Authors: Diane Munier
Darnay Road (29 page)
Close?
Close to me? “Did you just come for Cap,” I say. I didn’t mean to say it. Did
I?
He’s
looking at me. Through me.
I’m
waiting.
“No,”
he says.
I
don’t know. I don’t believe him. “It’s okay. Just tell me.”
“Tell
you?” he laughs. He looks over my head. “Tell you.” His fingers are pressing
his chin.
He
pulls me away from the doors. We go a few steps, his hand falls away and we
stand there. The rental cops are saying everyone back inside.
“Follow
me,” he says, and he looks down, hands in his pockets and walks toward the
parking lot and I go after him.
“They
come by,” I say. I mean the rentals. They don’t like kids in cars during games
and they come by with their flashlights every once in a while.
“So
what?” he says. “We’re not doing anything, are we?” he puts his arm along the
back of the seat and smiles big.
“No,”
I say very faintly. We’re not.
Darnay
Road 51
Rent-a-cop
is patrolling the parking lot now that the cop has taken the trouble-maker away
and everyone has been instructed to go inside. He is walking through the aisles
with his flashlight making sure there are no parkers hiding out. Like we are.
Easy
puts his hand on my arm and we slide down in Aunt May’s backseat and we’re
laughing. I don’t want to get caught but when I’m with Easy I just don’t feel
afraid at all. He puts his finger to his lips and shushes at me.
We
hear that cop call to the other, “All clear.”
Then
Easy gets up a little and looks out. He sits up a little more and so do I.
He’s
going for another smoke. Winstons. Filter tips though, not like those Pall
Malls and Camels the old timers smoke.
He
rolls the window down a little. “Don’t want to stink up Aunt May’s car,” he
says.
“Let
me try,” I say. I’ve never puffed one before.
“You
sure?” he says.
“I
just want to see what it’s like,” I say still on my day of firsts.
He
hands it off to me and I get it between my fingers. It’s almost to my mouth and
he stops me, hand on my wrist and says, “Wait a minute. Don’t suck it too deep.
Just a little to get a taste.”
He
has this inkiness in his eyes when it’s dark outside. He’s always had it. It’s
gotten even more since he’s gotten the whiskers just barely showing. But it’s
darkened him. I can just nod a little.
I
put it in my mouth and he is watching so closely I want to get it right. I
squint as I take a little in, then I hand it to him and dammit I cough and
cough on the exhale.
He’s
laughing. “You all right?” He is patting my back.
“Oh,
that’s horrible,” I say. It is really horrible. But not so much with his hand
resting on my back. But I can’t imagine being hooked on such torture.
He
is laughing, the cigarette hanging from his lips as he puts his arm around me
and fingers my chin with his other hand. “You all right? You looked good doing
that but you should leave it alone.” He’s smiling like I’m adorable or
something. My granma would not agree at all.
He
gets more serious and I am just looking at him, like it’s all up to him I
guess. But he sits back, moves his arm up in the window. He isn’t touching my
chin anymore but looking out the window. “You wanted to know about that…what I
was thinking back there. It’s like you got it good here, real good. I can’t
bring anything to it. I mean…trouble. I can bring that.” He smiles but he’s
smoking.
“You
mean Cap?”
“I
am?”
He
just keeps smoking.
“Let
me try again,” I say reaching for that smoke. I don’t want to but I think I’m
trying to be cute or something.
“Here,”
he says. “Just a little, little pull.” He holds it to my lips and I pull in a
little bit and I’m watching him watch me cause I don’t know why he puts up with
me but his fingers are against my lips and…I don’t know.
I
don’t swallow this time and it’s okay, but that taste fills my mouth, like I
licked an ashtray.
“You’re
so damn cute, you know it?” he says.
It’s
hard to talk. Is cute as good as pretty? He told me I was pretty earlier, on
the porch. I know I’m not bad, but most people hardly notice me at all.
“These
around here…tell me about that one…your friend,” he says.
I
try to think of what friend he’s talking about besides Abigail. “Dennis?
Well…what do you want to know? He’s just…nice.”
“Nice…like
Ricky?” he repeats finishing that smoke and putting it out the crack in the
window.
He
doesn’t know. Dennis is way nicer than Ricky.
“You
learn how to tackle someone like you did tonight from the army?” I say. It was
pretty terrible and…maybe wonderful. Granma would be shocked and Aunt May might
have a heart attack if she’d have seen him step right in front of that man and
just bring him down.
“No,”
he says looking kind of restless and satisfied at the same time. “My old man
taught me that.”
Oh.
“Was he in the war?” I mean World War Two. I think he told me but I can’t
remember.
“Um,”
he shifts around, slouches, legs wide, drums on his stomach a little. “I took
him down a few times. He took me down a few times, too. So…I learned some
stuff.”
He
is not looking at me again. It’s the only way I get a breath.
“Easy?”
“Yeah?”
“Well
you ever had like a girlfriend?”
He
looks at me now. He smiles a little. “Everyone thinks that…like I’m some damn
lover or something. I guess you’re the closest thing,” he says.
Well
I can’t believe that. I want to believe it, but how has he made it this long
without falling for someone?
“I
done some stuff I first got in. First leave. This…,” he looks at me. “Well you
don’t need to know but there are some places out there that aren’t nice. Places
with women and I got drunk a few times. I don’t remember much.”
Well
what in the world do I say to that?
“Don’t
worry. I learned my lesson. Got my pocket picked too.” He laughs some. “Sorry
to tell you that. Told you I’m not good,” he says.
“You
remember telling me that?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“You
remember what else?” It makes me squirm some and make this funny humming sound
for a second.
“What?”
he says.
“Well
you said…you’d be good to me.”
He
is smiling. “I remember that. You think I’ve kept my promise?”
“Well
don’t do it anymore then,” I say because it’s not good for him to do that and I
hate the whole thing, every which way.
“What,
like promise you or something?” he says and it is a little surprising but it’s
almost like he’s eager to promise me.
“Yes,”
I say. “Promise me you won’t be foolish with yourself…your life.”
“Why?
You…?”
“I
don’t want you to get hurt,” I say. “You’re already going to go to Vietnam and
that’s bad enough. Maybe you don’t know it, but you tell someone they are like
your family then they start to believe it and if something happens to you then
they are so, so upset maybe they can’t imagine living.” I don’t know why I feel
tears just so close. This is the week before my period and they just straightened
out to where I actually get one almost every month and before I do oh brother.
I cry about everything.
“Would
you be upset?” He touches my hair.
“Yes,”
I say, my heart picking up even more, like the drum solo in “Wipeout.”
“Why?”
he says and he’s being strange and making me feel tingly. It’s the most
wonderful thing, but also very powerful.
“I
just told you. Me and my granma and Abigail May and Aunt May would be so upset.
So you just can’t make us love you and….” Diarrhea. I just groan. “You make me
crazy.” I fold my arms and look out the other window.
He
pulls on my hair a little to get me to look at him. “Tell me some more.”
I
look so sharply at him. Is this a joke or something? But his face, I don’t
think it is.
“There
is no more. Just…promise.”
“I
promise.” He’s so close his breath hits my cheek. “What am I promising again?”
he says with a happy note in his voice.
“Nothing.”
“Oh?
Nothing?” He has a very nice voice. I could listen to him say his
nonsense…forever probably.
I
swallow so loudly, and I am breathing funny. “Just don’t die,” I say looking at
him and he’s so, so close.
He
has this moony look and he’s looking at my mouth and I feel my head moving back
toward the seat, just taking off on its own like that.
He
licks his lips and he’s watching me like I’m about to say something so
important.
“I
um…,” I say and I get so choked up and I sniff and tears are getting lose.
“Don’t
cry,” he says and he lets out a breath. “You wanted to know if I came for Cap,
and I did. But he isn’t all. I’m sorry I didn’t write you more but I was damn
busy. But you didn’t write me. I waited. For a letter.”
“Well,
I didn’t know you were waiting. But I wrote last. And you were going in and I
think I got mad.”
“Mad?”
“Worried.
But I didn’t know how you felt. I mean…if you feel something.”
“You
asked me if we would get married,” he says.
“I
was ten,” I try to defend myself kind of mortified that he remembers that.
He
gets serious again. “You taking it back?”
“Um…of course,” I say
wiping my eyes.
He
pulls on my hair then and moves back from me and scrubs over his face. “Yeah I
guess that was pretty much a joke,” he says. “We better get in there before
Miss May delivers a calf.”
“Easy…why
are you getting mad?”
“I’m
not mad,” he says quickly. “I’m not mad at you.”
“Well
I feel like you might be sometimes. I really don’t know why I didn’t write.
People go away…and no one knows if they’ll come back. But…I thought you might
visit me sometime.”
His
head is lifted, like he’s alarmed. “You never asked me to visit.”
“I
didn’t know I had a right. I knew it was far and…money.”
“I
had this feeling, after Mom died…like I was cut away…like I could disappear.”
“I
don’t want you to. Don’t ever say such a thing again. I’ve always been here,
Easy. I…I’m holding on to you.”
“You
mean it?”
I
nod.
“I
wanted to hitch a ride but Mom got so bad and I was always trying to take care
of her and Cap. I had a truck, but Cap wrecked it while I was away.”
“He
wrecked your truck?” I blow through my lips. “Well I thought you would tell me
when you wanted to visit. I knew it was hard at home.”
“Forget
it,” he says. “What about now? That’s all.”
“Don’t
be like that. You know I’m happy you’re here. You say I got so much. I haven’t
had you.”
He
looks straight at me. “You’ve always had me.”
“Easy.”
I
slide toward him and his arm comes around me. I’m not self-conscious now.
“If
you would have asked I would have done anything to get to you. I knew you were
young and I knew you were in your little pink pod with your bomb shelter with
your game that made you queenie. I knew I could think of you and it would keep
me from floating away.”
I
don’t know when his fingers light under my chin and lift my face so my lips are
there for his. He presses his against mine so softly and I hold my breath while
it happens and there is no thought, no time, no worry, just him, just me.
My
day of firsts.