by Diane Munier
I’m so mad at this stupid school. At myself. My choices are to walk to the field and wait for Abigail to finish her shorter Friday night practice or to try walking home and it’s a long walk for someone with such a stack of books as me.
I trudge to the cold field because the boys get the gym to practice lay-ups and whatever else and that leaves the great wintery outdoors for the girls.
I’ve been sitting on those bleachers trying to make an outline for a research paper for a half hour when Cap plops next to me. He has his usual ponytail and a cigarette behind his ear. “Hey,” he says.
I’m looking around for Easy.
“He’s not here. I hitched,” Cap says. “He’ll be here soon as he finds Disbro. I’m supposed to find you, set up a safe perimeter, hold off the enemy until he arrives with the big guns.”
I laugh. It’s amazing to have a friend after this horrible day. “Aunt May get you registered?” I say. I’m worried that Easy is coming here when he’s not supposed to. I don’t want another ride with Disbro either.
“Yeah,” he laughs a little. Aunt May took it upon herself to get Cap registered at the public school.
“You start on Monday?”
“I guess,” he says taking that cigarette and cupping his hands to light it. I add my hands too and he gets it lit. “Thanks,” he says, breaking the no smoking rule but I don’t think he cares. I know he doesn’t. “There she goes,” he says fondly as Abigail May does a cartwheel.
We both laugh a little. She’s already spotted him and she waves. Others look and they are already talking.
“I guess I’ll go to the parking lot and wait for him,” I say packing everything back into my bag.
“You’ll hear that truck. Just stay here where I can do my job,” he says. Then we laugh again. “He’s worried someone gave you trouble.”
“Oh,” I blow through my lips, “nothing I can’t handle,” as my granma would say.
“Why don’t you come to public with me?” he says. “I’ll take care of you. Make Easy happy at least,” he says.
I don’t know what to say. “No offense, but I take care of myself. Granma says so.”
He likes that. He offers me a hit on his cigarette.
“No thanks.” I remember I have a Milky Way left over from lunch so I get that out of my purse and we split it and we’re just finishing when I hear that old truck pull in across the way on the parking lot.
“Well, that’s my bus,” I tell Cap.
He stands then. It also looks like practice is finishing. I know we can ride with Ricky. I say that.
“You go on. Tell Abigail May I’ll see her at home,” he says jumping off the bleachers.
“Where you going?”
“I’ll ride with them. See you at home.” He means he’ll go with Easy and Disbro and I can go with Abigail and Ricky.
“Beaucap!” Abigail calls, running across the field in her gym suit and letterless jacket.
Cap looks at me with a big grin then he walks toward her and they meet in the field, cigarette in his mouth as he stands so tall hovering over her while she yaps on about how happy she is to see him. I look back at that truck. I don’t know if Easy can see me. I can’t stand to go toward Ricky’s car with Easy so close. I take off for the parking lot because one way or another I need a ride. Maybe he’ll come my way and Ricky can drive all of us. They seemed okay after the arm wrestling, like Ricky got it out of his system, this thing about wanting to beat Easy at something.
I wave then and he’s out of the truck. He always takes my breath. I hurry toward him. Then I run.
Darnay Road 62
“Hey pull over here,” Easy says to Disbro. He has his arm around me and my bag with all the books is at my feet stuffed like I’m Santa Claus or something.
We pull off the road. Disbro says, “Give me a cigarette.” His very active good hand does all the work while the other is curled against his chest like a broken pigeon.
Easy pays up so we can get this time alone.
“Granma will know…,” I start to remind Easy. As soon as Ricky gets home Granma will know I’m with Easy because Easy asked her if he could go for me once I didn’t come home on the bus. This happens sometimes, I miss and go home with Ricky and she doesn’t worry about it. But I don’t want to push it now.
Disbro gets out and goes down to the river. We are near home, but parked near the woods around the trestle.
I don’t know what this is about.
Easy is digging in the high pocket on his jacket. He gets out a velvet box and hands it to me. “I told you I’d get you something, right?” he says. He just seems so serious. He hands me this box. I look at him before I open it and smile but he doesn’t smile back.
“Go on,” he says meaning I should open the box, and I do and it’s a ring with an opal. I know it is because I love opals very much and he says it. “It’s an opal.”
I take it out and it fits just right.
“Abigail told me the size,” he says.
Well she didn’t spill the beans at all. I put it on my finger and I keep my hand in a fist because my nails are just plain Jane. I don’t do much to them unless Abigail and I do it together, but we haven’t lately.
“Thank you,” I say. I look at him. “Thank you,” I say again because he can’t have much money and there are a million places for it.
He takes in a big beath. “Well I wanted to,” he says.
I look at his lips and he leans a little and kisses me. I am overcome.
“Easy,” I whisper. I’ve got tears.
“What’s the matter?” he says low.
“I…,” I laugh a little, “never thought I’d get a ring from you in Disbro’s truck.” That’s not what I was going to say, I don’t know what I was going to say, but it’s the truth about this truck.
He laughs too. “Yeah. I’m just looking for time with you when they aren’t all around.”
It has been that way. We’re being watched.
“I’m,” I lick my lips and try to keep my eyes off of his, “going to ask Granma if we can do something.”
“Like what?”
“Like go to the movies or something.” I look at him and he’s waiting, “She said she would trust me.”
“She told me that. On the phone when she invited me to dinner Monday night.”
“I’m…going to hold her to it, I guess.”
“Hey, let’s walk from here,” he says.
“My books….”
“Disbro can take them and we’ll get them when we hit Darnay.”
“Can he go by and tell Granma?”
“I don’t know if he will. He’d tell Ricky,” Easy says.
I am shaking my head. That won’t do us any good.
We get out and Easy calls Disbro. He comes up from the direction of the river.
“Hey anyone asks we’re walking,” Easy says.
“It’s cold,” Disbro says.
“We’re fine,” Easy says and Disbro doesn’t say anymore.
Once he’s gone it’s quiet and Easy is holding my hand and we’re walking along a trace path and it’s rough, you have to watch your step.
“We ran all over here when we were kids,” Easy says like he’s thinking back.
“I’ve been around here a few times,” I say. Abigail and I more kept to the sidewalks and alleys.
“I like your shoes,” he says and I think he’s being sarcastic. They are my saddle shoes, well polished for school.
I laugh and stop to pull up my knee socks and then I take his hand. “Your hands are cold,” he says.
Well not the one he’s holding. I have the other in my pocket. “I’m fine.”
He stops and tugs on my arm, “Georgia.”
I’m waiting.
“This time next week I’m gonna have to go back.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“We have to. I think about it every day.”
“I can stand it long as you’re in the United Sta
tes of America. But…Vietnam…Easy….”
“You been listening to the news? It’s hell over there. There’s no way I’m not going.”
I’m shaking my head. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“You’ll keep going to school and…living.”
“Not if you….” I can’t say it.
“Hey.” He makes me look at him, his fingers light on my cheek. “I’ll always come back to you. Always.”
But how? Alive?
“You want that?”
“Of course,” I say. I wasn’t not answering because I don’t want him back.
“All the school stuff you’ll have….”
“I don’t care about that. I told you. None of it matters, Easy. All I care about is you. You better know it,” I say. “You better remember it while you’re over there.”
He closes his eyes and nods.
“There is no one comes close,” I say.
“Listen to me. I won’t be here, Georgia. And there’s going to be stuff and they’ll come around and ask. And no matter how it is with us you’re fourteen.”
“So?”
“You should just go if they ask. Don’t sit home and wait.”
“What? You’re telling me not to wait?”
“I’m just saying go on and go. Just…have fun.”
“Fun? I’m not halfway, Easy. It’s you or someone else, not you and…everyone else.” I’m mad that he doesn’t know this about me.
“I just mean you’ll be sitting home….”
“You don’t think you’re coming back.”
“Yes I do. I’m coming back, Georgia.”
“You can’t know that. You’re talking like a dead man.” I can’t believe I said that word, that terrible word.
“I am not,” he’s holding my wrists. “I am not talking like a dead man. I’m thinking about you. Miss Vi said I have to think of you.”
“When? When did she say that?”
“It was good. She made me think of things…I ain’t been raised right.”
“She said that?” I can feel my eyes about popping out of my head.
“No. Listen a minute. She said I need to think about you. You’re just…young.”
“You talking to her while I’m at school? About me?”
“No. Yes. I’ve been working at the house. We talked is all. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“No. Guess not. Just…it’s about me. And I don’t get a say?”
“I asked her advice. I don’t have….”
“You have me. If it’s about you and me…ask me.”
“I want to do right.”
“I know right. And wrong. I know that.”
“I asked her what she thought about us promising each other.”
“Promising what?”
“I told her we’re going steady. She sees it. She sees how it is.”
“I don’t care.”
“You have to care. And so do I. We’ve learned that, right? You have to care.”
“I am going along with all of their rules. Her and the school. I’ve been doing it right. So what are you talking about?”
“Us. She thinks you’re too young. You’ll miss stuff.”
“I won’t miss anything.”
“Rite of passage stuff. That’s what she says.”
“She doesn’t understand. I hate school and I hate all the rites of passage. I just want you. I want you, Easy.”
“She,” he says this loudly to be heard over me, “says we should just be friends and when I get back then you’ll be older and if you still feel the same way it will be better and you won’t have missed out…on stuff.”
“I’m not….”
“She says,” he’s loud again, “I’m being unfair to you. She can see how you are…we are and it’s not fair to you. I’m being unfair because I don’t have much family and I’m trying to make you my family so I don’t feel alone. I told you I do get lonely…that feeling of floating away….”
I scream. I turn in a circle and scream. “And you believe this?”
“I don’t know…yes.”
I scream again.
“I don’t know,” he says very frustrated. “I don’t want to hurt you…keep you from things. I’d be using you then. I want to be good for you, good in your life. She’s not a liar. She’s not mean. She says this and I know she has always treated you so well. She’s trying to protect you. From me. She thinks you need protected. From me.”
I have my hands over my ears now. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“She says you’re like in a crush. That there’s no time to have a real boy-girl deal with me, it’s always been mostly you having like a soft-heart toward me and that’s not a grown person’s love, not the good kind that lasts or something. It’s rushed because of me, going away and you could have regrets cause it’s all dramatic or something.
“She says I should go back to the base and leave you alone, give it some time, give you a chance to grow up and give myself a chance to accomplish something. Then…later…she says we could see. Until then, friendship is all a girl your age can really give and all a good man, especially one that’s got a lot ahead and won’t even be around…would ever ask for.” He takes a deep breath.
“She doesn’t understand,” I say. “You believe this. All of it.”
“I don’t know.”
“You gave me the ring.”
“I would do that anyway.”
“You’re lying. You know what it was.”
“From me…yes. From you? I don’t know.”
“I have told you.”
“I’m not trying to get you to say stuff….”
“I love you. I don’t want anyone else. If you do this to me….”
“Do what?”
“Leave. Say we’re just friends. Expect me to go with others….”
“I love you, Georgia. I always have. But if I thought something was for your best….”
“I’m telling you what’s for my best. You’re not listening. You’re not going to even do this. You just want me to swear and swear because you’re afraid I don’t love you. Are you breaking up with me?” I have my fingers on the new ring, ready to pull it off.
“No.” His eyes shoot to the ring and he’s worried.
“You can’t stand up for us? What do you think I’ve been doing every day at school, with those older boys, with Ricky, yes I know all about it, how he feels, all about it, with my father and my granma, what do you think I’ve been doing and the first time you get a taste of it, you get mixed up? About me?”
I’m working the ring off. I know I’m being dramatic and I’m too upset to think but I work it off anyway. “Here.”
“No,” he says.
“You weren’t ready to give this to me.”
“Yes I was.”
“No you weren’t. Take it before I throw it into the weeds and you can’t find it anymore.”
“I won’t take it back.” He folds his arms.
There’s no way I’m throwing it in the weeds. I make a fist over it and turn and start walking.
“Georgia you’re taking this all wrong. I just wanted to tell you.”
“You told me.”
“Stop it. Stop.” His hand on my arm stops me. “She said it was partly pity. That’s what got me. That and you sitting alone waiting.”
“Don’t…repeat it.”
“Is it pity?”
I turn to him. “You mean like feeling sorry for you? I did feel sorry for you. I do now. You’re headed for war, Easy, a war that makes the soldiers…they say don’t go. Uncle Sam never had soldiers say that, but these are.”
“Not all of them.”
“And I feel sorry for you that you have to make your own way and that no one loved you, sorry that I saw bruises on you and I knew you were being hit and you weren’t fed enough or ever given a pat on the back or clapped for or given anything to help you, or made to feel safe.”
“My mom loved me….”
<
br /> “I was sorry for you. I’m still sorry for you. I’ll always be sorry about that. And so sorry…that night. I’m so sorry…that he died like that…and your mom….” I just can’t say anymore. I wipe my eyes on my shoulder and I try to stop my emotions from growing so big I can’t speak.
“You’re too good for me.”
“I’m not….”
“You are. I always wanted you. I couldn’t help it.”
“You’re good. You told me you weren’t but I always saw it, Easy. You’re good inside. You’re the best there is, the only one I want. The only one I’ll ever want….”
He takes quick steps toward me and he’s got me and we’re moving backwards, all the way to a tree, it’s rough against my back and he’s pressing against me.
“I should let you go. I should let you go,” he says, mad and miserable and serious and terrible.
I am crying now, but so is he. And I hold onto him, I hold onto him so tightly.
Darnay Road 63
We walk most of the way home in a battered silence. He holds my hand. I hold his. The ring is held tightly in my other hand, in my fist.
There is no fairy tale. We’ve stayed with the tracks, the obvious for too long.
When we pass the trestle we do not reminisce. We are too busy living the story, our story, too busy trying to reach resolution without being able to move toward it. We are stuck with what is.
We have established the truth. Granma’s interference has dug all the way to the marrow. We have a love that’s impossible to grow or fulfill in the regular fashion.
That doesn’t make it go away.
It’s alive like a new baby with a fatal disease. It’s still sweet. You still want to hold it, cradle it, sing to it, cry for it. But it could die before it even gets to live.
No, I think, no, and it’s like revelation what I know. The only obstacle to us is us. Nothing can separate us if we don’t let go. Maybe not even death. Now that’s dramatic, like Granma accused us of being, but it doesn’t change how I feel and how I feel changes everything.
We’ve gone too far now. I just wanted to keep walking but we’re behind Aunt May’s. I can see Easy’s old house over there. It looks even more faded, like it’s going to disappear soon, fall into the ground and turn to humus.
