A Death On The Wolf, page 7
I had been distracted all morning, and Mary Alice had picked up on it. The conversation I’d had with my father before dawn was troubling, and while I had resolved to apologize to Frankie, I was not looking forward to facing him. My greatest fear was that our friendship was over, and I was heartsore because of it. Why couldn’t things have just stayed the same?
“Tell me what’s bothering you, Nelson,” Mary Alice said. “And don’t say ‘nothing,’ again,” she added. I wanted to scream I was scared to death my best friend was queer and liked me, but instead I just told her I’d been thinking about Frankie. “You mean because of the fight?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. The fight was bothering me, too. “I’m going down to his house before I go to work and apologize to him. I found out from Daddy this morning that I broke his nose yesterday.”
Mary Alice was sitting in one of the painted white chairs across from me. I was sitting in the only rocker on the porch. She had on light blue Bermuda shorts and a pink short sleeve shirt, but no sandals; today she was wearing pink slip on sneakers with white ankle socks. She started to get up, and when I saw her, I did too, out of habit. She didn’t have her walking stick and I figured she wanted to go inside, maybe to the bathroom, and she was not familiar with our house yet. I asked her if she wanted me to help.
“No, no…you stay there,” she said. “Keep talking so I can find you.” Mary Alice was about ten feet away, across the pine slat floor of our porch. I sat back in the rocker and watched her take a tentative step forward. “Talk!” she commanded.
I laughed. “What do you want me to say?”
She turned toward the sound of my voice. “Keep talking,” she said.
In a singsong, I intoned, “I’m—talk—ing—to—the—prett—i—est—girl—in—Miss—i—ssip—pi.”
She chuckled and took two more steps toward me. Every instinct in me said get up and help her, but I kept my seat. “You’re not talking,” she said as she took another step.
“I’m—the—luck—i—est—guy—in—Miss—i—ssip—pi,” I continued in a singsong.
She took two more steps. “Keep talking,” she said.
“You’re supposed to ask me why I’m the luckiest guy in Mississippi.”
“Why are you the luckiest guy in Mississippi?” she said, and took another step.
“Be—cause—Ma—ry—A—lice—Had—ley—is—my—girl—friend.” She laughed again, and I said, “Take three more steps and you’ll be here.”
When she stopped right in front of me, I reached out and took her left hand. She leaned down and with her other hand touched my leg. She turned and I let go of her hand and she sat down in my lap. She leaned back until her head was resting on my shoulder. I brushed her hair out of my face and inhaled deeply through my nose. There was a hint of Prell, but mostly it was just…her. She smelled divine.
Mary Alice laughed and said, “See, I told you…everyone has their own smell.”
It was as if she could read my mind. I put my arms around her and then she rested hers on mine. She searched with her right hand until she found my hand and then we interlocked fingers. “I’m sorry you’re hurting about your friend,” she said. “That’s nice that you want to apologize to him.”
I didn’t want to talk about Frankie right then. My only thoughts were on Mary Alice. “It’s going to kill me when you have to leave next month,” I whispered in her ear.
“Let’s don’t think about it,” she said.
I started us to gently rocking. It was another gray day, like yesterday, and relatively cool—if the mid 80s could be considered cool. There was a breeze blowing through the tall pines in our front yard. I had asked my father earlier how you knew when you’re in love. As I sat there rocking Mary Alice in my lap, I knew. I’d never felt like this before even though I’d had girlfriends ever since I was in the fifth grade. Bridget Wheaton and I had even “gone steady” through the first half of the tenth grade last year. Going steady with Bridget comprised two trips to the mall in Bay St. Louis holding hands in the back seat of Aunt Charity’s Cadillac, and one movie (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) at the Palladium Theater in Bells Ferry when we were out of school for Christmas break. That all seemed so trivial and childish now compared to what I felt with Mary Alice. I was in love, and the thought that in a few short weeks I would not be able to see her for weeks, maybe months, at a time was depressing beyond words.
— — —
An hour and a half later I was turning in to Frankie’s drive on the Honda. The day had grown grayer, rain was imminent, so I was wearing a weatherproof windbreaker. I’d left early for work so I could get this apology out of the way, and I had butterflies in my stomach as I pulled up in front of the Thompson house and shut off the engine. Mark was sitting on the porch in his swim trunks and he was soaking wet.
“Hey,” I said as I got off the bike.
“Hey,” he replied and raised his hand from the arm of the chair in a slight wave.
“You been swimming?” I asked as I stepped up on the porch.
Mark shook his head. “Daddy set up the Slip ’N Slide in the backyard.”
“Is Frankie in the house?”
“In his room.”
“Where’s your mom and dad?”
Mark crossed his legs and reached down to scratch his foot, which had grass clippings stuck all over it. “Mama went to town to get groceries. I don’t know where Daddy is.”
“How’s Frankie doing?”
“You broke his nose,” Mark said, and I detected a faint smile on his lips.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. I want to tell him I’m sorry.”
“He started it,” Mark said. “That’s what I told Daddy.”
“He didn’t hit you or anything, did he?”
“No, he told me he was sorry for knocking me off my bike when I got back here.”
“Really? Why’d you tell your dad about the fight, then?”
“Had to,” Mark said. “Frankie was bleedin’ all over the place and wouldn’t tell Daddy what happened so he asked me when we was on the way to the doctor’s.”
I stepped over to the screen door, opened it, and entered the house. I made my way through the living room and then down the hall to Frankie’s room. His door was only open about six inches and I could hear the radio playing inside and a fan going. “Frankie?” I said, and knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” he said. I could tell it was Frankie’s voice, but it sounded like he had a clothespin on his nose. I pushed the door open. Frankie was lying on his bed reading an Archie comic book. The first thing I saw was his bare feet. He had on his pajama bottoms and no top and the comic book was hiding his face. The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” was playing on the clock radio beside the bed.
“Hey,” I said as I stepped into his room and closed the door behind me.
When Frankie lowered the comic to look at me, I literally did not recognize him. His nose was bandaged, and the gauze was held on by lateral pieces of tape attached to both cheeks. His face all around his eyes was a giant bruise, alternating in color from blue to black to deep purple. I just stared at him. I tried to say something, but couldn’t find the words. My eyes started tearing up. This was my handiwork, and I had never been so ashamed of anything I’d done in my life. I wanted to die. Finally, I found my voice, and all I could choke out was, “Oh, Frankie.”
I went over and sat down next to him at the foot of the bed. He leaned over and turned off the radio. Every time I looked at Frankie, it was like a knife going through me, and I could not hold back the tears any longer; they were streaming down my face. I reached up and wiped my eyes with both hands.
To my amazement, Frankie looked at me and said, “I’m sorry.”
I let out a little laugh as I sniffed hard because my nose was running now. “That’s what I came to say to you,” I said, and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
Frankie smiled as much as he could with all that gauze and tape on his face. “I deserved it,” he said.
“You didn’t deserve that,” I said, and pointed to his face.
“I’ve been an asshole this summer, Nels. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“I’m sorry I hit you,” I said.
Frankie shook his head. “Nah, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have shoved Mark. I shouldn’t have jumped you. And I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
I hesitated. This was the point I’d been dreading, and Frankie had brought us to it. Finally I said, “You shouldn’t have said what?” Frankie took a minute to digest my question. I’d just given him the chance to take this conversation in one of two directions: he could either say that he should not have said that about me having a “girlfriend,” or he could say—
“I shouldn’t have said that you were queer for Mark.”
I studied Frankie’s face and let his comment hang. I finally said, “No, you shouldn’t have. I’m not queer for your brother.”
“I know that,” he said, looking me square in the eyes.
“I’m not queer for anybody,” I said. “I like girls.” Our eyes were locked and I held Frankie’s gaze as my words registered with him. He gave me a little nod, just barely. He knew that I knew what the unspoken truth was between us: that there was only one boy in this room who liked girls—and it wasn’t him. Just as quickly as I’d seen his understanding, a look of trepidation replaced it. I remembered my father’s admonition about my best friend wondering if I hated him.
“Are we still friends?” Frankie said, confirming Daddy’s prescience.
I smiled and nodded my head. “Best friends…but just friends,” I said.
Frankie laid the open comic book across his chest, then held his right hand out to me, not as you would to shake hands, but more, it seemed, as an impulse for some physical affirmation that our friendship had survived, would survive, would endure. I reached over enough that our fingertips touched. As Frankie looked at me, tears began to fill his eyes, and he repeated my words in a broken voice, “Best friends…but just friends.” He blinked hard, gave me another slight nod of understanding, and then lowered his hand back to his side. We sat there for a few moments, silent, letting the reality of what had just taken place settle over us. There were a hundred questions bobbing around inside my head, but I had the good sense not to unload them on Frankie then.
“How long will you be like that?” I asked, pointing to his face.
“The bandage can come off next week. The doctor said the bruising should be gone in a couple of weeks.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“A little.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said, sniffing hard the last bits of moisture back up my nose.
“Me, too. Thanks for coming by,” Frankie said. He reached up and wiped his eyes with his fingers, and I saw him wince a little. No doubt his face was sore and the slightest touch hurt him. It hurt me, too.
“I gotta get to work,” I said and stood up.
“Hey…” Frankie said.
“Yeah?”
“Go by the Five & Dime in town and get your sister a new doll. Tell her I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back.”
“Okay,” I said and headed over to the door.
“Are you sure you don’t like Mark?” Frankie said behind me. I cringed and turned around. I was surprised to see him lying there with a playful grin on his face. “I mean, he is kinda cute,” he added, then did a Goucho Marx with his eyebrows.
It only took me a second to realize that Frankie was teasing me—and testing me. Testing me to see how I would handle the truth, which in his own way, cloaked in humor, he was admitting openly to me now. I broke into laughter and I knew then that things between Frankie and me would forevermore be different, that the new normal for us had just begun. But what mattered most would be the same; we were still friends—best friends. As I stared at Frankie lying there, I was laughing not only at how ridiculous he looked oscillating his eyebrows with his face all bruised and his nose bandaged, but at the relief I felt knowing I had not lost my friend, that he and I had dealt with this, and that he trusted me enough to share this part of himself. To let Frankie know we were on the same page I said, “Mark is a little young for me.” Then I winked at him.
Frankie started laughing hard and he reached up and grabbed his face. “Oh, crap, that hurts! Don’t make me laugh! Don’t make me laugh!” he pleaded.
That just made me laugh harder. I looked at him writhing on the bed, holding his face, and said, “Just remember, incest is illegal in Mississippi, so your brother is jail bait.”
Frankie nearly doubled up in pain he was laughing so hard. He picked up the Archie comic and threw it at me and yelled, “Get out of here and go to work before you kill me!”
Still laughing, I hurried out the door and closed it behind me.
Four days earlier, when Frankie had refused to go to town and eat lunch with us because I’d invited his brother to go too, I thought then that the resolution of this issue would either strengthen our friendship or destroy it—though at the time I didn’t have a clue what the “issue” really was. As I was riding to work now, cruising along on the Honda at a leisurely pace with the misty rain stinging my face and eyes, I realized the resolution could have gone either way, that it had been up to me the entire time. My actions this day could have destroyed our friendship or strengthened it. My father’s wise and sage counsel, and my abiding affection for my best friend, made the course I chose simple—inevitable, really. I loved Frankie, though I could no more have told him that then, or admitted it to myself, than I could have flown to the moon. I knew Frankie loved me, too—though certainly in ways I didn’t comprehend. But, then again, maybe I did, somewhere in the back of my mind, and it was just too much for a fifteen-year-old Mississippi boy to bring to the forefront of conscious reflection. Whatever aversion I may have had to the thought that my best friend was a homosexual, it was that abiding affection—mine for him and his for me—that carried the day and ensured our friendship would endure come what may.
Chapter 8
The Black Shadow
Friday morning Aunt Charity set me to work cleaning out the flower beds in front of our house. She said the azaleas were looking “poorly” and needed fresh pine straw around them. Parker was in the garden picking corn, which Aunt Charity would be blanching for freezing later. That meant I would be shucking a couple of bushels, at least, before I went to work.
By ten o’clock, I had finished cleaning out the beds and had almost raked up enough fresh pine needles out of the yard to replenish them. Mary Alice was sitting on the front porch in the rocker keeping me company. This made my labors difficult because I could not make two swipes of the rake without stealing a look at her. She had one of her big Braille books lying open in her lap and it was fascinating to watch her fingers move across the pages as she read. I was to the point now that everything about Mary Alice fascinated me, and the parts of the day when my chores or my job kept me from being with her were like trying to function without air to breathe. The nights were worse as I would lie there for hours, not able to sleep, longing to be with her, impatient for the coming morning when I knew I’d see her at breakfast, and worrying about the end of August when she would be gone from my life altogether.
Finally, the last bit of pine straw was neatly packed around the last azalea bush at the far end of the house. I picked up the rake and headed for the front porch.
“What are you reading?” I asked as I sat down in a chair across from Mary Alice. I reached up and wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.
“Great Expectations by Charles Dickens,” she said. “Have you read it?”
“In the ninth grade,” I said. Her hand stopped moving on the pages and I watched as she felt for the ribbon marker that was sewn to the spine of the book. She pulled it out, placed it in the gutter to mark the page, then closed the book. “Don’t stop because of me,” I said.
Mary Alice smiled. “I’d rather talk with you. Are you finished with the flowerbeds?”
“Yes, finally. What do you want to talk about?”
“You pick.”
I looked at her sitting there and just had to ask, “Is pink your favorite color?”
She laughed her magical laugh, tossing her head back and setting herself to rocking in the chair. “Yes, it is. Why?”
“You’ve had on something pink every day since you got here. Yesterday you had on a pink shirt and blue shorts. Today you’re wearing pink shorts and a blue shirt. The day I met you, you had on a pink dress.”
Mary Alice shrugged and smiled and said, “I like pink.”
“Yeah, but how do you know what color your clothes are when you get dressed in the morning?” The words had no more left my mouth and I realized what an insensitive question it was. I felt like an idiot. “Mary Alice, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Come over here,” she said.
I got up and tentatively stepped over in front of her. I figured she was going to stand up and, once she found my face, slap me—and I deserved it.
“Lean down,” she said.
“You’re going to hit me, aren’t you?” I said sheepishly.
“No,” she said with a giggle. “I want to show you something.” She leaned forward and then pulled her hair to the side. “Look inside my shirt collar,” she said.
I bent down and pulled open the back of her collar. “What?” I said.
“Look at the label.”
I didn’t notice a label. I was too busy studying the fine downy hair that started on the nape of her neck and then traveled the length of her spine, under her bra strap, and on until it was out of sight. It was silly, but at that moment it was the most sensuous (and arousing) thing I’d ever seen.
“See it?” she said.
“See what?”
“Are you looking at the label?” Mary Alice asked in an exasperated tone.
“I am now,” I said. There was a Braille label either glued or sewn to the shirtmakers label inside the collar.
