You
could sense it in the atmosphere.
We
were all the same age - sixteen, going on seventeen - and we hung around a soda
shop called Benny's. Benny was Benny Amundsen, an immigrant from some place in
Europe, a good man, an honest man, but a man who walked a fine line himself due
to his own non-American status.
Benny's
had a juke box, an ancient battered work of art. That juke box played maybe ten
tunes, twelve on a good day, and though the records skipped and skidded, and
sometimes you didn't hear a damned thing at all, it was still the center of the
universe as far as the Greenleaf teenagers were concerned.
That
day there were maybe twenty kids in all. Guys wearing skinny-legged pants and
tee-shirts, girls wearing frocks, hair made up in beehives like Martha &
The Vandellas or somesuch. They danced a little, they laughed, drank their
sodas, and you could smell the tension in the air. Like I said, everyone wanted
to fuck everyone else, though had they been presented with such an opportunity
they more than likely would not have known what to do with it.
Nathan
and I were seated near the window. Nathan had been folding a napkin into
something like a bird. I had been watching him, amazed at how such large hands
could do something so delicate and fragile.
I
went for soda, stood there at the counter minding my own business, and it was
in that moment, hesitating between straight cream or strawberry float, that I
sensed a presence beside me.
I
turned. She was there. Sheryl Rose Bogazzi. Long auburn hair, eyelashes like
the wings of a bird taking off into the sunset, her white blouse stretched
tight across her breasts.
I
felt myself blushing.
'Hi
there, Daniel,' she purred, cat-like.
I
felt a stirring somewhere beneath my stomach.
'Sheryl
Rose,' I said, and sort of half-smiled as best I could. I think it came out
like a pained grimace.
'What
you getting?' she asked.
I
shrugged, felt stupid for a moment. 'Some soda.'
She
giggled, raised her hand to her mouth as if hiding her teeth. She needn't have
done that. She had perfect teeth. 'I know soda,' she said, and sort of took a
step towards me. 'Kinda soda?'
'Don't
know,' I replied. 'Maybe cream, maybe strawberry float.'
She
nodded as if understanding my dilemma. 'Got sick on strawberry float one time,'
she said. She moved her head then, her hair flicking back over her shoulder. I
wanted to touch her hair. Wanted to touch her face. I blushed again.
'Then
it'll have to be cream then,' I said.
'Cream,'
she purred, and I nearly died right there in my shoes.
'You
want one?' I asked.
'You
buying?'
I
nodded. 'Sure I am.'
'Well
thank you, Daniel Ford… I'll take a cream soda too.'
I
paid for the sodas, she thanked me again, and then she smiled that smile that
was all her own and I couldn't think of a word to say.
'I'll
see y'around, Daniel Ford,' she said, and she leaned a little closer, and in
the briefest of moments I felt her fingers graze my arm. I remember how cool
they were, cool and a little moist from where she'd held the glass a moment
before, and even as she walked away I watched those damp fingerprints evaporate
from my skin.
I
walked back to the table in slow-motion, my heart beating, my pulse racing. I
sat down, I glanced across the room towards her, and even as I did I saw her
glance back at me. My unsteady heart missed another beat.
'And
where the hell's my soda?' Nathan asked.
I
looked at him, I didn't hear a thing, and I smiled.
'Dumb-ass
retard,' he said, and slid out from his chair to fetch his own drink.
It
was an awkward situation already, there were jealousies brewing, things
unspoken, things said that should have stayed private, and when Sheryl Rose
Bogazzi felt a hand on her breast she slapped someone's face.
I
turned first, saw Larry James and Marty Hooper standing there. Marty was red as
a beet, the one side of his face bore the unmistakable imprint of a hand, and
Larry, Marty's sidekick and consigliere, was already defending him.
Why I
stood up I don't know.
Hell,
yes I do.
I
stood up because it was Sheryl Rose Bogazzi.
Had
it been someone else, anyone else except maybe Caroline Lanafeuille, I would
have stayed right where I was and kept my mouth shut.
But
no, I was besotted and in love and, as such, certifiably insane.
And
so I stood up, and Marty Hooper was immediately in my face, his expression one
of challenge and self-defense. His manner was ugly and brutish, and I knew from
previous experience that only folks who had something to hide became that mad
that quickly.
Thus
I knew he
had
touched Sheryl Rose Bogazzi.
He
had committed a crime of immeasurable and unforgivable significance.
'What
did you do?' I asked, my tone hostile and offensive.
Marty
Hooper sneered. He sort of looked sideways towards his friends as if to ask
them who I was, what was I doing here.
I
sensed Sheryl Rose to my left. I felt that unmistakable presence.
'I said
what did you do, Marty?'
'And
what the hell business is it of yours what I did?' he snapped back.
'You
touched her,' I said. 'You damned well touched her, Marty.'
Marty
bared his teeth in contempt. 'I'll damned well touch you, Daniel Ford,' he
said.
I
pushed Marty Hooper.
Marty
Hooper laughed and pushed me back.
'Freakin'
loser,' he hissed. 'Freakin' loser, Ford.'
The
kids in the soda shop stepped away simultaneously, and suddenly there was an
arena, a boxing ring, and I realized even in that moment that I was gonna get a
pounding.
Marty
Hooper was faster, taller, stronger, but more importantly he possessed greater
confidence than me. I was defending Sheryl Rose's honor, perhaps the greatest
and most powerful motivation for an all-out onslaught against this criminal of
the heart. But Marty Hooper had done this before, and I had not.
The
first roundhouse collided with my left ear.
I was
sure I tasted blood. I saw thirty-five colors in stereo and howled like a stuck
pig.
Larry
James was laughing. 'Asshole,' he was saying. 'What an asshole this guy is.'
Sheryl
Rose turned away, her expression one of terror and grief and panic and sympathy
all rolled into one.
I
came back then, came back like a rabid hound, and even as I started in on Marty
Hooper I felt this hand on my collar, and suddenly I was jerked backwards,
almost lifted wholesale from the ground.
Before
I knew what had happened I was standing near the window and Nathan was there
ahead of Marty Hooper, his fists raised, his eyes wide, his teeth bared like a
mad thing.
'You
want some too?' Marty asked. He started laughing. 'This asshole wants some too…
come on then, asshole, come get a piece of me.'
When
Nathan Verney hit Marty Hooper, Marty went down.
He
didn't so much fall as
go down.
It
was hard to describe, harder to demonstrate when we spoke of it later.
Marty
Hooper just flat-fuck fell.
Boom.
Down.
Like
a stone.
And
Marty didn't get up.
There
was silence.
You
could have heard a gnat's fart.
I
stood there, jaw to the floor, eyes like a bug, hair on the nape of my neck
standing to attention like a porcupine.
Larry
James said it. No doubt about it. I even remember the way he said it. Like the
smack of a baseball bat. Like a gunshot.
Nigger!
Marty
Hooper stirred.
Someone
came forward and helped him to his feet.
When
he realized what had happened he was even more shocked and embarrassed than before.
But now the source of his ridicule was neither Sheryl Rose nor me. It was the
tall black teenager standing just three or four feet from him.
Nathan
Verney had put him down with one punch, and he believed he could never live
that down.
And then
he said it too. 'Nigger! Damned nigger!'
And
though he didn't say it the same, it sounded worse.
Now
it was out there. Now it had been repeated by someone, and there were those
among that crew who would have said or done anything to remain involved with
these people.
And
so someone else said it. I don't know who. It didn't matter.
Nigger!
By
the time it had caught and become a chant Nathan Verney was already at the
door.
I was
beside him in a heartbeat, and we went out through that door quickly and
quietly and hurried down the boardwalk towards the street.
'Go,'
Nathan was saying. 'Go, Daniel… just go!' I could read a real sense of panic
and terror in his eyes, something that I would see only years later when we
were grown.
I
remember the feeling of the sun. It was brutal. I felt naked.
I
remember glancing back towards Sheryl and she was looking right at me. Her
expression told me everything I needed to know. She felt for us, perhaps for
me, but she could do nothing. She belonged here, Nathan did not, and if I was
close with Nathan then I didn't belong here either. Hell, they were just honest
white kids hanging out, having some fun, and Marty Hooper and Larry James had
gotten a little overheated, granted, but no reason to go overboard.
I
smiled at her, I remember that, but she didn't smile back. She looked away,
looked towards the floor, anywhere but right back at me. And it was at that
point she became something else, someone else. I felt a sense of loss, and yet
again a sense of relief. For as long as I could recall I had been torn between
her and Caroline, torn between the two of them like a man strung between two
carts travelling in opposite directions. I could only have held out so long
before feeling something give, before watching myself unravel at the seams and
collapse inside. In that moment, the moment I turned towards her, she had
betrayed me, she had become one of
them.
I believed it would have been
impossible to ever forgive her. I let her go, I know I did. At that very moment
I let her go, and even through those seconds of panic I found myself thanking
some higher force that Caroline Lanafeuille had not been there to witness my
bruised pride. Caroline retained her pedestal, while Sheryl Rose Bogazzi's crown
slipped and rolled soundlessly to the gutter.
By
the time we reached the street there must have been five or six behind us. The
guys came out, the girls stayed inside, and I remember hearing Benny Amundsen's
voice over the hubbub.
Take
your trouble outside, he was saying. You boys take your trouble outside
.
Benny
knew what was happening, would have been the first to realize it, but he would
do nothing. Benny could not be seen to side with a negro.
When the
first stone came we started running. Nathan was taller than me, his legs
longer, and had it been a race he would have outstripped me in a heartbeat.
But
he didn't, he kept with me step for step, and when we reached the turning at
the end of the street he actually hung back to let me turn first in case we
collided.
Had
he not done that he would never have been hit.
The
stone caught him on the cheek, and to this day I can recall the sound as
clearly as if it were but five seconds ago. A dull thud, like someone thumping
a side of beef hanging in the shed. And even as he howled I saw blood, and in
seeing blood everything changed.