Lightning Song (17 page)

It was Laurie, though, who understood the meaning of the baton. She held it as if it were some sacred thing, Excalibur or the Holy Grail, a relic of the True Cross, you would think so, from the look on her face, about which an aura had formed. Leroy was unaccustomed to seeing his sister so vulnerable, so nakedly in love and purely affected and unable to hide the fullness of her feeling. She stroked the baton with her fingers. It might have been a pet. She put her nose to the larger bulb at the end and breathed its fragrance of new rubber. She laid her small tongue upon it. She closed her eyes and savored the treasure in her hands.

Leroy immediately knew that she was right. He hated to admit it, but she was. He had never seen a baton so close, stood in such intimate propinquity to one. He had given not
one moment's thought to a baton before now, and yet now that it was here before him he could see nothing else, could not deny that it was a beautiful object, like art he might almost have been grown-up enough to think, truly beautiful, its perfect shape, its admirable heft, its miracle of balance and form, the scarcely perceptible million indentations in the bright rod that gave its holder the confidence of skid-free traction even on a summer's day and with sweaty palms.

The little car went zooming down the road toward the village.

Leroy said, “Let me see that thing.”

Laurie said, “Fuck you.”

Leroy looked at his sister. Who was this child?

Elsie and Uncle Harris could hear nothing in the front seat of the convertible.

Then Laurie held out the baton as if to hand it over to Leroy.

She said, “You can touch it.”

Leroy would have preferred resisting the temptation, he believed he would have been a better person if he could have said fuck you right back to Laurie, but he could not, he knew he could not. He understood the hopelessness of any such competition with Laurie. And anyway, he had to feel the baton beneath his hand, this wand of silver and rubber. It was irresistible to him. He reached out. He touched it. He ran his hand along its length. He felt the subtle indentations in the shaft. He saw the glistening of sunlight upon its surfaces. He touched the rubber bulbs at either end, the greater and the
lesser ones. He looked up at Laurie and her hard eyes gave him further permission. He bent down his head and smelled the baton, shaft and bulbs, as his sister had done. He tasted it with his tongue. Lightly he bit it with his teeth. Laurie was kind to him, for once in her life. She did not snatch the baton away, did not make fun. She allowed Leroy to linger there, in this weird worship.

For the only time in his life Leroy wanted to renounce himself, his whole identity, and to be a girl, to share this moment with his sister in a way that as a boy he could not, to commune more closely than even now he did, though it was hard to imagine how a moment could have been more intimate. For the first time in his life he thought that there might be something wrong, something sinful and irredeemable, about being born into the world a male child and not female.

He had not been wrong about the baton. Its perfection was real, all right. No one could deny its perfection. More than merely real or perfect, the baton was magic. There seemed little doubt of this now. It held invisible powers. Its entrance into his life signaled changes that would stay with him in perpetuity, blessing or curse, he did not know, or even care really, so strong was its power to charm and change him. The power of it throbbed into his own body like electrical drums. It vibrated through his hand and up his arm and into his heart, where it made its imprint, a thumbprint and more than a thumbprint, a mark that might as well have been an image of Leroy's own DNA upon his soul.

In this baton lay the universe, it seemed to Leroy, its every secret and all beauty. Leroy wanted to twirl. He didn't care what he had said before, he renounced every belief he had ever held, every assertion he had ever made. He didn't mind the humiliation of changing his mind, of chasing a girl's dream. The baton was the living bone of him. Twirling suddenly lay at the marrow. He wanted to be a twirler, longed to be one, deep down. Somewhere near the beginning of the universe he already was a twirler. Twirling was his identity, his life's core. I am a twirler, he thought, whispered, prayed, as if in a foreign tongue to enhance the mystery,
Ich bin ein Twirler
. With no baton of his own—his mama had suspected she would lose this battle and Leroy's daddy had convinced her they should see how the conversation worked out before spending the extra money—Leroy was empty, worthless, he was nothing. With his own baton he would be complete, only then.

His heart ached, his soul, to possess a baton, to twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl, endlessly, through infinite space and time, until the purest part of his very self became known to him, and to all the universe. Twirl, he had to twirl, for God's holy sake, I twirl, therefore I am!

The problem was that at the same time he knew these things he also fully understood why his mama had begun to manipulate the three of them into attending this camp. He knew it had little to do with wholesome summer activities, as she pretended. Fun and fellowship were only a peripheral
motive. This whole setup had entirely to do with Harris, with herself and Harris. It had to do with getting the children out of the house. It was all about the kissing that Leroy had seen. And probably more than kissing. He thought of his mama in a western vest, he hoped it had buttons. He was alert suddenly to just how much more there was on this earth for a man and woman to share in secret beyond the act of a kiss. It was awful how deep a secret could be, how deep a betrayal could go. Leroy had seen them kiss, so that much was clear, undeniable and real. He had looked at the naked pictures in the magazines beside his uncle's bed, and so nakedness was real as well, bodies of unthinkable and painful beauty. Beneath her clothing Leroy's mama was no less naked than the demented lady. He began to suspect that his mama might already have done this thing, whatever it was, with Harris, this sex he had begun to hear about. He was driven for the first time in his life to consider the death of his sisters, and his own death. He stood at the beginning of knowing such things, knowing also that the means by which he was accustomed to comprehending the world were merely inadequate in the extreme.

Then he laid eyes upon Ruby Rae. He saw her as soon as they arrived at the school football field. Harris pulled the car into the school parking lot. The gravel crunched beneath the tires as he pulled to a stop near the fence. All of them struggled out of the car, children and adults, and walked in the direction of several other persons milling about, parents and children, all girls of course. Then, there she was, the person
Uncle Harris had said was pretty, the professional-grade twirler Ruby Rae.

All right, it was settled, then. It didn't matter any longer what he was doing here. Everything was changed, pride meant nothing. Secret agendas were irrelevant. Destiny was made. Leroy would twirl. The earth's twirling on its axis was not a greater certainty than this. When he first laid eyes on her Leroy knew that Ruby Rae was the final answer to all doubt on every subject. Ruby Rae was every twelve-year-old boy's most private dream of heaven. She was beautiful. She was otherworldly. She was the most beautiful vision ever to have been visited upon human eyes, or even upon a twelve-year-old boy's imagination, as richly textured as that. Leroy's reverence for the baton suddenly paled and disappeared in the sunlight of sexual need first felt. He ached, his entire body like a bad tooth ached simply to look at her. He loved his mama in a way he had never loved her before. He loved the women in Harris's magazines. He loved his sisters, and all the women of the world. He loved Miss Alberta, who taught Mississippi history. He loved Rosalynn Carter. He knew why people wanted to kiss, even in sin and betrayal. He knew now that he could forgive anything, anything at all, for a woman's love.

He would have died to kiss Ruby Rae. Gladly would he have given his life for a single kiss, though he was not even sure he would know how to kiss if he had the chance. Only once would have been enough. A single kiss would suffice, pure as snow. Or maybe not. Maybe he would have to have
two kisses. Or about a million. Maybe there were other things to want that he didn't know about. He wondered whether his Uncle Harris had felt this feeling, longing, urgency, for his mama, and she for him. He believed they did. This explained so much. It explained everything. No guilt of betrayal was too great to resist the urgency of this need, once felt.

Leroy began to fear that he had said too much, complained too vigorously, that they would not let him twirl. Was this possible? That he had actually talked himself out of this opportunity for a complete personality? They hadn't bought him a baton. That was a bad sign. Those things were expensive, Leroy knew that. Had he lost his chance? It was conceivable that Leroy had gone too far, had trusted too much that the world would not take from him what suddenly he understood he could not well live without. He would do anything to repair the damage, anything. He would beg. He would cast his lot with the swine herd of little girls around him, those who had showed up for this thing, this camp, which he was certain now only he understood. He cared not a whit what a sissy this would make of him, prove him to be. Nothing else mattered any longer. He had no regard for himself at all, no memory even of any values he had held in this world before he saw the baton and the girl, or for any life beyond the sexuality of the young woman standing before him and his family on the green table of land, the football field, in a purple leotard, casually speaking to parents and, as if unconsciously, slowly twirling her own baton in a desultory, heartbreaking way.

Her legs were long, her hips were slim, her lips were full, her hair she wore in an auburn braid to her waist. Those dear qualities of beauty were not all, not even in fact a fraction, of what broke this child's heart. Ruby Rae's breasts were by far the most beautiful breasts on this or any other planet. Why is it a child loves breasts? Not just beautiful, visible there beneath the leotard, they were huge. They were as big as watermelons. He would never pass another watermelon in a supermarket without whispering her name. He would never pass a roadside fruit stand without thinking of batons.

T
he night before twirling camp—or maybe another night, later on, Leroy could never remember which—a call came in from Security at the sporting goods plant out on Old Wire Road, close to Fateville. Could Swami Don fill in on short notice, the caller had wanted to know, they had a guard out on sick call and needed a substitute. Leroy listened to his daddy talking on the phone. Swami Don said okay, sure, that sounded fine, the late shift, all right, they could count on him, no problem. Leroy watched then as Swami Don made a second quick call and heard his daddy speak in low tones—he couldn't tell what he was saying—then hang up. Swami Don came into the bedroom and told Elsie he was working tonight.

Leroy's mama was cool to Swami Don, she was still mad about Laurie's spanking, and maybe about some other things as well. Still, she helped him lay out his uniform, the sleek gray trousers with a stripe of a darker gray down each leg, the
military-style webbed belt and buckle, the plain-toed shoes polished to a fare-thee-well, the starched khaki shirt and slim tie. Leroy watched it all. No matter what kind of mood Elsie was in, this uniform always seemed to soften her, Leroy noticed. Swami Don never unknotted the tie so he wouldn't have to struggle to retie it each time with only one hand. Elsie offered to tie it for him, said it would look better freshly tied, but he said, “Aw, no, no thanks.” The chocolate brown nylon jacket with a silver badge, the jaunty hat, cowboy-style—Swami Don looked very different in his guard uniform, everybody who ever saw him dressed in it said so. It was the only time Leroy ever noticed how handsome a man his daddy really was.

Seeing him dressed in the uniform, it's a wonder Elsie didn't catch on to what was going on. It was a wonder Leroy hadn't understood what the second phone call meant. In the uniform Swami Don looked nothing like the dumb-moose dad, the cripple, the steady guy, Farmer Jim, which were the ways Elsie, and Leroy, too, were accustomed to thinking of him. The issue of his crippled arm disappeared altogether when he was dressed in uniform, along with all his other customary identities. In this uniform everything you knew about Swami Don seemed to fall away, as if those things had been the costume and this were the real person, unmasked. Leroy had a hard time thinking such thoughts, they were so foreign to him, but he knew the truth of them anyway. Even Swami Don saw the difference, Leroy could look at him and see this, the
way he stood, everything. He watched his daddy regard himself in the mirror on the back of his bedroom door and you could tell Swami Don was quite astounded by the person he saw. Elsie saw it, too, this difference. Whenever he wore the uniform she said, “Don't you look handsome tonight.” She even said it on this night, when she was scarcely speaking otherwise.

It was a long time before anybody found out what went on later. Leroy was already in bed, though he was not asleep. He heard the engine of the pickup turn over and start. He imagined his daddy's cowboy hat on the seat beside him. He saw a reflection of the headlights turn on and heard the truck pull out of the drive and head out down the lane. Autumnlike air swept in through the open window of the pickup on Swami Don's drive through the hills. By this time Leroy had already closed his eyes. He was already dreaming. The wind ruffled Swami Don's tie and blew his hair over his forehead and into his eyes. The quick call he had made, when Leroy was hanging around trying to listen, was to the Indian girl who worked at the factory. Some of this would come out later. There would be noisy fights between Swami Don and Elsie. There would be fierce, quiet conversations. The phone call was something the two of them had planned, Swami Don and the Indian maiden, next time he got called in for the dog shift. The breeze through the window brought into his nostrils the fragrances of cedar and mown hay from beyond the roadside. Swami Don wondered whether this was what the world
smelled like to a liar. He wondered what those small lies, the things he'd withheld from Elsie all along, throughout their marriage, had to do with this larger one.