The Forgiving Kind

by Donna Everhart

  “Ooooh, I’m scared of Mister Prissy Pants!”

  I swiped water in his direction, and even though it hit him, he didn’t move. He stayed in the same spot with his fists clenched.

  He went red at my name-calling, and yelled, “Shut up!”

  I shouted the name again, and when he yanked off his shirt and jumped in, I hollered victoriously. He lunged for my arm. I shrieked.

  I yelled out, “Prissy pants!”

  He dove underwater, and I screamed again, excited and afraid at the same time. I kicked hard to get away, but I wasn’t quick enough. He grabbed at my legs and pulled me under. He held me underwater, and I sort of thrashed about like I’d done in the past when we were horsing around, and after a few seconds of struggling, I relaxed. That was my signal for surrendering, my way of saying “Uncle!”

  Only Daniel didn’t let go.

  His hands squeezed hard as he gripped the top of my shoulders, his fingers digging into my collarbone. He pushed me down where the water felt cooler, and the clear green turned dark. My hands were on his, trying to pry them loose. I looked up at him through the murkiness, and found he was staring right at me. He didn’t look like Daniel at all. The water made his features blurry, and his eyes looked like empty holes.

  He used his weight to keep me down, and when I started to struggle again, he rose only enough to allow his head to break the surface. I realized I really, really needed to breathe too. I went to the right, and broke free, got one gulp in, when he grabbed my arm, his fingernails scraping my skin. I quit fighting, and tapped his arm in an urgent way but instead of letting me go, he’d worked himself overhead again and pushed me down once more. I began to fight in earnest. Whatever Daniel thought he was doing, I no longer found it funny. Each time I tried to get out of his grip, he grabbed me somewhere else. I twisted, and turned, went one way or the other and he somehow found another part of me to hold on to.

  I’d thought we were only having fun. I’d thought it was just another play fight, and he’d let go, and we’d laugh about it. It was nothing like that, it had turned ugly, and frightening. I grew more violent, my need very real now. I’d run out of air, and through the water, I could still make out Daniel’s eyes, dark and wide, looking at me like he hated me. It made me go motionless and we stared at each other through the greenish haze. He let me go. I rose to the surface and gulped in air. I began crying, half-afraid, half-mad, and very confused as I thrashed my way across the pond.

  Daniel popped up beside me, and when he reached for me, I screamed, “Get away from me!”

  I swam fast as my burning lungs would let me, my arms and legs straining like I was swimming through mud.

  He yelled, “Sonny!”

  I didn’t stop. I was already winded, but I flailed toward the dock, arms churning and feet kicking until I could pull myself up and onto it. I lay on my side, at first choking, then panting while trying to grasp what just happened. Daniel didn’t climb up right away. He stayed in the water, peering over the edge as I lay on the wood gasping the way a fish would.

  He said, “Sonny?”

  I sat up, then I got to my feet. I refused to look at him. I hurried to put my shorts and T-shirt back on. He repeated my name, his voice more desperate, and there was the slosh of water as he pulled himself up. I didn’t care until he made a sound that made me stop. I knew that sound. I’d heard it only once before, when we were in second grade and Junior Odom had tripped him. Daniel had hit the floor hard, and split his chin. Blood came but he hadn’t cried until our teacher poured peroxide on it right before applying a butterfly bandage.

  His back was to me now. I sat down, staring at his wet head, hair down to his shoulders, the curls pulled straight. There was an unnatural movement of his shoulders. The bumps of bone along his spine looked like a long line of delicate pearls as he bent forward, bracing his hands on the edge of the wood. I tentatively reached out, wanting to touch him. I didn’t. I withdrew my hand. We didn’t talk for a long time. I stared across the pond toward the trees, while we sorted through our thoughts. I couldn’t believe Daniel actually tried to hurt me. It was a stifling quiet that stretched on, and part of me began to feel sad, while the other part of me had the image of being held underwater, fighting for air. I was still mad about that. I didn’t understand. Daniel finally spoke and when he did, his words hurt worse than what he’d done.

  His voice was hoarse as he said, “You ain’t no better than Mr. Fowler.”

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “What you called me.”

  I frowned until I realized what he meant. Stupid me. I understood now why Daniel had reacted like he had. Sissy boy. Prissy pants. They weren’t so different.

  “Daniel, I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “You think the same as him. You don’t know nothing, nothing at all.”

  “I don’t either think like him! Wait, what don’t I know?”

  His comment was confusing, while my denial and question sounded phony. I couldn’t explain why I’d said it, it was too embarrassing to admit it came down to me wanting him to snap out of the way he’d been acting, like he didn’t care whether we were friends or not, like I didn’t matter so much to him anymore. I wanted him to stop looking like he had a secret he was keeping from me. I wanted it to go back to like it was. All I’d wanted was a reaction.

  “I wasn’t thinking. I said the first thing that came into my head, to make you mad.”

  He exhaled and said, “See? That’s what I mean.”

  I went to put my hand on his shoulder, and he jerked away and I got mad all over again.

  “Well, you tried to drown me!”

  “You’re nuts. I only held you under for a bit.”

  “A bit? I wished I could do you the same way, and see how you like it.”

  This time our silence stretched out even longer. I was pretty sure if I could see his face, see his eyes, I wouldn’t like what they told me. They’d have that distant look I’d seen him get before when he got to dreaming big. They wouldn’t be that unguarded golden-brown color as open and free as the sky above our heads. Instead, they’d be closed off, secretive once again. This new, uneasy stillness emphasized how much had changed since Mr. Fowler showed up, from Aunt Ruth leaving to this ever-growing rift with Daniel and me. Despite this unfamiliar and underlying distrust and anger that separated us, I was certain Daniel would come around eventually. I just had to bide my time.

  I sighed, and looked across the pond, and my eyes fell on a spot among the pines to a color that didn’t belong. I drew in my breath slow. A sliver of blue stood out against the trunk of a tree, part of a face peering around the edge, a hand going up slow and then back down. A wisp of smoke dissipated in a matter of seconds. I didn’t say nothing to Daniel. He was staring down into the water. Mr. Fowler had to see me looking at him, but if he did, he didn’t let on. He turned and disappeared through the woods, and the only thing that remained of him having been there was his image in my mind.

  Chapter 19

  I was sure Mr. Fowler would tell Mama he’d seen me and Daniel at the pond, if only to prove his point we were disobedient. He didn’t though, and one afternoon I finally understood why.

  It was getting on toward quitting time, and he said, “That boy ain’t right. Glad you finally saw the light of day.”

  “Sir?”

  “Down to the pond that day. The little flit and you. What was it you called him? Prissy pants? That suits him too. Best you figured it out now the boy’s a little lavender lad if I ever saw one.”

  There was nothing I could say in my own defense, or in Daniel’s. I didn’t know what he was getting at, calling him those names. I knocked my boot against a step, and looked away. He kept calling him that and it sounded real ugly. Mr. Fowler went off whistling under his breath while I stewed over the idea he thought I was somehow on his side.

  August was slow to come, then it dragged and although Daniel and I talked on the phone, it wasn’t the same. Somethin
g had changed for him about me, and I wanted to fix it, only he gave me one excuse after the other about not coming over. I wanted Ross to take me into town, drop me off and then come back to get me, but he wouldn’t.

  “We ain’t got gas money to burn up on gallivanting around.”

  He was harsh when he said it ’cause Mama had said something to that effect about him picking up Addie.

  Rain fell one afternoon while we were sitting in the kitchen eating tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches loaded down with salt and pepper. Mama, Ross, and I put ours down and ran outside, looking up toward the sky. It had come too late, but maybe it would help a little. I ran out into the yard and stood in it, and was surprised when Mama followed me. We grabbed hands and spun around, laughing. Mr. Fowler stood on the porch staring while Mama twirled about in her bare feet, a happy look on her face. His gaze was so intent it made me shiver, and I let go of Mama’s hands. She put them on her hips and turned her face up to the drops falling, unaware of the way he looked at her. The shower ended as abruptly as it began, and he came down the steps.

  He spoke to Mama. “Got to run into town, you need anything?”

  Mama, her hair plastered to her head, said, “More rain?”

  Mr. Fowler gazed at her with this strange look and said, “If I could get it for you, I would.”

  Mama stared at him too, while I simmered over this little flirtation. The sun came out almost immediately after, and steam rose from off the road, swirling about like a low-lying fog. For a few minutes, everything carried a wet, damp smell. We looked toward the west where weather tended to come from, at the clouds already breaking apart to show the blue sky. Ross and I drifted back inside while Mama stayed out on the porch looking up at the sky. Trent hadn’t budged from the table. He’d eaten his first sandwich and was working on putting together his second. He was scooping mayo out of the jar as we came in. He slapped a big white gob into the middle of a piece of loaf bread and smeared it around.

  He said in a matter-of-fact voice, “I knew it was gonna stop. No sense going crazy for nothing. I don’t get why everybody’s so worked up. We’ve had bad crops before.”

  Ross reached over and flipped Trent’s hat off his head. “Where have you been? I’ve seen that little booklet he keeps in his truck, and for everything he does, he writes it down. He licks the end of that stupid pencil and then ticks off one more thing to charge to us. There’s all the gas he’s bought. Parts to fix the tractors, them expensive seeds. The irrigation equipment. It’s adding up. We’ll be lucky to pay him back one red cent.”

  Trent said, “Shoot. It ain’t like he’s gonna kick us out of our house.”

  Ross and I both stared at him. Mama came in and sat down at the table. She slid her half-eaten tomato sandwich away, and lit a cigarette instead.

  Ross pointed a thumb over his shoulder and said, “Do you know exactly how much we owe him?”

  Mama said, “Of course I know! How about you let me worry about that?”

  Trent said, “I wonder how much cotton we’ll get outta them fields. Might be more than we think.”

  I stayed silent, waiting for an enlightening moment. A plan. A way she’d already thought of, like Daddy used to do when he believed we might have a bit of a squeeze financially. Aunt Ruth had said trust her, and I was trying but it wasn’t easy when she brought Mr. Fowler into the conversation at every turn, as if all the answers rested with him and his way of doing things.

  She cleared her throat and said something that gave me hope. “It has been a tough season. Reckon when we know what we got, we’ll figure it out. I can always take in some ironing and sewing most likely, make more jam.”

  Ross said, “I could maybe get a little of the money we bring in, and plant winter wheat. We could sell that.”

  Mama said, “Have to see what all we owe first.”

  Ross nodded and went quiet again.

  A few seconds passed, and then from nowhere, she said, “Frank is a generous, kind man,” as if she were thinking she ought to say it. When the fields were laid bare and there was no crop to tend, would he still eat here, out of habit, or for other reasons? This possibility weighed on me with a heaviness not unlike what I’d experienced when Daddy died. Later on when I was still anxious, I called Daniel like I always did if I was troubled, but then I almost hung up on him after he repeated what he’d said before.

  “I’m telling you. He’s got it for your mama. You better get used to Frank being around.”

  I made an angry noise. “Why do you keep saying that? Ain’t nobody around here thinking like that except you.”

  “I guess I don’t think about things the same way you do.”

  “I don’t know what that means, Daniel.”

  “I reckon I don’t either.”

  I sighed. I didn’t expect he’d want to sneak over so I didn’t ask.

  He surprised me by offering. “Want me to come over?”

  I almost couldn’t answer him. “Yes.”

  It was late evening as I waited for him on the opposite side of Turtle Pond Road, just out of sight of the driveway. He rolled his bike into a field of cotton, and laid it down so it was hidden well. We counted the rows from the drive to where he’d left it. Ten. We then skirted around the perimeter, stopping to pick our way around briars and to eat some of the blackberries that grew near the ditch. Alongside them he pointed out the big tall clusters of other berries, their magenta vines standing out against the sharp green of their leaves. I was familiar with them ’cause he’d shown them to me before, in that little journal of his, the one with the crudely drawn pictures, and what I’d remembered was the word POISONOUS.

  Daniel nodded at the clusters of dark purple berries and said, “Phytolacca.”

  I shook my head.

  He said, “Pokeweed.”

  I said, “Now that I recognize.”

  He turned to me and said, “Well? What’re we gonna do?”

  I had a crazy spur-of-the-moment idea to go to Frank Fowler’s. “Let’s go see how Mr. Fowler’s cotton’s doing.”

  Daniel hesitated. “Geez, what for?”

  “Just to look at them fields closest to us. Sumbitch is probably got his cotton growing high as the sky.”

  Daniel nodded, and within a few minutes we were hunched down, peeking from the edge of the woods at Frank Fowler’s fields. It made me all kinds of mad to see how good his cotton looked, tall and healthy, but I held a bit of pride too. It wouldn’t look like that had it not been for me and Daddy. The sprinkler system worked on a pivot setup Daddy had recommended, and I found the whole process fascinating and infuriating at the same time.

  I sighed heavy and said to Daniel, “That sumbitch is sure gonna make himself a lot of money.”

  Daniel was hunkered down alongside me and he nodded in agreement. “A bunch. Sumbitch.”

  We looked at each other and for a split second, it was the old way again. Daniel’s mouth carried a purplish stain from eating blackberries, and there it came again, a little sparkle of a feeling, that flush of a reaction that happened on occasion without warning, like a sneeze about to come on. I don’t know what made me do it. Later on I would excuse it as being out in the sun on a hot day with the scent of late summer in the air, or just plain curiosity.

  He was close, only inches away. I was over-the-top happy he’d come without me begging him. My expression must’ve changed ’cause he leaned toward me, the way you would when you hold up a magnifying glass to study something. He stared like he would when he thought I was about to say something he ought to pay attention to. Without thinking of the consequences, I quickly mashed my mouth against his, trying to mimic what I’d seen in the movie theater when we’d gone and spent a whole Saturday afternoon at the movies watching Gone With The Wind. Daniel’s reaction was to shove me so hard I fell on my rear end.

  He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and said, “Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that again.”

  I was beyond embarrassed.

 
All I could do was choke out a weak, “Geez. Okay.”

  My breath came rapid as I fought back tears of humiliation. I hung my head, unable to look at him. I’d set us back to that awkward, strange place we’d found ourselves more often than not. I’d been stupid again. I had an instant thought too; Daniel didn’t like me the way I liked him.

  I whispered, “Don’t you like me, even a little bit, Daniel?”

  “Not like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re a doggone girl.”

  His answer sounded like something Trent would say. Maybe he liked somebody else. That created a new feeling, like how I used to feel when Daddy would take the boys off in the truck and leave me behind.

  “Do you like somebody else? What’s her name?”

  Daniel sighed. “You’re asking too many questions.”

  I didn’t have time to think more on it. Mr. Fowler was unexpectedly close, too close. I started to raise my head to see where exactly, when Daniel poked a finger on my thigh, warning me with a shake of his head. Mr. Fowler was one row from where we were crouched, and I wished I hadn’t worn such a light-colored shirt.

  He said, “Godamighty, can’t get no goddamn good help.”

  There was a rustling noise, and someone else spoke. “Doing all we can.”

  Mr. Fowler and an elderly man with a limp drifted by only a few feet of us. It was Charlie Cummings. I lowered my head as their footsteps came even closer, tensing up, sure we were about to be caught, but instead, they moved farther away, until it was quiet again. I poked my head up a bit to see where they’d gone. Not far enough. We waited some more. Finally, when I was sure I’d have a heat stroke, sprinkles fell on my arm like it was raining, only the sun shone down on us hard, and hot. Irrigation water hit us, and I turned and grinned at Daniel. He appeared to have recovered from my mouth touching his ’cause he smiled back, big and wide. We poked our heads up like gophers to see an empty field.