Collusion: Part XXVI

Every single experience of our lives in a new layer of paint. Some clear like varnish. Some opaque. Some black. Some layers should be chipped off, and some of them should be painted over. All the same they are what makes us individuals. They are what give us color.

But you knew this already. We don't wander around stagnant... forced to stumble into what and who will be our next mistake.

The sun beat down relentless. Kids from the south develop a certain tolerance to heat. Not just heat like a sunny 78 with light breezes. Heat like a fever in the Sahara. South Carolina cares for no one. She believes firmly that it is her job to prepare all the baptists that live within her confines for the strong likelihood that they will at some point forget a prayer before bedtime and thus be sentenced to a little swim in the lake of fire. Oh yeah,  and the humidity cranks up the heat index so that being outside almost always feels like a sweat lodge.

I was one of those children who was almost always out in this heat, and as such was most nearly always sweating and playing happily. It was that part of the late spring just before the first days of true summer where all the wild vines that plundered their ways across ditches along the sides of the roads were gushing blackberries. Big fat, thumb sized remnants of their more gentrified bacchanal cousins, they gushed with a tangy syrupy sweetness. They tempted simple country children to cheat their sharp thorns and if they were so brave, to claim the high prize of their fruit.

My sister and I left the house yelling out to mom that we were going to pick berries and taking with us big squeaky Styrofoam cups from the pantry. We had made plans to pilfer and pluck only the best from this rush of berries and bring them back home... We had planned to make them into pies or tarts. Silly children we were then so easily amused.

The torrential heat and blinding sun were no match for out bright laughter and determined delusions of culinary mastery. We tripped and tumbled and frolicked down the side of the highway looking for the best vines with the biggest berries. Only the best would do for our tarts. Our big yellow dog, Minnie followed along behind us. She kept up well, never mind that she was nearly 12 years old. I think she felt like we were her responsibility and that there would be no berry picking without her.

ME: "Did you buy anything when you went shopping with Ashley the other day?"
BETH: "We got some pizza and road the carousel in the mall... it was really big! It was fun..."
ME: "and you didn't bring me back anything! haha. How dare you!?" I replied impishly...

My sister was eight and I twelve. She's one of the most beautiful people I know... and at that age had flawless sheets of shiny honey brown hair that ran down her back. Bangs that stuck to the sides of her forehead in the heat, and big doey brown eyes that were so brown that sometimes they looked black. We picked through the brambles in our ill fitting pre-adolescent clothing that had been handed down and handed down again. Happy as puppies.

We worked our way from thorn to thorn, and vine to vine. Following the line of ditches that lead from our house over to the church where dad was working.

BETH: "Stop eatin all of em! We're not gonna have enough!"
ME: "Oh whatever... there's plenty... look at all of them!
BETH: "I know but we aint gonna have enough if we keep eatin em all."
ME: "Ha ha.... stop bein a lil mama!"

We made it all the way over to the church and decided to go in and wash the berries and see what dad was up to. He was most days bunkered inside his office. Books spread all over the place and pages of scribble falling off the sides of the desk as he stacked things in piles that only made sense to him.

BETH: "Daddy! look at! Look at all the berries!"
DAD: "I see that. Were ya'll get those?"
BETH: "They're all along the sides of the road!"
DAD: "You're momma know ya'll walked down along the side of the road?"
ME: "I told her where we were going."

Dad got up from his desk and walked us down the long main hall of the church building. Back towards the kitchen. The lights were kept off in the hall during the day to save money... so it was all dim and gray. We walked slowly. I could tell dad was upset. But we were just having fun.

DAD: "I told yall about leavin the house and not tellin momma where you're goin. I don't want you kids gettin hit by a car. You ain't got enough brain between you to look up."
BETH: "We didn't stay by the road very long..." She started cryin a little. That made me angry. Me and my short fuse. Being twelve is sort of a curse.
ME: "It was my idea in the first place... "
DAD: "That's even worse... you should know better."
ME: "Know better than walking into traffic? Well... I do..."

That was just about enough snark from me apparently. Dad turn quick on his left heel as he was walking in front of us slapped me hard across the face. Thwap!
I wasn't quite expecting that... I was walking and trying to make sure not to spill the berries we were going to wash. Slapped or no, I fell down hard on the gray floor.... I tossed the berries and they scattered across the floor...

I didn't say anything. I just bobbled back up and started crying too. I hated when I let myself cry. But I wasn't expecting him to be that angry....

DAD: "Clean those up. I'm calling your mom to come get you."

quixotic

My blood pressure had been spiking for most of the late afternoon. Cause I knew it was time. I knew I had to make a move, or no one was going to.
I was scared though. It would either work or it wouldn't. And to tell you flatly reader... I'd never been kissed.

I'd known 'X' for about three months... Christine was way...way over by then. And Melodie.... I don't think Im gonna get into that right this second. X and I had been playing a delicate little game of 'hint and lie' for something that was starting to seem like the better part of a decade. X is a bit of a wall flower. X had drawn me in with a surprising complexity and the promise of something I'd never felt before. Connection.

Not like 'networking' or 'friendship' or... anything quite so trite as those things. It felt like that rush you feel when you're on the highway and you're dead sure you're gonna tail end somebody because they stopped and you didn't notice. It felt like what a shark feels when there's blood in the water. It felt like enough static to raise every hair on your head and then make all the little blond hairs on your arms stand and point.

We were driving around in the car and it was turning dusk. We were talking about things that didn't matter. And i was rummaging for every hook I could think of to turn the conversation in the direction I wanted with out being blunt and plain and..... childish. I kept rubbing my hands on my khakis... cause my palms were sweating. I felt like I was being hunted. But that was irrational. Of course I wasn't.

"Nothing has to happen at all!" I kept reminding myself. A little mantra I was chanting in my head. "Everythings going to be fine.... you'll see." Maybe that little voice wasn't mine. Maybe it was Satan. Maybe it was worse. Maybe it was lust. Either way it calmed me down and set me just like steel to my purpose.

I don't know how I had let all this come to have such intense meaning. This wasn't skydiving. But just at that second... I would have been less nervous about jumping out of a plane.
I was trying... but you know, honestly there was no way to flip the conversation from "but of course, that was before Bach's wife died...." to... "I want to stick my tongue down your throat."


I took the best route that I knew. I let the conversation die off for a minute.
ME: "So.... I have a confession."
X:.......
ME: " I kinda.... uh. wanna.... kiss you."
X: (laughs nervously)
ME: "I mean.... you know.... just.... if that's ok with you and all..." I had never felt this exact mix of emotions before. It was like tight rope walking 50 ft over a snake pit. Each contraction of my heart was clearly audible.
X: "Um....."
ME: "I mean.... if you don't want to.... " (Stupid! Just stop talking!) I thought.
X: "OK." "Sure."

Well. I guess that was supposed to make me feel better. At least X wasn't opposed to the idea.
X knew an out of the way place. Up a winding road. Up and up the side of Paris mountain. The charcoal silhouettes of live oaks and maples twisted and arched their backs across the sky. They laughed at us and fought back some of the starlight. They must have snickered about how absurd humans must be.

We weren't really talking.
ME: "Where are we going?"
X: "You'll see. I know a place."

Oh X.... you charmer you.

We parked along side the tiny off road leaving just enough space for passing traffic to squeeze around. It didn't matter. There weren't any cars that far up the mountain. Not tonight. Mercifully.
We stumbled like children down the embankment. Tiny souls blind to the bitter broken change. Blind to the way they would soon be broken together.  Down the hill they stumbled through the dead hill grasses that came up to their knees all white and gray in the light of the moon and stars.

It was a little flat space. Maybe at one time someone had intended to build a house there, on the side of the mountain. Maybe they had gone bankrupt. Now it was a dump site for extra cement and building materials no longer needed. If you looked carefully the clearing was dotted with crush beer cans... Evidence of low living and bad decision making. I didn't notice though... I was staring out over the edge of the cliff. All of Greenville was stretched out in front of me. I could see for miles and miles and the landscape mirrored the cold diamond sky, with it's tiny lights from all the houses and street bulbs.

Reader... come with me. Follow me to the most beautiful place on earth. X and I were both shaking by now. Inching closer in the grassy desolation. Laughing nervously.

As the breeze swilled around that blue lit perch on the mountain... we kissed. My blood turned to liquid fire as dark methamphetamine scorched its way into my heart.

I laughed...
Me: "That wasn't so bad was it?"
X: (still shaking) "No. No it wasn't."

The deed was done. And we like successful thieves laughed our way back down the sober mountain. I won't ever forget that place or those moments. Come death or starvation. Come the spite of the rest of humanity. I'm sorry it didn't last X. I'm sorry it wasn't forever. I'm sorry that some things that should never have been forgotten... were lost.

I was a changed man after though. I no longer had the fear of god in me. I would trick hell and swim the river Stix if i must. This was what I was born to be. This was the closest I had ever been to perfect.