Playing with Matches (10 page)

18

HORSEPLAY

I
n my opinion, there was only one reason a person should climb on top of another living creature, and it had nothing to do with transportation. That was why when Melody invited me to go horseback riding, I was sure I’d end up reenacting
Brokeback Mountain
(the broke-back part, not the homosexuality).

Of course, Melody seemed to think I
could
ride a horse and since she was a girl, I couldn’t show fear. (Girls are very much like bears in that respect.) Which was why I found myself, on a misty April morning, standing in the muddy pasture behind Melody’s house. We’d been dating now for a couple of weeks, and I was still at the point where I wanted her to think I was macho.

Melody wore a pair of cowboy boots (encrusted with mud, which proved they were no fashion statement), worn-out jeans, a bandana around her bald head, and a light flannel shirt. I didn’t care for these bulky clothes. Her loose spring clothes had shown me that her disfigurement did not extend below her neck, and my curiosity had grown. When she got back from the Scholars Academy, maybe we could go swimming….

“Leon, meet Charger.” Charger was brown, with a splotch of white on his forehead. He was also big. Big enough to drag a man caught in the stirrups for miles. It could happen. I’d seen it on TV.

I tried to ignore that voice in my head telling me to express my fears to Melody.

“Hello, Charger,” I said, tentatively patting his nose. “Why the long face?”

Melody laughed. “Do you know how to mount a horse?”

I decided not to make a taxidermy joke. “No.”

“It’s easy. Just put your left foot in the left stirrup, then swing your right leg over.”

People who are good at something tend to squash everything into two steps.
Step one: build a spaceship. Step two: fly to the moon. Simple as that.

Resigned to my doom, I put my foot into the stirrup, started to jump, panicked, and almost fell on my rear. Charger whinnied, ready, I was sure, to kick me square in the face.

Melody was laughing into her hand. For once, we were on her turf. Broken legs or not, I had to try again.

It took three attempts, but I finally made it into the saddle. Charger immediately began to walk.

“Hey! Stop! Um…whoa?”

Melody touched the horse’s flank and he stopped. Then, in one fluid movement, she leapt onto the back of her horse, Samson.

My fears were momentarily forgotten when I realized how blisteringly uncomfortable a saddle was. Melody didn’t seem to mind, but then again, she didn’t have testicles.

Her horse sauntered over to me. “Just follow me, Leon. Dig in your heels.” Samson started trotting.

Charger was much less responsive but eventually began following his equine pal. This wasn’t too bad. Then, after about two minutes, Charger started wandering along his own path.

“Melody, help!” I didn’t care how sissy that sounded.

“Just pull the reins,” she shouted.

I tried, but a horse is a lot less responsive than a Buick. Eventually, Charger fell back into step.

“Just smack him on the rear if he won’t behave,” directed Melody.

I couldn’t bring myself to wallop the horse. I lightly smacked him on the butt. I didn’t think he noticed.

Melody led us around the pasture four or five times. She cut a striking figure in the cool spring air. From a distance you couldn’t see that she didn’t have much of a face. She was just a teenage girl, taking her horse out for a morning ride. Scars or not, that was kind of hot. I almost forgot the mortal peril I was in.

We never went faster than a gallop. I told myself that was as fast as Melody ever went, but in all honesty, she and Samson probably ran like the wind and jumped hedges when I wasn’t slowing them down.

After about an hour, Melody reined in her horse. Charger wandered over to them.

“How you doing, Leon?”

I grinned while gripping the reins. “I’m great. I could do this all day.”

“Sure you wouldn’t like a break?”

“Yes!”

Melody led us to a building at the very back of their property. It seemed to be a small barn that was no longer in use but hadn’t fallen into complete disrepair. Melody gracefully dismounted. Luckily, she was tying up her horse when I jumped down, so she didn’t see me land on my butt.

When both horses were secure, Melody gestured toward the barn. Apparently, we were going to take a load off in there.

This reminded me of a story. “Okay,” I began as we reached the door. “There was this traveling salesman—”

Something shot out of the darkness above our heads. Melody gasped and grabbed me around the waist. Without thinking, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.

“It’s just an owl, Mel. It’s okay.”

She took a deep breath. “It startled me; that’s all. C’mon.” We separated. Almost. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized we were holding hands.

“What is this place?”

“Just an old shed. Daddy uses it for storage.”

There were gaps in the walls and unmistakable signs of wild animals, but the roof was in good repair. In one corner sat an old but clean tractor. Various farm implements and tools hung neatly on the wall or lay scattered on a workbench. In another corner a few bales of hay were stacked. One had burst, covering the floor with straw. The whole place had the pleasant, mildewy smell of disuse.

“Tony and I used to play out here when we were little,” said Melody, rolling a rusty tricycle with her foot.

“So far from the house?” I sat on a hay bale.

“We had to protect everyone from the terrorists that lived in the woods. At least according to Tony.”

Melody seemed to remember something and went rummaging through an old crate. She eventually pulled out a shoe box and sat down next to me.

“Treasure?” I asked.

She opened the box and pulled out a filthy, naked Barbie doll.

I smiled. “Did you actually get Tony to play with that?”

She laughed. “Never. I’d play alone a lot.” She held the doll on her knees and stared at it.

Feeling a tad uncomfortable, I glanced into the shoe box. There were a couple of other Barbies. One was nearly bald. I almost asked Melody if she’d given it a haircut when she was little, but then I noticed something.

Picking up the doll, I confirmed what I thought I’d seen. Someone had carefully burned the face off Barbie, leaving a melted plastic mess.

Melody was watching. “They didn’t make dolls that look like me,” she said bitterly, tossing her toys back into the box. She tried to stand up, but I took her hand.

“It was just something I did when I was nine. I used to pretend that Ken still loved Barbie, and that all the other dolls still thought she was great. After a couple of years of school, I don’t think I opened that box again.”

For a long time I looked at her. Just looked. The eyes, the wrecked skin, the single tear running down her bony nose. I thought back to elementary school: how Melody had always sat alone on the swings at recess, how we used to dare each other to run up and touch her. I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to defend her. If not then, now. To be her protector, her friend, someone who would always look out for her.

“Leon, you’re the only guy who can stand to look at me.”

I placed a hand on her cheek. Her skin felt fragile, though I knew from experience she was as hard outside as she was inside. Gingerly, I pressed her head to mine. We kissed.

I kissed her large lips, her scarred cheeks, her missing ears. We kissed. We held each other. Our tongues touched. We removed our jackets.

I kept waiting for Melody to tell me to stop, to push me away. But she just kept kissing me.

Without speaking a word, we moved from sitting on the hay bale to sitting on the floor, our arms wrapped around each other. It wasn’t a conscious choice, but soon I was laying her down on the floor. We were side by side in the straw. My hand crept up the back of her shirt, my fingers savoring the curve of her spine. I rubbed her skin from the base of her bra to the top of her panties. She didn’t stop me; she just breathed harder. Sweat rolled down her forehead.

And suddenly, I was straddling her. She lay on her back, almost hyperventilating, her eyes closed. My fingers grabbed at her shirt, clumsily fumbling with the buttons. And then her top fell open, revealing her almost naked torso.

The scars ended just below her neck. Oh, Christ, those smooth shoulders, that flat tummy…and her plain cotton bra.
Oh, Christ!
The clasp was in the front. I could see my hand trembling as I reached for it.

And then Melody’s eyes shot open and her hand found my wrist. She smiled sadly.

“Not yet, Leon.”

I was drenched in sweat. Slowly, with regret (and a little relief), I climbed off her as she closed her shirt.

“I’m sorry, Leon. I’ve…You’re the only guy I’ve even kissed. I can’t do that, not now.”

“Don’t be sorry. There’s no rush.”

“Leon? How many times have you…you know…”

I gave her a big kiss. “Melody, I wish the world thought I was as macho as you do. This is as far as I’ve ever been.”

We snuggled for a long time, there on the floor. Our lips touched; our fingers explored. We kissed and laughed and held each other.

Wow.

Much later, we walked giggling into the afternoon sun. Melody brushed some hay out of my hair. I groaned inwardly when I realized we’d have to remount the devil horses.

To my relief, Melody untied them and let them wander free.

“Let’s walk back.”

Hand in hand, we walked the half mile back to the house.

So I’d almost undressed Melody. And I’d made out with her twice. And hung out with her all the time. There was no doubt anymore. She was my girlfriend.

Melody smiled at me and I squeezed her hand.

“Melody?”

“Hmm?”

“Listen. Um, the spring formal’s coming up. I was wondering if, you know, you’d like to go with me?”

I knew there was no chance she’d turn me down, but I still got pleasant shivers when I saw the way she smiled.

Ah, what the hell.
Melody made me feel special. She made me feel like Dylan, like one of those guys who didn’t have to prove anything. She made me feel like any girl would be lucky to have me.

I liked almost everything about Melody. I could live with the one thing I didn’t like.

Besides, she said she wasn’t ready for that…
yet.

19

DEAD MAN’S HAND

T
he student council weenies had plastered the school with posters advertising “Take My Breath Away,” the theme for the upcoming dance. Fliers warning about the evils of drunk driving were taped on every wall. Dr. Bailey nearly had a stroke when he saw that someone had drawn swastikas on the foreheads of the models in a photographer’s ad.

I was walking Melody out to the bus after school.

“Hey, Melody? How many mosquitoes does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

She smiled. “How many?”

“Only two. The question is, how did they get in there?”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’ll come to you.”

Since that day in the barn, I’d given up all pretense that Melody wasn’t my girlfriend. I held her hand when we talked. I kissed her after school. I even let Buttercup take our picture, my arm draped around Melody’s shoulders. And we were going to the spring dance together.

I braced myself for the fallout. I was ready for the snide comments, the mocking laughter, the jokes about my ugly girlfriend. But the thing was they never materialized. Maybe it all happened when my back was turned, but all my clever rebuttals and insults didn’t do me any good. I never had to stand up for Melody.

Even my friends approached my having a girlfriend with their usual lazy indifference. Samantha went from harassing me about using Melody to harassing me about how Melody was too good for me. Johnny, who’d once made a substitute teacher cry with a joke about her mustache, never commented on Melody’s looks (just her study habits, clothes, and poor taste in guys). Even Rob accepted a Leon girlfriend with his normal snarling apathy.

Still, it wasn’t like Melody was ignored. We both noticed the stares, the whispered comments, the blunt questions from children. We just pretended not to.

“So I bought my dress yesterday,” continued Melody as we stepped outside among the pulsating throng of bus riders.

“I rented a tux. Nothing like having your crotch measured by a strange man.”

Melody laughed. “I can’t wait till next Saturday.”

I had never been to a dance, and I wasn’t totally excited. The tux was uncomfortable. The tickets were expensive. I could not dance, and Samantha was the only other person I knew who was going.

Then again, I thought about our trip to the shed. The promise of things to come. My big car, and the empty country roads outside of St. Christopher.

“I’m excited too, Melody. You sure I can’t give you a ride home?”

She picked up her book bag. “No, I’ll take the bus. Mom and I are going shopping for shoes right when I get home.”

We kissed, and I watched Melody weave her way onto her bus. Even though students were crushed together and shoving, Melody walked unmolested. No one went near her; it was as if she walked in a separate reality.

Rob didn’t need a ride that day, so I took the opportunity to grab a couple of books from the library. (I’d spent study hall trying to circumvent the porn filter in the computer lab.) As always, the library was almost deserted. I poked through the almost pathetic science fiction section, but there wasn’t anything there I hadn’t already read. I ended up checking out
Starship Troopers.
It had lasers in it.

Dan Dzyan sat at a table near the exit, staring intently at a book. I attempted to slink by. I wasn’t in the mood to see autopsy photos.

Dan didn’t seem to notice me; he was too absorbed in his book. He’d read something, look at his palm, then look back at the book. It was called
Divination.
He must have been teaching himself palmistry.

I lingered too long. “Hey, Leon,” he growled, not looking up. “Have a seat.”

I considered ignoring him but thought the better of it. I had enough going on in my life; I didn’t need a voodoo curse on top of everything. Warily, I pulled up a chair.

There was an odd assortment of crap on the desk in front of Dan: a lump of wax, several sewing needles, a deck of cards, and some raw corn kernels. Dan was still staring at his hand.

“According to this, I don’t have a love line.” He shrugged; the news didn’t disturb him. “Hey, do you know what tiromancy is?”

“What?”

“The art of predicting the future using cheese.”

There was no good response to a statement like that.

“Did you want something, Dan?”

“Yeah.” He picked up the cards and shuffled. “Let me tell your fortune.”

The cards were from the Casino Queen riverboat in East St. Louis. “Don’t you need a special deck?”

“Nah, this’ll work.” He fanned out the deck. “Pick a card. Not that one! No, not that one either…. Ah, for Satan’s sake, Leon!” Dan reshuffled.

“
Now
pick a card.” I grabbed the top one. The three of diamonds. Dan checked a table in the book. “No, pick another one.”

Dan apparently didn’t like any of the fortunes. I was nearly a quarter of the way through the deck when I pulled a card he approved of.

“The joker. That
suits
you, Leon.” I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny. He checked the book. “The joker is a holdover of the Fool in the old tarot deck. It symbolizes someone who rushes into things without thinking, insults people without meaning to, and will never find romantic happiness.” He grinned. “It’s like the worst card you could have drawn.”

“Bye, Dan.”

“Hold on. Did you know the Puritans considered the joker to be an evil card? When they burned witches, they’d use a burning joker as kindling!”

“Really?”

“Nah, I just made that up.”

Talking to Dan was like listening to Sr. Lopez Lopez’s language tapes: I recognized the words but didn’t understand what was being said. I got up.

“Leon?” Dan was leaning back in his chair, holding the deck in one fist. “The cards don’t lie. I’d be cautious if I were you. Don’t do anything rash.” He attempted to cut the deck with one hand, causing the cards to fly everywhere.