whatever Bobby needs most. So help me Dog.’
“I thought of her. I wanted to fight for her but I knew that— strong as the lady was—she did pretty much what she liked. She wouldn’t be needing me. I sat again. I pulled my shorts down. Then I felt cool stripes get printed over my brown legs and white butt. Lipstick, parts of red words stuck onto my skin—‘Wi’ from ‘Will’—the whole word ‘help.’ I stretched out full-length. My birds didn’t hop from perch to perch or nibble at their birdie toy. Just me now. My place felt still as any church. Something had changed. I touched myself and—for the first time—with my bottom all sweetened by lipstick—I got real results.
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