The Hayloft
1964
I WENT TO THE Quarters the following Wednesday after school and told Marianne about my visit to the library.
“What’d you get?” She twisted a strand of hair in front of her ear that fell out of the barrette holding up the mahogany locks.
“I didn’t get anything, but I read everything I could find about sex. I even saw pictures. I actually know what a girl’s private parts looks like, inside and out. I can’t see my own, but I saw one in a book.”
“What else did you see?”
“A picture of a man’s penis, and diagrams of the inside of a woman’s body and what happens when that stuff comes out of the man and goes inside her. It’s called sperm, and there are tons of them and they swim. If a woman has an egg somewhere in her, the sperms will find it, fertilize it and make a baby. It’s fascinating!”
“Really? I thought I knew all about sex but I didn’t know that.” Marianne paused. “I’ll bet I know something you didn’t read about in those books.”
“What?” I asked.
“I know what it feels like.” Marianne said.
“You know what, what it feels like?”
“I know what it feels like to have what they call an orgasm. That’s sex, but it’s not about having babies.” I didn’t say anything—I was trying to figure out what she meant. I’d missed that in the books.
“I can show you how to do it, if you want me to,” Marianne said.
“Show me what?”
“How to have an orgasm.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll figure it out myself if I want to,” I said. I thought for a minute. Maybe she’s talking about masturbation. I’d read about that, but I didn’t mention it.
“Okay.” We were both quiet. Marianne reached over and took my hand. I gave hers a slight squeeze and smiled at the sky. There was a warm breeze from the cane fields that blew a sweet, green fragrance around us. We watched robins pecking the ground near the garden. When I finally spoke, what I said seemed like the last thing Marianne expected.
“I met your cousin, Rodney.” Marianne gasped, dropped my hand, hesitated, then took a deep breath. She curled her hand towards her face and began to work the cuticles of her fingers with her thumb. I could tell it surprised her but she didn’t want me to know anything shocked her. She was good at making people believe she was tough and didn’t have feelings, but I knew better. After all, she was my best friend.
“Where’d you meet him?” She emphasized, him, as if it was a bad word.
“At his dad’s gas station. I was there with my dad.”
“Oh, then you weren’t alone with him?”
“Sort of. I mean he came to my window while Daddy was in the office with Mr. Thibault and we talked.”
“You and Rodney talked?”
“Yes.”
“What? What are you thinking? What is he thinking?”
“What do you mean? We just talked.”
“You can’t talk to Rodney. You’ll get him killed!” I was so surprised by the passion and anger in her voice that I was speechless.
“You need to listen to me Susie Burton,” she turned to me, her eyes on fire, mouth twitching.
“You’re jealous,” I said, and I started to laugh. She jumped up and stood in front of me, her legs spread, feet planted, like she was ready to fight.
“Jealous? You’re crazy. You just don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what? What’s the matter?”
“You’ll get him killed. That’s what’s the matter.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic, Mari.” She walked away towards the cane field. I jumped up and followed. “Wait. Don’t be mad,” I called after her, but she just kept walking. When I caught up with her I touched her shoulder and she turned towards me abruptly.
“Listen White Girl! You can’t talk to a colored boy. Never! Get it?” I froze. She’d never talked to me that way. Her expression had hatred written all over it, like the first time we met and she looked like she wanted to kill me. I took a deep breath. I could feel tears begin to pool and tried to stop them. My best, my only friend, I thought. This can’t be happening.
Marianne looked at the ground where she was making circles with the toe of her tennis shoe. It stirred up a small cloud of dust around her foot. I watched the ground where her shoe began to dig a small hole, then the hole got bigger. I don’t know how long we stood like that. Eventually she stopped digging and pushed the dirt back into the hole with the side of her shoe, then stamped it down. Finally she looked at me. I was crying.
“Look. I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just that I don’t think you understand the kind of danger you could cause Rodney, his family, us.”
“I’m sorry, Mari. I didn’t mean anything by it. I just think he’s a nice guy. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s so handsome.”
“That’s what I mean. You can’t talk like that. You can’t even think like that.”
“Well, if I can’t talk to you about him, who can I talk to.” That seemed to get her attention. She took a deep breath.
She begged me not to mention Rodney to anyone and I promised I wouldn’t. But I needed to talk about him. She kept telling me how dangerous it was and that I should put him out of my mind.
What is it about being a teenager and having someone tell you not to do something that makes you want to do it more? When I think back on that day I feel like Marianne’s reaction made Rodney seem even more intriguing. She kept saying, “He’s colored.”
“I don’t think of him as colored, Marianne. I don’t think of you as colored or me as white.”
“What colors do you think we are then?”
“No color. Maybe the color of glass? “
“Glass?”
“Or air? I’m not sure. I just think of us as two thirteen-year-old girls, that’s all.“
“And Rodney?”
“He’s gorgeous.”
“Oh, no, Susie!” Marianne screamed. “You can’t say that about a colored boy. It’s hopeless.”
“I’m not saying anything about wanting to be with him. I’m just saying I think he’s very handsome. What do colored girls think of him?”
“Well, the girls at school think he’s amazing, good-looking, sexy. They go gah-gah over him. Funny thing, Rodney is pretty shy, but around girls, he has the big head. He’ll go out with any girl who’ll put out for him, and there are lots of them who will.”
“Put out?”
“Yeah. Have sex with him.”
“He has sex with girls?”
“Grow up, Susie.” She looked at me like I was a little girl and she was the wise one. “You need to leave this alone. You understand, don’t you? You don’t need to think about how handsome he is. He’s colored.”
I told her what my daddy said about being friends with colored people and she got really mad.
“That’s the stupidest, most two-faced thing I ever heard. He can have colored friends but you can’t? How do you feel about that?”
“You know how I feel about it, I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah.” The bell rang once. I jumped up and ran.
That evening Rodney went to the Quarters. Marianne told me about it the following week. She said she told him I’d been there but he’d missed me. When he asked her when I was coming back, she snapped at him.
“Why do you care, Rodney? She’s my friend.” She said she acted like I’d never told her that we’d met, but he kept asking her things about me.
“Are you sweet on her?” Marianne asked.
“No, of course not. She’s white.”
“Good thing. Keep it that way.” She knew what could happen to Rodney and her experience with the KKK made her even more afraid for him. She also knew my daddy would kill me if he found out I was friends with any colored people, especially a boy.
“Her dad and my dad are friends. They have coffee together almost every morning.”
“He’s a hypocrite, her father. Watch out for him.” Marianne told Rodney what I told her about my dad saying a white person should not make the decision to have a Negro friend until he was grown and that, really, women couldn’t be friends with coloreds. Poor Rodney was surprised because, at that time, he had misguided notions about my dad.
“Even when I was seven, eight, Mr. Burton shook my hand a treated me like an equal,” he told Marianne. “And he was the first white man who told me I should look him in the eye when he spoke to me.”
“He’s two-faced, I told you. If he makes you feel like that—it’s not true. He doesn’t see you as an equal or special. He sees you as a common N____r, believe me. I know!”
Rodney knew better than to push his luck with Marianne. If there was something she wanted to share with him, she would, otherwise no amount of probing would make her.
“She’s really beautiful,” he said. “That red hair and scattered freckles. And the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, like the Caribbean.”
“What do you know about the Caribbean?”
“I’ve seen pictures.” He laughed and drew an oval in the air, indicating the sea.
“You ARE sweet on her! You’re as crazy as she is!” She said she wanted to scratch him, to knock some sense into him but when she looked at him she knew it was too late. “He was already hooked on you,” she told me later.
“What do you mean, ‘you’re as crazy as she is?’”
“She said, ‘He’s gorgeous!’”
“She said that about me?” Rodney wanted to know more about what I said, but Marianne told him to forget it. He said he couldn’t forget it and he wouldn’t let it go. So she screamed at him.
“Forget it. She’s white, Rodney. WHITE!”
“I know, Mari. I’m well aware. I just want to know what she’s like, I mean, what kind of person is she?”
Marianne said she told him I was just about the best person she’d ever known. That made me blush and feel a mixture of pride and embarrassment. She said she told him she didn’t know how I got to be that way, being raised the way I was. She said he wanted to know more but she wouldn’t say anything further. She said it made Rodney angry, and that he turned and walked toward the cane field, away from her, like he needed space, like he needed to think without being badgered, but she followed him.
“What did ya’ll do in the barn?” Rodney asked. Marianne said he avoided looking at her. He walked past her through the rows of cane, taller than himself. Marianne said she followed him, chewing on her cane and stopping to look at each stalk he pulled down as if she was helping him to find the ideal one.
“Nothing much,” Marianne told him. She said he walked slowly through the first row of cane, pulling stalks down a foot or two as if looking for the perfect piece to cut. He probably didn’t even look at the cane, she said. More than likely, he looked through it, through the stalks, through the rows, through the fields.
“I wanted to show her what you showed me last year about sex,” Marianne said. “She chickened out, but I won’t give up.” Marianne told me she said that to make him look at her, to stop ignoring her. She said it worked, that Rodney turned around abruptly and faced her and that it surprised her, even frightened her a bit, even though she wanted it to happen, but that she shrugged her shoulders to make him think she didn’t care, wasn’t afraid. That’s how she was, tough as nails on the outside, a mess inside.
“You’re a girl, Mari. You should want to have sex with boys, not girls!” Rodney told her. I’m sure he was incredulous, furious as he tasted the sweetness of the cane and the orange soda he had on his way to the Quarters. Marianne probably stared at him with a steady gaze, expressionless, like her soul was dead. He would look into her grey, green eyes and see darkness, despair, uncertainty and want to hug her like a big brother, to tell her everything would be alright, but he didn’t know if it would be alright, whatever IT was.
“I hate boys, men, all males, since those white men, well, you know,” Marianne told him, barely above a whisper. I can see her trying to hold back tears, being brave, putting on a front, embarrassed that he, a boy witnessed her vulnerability. I’d seen her do that before when she was trying to hide hurt feelings.
Rodney probably spoke softly, like a dad would speak to his hurting child, he was kind that way. Marianne didn’t have a dad, she was the strength of her family, the oldest, the first. Her sisters had a dad, but she was her own dad.
“You’ll get over it.” Rodney looked down at her, but I’m sure she looked away so he didn’t see her thick eyelashes clump together from her tears. “Not all men are pigs like those cowards who wear masks while they do their dirty work.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it, Rod,” she told him. “Anyway, do you think about having sex with Susie Burton?”
She said he didn’t answer. I know now what he thought, but then?
*
A few weeks after Rodney went to the Quarters, my dad and I went to the Esso station with Will and Robby in the back seat. I was in the front. I watched Rodney walk towards the car and I was afraid he would try to talk to me. He shook hands with Daddy and I heard Mr. Thibault tell Rodney to fill the car and check the tires.
He washed the front windshield and, when he looked at me through the glass, I guess I was staring at him. I smiled. He smiled back and winked at me. I was surprised and without thinking, I winked back, then I was embarrassed. I looked down at the book in my lap.
He walked to my side of the car. The window was opened and he started to wash the side mirror. He must have noticed my little brothers in the back seat. They were playing a game.
“Hey, it’s good to see you,” he whispered. I put my index finger to my lips to indicate we needed to be quiet, and I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. There was something about him that made me tingle all over.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I mouthed and I looked at him. It was sort of intriguing, as if we were having a clandestine meeting.
“I went to Marianne’s a few weeks ago, hoping to see you.”
“Shhhhh,” I whispered, and giggled. He looked at the finger I held to my lips and grinned. I felt my gut melt into a pool of hot liquid that ran through my veins. My insides burned.
I could hear his heart thump against his chest and almost laughed, but I didn’t want to embarrass him. The smell of gasoline, oil and dirt evaporated and I could detect a strange scent, one I’d never smelled before —like sea air. I wondered whether the saltiness came from my pores or his.
“Sorry,” He just moved his lips, no sound.
“I know, Marianne told me,” I whispered. He looked in the backseat. The boys didn’t pay attention, in fact they were fighting.
“You look nice ... beautiful, in fact,” he pantomimed. I think when he realized what he said, he was surprised at himself. I was flustered, too. No one ever complimented me and I loved it, but I didn’t know how to react.
“Sorry,” he murmured. At the same time I said, “Thank you.” We both laughed.
“You probably think I’m crazy,” he whispered. I was the one who felt crazy, so I didn’t know what to say to that.
He placed his arm on the top of my window and leaned his forehead against it. His face was so close to mine I felt like we touched. I turned to stare out the front windshield, glancing to my left to make sure Daddy wasn’t watching. Rodney could see our dads in the office over the roof of the car.
“I need to talk to you,” he whispered as quietly as he could, shifting his eyes to look at my brothers every few seconds. They were still busy, ignoring us.
What he said scared me at first, so I hesitated. Then I turned and looked at him.
“Okay.” That’s all I said. I guess he wondered what it meant. Heck, I wondered what I meant. I didn’t stop to think about the where, when, or how. I just thought that if he wanted to talk to me, well, I’d like that. Then I felt a blanket of fear come over me and I looked at our dads through the glass. They were still deep in conversation so I turned to Rodney and smiled, then I felt afraid again and looked at my book. I hoped he would take the cue to walk away from the car window. He did.
Marianne and I were in the hayloft the next Wednesday afternoon involved in a disagreement about sexual experimentation. I guess all thirteen year old girls are curious and want to explore, but I was uncomfortable about doing it with Marianne. I think subconsciously I knew she was attracted to me in a way I wasn’t attracted to her. She had made a number of comments about how she preferred girls, an attitude since the Klan visit that I thought would pass in time. It never did.
“I do love you,” I told her. “You’re my best friend. But I don’t want to have sex with a girl.”
“We won’t have SEX, Silly. I’m just going to show you.”
“I don’t know.”
“Take off your shorts,” Marianne begged.
“I don’t want to, not yet. Give me time.”
“What are you worried about?”
“I’m not sure. I’m just confused. It doesn’t seem right. You’re a girl and my best friend. Something tells me this is supposed to be between a boy and a girl who really love each other, not like best friends, but another way.”
“Hey! Anybody here?” a male voice called from blow the loft.
We didn’t answer. I’m sure he could hear shuffling, and dust probably rained down on him from the hay that stirred up and fell between the slats in the floor.
“Marianne, are you up there?” Marianne and I looked at each other. She mouthed, RODNEY, and I nodded. I could hear the ladder squeak and knew he was climbing it. He was about midway up when his head emerged. Marianne was on her knees, frozen, facing him. She was stunned, like a raccoon when you shine a flashlight in its eyes at night. Rodney stopped as if to give her time to adjust to his presence, then he took a couple more steps up the ladder. I knew he was there but couldn’t see him until I crawled around and kneeled next to Marianne.
Rodney swung his knee to the side of the ladder and onto the floor of the loft. His other knee followed. He looked directly at me and smiled. I was afraid, at first, but happy that my uncomfortable disagreement with Marianne had been interrupted.
Rodney scooted towards me on his knees and reached his arms out. I didn’t know what to do at first, but when I looked at him and he smiled with the most genuine look I’d ever seen, I moved towards him. He touched one of my hands and I shivered. He let his fingers walk up my arm while he slowly scooted closer to me, until he could grip my shoulder. His other hand found mine and he took it into his as if he had just asked me to dance and I gracefully placed my hand in his. All the time he stared at me and I looked over his shoulder at Marianne who mouthed, “What are you doing?” I shrugged my shoulder and looked back at Rodney. Oh, God, I thought, he is so gorgeous and the look on his face, well, I can’t describe it but I can still envision it today, all these years later.
Looking back it seems so impulsive, crazy, but that day it just seemed natural, almost like we’d planned it or had done it dozens of times. Of course, we hadn’t.
He held my hand, sat with his back to the side wall, legs out in front of him, and pulled me next to him. We sat with our thighs and shoulders touching. Rodney picked up a long piece of straw and put it in his mouth, he was still holding my hand. Marianne faced us, sitting on her heels, knees in front of her as if she were praying, but got tired and leaned back.
“What are you two doing?” she asked.
“We aren’t doing anything. Just sitting here,” Rodney said. I loved the sound of his voice. It was deep and a bit raspy with just a hint of Cajun-ness in the twang. He wore the same “Cowboys” baseball cap he’d worn the first time I met him and he looked masculine and handsome and gentle all at the same time. His shoulders were broad and he seemed so big next to me—and I wasn’t little, at five feet seven inches and growing. He turned towards me as if to block Marianne out of our conversation.
“You look beautiful, as always.” He whispered it but I knew Marianne heard. It sounded a little, well, garrulous, and I didn’t like it. Then, it was like he checked himself. “I mean, I’m sorry. I get tongue-tied when I’m around you. This is the first time I’ve touched you and I’m nervous.” He lifted our entwined fingers and looked at them. I felt prickly pins run down my spine. His admission seemed so sensitive and honest—it balanced the strong athleticism and strength he carried.
“It’s hot up here. Let’s go for a walk,” he said. He scooted to the top of the ladder and once he’d taken a couple steps down and his torso was still above the edge of the loft, he reached for me with one hand. I didn’t take his hand. I just scooted towards him and turned around so I could back down the ladder. I caught Marianne’s glare as my feet began to descend.
“What the heck?” she said.
“Come on,” I said. It IS hot up here.” She followed me. The three of us walked in a line towards the cane field, Rodney in front. He reached for my hand and led me, our laced fingers behind him, like he was pulling me along. Marianne followed. When we got to the rows, Rodney dropped my hand, took out his pocket knife and pulled on one of the tall green stalks and cut a long rod of cane off the foliage. He sliced the two foot shaft in three pieces and handed one to me and the other to Marianne. I didn’t know what to do with mine so I watched as he sucked his cane like a man might draw on a cigar. Marianne, well, she bit into hers, chewed for a while, then spit out the stringy pieces once the sweetness was gone. Then she took another bite. I just held mine and I watched the other two.
When Rodney realized I was no longer following, he turned around and hurried back through the row towards me where I stood at the edge of the field. He took my hand and we walked swiftly back towards the barn.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“Here. I want to talk to you.” We went to the back side of the barn and sat on the ground. It was shady since the sun hid on the other side of the old structure and there were dozens of pecan trees, their green foliage creating a canopy above us. I fully expected to see Marianne round the corner and join us, but she never did.
“What’s your favorite thing to do?” he asked. He was still sucking on his piece of sugar cane and looking straight ahead. Our legs were stretched out in front and our thighs touched. He wore jeans and I had on shorts.
“Oh, I guess I like to read more than anything.” I played with my piece of cane, stripping pieces down the sides like thin spaghetti.
“Really? Me, too. My parents give me books for my birthday and Christmas every year. Have you read Chaucer?”
“Oh, God! That’s pretty heavy stuff, but yes, I have. I got it from the library—I love the library. I go there a lot—it’s an escape.”
“Really? I love the library, too. Of course I have to use the colored section and I’m not allowed to check out books, but I discover all sorts of things when I’m there. We don’t have a library at Adams High.” That sounded crazy to me—I mean, what school doesn’t have a library?
I could feel an electric current run from his leg into mine, up my spine and into my panties. He reached over and took my hand and held it in front of his face, as if he was trying to determine the size, shape, color. His intensity was as impressive as his intelligence and we talked like scholars about Shakespeare, Newton and Jane Austin. We discovered we loved Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. I realized I’d never had anyone who I could have a conversation with on that level. It was heady and exciting. Even so, I couldn’t detach my brain from the way it felt to touch him.
“We have a few textbooks, but not enough to go around so we share them in class,” he said. “But we can’t take them home.”
“That stinks,” I said. “I mean, how do you do your homework?” He shrugged.
“You get used to it, I guess.”
“I volunteer in our school library,” I said without thinking. “When the covers come off the books at school, or if some of the pages tear or the binding begins to crumble, they throw them in boxes in the storage closet.” The librarian asked me to help out during the summer and one of my jobs was sorting the old, thrown out books, boxing them and stacking the boxes in an attic closet.
“Your school throws out books?” He was incredulous and I realized how wasteful it must sound to someone like him.
“I might be able to get some of those old books for your school,” I said without thinking about how I’d sneak them out and get them to the colored school.
“Wow. Could you really do that? I mean, how?” We talked about what books he needed and we went off to find Marianne, to ask her for a tablet and pencil so he could make a list for me of the subjects he’d be taking in the fall. Marianne got excited, too, and made a list of the books eight graders used at Adams. I promised to look through the boxes of discarded books.
The three of us returned to our spot in the shade on the backside of the barn and we talked excitedly about the prospect of getting books for Adams High. Marianne wrote neat lists in columns on the tablet and Rodney kept remembering certain volumes, like The Atlas of the Universe and New Biology.
At one point he put his arm around me, over my shoulder as if it was the most natural thing in the world. With Marianne sitting in front of us, busy writing, he gripped the top of my arm while he held my other hand in my lap, his shoulders twisted towards me so I could see his face when he spoke. I wore a sleeveless white shirt that buttoned up the front and the heat from his hand created a current of warmth that radiated from inside him onto my skin. It felt right and I had such peace, like a weight lifted from my soul and I was connected to him in a way I’d never been connected to anyone before. I wondered how he felt.
As our talk about books branched into finding texts for younger kids, too, tears pooled in his eyes and made them glassy, but nothing spilled out. He seemed happy, almost relieved, although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. He kissed one of my dimples, laughed and said, “I’ve been wanting to do that, to see what it felt like to kiss a hole.” We all laughed, even Marianne who, initially, seemed angry.
When we were all quiet, thinking of how we could pull off the great textbook heist, he began to hum. His face was close to my ear and it sounded like, “Don’t Worry Baby,” by the Beach Boys—one of my favorites. His voice was deep and beautifully calming and the fear I always carried with me, that “walking on eggshells” kind of feeling, lifted and I was lighter during the time I was with him than I’d been in as long as I could remember. I leaned my head on his shoulder and we stayed that way a long time.
“Did you hear the bell?” Marianne asked.
“Oh, no. Did it ring?”
“It’s just been a few minutes, but the two of you seemed lost in another world and I hated to disturb you.”
“Thanks!” I said and jumped up and ran out the Quarters and down South Jefferson.
I still remember every detail of that afternoon but what I remember most about those precious moments is the lifting of fear and dread inside me—a feeling of peace and freedom, even if for a few minutes, that I had never felt before. I didn’t even know what it felt like to be unafraid, not to expect the anvil to drop at any moment, until that afternoon as I held Rodney Thibault’s hand and he put his arm around me.
That summer I started to sneak old textbooks out of the library in my book bag. I’d hide them under my bed until Wednesday, then I would load them in my back pack and bring them to the Quarters. I didn’t keep count of how many I squirreled away with Marianne during those months, but Rodney told her he was able to share them with classmates and that it was exciting to have books to take home at night. I thought how we white kids just took things for granted and how lots of kids actually complained about having to take books home to study.
Each time I went to the Esso station with Daddy, Rodney would come to the car and he would thank me for the textbooks. We had this secret–a mysterious mission to save the world together. At thirteen and fifteen, we felt we were making an impact, and we did it together—me, Rodney and Marianne. Soon even Marianne didn’t think about us as being colored and white. We were teenagers on a mission.