Anne Tyler - A Spool of Blue Thread

“Let’s go up in the loft, I mean it. It’s more comfortable there; it’s got hay.”

He ignored her and headed for the rear of the barn, across creaky, straw-littered floorboards. She said, “I don’t know why you’re being so contrary.” She reached out in the dark, feeling for something and then yanking, and an overhead bulb lit up and pained his eyes. These people had electricity even in their outbuildings. He saw that he was standing next to a rusted plow. A thin slant of trampled-down hay was piled in the corner beyond. Linnie’s face looked all crinkly in the sudden brightness, and his did too, he supposed. She was wearing a dress that seemed a mite low in the neck to him. He was surprised her mother had allowed it; Linnie always made out that her mother was so strict. He could see the two mounds of her breasts swelling above the fabric, but it didn’t affect him. He pulled his Camels from his shirt pocket. “What’d you want to talk about?” he asked.

“You can’t smoke in here!”

He put the Camels away.

“Go ahead and say it,” he said.

“Say what?”

“Say what you brought me here to tell me.”

She drew herself up straight. “Junior,” she said, “I know why you’ve stopped meeting me. You’re thinking I’m too young for you.”

“What? Wait.”

“But age is just a date on a calendar. You aren’t being fair. You’re going by something I can’t help. And you can see that I’m a woman. Haven’t I acted like a woman? Don’t I feel like a woman?”

She took one of his hands and laid it above the U of her neckline, where the swelling began. He said, “That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

“I want to tell you that you’re being narrow-minded.”

“Shoot, Linnie,” he said. “You’re not in trouble?”

“In trouble! No!”

He didn’t know why she sounded so shocked; they hadn’t always been careful. But he felt such a weight lifting off him that he laughed aloud, and then he bent to set his lips on hers and his hand slid lower on her neckline, down inside it, where it didn’t seem she was wearing a brassiere although she surely could have used one. He squeezed, and she drew a sharp breath, and he pressed her back toward the corner of the barn and laid her down on the hay, not once taking his lips away. He kicked his boots off, somehow. He got free of his overalls and his BVDs all in one move. Linnie was struggling out of her drawers, and just as he reached to help her he heard … not words but a sort of bellow, like the sound a bull makes, and then, “Great God Almighty!”

He rolled over and scrambled to his feet. A skinny little stick of a man was lunging toward him with both hands outstretched, but Junior stepped aside. The man landed against the plow and hastily righted himself. “Clifford!” he roared. “Brandon!”

Junior had the confused impression that the man was trying out different names on him, but then from the direction of the house he heard another voice call, “Daddy?”

“Get out here! Bring a gun!”

“Daddy, wait, you don’t understand,” Linnie said.

But he was too busy trying to clamp his hands around Junior’s throat. Junior thought he should be given a moment to get his overalls back on; it put him at a disadvantage. He pried Mr. Inman’s fingers loose without much difficulty, but when he spun toward where his clothes lay the man grabbed hold of him again. Then, “Freeze!” somebody shouted, and he turned his head to find two boys standing in the doorway training Winchesters on him.

He froze.

“Hand me that,” Mr. Inman ordered, and the younger boy stepped forward and passed him his rifle.

Mr. Inman backed up just far enough to put the length of the rifle between himself and Junior, and then he cocked the lever and told Junior, “Turn around.”

Junior turned so he was facing the two boys, who seemed more interested than angry. They had their eyes fixed on his crotch. Junior felt the cold, perfect circle of the rifle muzzle in the dead center of the back of his neck. It prodded him. “Forward,” Mr. Inman said.

“Well, if I could just—”

“Forward!”

“Sir, could I just get my clothes?”

“No, you cannot get your clothes. Could he get his clothes! Just go. Get out of my barn and get off of my land and get out of this state , you hear? Because if you’re not two states over by morning I will set the law on you, I swear to God. I’ve half a mind to do it anyhow, except I don’t want the shame on my family.”

“But, Daddy, he’s half nekkid,” Linnie said.

“You shut up,” Mr. Inman told her.

He jabbed the rifle harder into the back of Junior’s neck and Junior lurched forward, sending a last desperate glance toward the crumple of his clothes in the hay. The toe of one boot was poking out from underneath them.

It was dark in the yard, but the bulb above the back door of the house lit him clearly, he could tell, because the people crowding out on the stoop all gasped and murmured — women and a couple of men and a whole bunch of children, all ages, their eyes as round as moons, the little boys nudging one another.

It was a blessing to leave the circle of light and step into the deep, velvety blackness just beyond. With one last jab of the rifle muzzle, Mr. Inman came to a halt and let Junior stumble on by himself.

He hadn’t walked barefoot since he was in grade school. Every stob and pebble made him wince.

Next to the Inmans’ yard it was woods, the scrubby kind thick with briers to snatch at his bare skin, but that was better than the open road, where headlights could pick him out at any moment. He found himself a middling-size tree that he could stand behind, close enough that he could still see pieces of the Inmans’ lighted windows through the undergrowth. He was hoping for Linnie Mae to come out eventually with his clothes.

Gnats whined in his ears and tree frogs piped. He shifted from foot to foot and swatted away something feathery, a moth. His heartbeat got back to normal.

Linnie didn’t come. He supposed they had locked her up.

After some time he took his shirt off and tied the sleeves around his waist with the body of the shirt hanging down in front like an apron. Then he stepped out from behind the tree and made his way to the road. The ground alongside it was stony, so he walked on the asphalt, which was smooth and still faintly warm from a day’s worth of sun. With every step, he listened for the sound of a car. If it was the Moffats’ car, he would need to flag it down. He could already picture how the twins would snicker at the sight of him.

One time he heard a faint hum up ahead and he saw a kind of radiance on the horizon. He ducked back into the bushes just in case and kept a watch, but the road stayed empty and the radiance faded. Whoever it was must have cut off someplace. He returned to the pavement.

If the Moffats did come, would he recognize their car in time? Would he mistake another car for theirs and get caught by strangers without his pants on?

This was the kind of fix that the men he worked with told jokes about, but when he tried to imagine talking about it ever, to anybody, he couldn’t. To begin with, the girl was thirteen. Right there that put a different light on things.

Sawyer Road took so long to show up, he started worrying he had passed it. He could have sworn it was closer. He crossed to the other side of the pavement so he’d be sure not to miss it, although the other side was low-growth fields and he would be easier to spot there. He heard a fluttering overhead and then the hoot of an owl, which for some reason struck him as comforting.

Much, much later than he had expected, he came across the narrow pale band of Sawyer Road and he turned onto it. The gravel was vicious, but he had stopped bothering to mince as he walked. He trudged heavily, obstinately, taking a peculiar pleasure in the thought that the soles of his feet must be cut to ribbons.