Laura Adamczyk - Hardly Children

Jesus, girl, settle down! he says, laughing. I’m really spazzing out; I can feel it. But I can’t stop myself. My laughter comes up like seltzer.

You’re out of control, girly!

I told you I had a drinking problem!

Shirley, you must be joking.

Hey, I thought you said you’d never seen that.

I watched it the other night.

I’ve got him in a bear hug. I want to turn him over. I’m grunting and straining against his bulk, but he doesn’t move.

Hey, come on, settle down. Let’s have a conversation.

Bor-ing. I climb over onto his back and whisper in his ear, You’re a lumberjack and you’re okay. You sleep all night and you work all day.

His body finally comes alive, and he yanks me around to face him, grabbing my shoulders. Let’s get out of here, he says.

I crinkle my nose: I want to stay. I try to shrug him loose, but his hands hold my arms down. I drop my head to my shoulder, my neck feeling vaguely whiplashed.

What’s going on with you?

I shrug my shoulders. He’s trying to look into my eyes, which only makes me sad. I cross my arms and shrink a little. I want to move and keep on moving, but I’ve lost my verve.

Let’s just drive somewhere. Do you have to make a run?

A run? No, he sighs, shaking his head. He dips his chin to hide his smile. He’s patronizing me now, I can feel it, but I don’t know how to explain to him that I don’t want to know anything outside of his cab, where everything is small, where everything has its place. I think of the virgin. How nice it must be to know all there is to know about a dead president but nothing about what he did in his bedroom. It feels right, as close as we should get to any one thing. The trucker drops his hands from my shoulders. His body is as thick as a buoy; if tossed into the ocean he would float forever. His hand is warm when it touches mine, and at first I want to pull away, but I take it and squeeze. I squeeze as hard as I can, like I’m gripping a pair of those springy hand grippers, like I’m trying to break them. I look at him. He looks back and squeezes my hand just as hard. His face has become serious and rigid, his warm eyes sunk to somewhere darker. It starts to hurt. I want to ball up my other hand and punch him in the face; I want to bite his lips. I want him to bite me . But we stay right there, him squeezing my fingers hard enough that I stop feeling them, his hands and arms so big that he could fold me up and shove me into one of the storage compartments, stuff me inside the little closet. I think of how cramped it would be in there with all his jackets and work boots and movies, how, with my arms pushed to my chest and the door shut, I might never get out.

THE PROBLEM WAS THAT THE MANwas too tall. Or the woman too short. He didn’t want to lord over her. She didn’t want to be so far away from his mouth. She wasn’t the kind of woman to wait, to pine, to wish and hope and pray to someday maybe be kissed. If she wanted to kiss, she was probably kissing. The man knew this about his friend, appreciated that directness, and so on their walks, and on this walk in particular, a basketball tucked beneath his arm, her striped athletic socks pulled up to her knees, he found himself slouching, while she pulled herself up as tight and tall as ever, her large breasts pushed out forward, as though guns ready to be fired. What more could she do? Ask him to stop so she could get some height from a concrete planter? Hook her foot in a fence? He, sensing her frustration, sometimes wondered if it wouldn’t be best to just get it over with and pick her up. She was heavier than most short women he knew—the elastic of her sports bra pushing out the excess flesh of her body—but he was stronger than he looked and wouldn’t mind the strain. He thought this consciously, held it out before him in his mind, that this kissing, this coupling, was something he should do, but he couldn’t bring himself to close that last bit of gap between them. He’d broken up with his girlfriend of two and a half years at the beginning of the summer, and he saw how something had turned on in the short woman. He felt a sudden desire, could sense her pushing, pushing, nearly running in his direction, this forward momentum forcing him to unfold a thought that had lain closed in him for some time—that he might not like women or men for any kissing whatsoever. The feeling left him slack and weighted, filled with sad guilt that he couldn’t return his friend’s big desire. Like today, all their walks took place in the middle of the afternoon, the summer heat drawing sweat from their necks, no time at all, the tall man reasoned, for two people to smash their faces together anyway.

When they made the turn toward the outdoor court, the pair saw them warming up. The group was running drills and shooting layups, doing a little give and go. This was the man’s favorite part: walking slower, hanging back to see his friends exposed as they were in their mesh basketball shorts and shoes, their nasty old T-shirts with the sleeves cut off. In five years, they would be too old. One had already gotten his ankle good and twisted a few months ago, and nobody could make it the full hour anymore without having to sub out. But there they were, clumsy and groping, calling out to each other in the waning hours of the summer afternoon, tossing up bricks, letting their voices get nice and loud.

After stretching, they divided themselves into threes, the tall man and the short woman on the same team. She gave hard, ugly passes to the man, who converted them into layups, at turns graceful, at others scrappy and ragged. If he missed, he’d scramble and elbow to his own rebound and go up again. Those not guarding him held back on the perimeter, slowly retreating, watching him push the ball up and over the lip of the rim with an ease they no longer knew.

The woman was guarding the dirty-blond wisecracker on the other team. He was scrawny, but beneath his faded gray T-shirt was the promise of a drinking man’s belly, pale skin, and a swirl of dark, wiry hair. She pushed her torso into his and threw her arms into the open spaces his limbs made.

Hey, hey, he said, you’re going to have to buy me dinner first.

It wasn’t the only time he’d made this joke with her. He stepped back, smiling, and still dribbling, said, Lil G, I can’t help but notice how you always seem to guard me.

They called her Lil G. Even the tall man found himself saying it, though no one had ever before called her the name. The others encouraged her, overencouraged her, it sometimes seemed, though only in hindsight did the man wonder, Too much? He did not want her to think their encouragement was false, which would be worse, he decided, than no encouragement at all. Whereas she, in the moment of play, always thought, Oh, God, please stop, wondering why every unmade shot was met with clapping, with, That’s okay, Lil G, keep taking those. Keep trying.

Body-checking the wisecracker, she lunged for and got her hands on the ball, dribbling up to half court.

All right, all right, that’s a foul, little lady.

I’m sorry?

You fouled me.

She stopped dribbling and tucked the ball into her hip. I did not foul you. If you want me to foul you, I can show you what that looks like.

Whoa-ho, he said, putting up his hands. If you want to get close, all you have to do is ask.

Give me a break.

Come on, Lil G, everybody saw it.

She looked past him to the others. Any of you see anything?

Well … the big guy in the headband said, looking down.

She raised her eyebrows at the tall man.

It looked like a foul, he shrugged, but I couldn’t see that well.

Fine, whatever. She shoved the ball into the wisecracker’s stomach. I’m just going to get it back anyway.