14

Davy Says

Davy and I are playing King of the Hill on a pile of dirt in an excavation when he says, I know you don’t have a thing. A thing? I say. Yeah that thing between my legs, you don’t have one. You’re a girl. Of course I’m a girl, I say, what did you think I was? Would you like to see a thing? he asks and I ask, Why do you want to show it to me? A thing? I ask, why do you call it a thing? Because I’m being nice to you, he says. Girls get all stupid about things. They giggle and stick out their fingers to touch it. Really, I say, did you show your thing to other girls? Oh lots, he says, where we lived before there were lots of girls who wanted to see it. I say to him, I know a girl doesn’t have a thing and doesn’t need one but maybe it would be fun to have a thing and show it off to the girls.

Did you ever see your father’s thing? Davy asks. I wonder. Did I? I don’t know, I say after a long time kicking at the dirt, watching the rocks roll down the side of the hill, trying to remember. Huh, Davy says, you’re 7 years old and you’ve never seen a thing. Have you ever seen a girl undressed, I ask him. Did you ever see your mother undressed? Davy comes up to me and plants a wet kiss on my lips. Even though he’s 9 years old that doesn’t mean he has to be like this. Hey, I say, wiping his spit from my lips. Hey, I say, what are you doing? He says, Want to be my girlfriend? Why, I ask him, what would be different? Davy says, Then I could show you my thing. He laughs and laughs like Woody Woodpecker.

We’re standing so close to each other that I smell his breath like clover and can see the black dots in his brown eyes. He’s smiling at me. Davy puts his hands on my shoulders and presses me down, down. We fall to the ground. You’ll see, Davy says. All I can think about is how Pops never showed me his thing and what Odessa said about it, how a boy pees and makes babies with it and naturally I would like to see something like that. Like it is a science experiment. It’s going to be very educational.º

Davy unbuckles his belt and lies down next to me. Undo me, he says and takes my hand and puts it on his pants. It’s hard trying to unbutton his pants and pull down the zipper with one hand. I do want to see what his thing looks like. Davy’s eyes are staring straight at the sky and I see a little brown spot on his neck where he missed when he took a bath.

I’m scared Davy, I whisper, what if someone sees us? Who’s going to see us? Davy asks. No one ever sees us. We could be on a ship at sea. We could be Adam and Eve. Who are they? I ask and the zipper opens up. He says, Shut up, don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been to Sunday School so you could learn about religion? You need to learn about God, he says. Why? I ask. Pops says there is no God. Oh, he says like he never thought about that before, oh, he says, low in his throat, you’re going to burn in hell, there’s no two ways about it unless you go and learn about God and believe in Him. Well, I don’t, I say, and if Pops doesn’t believe and he goes to hell, then I’ll go with him.

The zipper is open, I say. He laughs at me and says, Took you long enough. He jumps up and pulls his pants and underpants down around his ankles but he’s standing with his back to me. I can see his bottom, white, like two little hardboiled eggs sitting on the table. I hear him pee. I lie still on the ground just holding my head up as he pees into the excavation below. I listen to him laughing. When he turns around to show me his thing, his little budding twig all red and pink, I get up and stand next to him. So this is it? I say. Yeah, he says, want to touch it? I point at it and giggle as if this was the tickling game and with my finger I poke it. It wiggles. Davy says, Okay, now you know what a thing looks like. He pulls his pants up and buckles his belt.

We run down the hill together, dirt flies, we yell The Thing, The Thing and giggle all the way to our bikes and ride to his house. Drop the bikes. Jump around yelling, The Thing until Davy’s mother comes out of the house with a man and says for Davy to come with them. They walk to the car in the driveway with Davy holding his mother’s hand. They leave quickly. I stare down the street watching them go away. I pick up my bike and ride to my house. I leave my bike on the front stoop and go into the back yard and lie down under the cottonwood tree where it is cool and fresh and now I wish I had a puppy to play with. A little baby dog all my own.