I looked over at him and he had dropped his chin on his chest and seemed to have his eyes closed. I leaned forward a little to get a better look at his face. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. It was my turn to be stunned.
“Hey, Ron,” I nudged his shoulder with mine. “We’ll be back. I know that. It’s just this depression and Mom says that in a …”
He opened his eyes and grinned at me, our faces so close together that it was hard to focus but I saw tears in his long black lashes and streaks down his cheeks. “I know.” He jumped up. “Come on. The cars are coming back. We’d better go.” He started running full tilt toward the barn carrying his shoes. I grabbed mine and raced after him. He was holding the barbed-wire open for me when I caught up with him. “Besides,” he said as I bent down to crawl through, “when I run away, I’ll just come and find you.”
Now there was a party. A wake I guess they’re called. All the women—Dad’s three sisters (Aunt Dell naturally was still in Phoenix), Mom and Ronnie’s mother, along with neighbor ladies—had been cooking before the funeral and now that it was over, everybody was milling around waiting for dinner. The men were gathered around the cars in little groups kicking at tires, opening and closing doors, lifting the folding hoods from one side or the other to inspect motors or pour buckets of water that the older boys were carrying from the well into radiators. They talked quietly and seriously, the groups changing and moving and regrouping at another vehicle. Sly glances shot over broad shoulders as bottles were passed discreetly around tight circles of wide-backed men who knew they were being observed and everybody knew what they were doing but the ritual was too ingrained, the rules too strict to risk a break from tradition. They had to drink secretly.
This could have been any gathering—a birth, a wedding, an anniversary, birthday or holiday. The women’s role was as clearly defined as the men’s. They gossiped and glided around in the kitchen, each seeming to have a particular job and knowing instinctively in any house where plates, silver, linen were kept. The toddlers and babes-in-arms created no encumbrances but were natural growths cleaving to the breast or hip of the mother as she circumnavigated the islands of crawlers on the floor, stepping over them or around them with an innate assurance, not needing to glance down to know that a child was between her feet. They moved like fish—sliding gracefully through intricate patterns of movement, never quite touching each other or the new growth on the bottom of the water. It was an underwater ballet, their voices soft, the occasional burst of laughter like bubbles rippling up and bursting on the surface—lost on a cushion of water as were the subdued sounds of plates, platters, bowls as they filled the huge table so completely that you couldn’t tell whether there was a table cloth or an oilcloth underneath the elaborate feast. It did Grandma proud.
The front room was given over to Grandpa as chief mourner who held court from his leather rocking chair, surrounded by an ever-changing group of neighbors and townspeople who’d come to express their sympathies. He sat, puffing on his pipe, rocking almost imperceptibly, accepting the stumbling speeches of condolence with a patient nod of appreciation.
The screen door was pushed open, an aunt motioned and called gently to the men across the sprawled-out bodies of at least a dozen of us children on the wide front porch. We would wait until the grown-ups had eaten before we were allowed at table. I never knew how old you had to be to join the first group—Ronnie seemed almost grown up but he stayed with us. There was some unwritten law.
I was sitting with Junior with our legs dangling over the edge of the cement porch. Ronnie was stretched out flat on his back just behind us. “Where’d you two get off to?” Junior asked in a low voice with a hint of accusation in it.
“When Ruby started strewing the flowers around,” I explained, “Ronnie had to get me out. I was about to explode.”
“You’re lucky,” Junior said, turning back to include Ronnie who eased him back so that his head rested on Ronnie’s thigh. It was the most intimate thing I’d seen pass between them. I got the feeling Junior was making a special effort to be as friendly with Ronnie as he knew I was. “It got funnier. Or worse, whichever way you want to look at it. You knew Uncle Ed fell down chasing Ruby?” I nodded. “Well, she ran screaming like a banshee, climbing up on the preachers podium.” He lifted his head to look at Ronnie. “Your sweet little sister …”
“Half sister, don’t forget.”
“… started yanking on the preacher’s pants leg and chanting “I wann’ make pee-pee. I wann’ make pee-pee.’ ”
Ronnie shook his head, trying not to laugh. “See? See? What’d I say, Tots? That kid’s going to kill us all.”
It turned out that the organist started a few chords to drown out Ruby and Uncle Ed finally caught her and flew out the back door with her in his arms. Junior sighed heavily. “The rest was even less fun. Ruby’s antics weren’t all that much fun really. I think we were all … well, nervous and everything.” He stopped and lay very still. “Then they took the casket outside. Outside into the graveyard.” His voice had become flat and matter-of-fact. “When I said you were lucky, I meant you were lucky to miss that part. That last part. I sure wish I had. I hadn’t thought about the last part. I guess I wouldn’t let myself think about it. We all—all the family (I looked all over for you, Tots) had to stand by that hole.” He paused, took a deep breath and went on hurriedly, as though it was something he had to say quickly and get it over with. “That hole looked so dark. And deep. It looked deeper than … well, than necessary. She was such a small, little lady …” I couldn’t hear him any more. His voice broke and his shoulders were shaking with sobs. We both sat up and I grabbed him in my arms the way he’d always grabbed me when I needed him and held him close. Another pair of arms wrapped around us both and held us in an iron grip and rocked us back and forth soothingly. Did it take a death to bring people together?
We were eventually allowed to eat. People discussed at length the difficult sleeping arrangements. Mom, Dad and Junior were going to stay with Grandpa. The Oklahoma contingent was being spread out on pallets at Grandpa’s, Uncle Ed’s and neighbors’. Ronnie simply put me on the bicycle and that was that. It was a foregone conclusion that I’d go with him and help with the farm chores giving Uncle and Aunt Ed a chance to visit with all the relatives.
There was also a prayer meeting—actually a revival meeting scheduled for that night in the Mule Barn—and two of Dad’s Oklahoma sisters were determined to go. So were the newly born-agains, Ed and Edwina.
“That’s a real ass-cutter, Tots, on these dirt roads. Want the seat? I can stand-pump.” I shook my head no to Ronnie’s offer even though my ass was being cut by the bar on his bicycle and we weren’t even through Oak Grove yet. We saw that cars were already parked outside the Mule Barn for the revival meeting and it was just after sundown. He finally stopped at the bend past the Baptist church and graveyard which looked closed and deserted and gave no sign of a new occupant. He took off his shirt and folded it as a cushion for me on the bar. “There. No need to have your ass go numb and your legs drop off. I gotta’ take care of you.” He went into his cornpone act. “In them bib over-halls, you’re just about the cutest little shit-kicker I ever seen.”
Their farm was about the same distance north on the Blue Eye road from Oak Grove as Grandpa’s was south. The steep drive on the right of the house made it necessary for us to dismount and walk. Ronnie pushed the bike while I rubbed feeling back into my backside.
Ronnie gave me the half-bucket of corn to feed the chickens while he lurched off under the weight of a huge bucket of slop that had been prepared earlier for the pigs. We lured the five cows into their stalls, with fresh feed in their troughs, sat on three-legged stools beside them and went to work. I was as fast as Ronnie, drawing the warm white liquid out of the fat teats with an expert hand. I was stripping my first cow, carefully squeezing down from the udder as Grandpa had taught me to make sure all the milk was there frothing in the bucket and not a drop le
ft in the cow, when I got a face-full of milk aimed from under the cow Ronnie was milking.
“Slow down, show-off,” he yelled. “You really are a shit-kicker.” He laughed.
We raced from cow to cow, milking as fast as we could. I’m not sure our stripping would have passed muster with Grandpa. We were filling our buckets, occasionally spraying streams at each other, at arm-paralyzing speed. My forearms were aching when I finished my last animal and I leaned my head against her flank and the sweet smell of milk and cow filled my whole being with an aching sadness. The beloved old Woods place where I’d learned to milk a cow was gone, replaced by a sadly predictable little gray house. Grandma was gone. We were gone. Practically. What was California? They probably didn’t even have cows there.
“Hey, Tots!” Ronnie called. “Gone to sleep? Come on.” We carried the milk back to the house and into the back screened-in porch where the milk separator was. Ronnie adjusted the pieces expertly and we poured our buckets into the big round receptacle at the top. More buckets were placed under the cream spout and the milk spout. “Tots, you turn this monster while I get some light and things.” It was almost dark. I started cranking the handle which moved easily for the first few turns then became steadily more difficult as the spouts started dribbling their liquid into the buckets. Ronnie came back with a lighted coal oil lamp and an arm full of quilts and pillows. “God knows where Ma is going to put all the others, but I figured we’d be safe and out of the way of the thundering horde over here in this corner.” The separator acted as a separation for the porch, dividing it and creating a private area at the far end where Ronnie laid out quilts for a pallet and covered them with sheets, crawling around on his knees straightening them neatly. “There. I can’t wait to get into that. I’m dead.” He looked up at me and jumped to his feet. “Let me do that. It gets hard after awhile.” He peeked into the big round shiny metal bowl where we’d poured the milk. “You’ve got it more than half done. Good.” He grabbed the handle and put his whole body into turning it. The milk began to gush out the nozzle, the cream oozed thickly in one long undulating stream into its bucket, the soft yellow liquid looking almost as solid as Junior’s silky taffy.
We folded our clothes beside the pallet and went outside naked. The dim light from the oil lamp made us just barely visible to each other. I could see that Ronnie had some hair down there. I still didn’t have any, but I had attained peter or pecker status at last. I couldn’t wait to move past that stage because I hated the names. When would I have a cock? Ronnie most definitely had one. He had primed the hand pump and filled a bucket of water and poured it over me as I soaped myself. The water was freezing and I squatted down shivering for the next bucket, noticing that the cold water had made me shrink back to toy size.
“Oh, damn. I left the towels there by the back door, Tots. Go dry and get into bed. Your teeth are chattering. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I ran gratefully, dried quickly and was on the pallet under the sheet in seconds. I seemed to melt into the floor. I was bone-tired as Mom would say. I just lay there on my back, feeling too exhausted to move. I couldn’t have turned over if my life depended on it. I seemed to be weighted down. There was a weight on me. On my thighs. I’d dozed off. I hadn’t heard any sound or realized when the light had been blown out. I opened my eyes to see Ronnie’s silhouette sitting across my thighs with arms raised and fingers crooked ready to attack my ribs. “I’m going to get you,” he croaked in a spooky voice.
I responded with my usual squealing and squirming like I knew he wanted as his fingers hit their goal and danced up and down my sides. I laughed and rolled about as best I could under his weight. He was chuckling and laughing under his breath. My breath started coming in gasps. “Oh … Ron … stop it. Stop it, please.” I could hardly get the words out. My body went limp. I mimicked his cornpone accent. “Ron, ah’m jest plain … tuck… tuckered…” I sighed with real fatigue, “… out.” He slowed down. I changed to my own voice. “I really am. Tu-uuc-cckker-ed. Oooouuuuutttt.” The last word faded away into the dark.
He sat back, still straddling my legs. “OK, Tots. No more ticklin’.” He sighed heavily too and lifted himself off me onto his knees. “Then I’ll just eat you up.” He fell forward catching himself with his hands on the pillows beside my head and buried his face into my neck with a growl and playfully nipped little bits of my skin with his teeth. That was more ticklish than anything he’d ever done. I didn’t squeal, my breath had caught. He growled and nibbled, moving his head down over my chest, chuckling between growls, his nibbling teeth and lips and tongue causing my body to feel as if I were being electrocuted.
I tried to speak. “Ron … don’t …” but it came out in such a soft whisper that I could barely hear myself above his funny low growling and chewing. His mouth was moving all over my chest and sides and stomach. Each contact with my skin caused an intake of breath but there didn’t seem to be time to let any air out. I grabbed at his curly hair and lifted his head. Our faces were nose to nose, eyes wide and glittering in the dark. “Ron …” I could feel his breath on my face. “I feel funny … my body …” I was gasping more than whispering. I turned my face away. There was such a tingle down my spine, up my legs, through my middle, all through me, racing on electrical currents toward my core, the center of my being, my throbbing hard on …
His head dropped onto my chest again, his mouth open and his tongue and lips moving over me, kissing, licking, nibbling as he moved his head down further and further and suddenly I was inside his mouth, hot, wet, sucking on me, his tongue working around and under my balls. All of me was inside his mouth and then all of me exploded.
I heard a loud long cry echo into the night as my body thrashed around with a feeling in my groin that went beyond anything I thought my body or any body capable of experiencing. The cry was coming from me and it was suddenly stopped by Ronnie’s mouth covering mine. I couldn’t breath, I was suffocating but it didn’t seem to matter. I was floating in some sort of weightless world. I couldn’t feel Ronnie on me any longer, only his mouth and his tongue playing on my lips and then I felt his hand arranging my legs—he opened them—then dropped down heavily onto me as he pushed my legs closed around something hard that was working up and down slowly rubbing against my inner thighs. I tightened the muscles automatically and the move ment accelerated. He tore his mouth from mine and began licking and whispering incoherently in my ear. “Tots, oh Totsy. I … oh this is something I wanted … oh Tots, you’re going … you’re leaving …” He raised himself up on his hands, looked down into my face while his hips worked faster and faster and I moved my pelvis up to him, flexing my leg muscles, then crossing my feet at the ankles, instinctively knowing that would make it better and tighter for Ronnie. “Oh Tots, yes …” His mouth was on mine again and I felt a warm liquid between my legs, as he turned his head and panted into my neck, taking shuddering breaths and kissing me at the same time.
I started to cry. Really cry. I don’t know why. It started and I couldn’t stop it. My body was wracked with sobs. Everything was wrong. It had been wrong all day. We’d just done something bad. I knew it had to be bad because the sensation in my body kept on surprising and frightening me. Ronnie’s lips on my neck and chest, my cheeks, kissing my tears and whispering, “Oh, Tots … I’m sorry, Tots. Listen, Tots. I don’t know what happened …” My skin was on fire. Everything he was doing to me was wrong. I was sure of that, but I couldn’t stop him or my sobs. They were choking me and I was gasping as he went on apologizing. “Oh, Tots. Don’t cry, Tots. Please. I’m sorry. I never have …” He was reaching behind him and brought a cloth up between my legs, wiping me where the liquid had seeped down to my buttocks. I had no strength. He handled me as though he were diapering a baby. He moved my boneless legs around as he needed, as he cleaned me, all the time muttering. “I’m ashamed, Tots … you aren’t mad at me, are you? Tots?” I couldn’t speak even though my choking sobs had subsided. I just lay there, limp, lost a
nd stupefied by what had happened. “Don’t be mad at me, Tots. It just kind of happened. I don’t know what…”
I wanted to reach up and touch his cheek, but my arms wouldn’t move. I wanted to tell him that it was all right, but I couldn’t speak. Something earth-shattering had happened to me—that much I knew—something that I knew was going to be important in my life if not change it altogether, but I didn’t understand it. I could feel my eyes droop. I had no more reserves. I was used up. Ronnie was busily straightening the sheets, plumping the pillows, lifting my head gently to make me more comfortable, drawing the sheet over us both as he snuggled down next to me, all the time making little comforting noises, apologetic and remorseful. He slipped an arm under my pillow and put his other one over my chest and pulled my limp body close to him. He leaned his face down close to my ear and said barely audibly, “You see, Tots. The problem is … well, I wasn’t kidding. Tots, can you hear me?” I managed a slight nod. He cleared his throat and his words were so faint—just breath really—that I wasn’t sure I heard correctly, but I think he said, “I love you. Tots. Totsy. I love you. I don’t understand it either but I do. I know I do… I love you …” I was asleep.
Chapter Seven
In Tall Cotton Page 10
