Hardly Children

by Laura Adamczyk

  The virgin comes back into the great hall and catches me staring at Lincoln’s crotch.

  Let’s go, he sighs. He’s done with me. I’m over. And now he knows it too.

  On the ride home, he does a good job of not talking to me, even when I turn up the radio so loud it hurts my ears. He lets me out, and I tell him to hang loose. His mouth moves, but I can’t hear anything he says because the Pixies are growling about ceasing to exist, about giving one’s goodbyes. He’s looking straight ahead, shrugging, moving his small, tight lips. I imagine him saying that I’m silly, loose, depraved, but the thought stays with me as long as Frank Black’s voice does after I close the door. I put up my hand and wave.

  I mean, you can’t help but wonder. He was the tallest president.

  * * *

  IT DUMPS A FOOT of snow on us, resetting the landscape to something cleaner. The trucker texts me to say that he won’t be able to make it back to town until next week, but that he wants to have dinner when he returns.

  I stay inside eating toast and drinking milky tea. I’m reading about the Bay of Pigs, but I keep taking breaks to masturbate. This has been going on all day, and by now I’ve lost count. My head feels like it’s bobbing a few rooms away from the rest of me. The rest of me moves slowly, and like a cat, I follow the sunlight coming through my windows, lying down in each bright, heated square. Once I’m warm, I get back into bed. I worry about how some smells never seem to leave the things that hold them. I’ll have to scrub and scrub. I think about first going to the virgin and giving him my hand. Here’s what’s missing, I want to say.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY I run out of jam. Wild grape and elderberry. My grandma makes it from scratch. It’s the only kind I’ll eat now. It’s dark and earthy, the deep purple of a gemstone.

  From the porch, I see her inside shuffling to the door. I sometimes fear that they won’t hear the doorbell and I’ll forever be left standing there, waiting to be let in.

  Hello, sugar!

  I bend down to hug her. She’s as soft and lumpy as a pillow and smells like old wool.

  Herb! she calls behind her. Herb, Cassie’s here! She pauses to listen for him, then looks back to me and shakes her head. We sit down in the living room—the couch, chair, and rug are all the same shade of country blue.

  Did you have trouble driving with the snow?

  No, they’ve plowed all the roads pretty well by now.

  Well, you be careful out there. Don’t drive too fast. Her eyes are light blue and clear as glass. I’ve been thinking, she says, if we make it to our seventieth anniversary, you’ll have to have a party for us.

  You’ll make it to seventy, Grandma. But I say it with as much certainty as anything. I don’t tell her how now I can’t stop imagining getting hit by a bus or falling down a set of stairs. How I sometimes try to decrease my chance of certain accidents by staying inside all day.

  Well, we’ll just have some fun while we can, hm, sweetie? She turns to look behind the couch into the kitchen. That man, she sighs. Let’s go down there and bug him.

  The walls leading to the basement are covered with pictures from old Life and MAD magazines my dad put up as a kid. The Beatles and Mia Farrow. Doris Day with a mustache drawn above her lips. We walk down into the cool air, and it’s like stepping into a pool: one moment outside and the next within. The same old smell of damp and dust.

  Oh! Oh! Grandpa says when he spots me, doing a little jog over, opening his skinny arms out wide. He hugs me tightly, and it feels the way it always does, bony and a little painful, but mostly good. He gives me a shake and then releases me.

  You came to get some jam, did you?

  I nod dutifully.

  It’s been a while since we’ve had any elderberry, he says. But let’s see if we can’t dig some up.

  I follow them through a door and then another one. Shelves are laid out on either side of me, stacked with scrap wood for burning or building, used cans of spray paint. My grandparents disappear into a dark side room, and I stop to dig through a red milk crate of vinyl records. A feeling of cool fear comes over me flipping through the albums, not finding anything I recognize. I have no idea who could have owned anything by the Carpenters.

  We’ve found something here, Cassie!

  My grandma is just on the other side of the wall, working her way toward the doorway between us. Your father used to love this! she says, but I’m already backing away. She says something about how quickly the weekend goes by, and behind her, Grandpa replies, All the snow will melt soon enough, Fran. But I can’t listen. It is as though their voices are arriving to me from a future that does not include them. I turn to go upstairs. It’s cold down there, and I’ve forgotten why I came.

  * * *

  THE TRUCKER PICKS ME UP in a small maroon car. It reminds me of boys I knew in high school.

  Where’s the truck?

  He laughs. You think I drive that around town?

  Oh, right.

  I turn behind me. I think about climbing in the back later, but it doesn’t have the same allure, none of the tight order of the truck cab. There’s something embarrassing about his tiny car, his tininess within it. And he looks different, his hair no longer hidden beneath his cap, something open and bare about his face.

  Where to? he asks.

  I suggest the hip, dark place with the white plates. It’s a joke, but he takes me seriously. I want to say that he wouldn’t like it there, that the lighting, the music, everything about it is delicate and precise—pretentious—but we go anyway.

  At the table, he squints into the menu. So a bunch of little things, not a regular entrée. He purses his lips. I can tell I’m going to leave completely sated, he says, nodding.

  A different model-waitress from last time takes our order and comes back with red wine. We touch glasses ceremoniously, and when I bring mine to my lips, some dribbles down my chin. This always happens. It’s like I’m throwing it at my face and just hoping some makes it in.

  I have a drinking problem, I say. He laughs, though I know he doesn’t get the Airplane! reference. I realize now what it is about his face. He’s trimmed his beard. What was once thick as Bluto is now like lace, snow-white pieces of skin visible across his cheeks.

  So your dad used to work for Peterbilt?

  Yup.

  Retired?

  He’s dead, actually.

  Oh, I’m so sorry.

  That’s all right, I say. He doesn’t mind.

  He pinches his brow.

  I mean, what are you gonna do?

  He tilts his head, a tentative smile shaping his lips. He clears his throat.

  So what kind of truck did he drive? Local? Long haul?

  Long haul, I say, and he nods slowly, as though he just correctly guessed my zodiac. I don’t want to explain that my dad never drove the trucks. He only worked on the engines, taught people how to fix them, but that it kept him away nonetheless. He only wore plaid on the weekends.

  You know, this place isn’t horrible, he says, looking up at the Edison bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

  No, not horrible, I say, grabbing my glass, not spilling any this time.

  * * *

  AFTER DINNER I convince him to take me to the truck yard. I jump up and down and tug on his arm until he says yes. There is a long line of semis, staggered as neatly as a card trick. I can’t tell which one is his until we’re beside it and I’m climbing up the little ladder. We get in the back, and I start jumping on him. I bury my head into his armpit and try to push him over. I crouch up and fall down on his chest, he taking my weight like he’s wrestling a toddler.

  Jesus, girl, settle down! he says, laughing. I’m really spazzing out; I can feel it. But I can’t stop myself. My laughter comes up like seltzer.

  You’re out of control, girly!

  I told you I had a drinking problem!

  Shirley, you must be joking.

  Hey, I thought you said you’d never seen that.

  I w
atched it the other night.

  I’ve got him in a bear hug. I want to turn him over. I’m grunting and straining against his bulk, but he doesn’t move.

  Hey, come on, settle down. Let’s have a conversation.

  Bor-ing. I climb over onto his back and whisper in his ear, You’re a lumberjack and you’re okay. You sleep all night and you work all day.

  His body finally comes alive, and he yanks me around to face him, grabbing my shoulders. Let’s get out of here, he says.

  I crinkle my nose: I want to stay. I try to shrug him loose, but his hands hold my arms down. I drop my head to my shoulder, my neck feeling vaguely whiplashed.

  What’s going on with you?

  I shrug my shoulders. He’s trying to look into my eyes, which only makes me sad. I cross my arms and shrink a little. I want to move and keep on moving, but I’ve lost my verve.

  Let’s just drive somewhere. Do you have to make a run?

  A run? No, he sighs, shaking his head. He dips his chin to hide his smile. He’s patronizing me now, I can feel it, but I don’t know how to explain to him that I don’t want to know anything outside of his cab, where everything is small, where everything has its place. I think of the virgin. How nice it must be to know all there is to know about a dead president but nothing about what he did in his bedroom. It feels right, as close as we should get to any one thing. The trucker drops his hands from my shoulders. His body is as thick as a buoy; if tossed into the ocean he would float forever. His hand is warm when it touches mine, and at first I want to pull away, but I take it and squeeze. I squeeze as hard as I can, like I’m gripping a pair of those springy hand grippers, like I’m trying to break them. I look at him. He looks back and squeezes my hand just as hard. His face has become serious and rigid, his warm eyes sunk to somewhere darker. It starts to hurt. I want to ball up my other hand and punch him in the face; I want to bite his lips. I want him to bite me. But we stay right there, him squeezing my fingers hard enough that I stop feeling them, his hands and arms so big that he could fold me up and shove me into one of the storage compartments, stuff me inside the little closet. I think of how cramped it would be in there with all his jackets and work boots and movies, how, with my arms pushed to my chest and the door shut, I might never get out.

  GIVE AND GO

  THE PROBLEM WAS THAT THE MAN was too tall. Or the woman too short. He didn’t want to lord over her. She didn’t want to be so far away from his mouth. She wasn’t the kind of woman to wait, to pine, to wish and hope and pray to someday maybe be kissed. If she wanted to kiss, she was probably kissing. The man knew this about his friend, appreciated that directness, and so on their walks, and on this walk in particular, a basketball tucked beneath his arm, her striped athletic socks pulled up to her knees, he found himself slouching, while she pulled herself up as tight and tall as ever, her large breasts pushed out forward, as though guns ready to be fired. What more could she do? Ask him to stop so she could get some height from a concrete planter? Hook her foot in a fence? He, sensing her frustration, sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t be best to just get it over with and pick her up. She was heavier than most short women he knew—the elastic of her sports bra pushing out the excess flesh of her body—but he was stronger than he looked and wouldn’t mind the strain. He thought this consciously, held it out before him in his mind, that this kissing, this coupling, was something he should do, but he couldn’t bring himself to close that last bit of gap between them. He’d broken up with his girlfriend of two and a half years at the beginning of the summer, and he saw how something had turned on in the short woman. He felt a sudden desire, could sense her pushing, pushing, nearly running in his direction, this forward momentum forcing him to unfold a thought that had lain closed in him for some time—that he might not like women or men for any kissing whatsoever. The feeling left him slack and weighted, filled with sad guilt that he couldn’t return his friend’s big desire. Like today, all their walks took place in the middle of the afternoon, the summer heat drawing sweat from their necks, no time at all, the tall man reasoned, for two people to smash their faces together anyway.

  When they made the turn toward the outdoor court, the pair saw them warming up. The group was running drills and shooting layups, doing a little give and go. This was the man’s favorite part: walking slower, hanging back to see his friends exposed as they were in their mesh basketball shorts and shoes, their nasty old T-shirts with the sleeves cut off. In five years, they would be too old. One had already gotten his ankle good and twisted a few months ago, and nobody could make it the full hour anymore without having to sub out. But there they were, clumsy and groping, calling out to each other in the waning hours of the summer afternoon, tossing up bricks, letting their voices get nice and loud.

  After stretching, they divided themselves into threes, the tall man and the short woman on the same team. She gave hard, ugly passes to the man, who converted them into layups, at turns graceful, at others scrappy and ragged. If he missed, he’d scramble and elbow to his own rebound and go up again. Those not guarding him held back on the perimeter, slowly retreating, watching him push the ball up and over the lip of the rim with an ease they no longer knew.

  The woman was guarding the dirty-blond wisecracker on the other team. He was scrawny, but beneath his faded gray T-shirt was the promise of a drinking man’s belly, pale skin, and a swirl of dark, wiry hair. She pushed her torso into his and threw her arms into the open spaces his limbs made.

  Hey, hey, he said, you’re going to have to buy me dinner first.

  It wasn’t the only time he’d made this joke with her. He stepped back, smiling, and still dribbling, said, Lil G, I can’t help but notice how you always seem to guard me.

  They called her Lil G. Even the tall man found himself saying it, though no one had ever before called her the name. The others encouraged her, overencouraged her, it sometimes seemed, though only in hindsight did the man wonder, Too much? He did not want her to think their encouragement was false, which would be worse, he decided, than no encouragement at all. Whereas she, in the moment of play, always thought, Oh, God, please stop, wondering why every unmade shot was met with clapping, with, That’s okay, Lil G, keep taking those. Keep trying.

  Body-checking the wisecracker, she lunged for and got her hands on the ball, dribbling up to half court.

  All right, all right, that’s a foul, little lady.

  I’m sorry?

  You fouled me.

  She stopped dribbling and tucked the ball into her hip. I did not foul you. If you want me to foul you, I can show you what that looks like.

  Whoa-ho, he said, putting up his hands. If you want to get close, all you have to do is ask.

  Give me a break.

  Come on, Lil G, everybody saw it.

  She looked past him to the others. Any of you see anything?

  Well … the big guy in the headband said, looking down.

  She raised her eyebrows at the tall man.

  It looked like a foul, he shrugged, but I couldn’t see that well.

  Fine, whatever. She shoved the ball into the wisecracker’s stomach. I’m just going to get it back anyway.

  He bent down low and started dribbling, and she crouched down there with him. He passed the ball off to the big guy in the headband, who backed himself toward the hoop. His soft backside bounced off the tall man’s bony pelvis, once, twice, three times. The tall man had the feeling, because of the physical similarities and differences between them, that this pushing back and forth, one against the other, could go on indefinitely, that neither of them would ever grind the other down. He could smell the sweat of the big guy and the sweat of himself, but mostly it was cut grass and flowers hanging their heads in the heat, and some other wet scent that he could not name as either earth or flesh. The big guy, getting nowhere, tossed the ball back out to the wisecracker, but the woman jumped for it, her hand tipping the ball to half court. She and the wisecracker scrambled and fell upon the ball, the conc
rete of the court peeling skin from their elbows and knees. They pushed and pulled with the ball between their hands, she finally wrenching it free and, from the ground, throwing it out to no one in particular. The tall man jumped forward to receive it and, turning, seeing an opening in the lane, charged ahead past his friends, whom he loved, but who were not as fast as he was. He dug down low and, springing up into the air, stretched out his body as long as he could against that sea of pale, loose arms. There was a strain and pulse in him, his arms circling and jerking, which made it seem like he wanted to go in several directions at once but couldn’t decide which. He took the ball in both hands, drifted up to the basket, and, pushing the ball through the hoop, hung on to the rim for what seemed like a very long time.

  He came down hard, so hard that pins and tingles jetted up from his feet through his legs, and the muscles in his jaw and ears clenched tight. And yet he felt joy, such big joy in him, as a single, beautiful line pointing in any one confident direction, that he wanted to cry out in gratitude for being given what he’d been given, for doing what he’d done, which he knew, despite the adrenaline and life coursing through his body, would never be repeated.

  Fuck yeah, he breathed. Fuck. He watched the ball roll off into the grass behind the hoop, where it came to a slow but certain stop. He turned in order to find the others, to open his body up to them, but his friends, their arms and mouths slack, were facing half court. There the woman and the wisecracker were still down on the ground, fighting over something. The tall man took a step forward.

  Straining against each other’s skin, their sweaty arms grappling, torsos squirming, the two of them wrestled each other’s sticky shirts over their heads, before shoving their faces together.

  Holy crap, headband said.