by Don Bajema
The boy knew in the world of boys he wasn’t much; in the world of men, he appeared to be doomed. Everything the big man did or said seemed to indicate that the boy’s opinion of himself was wrong, nearly always summed up with a statement like “Time will tell.” It terrified the boy to hear the big man say things like that, or “Don’t worry so much. Ya know ninety-nine percent of the things folks worry about never even happens.” It was especially upsetting to hear the big man mention love, as though it was a real thing and would someday play a large part in the boy’s life. The boy took the T-shirt and pressed it against his face. He could smell the big man. He didn’t notice that the piano had stopped its music, or that the curtains to the big man’s back room were being parted by the big man’s wife. He didn’t see the puzzled look on her face as she watched the boy breathing through the shirt. Her husband of forty years was gone. The boy was trying to contact his departed soul through the shirt. She knew the boy meant no harm, and she understood the indulgence of pain his action represented. She also knew it was wrong, contrary to life, would weaken him. She watched the boy carefully put the shirt back into the tool box, push the box into the patio corner, turn silently and climb over the fence and disappear.
The boy was challenged as soon as he hit the street. He tried to walk past the catcalls and the derisively chucked bottle caps and curses. The ultimate victor began to cross the street, cutting him off. The boy’s heart pounded; he tried to walk imperceptibly faster. He heard the words again, “nigger lover.” He heard them ten thousand times. The big man’s front door was hidden in the shade; the old woman was watching. She saw the boy stop. She saw the victor walk toward him faster and hit him on the ear. She saw the boy’s hand go up, and saw him cringe and cower as the next blow landed on his face, the other boys surrounding him in a half circle. She saw the boy respond to a comment from one of the other boys and watched them fall to the ground, twisting and swinging. The fight was brief. She saw the boy standing over the other boy. But the triumph of her husband’s defender was short-lived. The victor waited a second and then pounded the boy down next to his opponent, who then took to his feet and began kicking as the victor continued to land thudding punches to the boy’s head.
The boy lay on the ground, humiliated and silent. The boys and the victor wandered slowly back to the curb, pausing momentarily for a stray kick, another punch, another spat epithet. The wife of the big man walked out to the back patio and removed the T-shirt from the tool box. She washed it that night, folded it neatly and placed it on the window sill in the back window. A couple of days later the boy crept across the neighbor’s yard, climbed the fence, and kneeled over the tool box. The woman walked quietly out of the back door. She looked at the boy. “Eddie, this shirt don’t fit you yet, but it must be yours.” She handed it to the boy, turned around and walked back into her house.
JENNY
Eddie’s mother and father were preoccupied with the card game that was now into its fifth night. There had been the usual passing out, hysteria, vomiting, and hilarity among the nine players. Tequila was fueling a three-night run of luck by a one-legged neighbor wearing a straw hat and a loincloth. The others were amazed and enraged at the drunk’s ridiculous streak. Each player came with $200, in one-dollar bills, most of it presently under the cushion of the stool the straw-hatted man sat on, too crazy with the streak to sleep, and unwilling to slow down the pace. Eddie and his friend Robert wondered how long it was going to be before one of them killed him. It was Mexico after all. The game had started with Eddie’s aunt Ellen taking most of the hands. But when her husband went back to San Diego, because he had to work, she was seduced by her friend Lois’s brother and she lost her inertia. It had to happen, as far as Eddie could tell. Lois’s brother had a legendary cock, Ellen looked good in a bathing suit, real good, and her husband liked Lois’s brother a lot anyway, and was careless despite Ellen’s wandering eye. Eddie watched her walking bow-legged out to the beach at about dawn the night she gave up her streak, furious as hell about the shitty hands she was getting.
The heat was off the next afternoon and the card game was picking up energy, all players present. The guy with the straw hat was rubbing it in as Eddie watched the tequila bottle being passed between his uncles, “Gotta stay in the game. That’s the secret, Ellen.” “Just deal you one-legged idiot.” The man laughed and raised the ante as the table groaned and Lois’s brother told Ellen to “Shut up.” Ellen said “Shut me up.” The man with the straw hat said “Yeah, Bill, shut her up.” Eddie’s mother said “Not this again.” Eddie’s father said “I’m out,” and headed for his tent. Eddie loved it when they got like that.
Eddie saw three horses coming over a sand dune to the north of the encampment so he started walking in that direction. Robert and two Mexican kids had been riding for a couple of hours, hunting rabbits inland. Eddie heard a shrill whistle and saw Raul lifting a pile of gray things in the air above his head. Eddie began a slow lope as they kicked their heels into the ribs of the exhausted nags. The horses shifted their weight back as the boys slid up their necks. A couple of minutes later Eddie was looking up at the three boys sitting bareback on their mounts, Robert cradling his .22, Arturo looking bored, and tiny Raul wearing a string of bloody dead rabbits over one shoulder. Robert said he’d help with the horses for a few minutes and then meet Eddie to catch the glass off. Surf tonight was nothing to get excited about. Yesterday was the day. Raul split the rabbits with Eddie, and the horsemen rode back inland. Eddie walked back to the camp.
Two station wagons loaded with surfboards blasted down the dirt road toward the camp from the highway, raising a dust cloud forty feet in the air, skidding, spinning and bouncing along at about fifty miles an hour. The entire camp containing about twenty families started hollering at them. The car continued blasting its way into camp. Eddie stood mid-stride watching the cars and noticing the girls inside.
The station wagons spun to a halt. Doors swung open. Girls jumped out. Doors slammed shut. Brief partings were exchanged. “Later,” “See ya.” The station wagons blew out the road they’d come in on, and five girls walked toward a palm-covered pavilion, carrying a cooler, a record player, and a box of 45s. Five angels walked toward the pavilion. Eddie immediately envied the boys driving those station wagons. MSA? Wind and Sea? Didn’t matter. The girls knew who they were, knew what they had, and knew what they were doing. A couple of campers came up to register complaints about the dust, the racket and the dangerous driving, pointing to little kids playing two-hundred yards distant. The girls walked along until one of them said, “Yeah, we know. They always drive like that.” In the distance the station wagons headed south on the regular roadway at a controlled speed. The girls walked under the rustling palm leaves, sat against the support pillars and fell immediately to sleep. Eddie lingered around the card game with his eye on the pavilion. Bill asked him why he didn’t go over and say hi. Eddie said he had to get the rabbits ready for dinner. “Why? Robert shot ’em, let him skin ’em.” Eddie shrugged, “I bet they’d get three at the most.” Ellen staring at her cards shot a look at Eddie’s mother. “Runs in the family, I guess.” Eddie’s mother made a sniggering sound and muttered, “Stupid bet, place is hopping with bunnies.” Eddie picked up the rabbits, walked over to the side of one camper and said, “He only had six shots.” Bill said, “Well, go on over there and get something bloody.” Eddie’s mother settled further in her chair. Ellen said, “Oh, Bill . . . you nasty man.” The man with the straw hat drawled, “The only blood anybody’ll get from bunnies around here are from the kind with long ears,” and shot a glance at the pavilion. Eddie tore the skin down the rabbits’ backs, cut their guts out, lopped their heads off, and tried to ignore the sound of his father puking behind the tent. The card game mumbled on.
With his ankles in the cool water and his hands leaving a bloody trail in the foam Eddie could just see the top of the palm fronds from the pavilion. Robert
walked up carrying one fin. “Fuck, man. Did you see the girls at the pavilion?” “Nope.” “Unbeleeevvable.” “Some surfers dropped them off about twenty minutes ago.” “Bullshit.” “Let’s check it out.” “Ok, let’s cool off first.” The whining sound of a spinning reel sang behind them as a line with a lead sinker and three hooks baited with mussels flew above them and out beyond the surfline. The boys began running into the surf slowly, hurdling each shelf of white water, until waist deep they submerged. In an instant they pulled the fins over a foot, and like otters stroked out into the surf. The waves to the outside were pretty good size and of perfect shape. Robert got most of the rides. Eddie was preoccuppied with the girls in the pavilion. As each swell rose, he’d turn, hoping not to see station wagons. “Robert, c’mon . . . let’s go in.”
A minute later they were banging the water out of their ears and heading toward the card game. They heard yelling coming from the table. Wordlessly they turned at an angle that led directly toward the silent pavilion. Eddie, looking at his brown feet, mumbled, “Fuck that shit.” “Eddie . . . ,” the sound in Robert’s voice said, “ Look at that.” Eddie looked up and saw an angel in a pair of Levi’s walking in the shade carrying a record player. The boys walked to a broken-down rusted truck hulk sitting to one side of a cement slab that began sending music over the campsite. The boys climbed into the rusted cabin, Robert got his cigarettes from under the dashboard and lit up. The boys watched the girls dancing together between their propped-up feet on the rusted dash. Robert and Eddie sat in silence, occasionally double-taking each other as one or another of the girls moved in perfect, casual, almost bored, timing. Robert exhaled a cloud saying, “Oh, my God.” Eddie shook his head.
The girls had already attracted plenty of attention on their arrival, but since the main water source for the camp was a spigot on one side of the pavilion, the campers had plenty of reason to nose around. Their dancing had drawn a crowd. The elderly couple that Eddie and Robert liked were the first ones there. They had immediately found it possible to talk to the girls, and the old man was given a beer from the cooler. The old man said something that made one of the girls laugh when she extended the beer. As her body language responded to the laugh, she pulled the little old man under her arm, hugged him, and beamed the most beautiful smile the boys had ever seen. “Oh, my God. She’s . . .” words failed Robert. The stack of records dropped one by one, and one or another of the girls would dance easily and casually, while one of them leafed through a magazine. Eddie was watching her. She had long straight waist-length hair that gave credence to the term flaxen. The eyes following the pages were blue. She had a cleft lip which, it immediately seemed, held absolutely no consequence to her. She sat with her knees hugged up against her chest, her jeans straining with their contents — a perfect butt. She and her friends were of that infuriating age just beyond the range of Eddie and Robert. They must have been fourteen or fifteen to the boys’ twelve. The youngest kids in the campground had joined the oldest, and the most beautiful. Two of the girls were dancing with kids about six years old. Another record dropped, a song Eddie had never heard before. The song was from a girl group and began with a chorus, “Wah, whaa, wah, oooh, wah, tusi. . . .” The five girls began to dance in earnest with each other, the little kids pairing off in participation on the periphery. Eddie and Robert may have breathed three times each in the next three minutes. Their eyes may have only jutted half an inch out of their sockets. Their jaws bounced on their gulping Adam’s apples. Eddie watched the girl put the magazine aside and slowly shuffle across the smooth cement floor, singing with the record. The girls sounded as though they had made the record, adding to the sound in perfect harmony, and raising their voices higher as they realized the covered cement floor gave them a reverberating amplification.
A little boy was raised above the head of Eddie’s favorite, and spun in a slow circle looking down at the girl’s smiling face, her lip pulling her mouth slightly off to one side, and her eyes bringing a contagious grin on the little boy’s face, who was already plainly, and totally, in love. Eddie envied the boy in the air, and felt almost ashamed at the envy. He felt uncomfortable identifying with the little boy, who was getting the ride of a lifetime, but couldn’t help himself. The song ended. The girl ran over to the record player and put the needle back on the record and clicked the switch. By this time Eddie and Robert had climbed out of the truck like zombies and walked mesmerized to the side of the elderly couple. The little bald man tilting back the beer, gave Eddie a wink. His wife clasped Robert’s arm in her skinny blue-veined hands and said, “Oh, dear. Aren’t they wonderful?” Robert managed to say, “Yeah.” The music carried the girls to within a few feet of the two motionless adolescents and the elderly couple. The blonde girl had her back to Eddie and he watched the end of her ponytail flick in time with the bass. The old man cleared his throat just as the blonde girl turned to smile in his direction. The old man’s voice at Eddie’s left said, “Do you want to dance?” Eddie felt the old man’s shaky hands push him onto the cement in front of the girl. Eddie stood frozen. The man’s wife laughed. The girl closed the distance between Eddie and herself, and took his hands in hers. Eddie was gone, absolutely and entirely in sync with the girl. If he had had the slightest chance to think, had not been entirely mesmerized he undoubtedly would have stiffened to a board and died of embarrassment. There was no reason for him to be able to move with her, there was no reason for him to adopt the male version of her female interpretation. There was no precedent in his life for catching rhythm with his body, and there was no evidence to anybody watching that he hadn’t done this a thousand times. Only the blonde girl knew, and maybe the little boy who earlier had had a similar feeling as he spun above this angel’s head, riding on her outstretched arms, safe in the air. The music stopped. One of the girls pulled the plug on the record player, the records were gathered, put in the box. Another beer was tossed to the elderly man, who snatched it one-handed out of the air. The station wagons appeared from out of nowhere. A tall boy of about sixteen, and another boy of just a couple of precious years more than Eddie by his side. The younger boy called out “Jenny . . . ,” and the blond girl ran over to him and was spun once in his arms. She climbed up his broad brown arms and whispered something into his ear. The girl ran out to the station wagon. The boy grabbed the cooler and they disappeared into the back seat. They spun around in a dust cloud and the girl’s long arm extended out of the window and waved goodbye to the elderly couple. The boy beside her grinned out of the window and revealed two tin front teeth. The instant they saw that shining silver smile Robert and Eddie said at the same time, “Jimmy Blackwell.” That said it all, the coolest and most famous surfer in San Diego. The station wagon blasted down the road, turned on its lights and the red dots disappeared down the dusty road. As Eddie began to walk back to the card game, he noticed the little boy looking at him. Eddie winked at him, saying “Fun, huh?” Robert mumbled, “Shit, Eddie, Fred-A-fucking-Staire.” “Yeah, twinkle toes,” sighed Eddie. As they watched the white headlights turn south on the main road leading deeper into Mexico, they realized they’d have a lot to think about that night.
Here He Comes . . .
It turned out there were a lot of nights to think about Jenny, because in the next five years her path and Eddie’s crossed frequently. When Eddie hit the huge boom-town Junior High School that fall, he saw her walking past his wood shop class on her way home with a girlfriend. Ninth graders free by the sixth period, seventh graders with two more to go. He stared out the window watching the girls shifting their notebooks and laughing. The shop teacher growled “Burnett,” and Eddie returned to his scale drawing of the wagon wheel lamp they would be making that semester. A few seconds later the teacher barked “Buurnnett!” Eddie looked up to see the class of boys smiling at him and turned red realizing he must have been singing “Cathy’s Clown” a little too loudly under his breath.
Swish!
In the early spring Eddie and Robert had gone to watch the league high school basketball championships and watched Jimmy sink 42 points, most of them rafter-high bombs from the outside, as the gymnasium went nuts. Eddie asked around about Jenny and was told she was down at a communal beach house keeping company with a blues quartet that was playing later that night downtown. When the final buzzer sounded as his winning shot exploded the net, Jimmy blasted out of the gym exit for parts unknown, to the astonishment of the spectators. Next Monday at school Robert’s older sister told them that Jimmy had sat in with the quartet playing sax until three in the morning. Furthermore, and to his credit, Jimmy was going to be kicked out of school again and off the team forever because he ditched school to go up to L.A. and sit in on a recording session! Robert’s sister walked across the street to the high school and Robert and Eddie stood there awestruck, contemplating the cool lives of Jenny and Jimmy.
