Again
I felt that something, something that moved inside of me, something cool and
quiet and special.
'So
we have to leave,' she said quietly.
I was
silent for a time.
'When?'
I eventually asked.
She
turned away. I could tell she wanted to look at me but could not.
'In
the morning,' she whispered, and there was such emotion in her voice I felt
like crying myself.
'So
soon?' I asked.
'So
soon,' she stated matter-of-factly.
She
still could not look at me.
I
wanted to ask what trouble she meant, what had her father done that was so bad
he would have to leave Greenleaf. But I did not ask. For me to have asked would
have been unfair. If she'd wished me to know she would have told me.
We
stayed like that for a little while longer, Caroline looking out through the
trees towards the Lake, every once in a while sipping her lemonade like a bird,
and then she turned, eventually she turned, and she said something that I would
think of later as I languished in a jail cell in Sumter.
'We
should… you know, we
should..
. before I leave…'
I
felt that
something
inside me again. No longer cool and quiet and
special, but alive, a fiery thing, like a Catherine wheel or a roman candle in
my stomach.
The
way she said it - we
should
- required no explanation. I knew what she
meant, she knew I knew, and when she turned and smiled I just smiled back.
There
was innocence in that moment, innocence and passion, and something that you
felt only one time in your life.
There
were no trumpets, no rah-rahs, no cheerleader troupe with pom-poms and brass
bands playing Sousa marches across the endzone.
There
was warmth and silence and promise, and a moment of sweet perfection.
My ma
went out that night.
My ma
never went out alone.
Night
of August 17th 1965 she changed the habit of a lifetime.
I
think God had something to do with that.
We
lay on the narrow bed beneath the window, the same bed where I had lain when my
father came to tell me Mr. Kennedy had died.
She
smelled of juniper and toothpaste and a sweet sense of beauty that would linger
long after she'd gone. It was cool. There was a breeze beyond the trees, and
every once in a while the leaves would rustle like they were whispering
delicate secrets one to another.
I had
never done this before, neither had she, but somehow we seemed to know where we
were going and why.
I
remember the moment she stood before me naked. I felt hot and flushed, dizzy almost,
and when my hands reached towards her they shook.
'You
can touch,' she whispered. 'I won't break.'
She
took a single step forward, and my hands reached further, almost grabbed her
with a life of their own, and then I could feel her skin, the curves of her
thighs, and I could barely hold my eyes open long enough to look.
Her
skin was pale and unblemished. Her hair was tied back behind her head with a
loose bow. She smiled, she stepped back again, and then she held out her hand
and I took it. I rose from where I'd been seated on the edge of my bed.
She
pulled me close, Caroline Lanafeuille, and she closed her arms around me and
pulled me tight. Tight like Sunday-best shoelaces.
I
stayed there forever it seemed, and then she leaned close to my ear and
whispered: 'I think you're s'posed to take your clothes off too, Daniel.'
I
smiled, I blushed, I felt simple and naive.
She
released me and I started to remove my shirt, my jeans. For a moment I stood
there in my shorts, and then she pushed me back to the bed and sat beside me.
I
kissed her hair, her cheek, her neck, her lips. I wanted to kiss every inch of
her, wanted to swallow her whole. I felt clumsy and awkward, but somehow my
awkwardness seemed to be appropriate. I kissed each closed eye in turn and
tasted the salt-sweet tang of tears. And when she lay down I lay there beside
her. She moved slightly across me and I felt the weight of her breast upon my
shoulder.
'These
too,' she said, tugging at my shorts. 'Sex with your shorts on is like taking a
bath wearing socks.'
I
smiled, inwardly more than visibly, and I tried so hard not to laugh.
Her
hand was smooth and delicate, like a ballerina, and when she made small circles
across my stomach I felt myself stir and rise.
I
believe my heart was beating more slowly than ever.
Time
didn't matter.
We
had all the time in the world.
Some
time later she made a small sound, a sound that was neither pain nor pressure
nor anything I knew. The sound she made was one of
completeness.
I
understood that sound, for I felt complete also. Whole and pure and satiated.
Our
movement was in unison, a narrow dance, a soft ballet of sounds and emotions
and feelings, and all the fears I had possessed about such a moment seemed
irrelevant.
And
though my eyes were closed I could
see
her, and her beauty was more
complete than I could ever have imagined.
And
it was in that moment that I understood love.
Love
more than life itself.
And though
there would be times when I would think of Sheryl Rose and Linny Goldbourne,
there would never be a moment like the one I shared with Caroline Lanafeuille
that night in August when I was nineteen and the world seemed like heaven.
Later
she left.
She
left me there half-asleep.
She
dressed. She leaned over me. She kissed my forehead, rested her hand on my
cheek, and then she left.
I
heard the screen door downstairs, and though I wanted to lean up towards the
window and watch her cross the yard and start away towards the Lake, I did not.
Could
not.
I
never wished to remember her leaving.
I
wanted my last abiding memory of Caroline Lanafeuille to be that moment I knew
I
truly
loved her.
Nothing
else.
I
would not see her for many, many years, when we both had changed irrevocably.
I
would never really learn what her father had done that had taken her away, and
I said nothing to Nathan when he returned from the fall testimonials in
Charleston.
I
believed that some things, just a handful, were for yourself and God alone.
In
November of 1965 the Army came to Greenleaf.
Why
they chose Greenleaf I don't know, but they came, and with them a tent the size
of half a football field.
They
sent out buses to bring people from the surrounding towns, and those people
came in their hundreds. They saw it perhaps as a family outing, and when they
arrived they found the Army had laid on fried chicken and corn and potato
salad.
People
crowded into that tent, and like an evangelical gathering they sat and waited
for
the Army man
to arrive.
Despite
the season it was warm, and soon that tent was like an oven, people fanning
themselves with the brochures they found on their seats. Children gathered in
small crowds along the edge of the tent, chattering and laughing and
squabbling.
But
when
the Army man
arrived they were hushed and well-behaved.
I sat
beside my ma, and to my left was Mrs. Chantry. In the row ahead Reverend and
Mrs. Verney sat, with Nathan between then.
The
Army man
was Sergeant Michael O'Donnelly of the Airborne
something-or-other. He told us to call him Sergeant Mike. They'd rigged up a loudspeaker
and his voice was clear and measured and precise. He'd done this before, many
times I was sure, for it was from places like Greenleaf and Myrtle Beach and
Orangeburg that LBJ's 35,000 men a month would come.
They
would give fried chicken and corn and potato salad to America's parents, and in
return they would take their sons. Perhaps, to folk in Washington, it seemed a
fair exchange.
Sergeant
Mike was a spirited speaker, a man of verve and passion. He believed in
America. He believed in the Constitution. He believed in freedom of speech and
the right to bear arms, and he was doing just fine until Karl Winterson who ran
the Radio Store asked him how many of our boys had died out there already.
For a
heartbeat there was silence, a palpable tension within the acreage of that
tent. Inside that heartbeat it seemed we were all gathered beneath a single
blanket.
And
then there was a child's voice from the side. A single child's voice that cut
through that moment and separated it like a razor. The moment split in half and
rolled each way like an orange on a chopping board.
'Serpent
Mike… is the Vietcong like King Kong?'
A
moment's perfect silence, and then laughter broke like a wave.
The
tension was shattered.
The
question Mr. Winterson asked was never answered.
It
was a question Sergeant Mike had not wanted to be asked.
'No,
son,' Sergeant Mike eventually said. 'The Vietcong are an awful lot more real
than a big monkey.'
Nathan
glanced over his shoulder towards me. The expression in his eyes told me that I
was not alone in doubting the truthfulness of that statement.
And
then the time came, the time to ask, the time to sell us our own freedom, a
freedom I believed we already had.
The
evangelical minister was asking for money, that's how it felt, and folk were
embarrassed because they knew the minister was a drunk and a liar and a
philanderer.
But
Sergeant Mike had asked before, many times before, and he pounded the crowd
with quotes from Lincoln and Robert E. Lee and General Patton.
I
realized then that Sergeant Mike was talking to me, talking to me and to
Nathan, and to all those others that still hung out at Benny's and believed the
world could never reach that far.
And I
realized something else. I realized that where we still thought of ourselves as
big kids, the world now saw us as men.
Men
who should be willing to die in some dark damp jungle on the other side of the
world.
Sergeant
Mike had violated our innocence and trust, and most of us never even knew.
Marty
Hooper stood up first.
He
just stood up.
There
was nothing, and then he was there, and he stood out like a single flower in
the middle of that football field.
Somebody
clapped. A single pair of hands that sounded like gunfire.
And
because Marty Hooper was on his feet Larry James stood up too.
And
then another.
And
another.
Someone
else started clapping, faster, louder, and before I knew it the tent was filled
with riotous applause, and fathers were standing and hugging their sons, and
mothers were crying, and the small children were watching this with wide-eyed
wonder, asking themselves what was happening, unable to appreciate its
significance.
Nathan
and I didn't move.
I
think if he'd stood up I would have died right where I sat.
I
felt my mother's hand gripping mine, and when I looked down I saw her knuckles
were white with tension.