Melanie Thon: Meteors in August

Luck was with me and Gwen that night. We gorged ourselves, lifted every leaf, plucked each berry, ripe or not. We left our footprints from one end of that garden to the other and laughed as we ran away, thinking of all the days Joanna Foot would curse any kid who dared to pass her house.

We’d almost reached the high hedges of the Evans place when we spotted two men in the vacant lot. The smaller one was easy to recognize, the curve of his spine unmistakable from any distance, even in the dark. “Who’s that with Myron?” I said.

“It’s my brother,” Gwen whispered. I knew we had the same thought: neither of us understood what Zack was doing hanging out with Myron Evans in the middle of the night.

They seemed to be talking, but it didn’t last long. Zachary’s knee came up so hard that we heard the dull smack all the way across the field. Myron clutched himself and fell to his knees, voiceless, his face lifted to Heaven as if in sudden prayer. The only night sound was wind through grass. Zack’s arm twitched; I thought he’d slap Myron, but instead he spit on the ground and ran, afraid of something we couldn’t see. Gwen and I zigzagged through back alleys, chasing Zachary until he collapsed on the Hollers’ front lawn.

“Zack,” Gwen hissed.

He cussed when he realized it was only his sister.

“What’d you do to Myron?” Gwen said.

“I kicked the fucker in the balls.”

“Stupid bully.”

“Don’t call me that. You know I hate it when you call me that.”

“Stupid,” Gwen said, jabbing his shoulder. “Stupid bully.”

I thought she’d get worse than Myron did if she kept it up, but Zack just sat on the grass, hanging his head, a bad dog who loved his mistress.

“I had to,” Zack said at last.

“What’d he do to you?” Gwen said.

“Nothing.”

“That’s a good reason.”

“He tried to give me money.”

I’d never known Zack Holler to refuse money. Most things he’d do for free. When Gwen and I dared him to pelt Joanna Foot’s car with eggs, he bought the eggs himself.

“So?” Gwen said.

“He wanted me to let him do something.”

“What?”

“I can’t say.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not.” Zack was whining now.

I suspected he had kicked Myron for the pure pleasure of it. I lay down a few feet from Zack and Gwen and gazed at the crowd of stars. The night was so black they seemed to sink closer and closer to the earth. If I closed my eyes, I thought stars might fall on my face. I’d almost drifted off to sleep when Zack blurted it out: “That damn queer wanted to give me a blow job, said he’d pay me five bucks for the honor.”

On the way back to my house, I asked Gwen what a blow job was, and she told me that was when one guy blew on another guy’s dick till it tickled him so much he peed all over. I still didn’t get it. No one, not even Myron Evans, would pay somebody five dollars just to see him piss.

Even before the gate creaked and we saw our sleeping bags torn open and our pillows crumpled on the grass, I knew something was wrong. That heat was in the air. I had just enough time to see the red-hot end of a cigarette fly from someone’s hand to the ground before I was pushed to my knees.

“Where the hell have you been?” my father said. I didn’t answer, and he whacked me. My ears buzzed. “I’m talkin’ to you, girl.” His hand came at me again, but I ducked the blow.

“I forgot something at my house,” Gwen said. “We had to get it.”

“Don’t lie to me, you little smartass.”

He grabbed a clump of my hair and yanked me to my feet. “Clean up this mess and get in the house.”

He left us, and I knew I had about two minutes before he’d be back to haul me up the steps. My cheeks stung and my head hurt where Daddy had pulled my hair. Gwen said, “He’s a pig,” and I told her to shut her damn mouth.

My father worked seven to three at the mill, so he was gone long before I woke. Mother waited in the kitchen for me. I would have preferred Daddy’s slaps to her silence. She looked in her cup of coffee for some kind of answer, sad as she’d been the day the president was shot. The tiny lines around her lips betrayed her, revealing every one of her forty-seven years, and more: they were the words unspoken, the truth sucked back.

She said, “Let me see your shoes, Lizzie.”

“What?”

“Let me see your damn shoes. Someone stole every single one of Joanna Foot’s strawberries last night.” She made me turn around and lift one foot at a time. All our running around had destroyed the evidence; no dark soil clung to my shoes, just the pale dust of the alley. Of course it would have been a simple matter for Mom to take one of my shoes, press it into a footprint in Joanna’s garden, and see it was a perfect fit. But she was above that. Punishment was a private matter in our house. She wouldn’t humiliate either one of us by allowing Mrs. Foot to take her willow switch to me.

“You gave your father a scare,” she said. “It nearly killed him when your sister left. You know that, don’t you? You could break his heart, Lizzie, and you wouldn’t have to do anything close to what she did. You could finish that man off with one tiny nudge. You don’t want to do that, do you?”

“No.” I barely heard myself.

“Then watch yourself.”

I nodded, but I thought it was unfair that I should have to make up for what my sister had done.

Later that morning, I rode my bike past Myron Evans’s house. He sat on his porch steps, rocking back and forth, holding something pressed to his chest. I was bold with knowledge, unafraid of him now that I knew what he’d asked of Zack.

I called out, but he didn’t answer. I came halfway up the sidewalk. “Whatcha got there?” I said, straddling my bike. Then I saw the black cat. He lifted it toward me, an offering, raised it tenderly, as if it might still feel pain, or love.

The half-grown cat had white paws. Its head hung limp. “Dog get it?” I said. Myron shook his head. “He did.” I knew who he meant without asking. Zachary Holler had killed Myron’s cat; Zachary Holler had twisted that fragile neck until it snapped. I wanted to tell Myron I was sorry, but I couldn’t. I was too ashamed, thinking Gwen and I were to blame, chasing Myron the way we did, waiting for something bad to happen.

FOR A month I was forbidden to see Gwen Holler, forbidden to leave the yard after dark. After dinner one night, in the third week of my sentence, I sat in the kitchen with Mom and Aunt Arlen. Arlen lived across the alley. She was Dad’s sister and Mom’s best friend. “Would you mind asking Dean not to play cards with my husband,” she said. “Les lost twenty dollars at lunch yesterday.”

“I’ll mention it,” Mom said, but I knew she wouldn’t. There was no sense trying to talk Dad out of gambling, especially when he was on a streak.

My aunt pawed through her purse. “I thought Elliot Foot would be back by now,” she said, “whimpering like a dog and begging for another chance. That young girl is gonna wear him down. Mark my words. A man that age will get tired of being loved so much. He’ll either come back to Joanna or drop dead, that’s what I think.” She found her cigarettes and stuffed one in her mouth. Her straight, light hair was chopped off unevenly just below her jaw. I knew she cut her hair herself, just as my father did.

“I thought you gave up on cigarettes,” Mom said.

“I did. Lasted a whole week.”

“The first week is the hardest. Why’d you start up again?”

“I’d like to see you try living with Lester Munter without something to take the edge off your nerves.”

“You think it’s any easier living with your brother than it is living with Les?”