by Alex Bledsoe
She recalled other really stupid things she’d done, like driving drunk two hundred miles to a concert in college, or having condomless—and very fast—sex with her high school prom date. Most vividly, she remembered the time when she was twelve, immersed in books on reptiles, and developed a burning desire to see a real rattlesnake. Armed with only her field guide and a stick, she’d gone poking into areas that the book called “likely habitats.” Sure enough, she found one, and sure enough, it bit her right on the foot. But its fangs missed by the barest fraction, instead imbedding in the rubber sole of her tennis shoe. She’d run screaming all the way home, the hapless snake trailing from her foot.
And here she was twenty years later, poking into another likely habitat. Would she be as lucky this time?
The four boys accosted her outside a convenience store. They huddled around the pay phone attached to the wall beneath a bright strip of fluorescent lighting, catcalling and whistling as she passed. She hunched her shoulders and walked faster, but sensed them peeling away from the wall and slouch-rushing to catch up. “Hey, baby, whatchu afraid of?” one of them called.
She kept her head down and sped up. This was a really bad idea, just as Leslie warned, and her courage completely failed her. She wanted to get back to her car and get the hell out of there, but with the boys behind her she’d have to loop the whole eighty-acre cemetery to do that. They drew closer, and she heard one plainly drawl, “Ain’t nothing to be afraid of here, baby.” The others laughed, and she didn’t have to see the gesture to know what he meant by “here.”
It took all her resolve not to run screaming down the street. The boys were close now. They’d drag her into an alley and have her bent over a garbage can, or on her back on the filthy concrete. It would only be rape, if she was lucky and didn’t put up a fight. Then again, maybe they wouldn’t want to leave her alive as a witness. Fight or flight, she tried to decide.
Then suddenly one of them fell into step beside her. She suppressed a startled yelp. “Sorry ’bout what we said back there,” he said, and his regret sounded genuine. “We thought you were somebody we knew.”
She glanced at him but did not slow down. He was cute, maybe sixteen, and clearly a little drunk or stoned. He stared brazenly at her jiggling boobs. “She must be a lucky girl,” she said.
“Hey, I ain’t trying to cause any trouble with you. You just looked kinda lost and”—he stammered awkwardly—“p-pretty, and I thought you might need some help.”
“My hero,” she said wryly. The other three followed at a discreet distance, giggling and nudging each other. Had this one won the bet to talk to her, or lost? She slowed to a normal walk. “Do you always swoop down on girls you don’t know?”
He grinned, both shy and bold. “I don’t know about ‘swooping,’ but I always talk to a foxy chick anytime I can.”
She stopped outside a brightly lit Laundromat. He seemed harmless, and if he was the leader of this “gang,” she felt no danger from them now. If anything, she should be able to keep herself safe by judicious application of feminine wiles. The flood of relief left her giddy. She faced him, hands on her hips. “So talk,” she said.
“My name’s Billy Blankenship. What’s yours?”
“Danny,” she said, and instantly wanted to kick herself. She had a whole alternate secret identity as a Nashville college girl named Jessica ready to go, and now she’d blown it.
“Well, hey there, Danny, good to meet you.” He leaned closer and said softly, “Me and my boys are meeting some other girls in the cemetery, to get high and stuff. Want to come?”
She peered past him at his friends. They stifled their laughter and looked away. “I don’t see any other girls,” she said suspiciously.
“Like I said, they’re meeting us there. You’ll like ’em.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, I swear, Scout’s honor.”
“What about Boo Radley’s honor?” she deadpanned.
“Huh? Look, nothing bad’ll happen. Hell, sometimes when he’s in town, Elvis even sends his guys around to take us to Libertyland for free, so it could be extra-cool.”
She made no effort to hide her doubts on that one. “Oh, come on, that’s bullshit.”
“No, serious. He rents the whole place out in the middle of the night for his daughter. He wants Lisa Marie to see other people around having a good time, so we get in free to ride all we want, as long as we look happy whenever she runs into us.” He giggled. “And that ain’t so hard to do with a good nickel bag like we got.”
Danielle knew Elvis did rent out the amusement park, but the rest of the story sounded awfully thin. She examined Billy with exaggerated skepticism. “You better not be telling me all this just to try to get in my pants. I’m not like these citified girls; if I don’t like you, you’ll draw back a nub.”
The other boys laughed, whether at Billy’s discomfort or her defiance she couldn’t tell. Billy laughed as well. “Danny, I swear. We smoke a little, hang out, that’s all. You’re welcome to come.”
Well, she thought, this is exactly what I hoped would happen. Can’t ignore an answered prayer. She tapped his chest with her finger, trying to pretend she wasn’t twice his age. “Okay, hot stuff. But you better behave.”
“Cool,” he said with a big grin. Then he took her hand and led her down the street. The others rushed to catch up.
They were a typical ad hoc group of friends, drawn together by ennui and geography more than any shared interests. Billy appeared to be the leader, but only by default; she could imagine none of them getting too worked up about anything. His T-shirt proclaimed KISS Tour ’74 and featured the band members dressed like aliens, or so Danielle thought. He was slender but soft, the result of indolence overcoming natural leanness.
Tom was the tallest, and by far the handsomest. He had that smooth attitude that told her he was used to girls finding him irresistible. He wore a clean polo shirt and neat jeans, and his tennis shoes were new. When she made eye contact with him he smiled and winked, letting her know it was okay to check him out. She wanted to slug him on behalf of all his future girlfriends.
Mike looked to be the youngest, probably not even old enough to drive. He wore a faded Confederate flag T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and cutoff jeans that hung to his knees. He had the typical teenage insecurities about girls writ large on his face, and would not meet her eyes. She pitied him.
Finally there was Ling, with his four-hair excuse for a mustache. He wore a floppy camouflage seaman’s hat and a tank top, and when he spoke had the same accent as the rest. Fully Americanized. She guessed his background was Taiwanese.
The five of them ducked down an alley between a bar and an insurance office. A man sang to himself as he urinated on the wall, so drunk he never noticed them. The chain-link fence around Elmwood Cemetery ran behind all the buildings on the street, and here one section hidden behind a ragged shrub showed evidence of having been lifted up and bent back several times.
Tom held it so Danielle could slip under after Billy. She froze again: it was insane, running down an alley with a bunch of strange boys. But Tom seemed so earnest, so harmless, that she felt no danger from him. He looked up at her with wide, guileless eyes. “You coming?” he said softly. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”
Danielle smiled. This felt like the kind of group acceptance she’d never actually had in high school; now the cool kids liked her, and wanted to hang out with her. “I’m holding you to it,” she said with a warning wag of her finger.
“You can hold me any way you like,” Tom said with a grin. Danielle laughed as she crawled under the fence.
The boys knew their way around, and Billy pulled Danielle along at a faster pace than she liked. She stumbled over footstones and plot markers, until they finally reached a small gazebo deep in the cemetery grounds. There were no lights except the glow from the city reflected on the intermittent clouds overhead.
“Welcome to our little party crypt,” Billy said. The
gazebo had seen better days, and Danielle was glad her tetanus boosters were up-to-date.
The four boys took positions around the small structure with the male certainty of previously established territories. Danielle stayed with Billy, who sat on the steps. Tom went inside and leaned one leg nonchalantly on the rail, while Ling plopped in the octagon’s darkest corner. Mike unfolded a wad of aluminum foil to reveal a plastic bag filled with marijuana. Ling handed him rolling papers and a plastic cigarette machine. He picked a sheltered corner out of the night wind and began rolling a joint.
Billy clearly had other things on his mind with Danielle, and ran a finger lightly down her bare arm. “So how old are you, nineteen or twenty?” he asked, trying for casual and sophisticated. He fell far short.
“Legal in Mississippi.” She did not pull away, but she wasn’t about to encourage him. “Are you?”
“I ain’t too worried about the law,” he said with a smile. “Just a certain pair of lips.”
He leaned close, and because she was fighting not to burst out laughing, Danielle let him kiss her. It was almost comical in its chastity: closemouthed, no tongues, just a soft pressing of lips. As he drew back, he smiled as if he’d just convinced her of something she doubted.
Don’t laugh, she told herself, biting the insides of her cheeks. If you laugh at him, he’ll never tell you anything.
“Ready for launch,” Mike announced, holding up the finished joint.
“Let’s get high and see what happens,” Billy said to Danielle, aiming for Barry White sexiness. He never even reached Manilow. She nodded, afraid that if she spoke, giggles would overcome her.
Soon the joint had been passed around three times, and although Danielle faked drawing the smoke into her lungs, she began to feel an undeniable lethargic euphoria from the contact high. She hadn’t smoked dope since graduating from medical school, and it had the same effect now as it did then; she began to yawn and her thoughts grew sluggish and wandering.
During one yawn she felt a hand slip around her waist, and she was pulled close to Billy. He pressed his lips to hers more insistently this time, and his tongue sought its way into her mouth. She felt so disconnected from the actual sensations that she opened her mouth to him, and when his other hand clumsily kneaded her breast through the halter, she thought nothing of it. She lifted one leg and draped it over his lap, going with the movement until she was straddling him, still kissing him, his hands now beneath the halter.
Well, this isn’t very smart, she thought remotely. Sixteen can still get you twenty, even if the jail bait’s a boy.
She broke the kiss and shook her head to clear it. “Whoa, shotgun,” she murmured, and pulled his unresisting hands away. “Slow down a little.”
“Hey, sure, whatever,” he said, feigning nonchalance. At least he wasn’t the kind of guy who took re sis tance personally. She climbed off his lap and sat on the steps, although she did allow herself to lean against him. She adjusted the halter and decided she’d better stay on topic before she became a child molester. The joint came her way again, so after the next fake toke she asked, “This is the best stuff you got? This is okay if you’re killing time before a concert, but what do you do for a real party?”
Ling snorted. “We don’t do no smack or nothing like that. That stuff’ll kill you. Killed my cousin out in San Francisco.”
“Well, I hear there’s something new going around,” she insisted. Her skin still tingled where Billy had touched her, and it was hard to concentrate. “Something that’ll knock your socks off.”
Billy nudged her with his shoulder. “Hey, you ain’t a narc, are you?”
“She’s a narc?” Ling almost shrieked.
Oh, shit, Danielle thought. Leslie had told her many stories about the undercover cops who ended up dead in a variety of creative ways after blowing their covers. Now she had to get these boys back on her side before they pursued that line of thought any further.
“Jeez, do I look like a narc?” she said dismissively, and then added with faux sophistication, “I’m just bored with this. I can get weed anywhere, I thought you big-city guys would have the latest shit.”
Billy’s slack face fell at the idea she thought him uncool. She felt a twinge of guilt for hurting the poor sap’s feelings, but Billy’s broken heart would heal a lot faster than her slit throat.
Luckily, thanks to the provincial weed, the moment passed as if Danielle had not spoken. Mike and Tom returned to their rambling dissertation on the merits of the Electric Light Orchestra. “Like I was saying, the point is, they bring the whole orchestra into the rock scene, and use it to illuminate their songs,” Mike said. “That’s why they picked the name. They are the electric light, showing everyone how the orchestra can be as rock and roll as anything else.”
Danielle looked at Billy. He ignored the argument and stared down at the ground, his shoulders slumped. He looked almost ready to cry. She took his hand. “Hey,” she said softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything personal by it.”
“That’s horse shit,” Tom snapped to Mike. “They’re just copying Zeppelin. Jimmy Page was using strings and shit way before Jeff Lynne.”
“And Page, he just copied all the old nigra blues players,” Ling added, desperate to be included.
Then a new voice said, “You keep talking like that and we just might go find some new friends.”
CHAPTER 10
“HEY, LEO, I was stickin’ up for you black folks,” Ling said. “You didn’t think I meant anything bad by calling you nigras, did you?” He held out his hand for a soul shake, which involved many back-and-forth slaps and grips with the new arrival.
The black boy looked a little older than the others, and wore a Dallas Cowboys sports jersey. He had a big Afro with a pick comb on the side and eyes that seemed to catch the light even when there wasn’t any. “Hell, no,” he said, grinning. “Just like I can call you a chink.”
“Damn straight,” Ling agreed, a little too emphatically; he clearly relished being able to use the word “nigra” with impunity.
Another new arrival appeared beside the first. She was also black, younger and heavier, yet with that indefinable sexiness some big girls possessed. Leslie had it, and so did this girl, in spades; Danielle giggled in her head at the mental pun.
The girl turned sharply and looked at Danielle as if she’d heard her laughter. Christ, had she done it out loud? Danielle was too stoned to remember. She pinched her thigh through her jeans, hoping the pain might clear her head.
“Hey, Olive,” Billy said to the new girl. The other boys also turned immediately to her, big goofy smiles on their faces, as if this pudgy black teen was as attractive as Farrah Fawcett-Majors.
Olive showed no surprise at her reception. She wore a tube top and polyester pants, like Cleopatra Jones in the movies. Yet the blatant sexiness seemed incongruous, because she didn’t look even old enough to drive.
She stopped before Billy and ran her fingers through his hair. If she noticed Danielle holding his hand, she paid it no mind. “Hey, there, Billy boy,” she practically purred. “How’s my vanilla shake tonight?”
“Doing better with some chocolate syrup,” he said in his “sexy” voice. Danielle practically sucked her lips into her lungs trying not to laugh.
The boy Leo sat down on the steps and took a hit from the offered joint. Danielle noticed that he, like her, only faked inhaling it. “Well, hi,” he said to her. “Ain’t you a fine little thing. This your new girl, Billy?”
“No, she’s just a friend. She thinks we’re a bunch of hicks.”
“Hey, I never said—” Danielle started to protest.
Olive knelt behind Billy and put her arms around him. Danielle had not even seen her go up the steps. Was she really that stoned? “I’ll be your friend, Billy,” Olive said. “We’ll be an ice cream sandwich.”
Billy turned his head and Olive kissed him, openmouthed and sloppy. The blatant sexuality blanketed them all, and suddenly Daniell
e felt very alone, and very scared. Only the dampening effects of the marijuana kept her from bolting.
“Hey,” Tom suddenly blurted. “Where’s Fauvette? You said last time you’d bring her along.”
“She’ll be here in a bit,” Leo said.
Olive broke the kiss long enough to say, “I thought she left before we did?”
Leo shrugged. “You know Fauvette. Things to see, people to do.”
Olive nodded, then whispered something into Billy’s ear. He giggled, then followed her off into the dark graveyard. “Me and Billy are going to go look for the moon,” she said over her shoulder.
“The dark of the moon,” Ling said. Everyone laughed except Danielle.
Leo turned his odd, almost metallic-looking eyes to Danielle. He touched her shoulder, and his fingertips were ice-cold. “So where you from?” he asked.
“Nashville,” she managed, falling back on her story.
“Here for the summer?” His voice had all the sensuality that had eluded poor Billy.
“Going to school in the fall,” she said, glad now for the dope’s relaxing effect. “Premed.”
“Oh. Smart girl, eh?”
Not at the moment, she thought, but instead just smiled. His attention, so overwhelming and out of the blue, was shifting the balance between dope-addled lethargy and blind panic. The boys, who had seemed so harmless before, now looked at her with blatant suspicion and desire. She was not racist, but it seemed like the arrival of the two blacks had completely changed everything. Her heart pounded madly and she was sweating.
