One Mississippi (19 page)

I jumped up. “Jacko, don’t sneak up on people like that! This is Linda.”

“Naw ain’t no Linda, I know who it is,” he said. “That’s ol’ nigger gal! Bout time you show up! Danum and me, we been waitin! We knowed you would come.”

Arnita’s smile froze on her face. “Why is he calling me that?”

“I’m sorry, you have to excuse Jacko,” I said. “He had polio when he was little. He lives with us now, he’s kinda —” I made my eyes do a jiggly thing to indicate a loose screw.

“Well if he keeps on calling me nigger gal,” Arnita said, “he’s gonna be missing more than his legs.”

I laughed. Even Dad had to resist a smile. Mom looked shocked. “Excuse me, Linda, Jacko is an elderly man,” she said fiercely. “He’s from out in the country. They have a different way of speaking out there. As you can see he’s very old and also he is crippled, so maybe you could be a little bit more forgiving.”

“Jacko, huh?” Arnita said. “How’d you know I was coming, Jacko?”

“Been waitin, Danum and me,” he said.

Arnita took in Jacko’s denim dress, his shriveled legs, his cowhide-covered scooter. “Are you some kind of witch? You got magic powers or something?”

He laughed. “Maybe I is.”

“I think so,” she said. “I’ve known some before, and you remind me of them.”

“Ol’ Danum just been a-pining for his nigger gal.”

“Jacko, stop saying that! God!”

Arnita said, “He’s just doing it to get me. He knows I’m as white as he is.”

“Yassum, you sho is,” said Jacko. “Snow White.”

“And he’s black, ain’t you, Jacko?”

He laughed. “Yes ma’am, I is.”

Mom said, “That’s enough! Linda, would you help me clear the dishes!” She grabbed up plates. The door to the kitchen flapped in her wake.

Mom let Arnita and me wash the dishes. Dad went to bed, worn out by the strain of being nice for that long a stretch. Janie took Arnita to her room and soon they were giggling like sisters. Mom put Jacko to bed and kissed me good night.

“She’s a very nice — she’s very nice,” Mom said. “But I’m afraid she’s not the right girl for you, Danny.”

“I know, Mom.” I didn’t know that at all, but I was not about to argue this question with her.

“The sooner you let her down easy, the better it will be.”

“Night, Mom.”

She went to her room.

I watched a few minutes of the
Tonight Show,
hoping Arnita would find a way to sneak out of Janie’s room. It didn’t take long to remember that Johnny Carson wasn’t as funny as he used to be. I turned off the TV and wandered yawning to the Freak Annex.

I stripped to my underwear. Being close to Arnita all evening without being able to touch her had made for a general throbbing condition, all that juice saved up for now. I snapped off my bedside lamp and slid under the covers to see about getting a handle on the problem.

A linoleum squeak from the kitchen.

Jacko was snoring in his room, beyond the partition. That was someone else in the kitchen, sidling up to my door.

Her shorty nightgown rose to reveal a flash of panties in the moonlight. My heart welled. I was hard, she was here, my God those are her panties, were we going to do IT? Were we going straight for the actual thing?

God help me. I’d never even been past second base.

Like any boy with a randy brain, I had lived for this moment and prayed that somehow I’d know what to do, my body would know how to do it, I wouldn’t make a fool of myself. I knew you were supposed to save it for marriage but I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to marry me so if I was ever going to do it, better DO IT NOW while I had the chance here in my own skinny bed with my kissing girl, my most beautiful girl in the whole world — never mind Jacko on the other side of the wall, Mom and Dad sleeping forty feet away — oh I hope they’re all asleep —

“Daniel?” Her whisper was lighter than moonlight. “Are you awake?”

“Shhhh. What are you doing?”

“Janie fell asleep. I got lonesome.”

I mean, I had the basic idea, I knew what went into what and what to do once it was in, but who knew if everything would function as I had imagined?

When she eased down to the edge of my mattress, the heat of her hip against my leg worked all the fear up into my spine. She leaned in and kissed me. I went
sproing,
all the way up, springy-hard as a surfboard.

“Shhh, Jacko’s there. He can hear through the wall.”

She laid her lips on the smooth place behind my ear. “Then we won’t make a sound.”

“What do you want?” I said.

I felt her smile against my cheek. “I want to sleep with you.”

“You mean — sleep?”

“No.”

I grazed her arm with my fingers. “Now? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She kissed my ear.

“Don’t you think we should wait?”

“For what?”

“Well . . . until we get married?”

“What if I won’t marry you,” she said, “or you never ask me? What if we die young, and this was our only chance to do it?”

Oh God oh God she said IT the word came from her not just my imagination. Oh she wanted it too!

I shushed her again. The word IT was strong enough to carry through that flimsy wall. I wanted no sudden appearances from the other side of that wall.

“Maybe I should go back to Janie’s room,” she said.

“Wait. Come here.” I lifted the sheet. She slid underneath, into the warmth. I curled my arm around her.

I had enough of a bone on to make a definite impression, diagonally across the back of her thigh. She giggled and pulled away. I snuggled up to her, pressing it hard up against her so she could feel what she was asking for. What she was bringing on herself by coming to my bed in such a brazen manner.

I kissed her. Again. We kissed and kissed until our tongues felt like one animal.

She had that dusky strawberry taste, I mean this was a girl who smelled fleshy and alive like ripe fruit when you were licking her neck. Her skin was hot. She scratched her ankle with the ball of her foot. That motion brought her leg firmly up into my hot swollen crotch yes BAM we have contact, Houston we have contact! There is the white cotton of my Sears Best underwear and her white cotton panties, flimsy fabric. I am just seventeen. Overflowing with terror jubilation embarrassment pure horny goatish eagerness and this sudden fierce tenderness — this hot desire to make her pay for her boldness by treating her like the bad girl she is.

Is seventeen too young to have sex? Has Arnita ever seen a hard dick?

The sight of it didn’t seem to frighten her.

There’s a moment when your soul just floats up out of your body, up into the air over the bed looking down at yourself. I looked upon myself curled on that girl, tugging at the cotton that kept us apart, snuggling hard against her on the narrow bed, fully intending to insinuate myself into her gently because I knew it would hurt her the first time, I read that the man has to do it quick and hard to get past the barrier — but then it was so easy OH I slid in there I think I am in there, nothing stopped me — in the grip of the most marvelous velvet hand squeezing me OH man OH OH man BAM and it’s over.

That fast. I shot like a big old hot quivery cannon. Hey, I was seventeen. I managed to do IT about five seconds and then BANG BANG BANG!

I kissed her neck. We lay there sticky, breathing hard into each other’s mouth.

“Sorry,” I said. “Kinda fast, huh.”

“No — stay there, wait!”

“Shhh . . . what?”

She said, “That’s not all. We’re just getting started.”

“But I already — you know —”

“No. You can’t quit now. It’s not over yet.”

“How do you know?”

“Believe me on this,” she said.

Oh my God. She has done this before. I hadn’t considered that possibility.

Her eyes widened. “You mean — you never have? Oh Daniel, I just assumed, I mean you’re a boy —”

I slid out of her, startling myself with my wetness. Suddenly I was ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“What do you mean? We just did.”

“I’m serious, Arnita, it’s wrong. We’re too young. What if you — what if you —”

“I won’t.” Her eyes brightened with the beginnings of tears. “Damn.”

I was supposed to be seeing lightning flashes, hearing thunder and bells, glorying in the moment of losing my VIRGINITY, which is something you don’t even know you’ve had until it’s gone — now it was gone, and Arnita didn’t even have hers to lose. What was the big deal?

She groped at the foot of the bed for her panties. I felt sorry for her but I did not move.

I didn’t know what to do. The kid I used to be was gone, blown away, in his place a full-grown boy who has just learned the difference between jerking off and real sex, which is the difference between gazing up at the moon and going to the moon on an actual rocket.

“What are you guys doing?”

How long had Janie been in the doorway? — in her pajamas, outlined in the light spilling in from the kitchen, across Arnita’s bare leg and my naked condition, which I emphasized by yanking the sheet over myself. “Janie, you idiot! Go back to bed!”

She looked at us, awestruck. “What are you doing?”

Arnita tugged down her nightie as she stepped out of bed, crossed the room in a flash to put her arms around Janie. “I couldn’t sleep, sweetie. Daniel was rubbing my back.”

“God, you let him touch you?” Janie inspected me. “Don’t you know he has terminal cooties?”

“I had my cootie shot,” Arnita said. “Besides, you were no fun. We were supposed to stay up all night telling stories, but you went out like a light. Come on, let’s go back to your room.”

She was so smooth getting out of there. She didn’t even glance back at me.

I couldn’t wait to get her alone, so we could do that again.

I would do better next time. I had the hang of it now. It was easy, really. Like falling off a log. Now I’d done it, now I was a man.

Going to sleep I felt electric stars sparking out to the very ends of my fingers. I pretended not to hear Jacko chuckling behind his flimsy wall.

That delicious long moment of falling asleep was my last moment of being young. I felt a little older the next morning when I woke up, and every morning since.

1
5

I
WORE THE MIRRORED
Foster Grants that made me feel like I was Burt Reynolds in a souped-up Camaro, instead of riding shotgun to Tim in his Starlite Blue Pinto. I reached for the volume knob to crank up Billy Paul wailing “Me and Mrs. Jones.”

The song had a different flavor. Everything tasted different today — the cool-edged warmth of the air, the vanilla perfume of Tim’s dashboard air freshener. As much as it pained me to admit that Mississippi could be beautiful, the roadside was especially vivid and green today. Spanish moss picturesquely bearded the trees along the Old Raymond Road. It felt like someone had polished the window glass on the world.

“What the hell are you so happy about?” said Tim.

“What? I’m not happy.”

“Yeah, you look real miserable.”

“I like this song,” I said.

“It’s not the song, Durwood. Where is Li’l Miss Cullid Gal this morning? Did she really spend the night at your house?”

“Yup. She and Mom went to town before I got up.” One taste of my family and me, and she’d fled back to the Beechams. She hadn’t even left a note.

“So you two did the fucky-fucky last night?”

Can he smell her on me? I didn’t have time for a shower. “Oh sure, yes indeed,” I scoffed. “Right there in the house under Dad’s nose! We did it like bunny rabbits, all night long.”

“Seriously,” he said. “You and her have done the dirty deed, haven’t you, Skip?”

“None of your business,” I said. “And anyway, no.”

“You lie. Come on, Skippy. I see your face.”

“You don’t see squat,” I said.

“Come on. You can tell me. Did she suck your dick?”

“Tim!”

“You get a finger up in her? Ever get that stinky finger up in her pussy?”

“Would you shut up! Jesus! You are so bizarre!”

He had this strange look on his face — his ironic smile bent into a smirk, something panicky behind the eyes. “If it was me that did it,” he said, “you’d be begging for all the intimate details, and I would gladly tell you.”

“Too bad! I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on, Dagwood, we talk about everything. That’s what best friends do.”

“Forget it! Jesus Christ! Sometimes you are such a pervert!”

We rode in silence for a while.

“Meeeee aaaaand Missa — Missa Jones!” he sang, a weak attempt to rally the troops.

I would not be rallied. I gave him the cold shoulder all the way to the Full Flower parking lot.

The company of
Christ!
was assembled in front of a big silver Greyhound bus, along with a few parents going along as chaperones for the overnight trip. We were off to a college in Itta Bena, way up in the Delta, to put on the world premiere of Eddie’s show. I loved settling into the great Scenicruiser with its rumbling diesels, free-flowing A/C, and the steely Greyhound aroma of the upholstery, so different from the smell of a school bus. Never mind what Dad said, these Baptists traveled first class.

We hadn’t been under way half an hour when we had our first big commotion — somebody slipped a chunk of ice down Eddie Smock’s shirt. His piercing shriek got the whole bus laughing, and the uproar increased as he flew up the aisle doing this wild wiggle-watusi-herky-jerky, like a drug-addled puppet.

“Dance, Eddie, dance!” cried Carol Nason to the hoots of the chorus.

“Carol, hush! Did you do this? Ow! Ooo!” Eddie wiggled and shimmied. “Y’aaaaall! Somebody get it out!”

“It’s just a piece of ice, Eddie,” shouted Matt Smith. His eyes widened when he realized what he’d said. “Look y’all, Eddie’s finally got his
first piece of ice!
”

This line flashed through the bus like the funniest joke ever told. You could hear the shrieks of laughter moving row by row to the front. Mrs. Passworth got out of her seat to shoot a killing look at Matt Smith.

“Oooooh, y’aaaaall!” Tim squealed in a flawless imitation of Eddie. “Y’all stop it!”

“Hey kids, tonight is our New Haven out-of-town opening,” Eddie said, “only it happens to be Itta Bena and the campus of Harold P. Wayne. They’ve done loads of publicity, apparently there’ll be VIPs and everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if the president himself puts in an appearance!”

“President Nixon?” cried Regina Singleton, preparing to be beside herself.

“No, President Frederick — the president of the college,” Eddie said. “I’m sure we’ll be the biggest thing happening on campus tonight. We’re gonna knock their socks off!”

Considering Tim and I got involved as an ironic joke,
Christ!
had really started to matter — to me, anyway. I’d stopped hoping for a hilarious disaster and started thinking,
Hey, maybe we’re not that bad.
I wanted Eddie to have a hit because he wanted it so badly. I wanted our Combo not to suck. Mostly I wanted to make Passworth proud of us — the least she deserved after all the hours she spent dodging verbal salvos from Eddie.

“You think Carol Nason is going to take it all off tonight?” Tim said.

“I certainly hope so. I’ve had enough of her teasing.”

Andrea Owens stuck her face between the seats in front of us. “Would you two please stop talking like that? I am trying to read the Bible!”

Now, it was well known that Andrea Owens had touched several members of the chorus of
Christ!
in a personal way — she was one of those extremely pious horny girls who made the hallways and nooks of Full Flower Baptist such a welcoming place.

Tim could not resist. His eyes glittered as he coiled to strike. He said, “Sorry to bother you, Handrea. We’ll try to keep it down.”

She blinked. “What did you call me?”

“Handrea. Isn’t that your name? You know, cause you’re so —
handy?
So good at your —
job?
” He illustrated with an up-and-down motion of the wrist.

Andrea flew up from her seat, flapping her wings. “Miz Passworth!”

“My name is Tim,” he said evenly, “but you can call me Miz Passworth if you like.”

“You shut up!” she cried.

“My apologies, Handrea. I guess I am being a total
jerkoff.
”

Girls squealed. Every boy on that part of the bus burst out laughing. Including me.

Andrea raced up the aisle. In a moment here came Mrs. Passworth on a beeline for Tim. She didn’t say a word — simply reached across him, seized me, and dragged me by the arm to the front of the bus. I kicked and dissented.

She plopped me in the window seat, still warm from her own behind, and put herself on the outside to block any attempt at escape.

Andrea Owens gave me a sharp little nod,
So there!
and sauntered back to her seat.

I sat for a minute wondering why Passworth had picked on me. Then I tried to convince her how extremely innocent I was.

“I saw you back there egging him on,” she said. “You boys ought not be making sex jokes to a girl. That is not how a Christian gentleman behaves.”

“Don’t look at me! It was Tim.”

“Oh come on, you two are Frick and Frack.”

“What?”

“You never heard of Frick and Frack? Couple of old skaters in the Ice Follies. You see Frick, you see Frack. Always together, like you and Tim.”

It had never occurred to me that’s how Tim and I were seen. Actually I was surprised to think we were seen or noticed at all. Except for the occasional flash of humiliation, I had felt mostly invisible since I came to Minor High.

She patted my arm. “Tim only acts the fool for your benefit, don’t you know that? He’s only trying to impress you.”

“No he’s not,” I said.

“I don’t think it’s smart of you to associate with him so much,” she said. “Tim’s not as clever as he thinks — as
you
seem to think. His shenanigans may have been cute when he was younger, but they’re not anymore.”

I felt disloyal just for sitting there listening. “Why are you saying this to me?”

“Because you’re a good boy, Daniel. I worry for Tim.” Her voice softened. “Some of his teachers think he’s trouble. He’s so changeable — so moody, the way he lashes out at people.”

“That’s just Tim. He’s sick of getting picked on all the time! For a year now we’ve had Red Martin and all his —”

“I appreciate you sticking up for a friend,” she said, “but you can do a whole lot better than Tim Cousins. Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

This was such an outrageously personal question (from a teacher!) that I couldn’t wait to rush down the aisle and tell Tim about it. First I felt an overpowering urge to tell Mrs. Passworth the truth — to knock her over with it.

“Yes, I do,” I said. “Arnita Beecham.”

Her mouth made a tiny O.

I nodded.

She shrank back. “But Daniel, she’s . . .” Her lips made a “b,” but she couldn’t say the rest of it.

I finished it for her: “Black?”

She nodded.

“Well, actually at the moment she’s convinced she’s white, but — yeah, she is black.”

Mrs. Passworth’s brow furrowed. “I heard the poor girl has had problems after her accident. Obviously she can’t be responsible for her actions. But you! What are you thinking? I thought you were more intelligent than that!”

“I like her. She likes me too. So what if she’s black? We’re integrated now, remember?”

“So
what?
” she cried. “It’s unnatural, that’s what! I’m as much for equal rights as the next person, but race mixing is an abomination against the Lord! Don’t you know that?”

“No,” I said.

“Miscegenation is the worst kind of sin! It’s the reason God tore down the Tower of Babel, all the blacks trying to mix with the whites!”

I noticed the bus driver watching us in the overhead mirror. An older black man with a speckled face. He kept glancing at me. I couldn’t decide what was simmering behind those cool eyes — resentment of me, or of Passworth — of both of us, probably.

I don’t think she had noticed. “No question Arnita is a lovely girl, but this is just as wrong as can be. You need to pray on it, Daniel. Pray real hard.”

“I will,” I said, hoping to steer her off the subject.

“Do your parents know about this?” she said.

I pictured Arnita stretched out with her feet on our couch. “Yeah.”

“And her parents?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “I find that absolutely incredible. Is it just me or is the whole world going nuts?”

I felt a stab of indignation on Arnita’s behalf. “Look, we’re not getting married or anything,” I said. “But we could if we wanted to. It’s a free country.”

“Oh no sir, not in Mississippi! Bite your tongue! I keep forgetting you weren’t brought up here. We have laws against intermarriage. And even if we didn’t — well, it’s just wrong! Can you imagine what would happen if Negro men could marry all the white women they wanted?”

The bus driver said, “Nobody want you anyway, lady.”

His lips barely moved. He spoke so low and fast that at first I thought it was a trick of my ears.

Mrs. Passworth glanced at me to see if I’d heard. I pretended I hadn’t.

“Excuse me, driver?” she said. “Did you say something to me?”

The man’s face was grave, his eyes fixed on the road as if he had never glanced away from it a single time in his life.

Mrs. Passworth reached in her satchel for her embroidery project. For the next fifty miles she kept one eye fixed on the driver while she jabbed the needle through the cloth. He never looked at us again.

Trapped there beside her, I was free to let my mind roam over Arnita. How could we possibly be in love when most of the world thought like Mrs. Passworth? How could people be so blind to everything but skin?

A wild whoop a few rows behind us and there went Eddie up out of his seat again, flailing at his shirt.

Mrs. Passworth barely turned her head. “Eddie, take the ice out of your shirt and sit down. It’s not funny the second time.”

I
TTA
B
ENA WAS
large enough to have billboards announcing its attractions in advance: Dairy Queen, Itta Bena Ford, State Farm, Skinner Furniture. I pointed out a billboard for the Leflore Motor Court. “That’s where we’re staying tonight.” A silhouette woman in a bathing cap was performing an unlikely dive into a painted swimming pool. The Leflore promised Fine AAA Accommodations, In-Room Telephones, TV, Private Bath, and Electric Heat.

“Oh boy, electric heat,” said Tim. “Do you suppose they have parking for horseless carriages?”

I theorized that “electric heat” implied no A/C. “And that means we’ll probably die.”

“We gonna be roommates, Durwood?”

“Why not? If we get a choice about it.” I hadn’t spent that many nights away from home. I was interested in all aspects of checking into a motel, sleeping in a strange bed, unwrapping the little pink soap.

“I really don’t care,” Tim said, “as long as they don’t put me in with Eddie.” He raised one eyebrow.

I glanced out the window. “Look, we’re here.”

Tim said, “Itty bitty Itta Bena,” a thing that was surely said by many people coming to that town for the first time. We rolled down a street with two blocks of stores on one side. Itta Bena was a plain place, straight lines and blocky buildings, not one bit of decoration on anything.

The Leflore Motor Court was a horizontal strip of rooms with a glassed-in office at one end. The room doors were painted the exact livid green of the algae blooming in the swimming pool.

“All right, kids, shut up and listen up,” Eddie called from the front of the bus. “I’ll stand by the steps and hand you your room key as you get off. Each room has two beds, two kids to each room, except for me and Miz Passworth and the chaperones.”

“Y’all all sleepin’ together, Eddie?” called Ted Herring.

“Very funny,” said Eddie. “Now, if you don’t like your roommate, it’s up to you to find somebody to switch with. Do not, I repeat, do NOT come moaning to me about it. Wait — wait —” He had to skip the rest of his welcome speech because the girls mobbed him, snatching keys and hurrying off. They’d been whining for miles about how bad they needed to pee.

As the last ones off the bus, Tim and I were assigned the farthest room from the office, Room 130. The Frick and Frack suite. All down the rank of rooms, kids hollered, ran, and slammed doors. The heavyset manager glowered from the office door, rousing himself to an occasional bark — “Slow down!” “No running!” “You break that, mister, you’ve bought it!”