CHAPTER 21
Fancy didn’t show up and I worried she might have gotten in some trouble. It was way after dark the following night when I heard the porch door open. “Hey. Sorry, I couldn’t come yesterday.” She looked mighty good in her shorts and old T-shirt.
“You shouldn’t be here at all.”
She stopped and parked her hands on her hips. “You tired of me this quick?”
“Shut up. I mean, what if your momma and daddy wake up one night and you ain’t home?”
“Unless he’s sipping, Daddy is in bed right after the sun’s down good, and sleeps like a log. Besides, Momma and me sat down last night and had a long talk about how boys and girls our age have a natural curiosity. She doesn’t want me messing around and end up with a baby in my stomach.”
That’s something that never occurred to me. I’d been too busy walking around like a bantam rooster who’d serviced his hen. “A baby? Fancy, don’t talk about shit like that!” I slumped back on the couch. “Well, that’s the end. No more. No way we can risk such a thing.”
“You’re right. I guess we’ll have to go back to just being friends.” She pulled a loose string on her sleeve and stared out the window. Silence lay between us like two pouting kids.
“Momma did tell me how to keep from it if the time was to come, though.”
“How’s that?”
Fancy made circles with her finger on the couch cushion, like she was deciding whether or not to let me in on the secret. Then she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a little foil package. “Just need to make sure to use one of these.”
I recognized it. Back when I went to school, some of the boys toted one around in their wallet, always bragging. What could Clemmy be thinking to give Fancy such a thing?
She held it by the corner and flapped it like a flag. “Momma says you can buy them at the drugstore, or sometimes they have machines in gas station bathrooms.”
I waved my hand to dismiss that idea. “You can bet your ass I ain’t going to ask that woman at the drugstore.” In spite of myself, I started to consider how far the nearest gas station was that had a bathroom, and how long it would take me to walk.
“Momma said it was for in case I ever lost my head.”
“Well, I reckon it’s too late for that. How does a person know it fits?”
Fancy looked irked. “What’d you want me to do, tell Momma how big your business was and ask her if it was the right size?”
We stared at each other for a minute before we fell over laughing. I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. “Well, we won’t be doing it again.” I held it between two fingertips, like something might rub off. “Here, you keep it.”
Fancy pulled me up from the couch. “You got any more of them store-bought cigarettes?” We sat on the porch and smoked. The night air was soft and still. “Daddy says he don’t think you’re going to make it trying to farm by yourself, said it’d be too much work for a man, much less a boy.”
I got up from the chair, kicking it backward with my foot. I figured a lot of the folks in the community probably thought the same way. “I ain’t scared.”
“You got some guts, Junebug. I wouldn’t want to think about living by myself.”
I snorted. “That’s because you’re a girl. My boy time is over.”
“Don’t bite my head off. I didn’t say it.”
“Fancy, when a person has his whole life pretty much come apart, he don’t need somebody questioning if he’s man enough to handle himself.”
She got up and wrapped her arms around me from behind. “I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. You’re man enough for me.”
I opened the screen door and flicked the butt into the yard. “You getting cool?”
We settled on the couch. “Want to thumb-wrestle?” Fancy asked.
“What’s that?”
“Give me your right hand.” She hooked our four fingers together, put our thumbs on top, and when she yelled, “go,” one would try to hold the other’s thumb down. Fancy caught me every time.
I finally managed to win one, then made the mistake of looking her in the eyes. I moved my face close. Her tongue flicked out. We teased each other, playing and kissing. I moved my fingers to the tips of her breasts. She closed her eyes as I stroked. “You got that thing in your pocket?”
Fancy nipped at my earlobe. “You fixing to try it?”
“Either that or I’m going to bust wide open.”
In the bedroom, I pulled Fancy’s T-shirt over her head. We stood kissing and running our hands over each other. Electricity went between us like our fingers were stuck in a socket.
There was less confusion and more of a rush to get to the place we wanted to go. Sex was a new puzzle, not yet understanding how to take what we needed and give to the other at the same time. It was thrashing and grunting and driving of bodies against each other, desperate to make it last as long as possible.
“God almighty.” I pulled Fancy across me. “Just shoot me now. Life can’t get any better than this.”
“Damn, Junebug, you’re going to make me crazy.” Fancy rolled to straddle my stomach, bending down to run her tongue over my lips. “When you going to Apex?”
“Why?” My fingers tickled up her back.
She arched her back. “Because you need to practice what you’re going to say to the lady in the drugstore.”
“We got to be crazy.” I rubbed the back of my finger from her pelvis up to her belly button.
She sucked in a sharp breath, then reached back and ran her fingernails along the inside of my thigh. “Call it whatever you want, but when we’re loving I don’t care if the whole world knows.”
I cupped her breasts. They were firm and swollen. “Can you use one of those things twice?”
She used her tongue to trace the ridges down my stomach, then gripped me, pulled off the condom, and threw it on the floor. Fancy eased down until I was inside her. She closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth, pulling up and settling back down. It was slow and amazing.
When it was over, Fancy collapsed on top of me. We were soaked with sweat. “I don’t want to go home.”
I rubbed her back. “There was some blood on my sheets last time. Were you hurt?”
“A little.” She raised her head and flashed that smile. “But this time you tried to kill me.”
We finally dragged ourselves out of bed and started getting dressed. I picked the condom up off the floor. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
She pulled up her shorts. “Keep it as a souvenir, because if you don’t find some more, it’ll be your last trip down this road.” She dodged my slap at her butt.
I dropped it in an empty tin can in the kitchen trash. She leaned under my arm as I drove.
Back home, I coasted to a stop in front of the house and sat in the truck, enjoying a cool breeze through the open window, watching a full white moon give life to dancing shadows of treetops playing a game of tag across the yard. I lit a cigarette, laid my head back, and thought about Fancy. She made my life so much better. Fancy had replaced a heart full of pain with hope, helping to push away the darkness that seemed to trail me like a hellhound.
Sally stood at the fence of the mule lot watching me. I opened the truck door and walked across the yard; she blew air through her lips and blubbered a greeting. I reached through the rails to rub her nose and scratch her neck. “Can’t sleep either, huh?” Sally shook her head up and down and took a playful nip at my fingers. I popped her on the forehead. “Mighty late to be feeling so frisky.”
I opened the fence gate, grabbed her harness off the hook, slid the bit into her mouth, and held on to her mane while I jumped on her back. “I’m feeling a little frolicsome myself. Let’s go for a walk.”
We made an easy pace down the dirt road, going nowhere in particular, the night silence broken only by the gentle plops of her feet. “Sally-Girl, I’m in need of a woman’s point of view.” I pulled back on the reins and stopped. “What comes after two people have sex? Does it mean you have to get married?” A few clouds eased by the moon. “I reckon I could marry Fancy if it come down to it; be nice cuddling up in bed every night. You ever had sex, Sally? If you ain’t, I’m here to tell you it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced, makes you want to holler like Tarzan.” I looked at the stars, turning my head as far around as I could to appreciate the way they lay over the world like a round roof. “I know my feelings are mighty strong for Fancy. It’s just I ain’t quite sure where it might lead, feels like it goes against everything I’m supposed to live by, you know, her being black and all.” I scratched Sally’s ears. “Grandma could see it coming.” My heels nudged her forward. “You think God really cares about such things, Sally?” She perked up her tail and dropped a load of stinking apples on the road. I threw my head back and laughed. “You could’a just shook your head yes or no.”
By then we were half a mile from the house. I pulled on the bit and turned to head back. I was feeling crazy. I bent my head back and howled at the moon like a lovesick tomcat, just because I felt like it. I slapped Sally’s haunches with the leather and she took off in a run toward the barn, me yelling and laughing at the top of my lungs, “I love Fancy Stroud, and I don’t give a dang who does or don’t like it, especially a fat, lazy mule. You can all kiss my ass.”
If anybody had seen us out there in the dark, they would have been pretty sure I’d lost my mind. And maybe I had.