Blackbird Page 11

  She took off her halter top (something I’m sure I was supposed to do), and I touched her breasts with some curiosity, but not much else, while we kissed some more. I didn’t much like the way they hung. Her nipples were as big around as tollhouse cookies. They just seemed – I don’t know – extreme. After a bit more kissing, which was beginning to lose its novelty, Cherie reached down and began stroking my hard-on through my pants. She looked up at me with a look that I could have sworn was victory. She had probably been none too sure herself if I was going to get hard or not.

  “Why don’t we get under the covers?” she said.

  Cherie’s naked body was more softnesses, more baby-sweet scents. She lay on her back, and her breasts seemed to want to fall into her armpits. She almost hoisted me on top of her, and she took my penis into her hand. Her little hand couldn’t quite encircle it. She had just begun guiding it into her when I remembered my friend the rubber.

  “Um, shouldn’t I, y’know, use something?”

  “Unh-uh, I’m on the pill,” she whispered.

  And I thought, Wow. The Pill.

  And it suddenly occurred to me, for the very first time (if you can believe it), that Cherie had obviously done this before. Probably often. I was just beginning to fret about whether or not I might measure up to however many guys she might have been with before in her life, when all of a sudden Cherie lifted and I sort of fell, and I was inside her.

  I caught my breath. A long tremble started at my head and sprinted down my back. The feeling was all but indescribable. Warm and wet and nearly unbearably delicious. It felt so good, I giggled. It felt so good, I bit my lower lip. It felt so good, I was hardly all the way inside her before I came, crying out as if someone had jumped out from behind a door and yelled Boo!

  “I’m sorry,” I said through some ragged breaths.

  “It’s all right.” Cherie stroked my back. “Just wait a minute or two.”

  And in just a minute or two, we were doing it again. I’d never gotten soft, and when Cherie began to move, I moved with her, almost as if she were teaching me to dance, and almost before I knew it I had the basic step down and we were moving together.

  It wasn’t a very long time before I could feel another climax slowly sliding the length of me, and I moved faster. Cherie grabbed my behind with her hands and pulled me up and into her with an amazing amount of force. I closed my eyes, and I could just see Marshall MacNeill’s face in the red-and-black behind my eyes as I came again.

  I could hear Cherie making a succession of little kitty-cat noises beneath me before my arms gave way and I collapsed, barely retaining enough presence of mind to fall to one side rather than directly onto Cherie. We both gasped audibly at the sensation of my slipping so quickly out of her wet pussy.

  I lay on my back, trembling and short of breath, staring at the ugly old light fixture over Cherie’s bed, wondering at the way Marshall MacNeill had popped into my head while I was trying to screw Cherie. I felt a little guilty, as if I had cheated on her or something.

  Cherie tucked herself into my armpit and stroked my chest. My entire body was exposed nerve endings, and I nearly jumped to the ceiling at her touch.

  “Well?” she said after a while.

  “Well what?”

  “Was it good?”

  “Yes. I liked it. I really did.”

  “And …” She seemed to be groping for words to express a difficult thought. “How do you feel?”

  “I feel good.”

  “You know what I mean.” She poked at my belly, tickling me.

  “Do you feel … you know, different?”

  Then it hit me. She wanted to know if she’d cured me or something. I’d actually managed to forget that that was the whole point of our going to bed together in the first place.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh.” She drew away from me quickly, rolling as far to the other side of the bed as possible. Which wasn’t far – it was only a single bed.

  “I’m sorry, Cherie.” I touched her shoulder, making a little stroking motion with my hand. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

  “I know,” she said through a sniff, and I knew she was crying.

  I reached out to hug her, but she drew away, nearly falling off the bed.

  “Would you please go.”

  “Cherie – what can I do?”

  “Nothing. It’s not your fault, okay? Would you just please go.

  Would you just do that for me, please?”

  “I’m really sorry, Cherie.” I slid out of bed and broke speed records getting dressed. Cherie didn’t say a word, just sniffed now and then. “Cherie” – I paused at her bedroom door – “You know I love you. As best I can.”

  “I know.” I could just barely hear her.

  I went home, feeling lower than the gutters, and managed to get all the way to my room without being seen. I started to put Joni on the stereo, but I wasn’t in the mood for any music at all, or even for the French numbers lady. I wrapped myself around a pillow, curled up on my bed, and just lay there, feeling bad. I wasn’t even sure if I was feeling bad for Cherie or feeling bad for me or all of the above.

  But I figured I was going to feel pretty much like shit for quite a while.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day was, of course, Sunday. And Sunday, of course, meant church. We go every Sunday, Mom and Dad and me, except on the rare occasion when Dad just can’t seem to drag himself out of bed in time, or when I for whatever reason just stay home and have cinnamon toast and hot chocolate for breakfast, and watch “Bullwinkle.”

  I’m not what you’d call terribly religious. Not anymore, anyway. I went through a period when I was terribly religious, when I was about twelve years old. It started right after I saw The Song of Bernadette on TV. I’d read about it, and I knew Jennifer Jones had won the Oscar for it, and that was my main interest in the movie, initially. As you may or may not know, The Song of Bernadette is about Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, who was a poor, ignorant, but basically good French peasant girl back in the late 1800s, who sees a heavenly vision of the Virgin Mary in the village garbage dump. I swear. And she performs several miracles and digs a miraculous healing spring that people still flock to by the thousands, and becomes a nun, and later, a saint.

  Well, this was all pretty fascinating to little me, especially since by this time I already had something of a nun fixation. I had seen The Sound of Music about thirty-seven times. And the Singing Nun (both the real one and Debbie Reynolds in the movie). I knew all the words to “Dominique” by heart, in French. I’m not sure what it was about them, but I did have this thing about nuns. Nothing against the church I was raised in, you understand, but you have to admit the Baptist church is mighty low in the nun department. No nuns or priests or monks; they don’t make an awful lot of the Virgin Mary, except maybe at Christmas (after all, where would Christmas be without her?); and you’re not likely to hear a lot of talk about heavenly visions of anybody, in or out of garbage dumps.

  Anyway, by Bernadette’s big death scene, all backlit and with an off-screen chorus singing high, sustained chords all over the soundtrack, I knew I wanted to become a Catholic. Maybe even a priest. Being ineligible for nunhood, it was the best I could hope for.

  I went to the public library and crash-coursed the Catholic Church. I learned the Rosary and began reciting it at least once a day while pantomiming the fingering of beads. I spent two weeks’ allowance on a large crucifix of indeterminate alloy, and carried it surreptitiously in my back pocket until one day Mom found it making a racket in the clothes dryer.

  Needless to say, Mom and Dad were having none of this Catholic business. Mom made it clear that no son of hers was converting to Catholicism while there was a breath left in her body; that Catholics worshipped Mary and prayed to saints and probably weren’t going to Heaven; and that I watched too much TV. Any time I come up with a notion Mom finds the least bit out of the ordinary, she rolls her eyes toward Heaven (th
at great Southern Baptist Convention in the sky) and says I watch too much TV.

  Dad asked, “Why would you want to be Cath’lic, son?”

  I replied, in my best Jennifer Jones, “Because I wish to dedicate my life to God.”

  “Well you can just dedicate your life to God in the true church, Little Mister,” Mom said, giving me the old finger-wag. And I said, “Yes, Mother,” but secretly resolved to pray to Saint Bernadette on Mom and Dad’s behalf.

  This went on for three or four weeks, as I recall. Then a gorgeous blond kid named Mike Mulvaney transferred into my school from Texarkana, Texas, and before long my head was so full of Mike’s robin’s-egg-blue eyes and Texas accent that there was no room for the Catholic Church, Bernadette of Lourdes, or even Jennifer Jones. Which I can only imagine is all for the best. I really don’t see me as much of a priest.

  Anyway, since my Catholic period I’ve done quite a bit of reading about different religions, even tried a couple more on for size. I’ve read the Bible (cover to cover, like a novel – it lags in spots, but pretty good reading overall), the Book of Mormon (pretty easy to get around these parts), and a good bit of the Bhagavad-Gita (which is truly strange). I seriously considered becoming a Jehovah’s Witness for about a week or so. Then Mom found a stack of “Watchtowers” in my room and nearly had a coronary.

  Lately, though, I’ve pretty much given up on organized religion altogether. As far as I can see, nobody’s got The Truth, The Answer, or The God. No particular church, I mean. They’re all just whistling in the dark, more or less, all of them saying pretty much the same thing over and over with different accents and a name change here and there; not one of them with any more claim to a direct hotline of the Ancient of Days than any of the rest; none of them one baby-step closer to or further away from the Great I Am than, well, I am.

  Which is why I’ve sometimes been heard to say that I don’t believe in God. Which is not exactly true, even though I will say it sometimes, for the shock value mostly. What I really don’t believe in is church – anybody’s church, as I’ve said. And I also don’t buy the Christian Church’s God, the frowning old fart in the long white caftan and the long white beard. One hand full of thou-shalt-nots and the other one full of a terrible swift sword. Nope – I don’t buy it. Not anymore.

  Or Mom’s God. Dr. Jesus – he’s never lost a case. Except he has lost them. Case after case after case. Or the God a lot of the holy-holyholy types over at the Baptist church have bought into: Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one, with a crown of thorns, yet. Pray for what you want, and – poof! – it’s yours. I actually know people who pray for an empty space in a crowded parking lot, and then if someone happens to vacate a space, they’ll shout “Praise the Lord,” as if they’d just seen water turned into wine, and then tell everybody about it, come the next youth-group meeting.

  As far as I’m concerned, there has to be a God, or a god, a creative force of some sort. I mean, all of this could not have just happened. A red rosebud, or a skyful of stars, or a Skipper Harris – these are not accidents. On the other hand, I just can’t make myself believe any more in a God who actually has time to grant people’s wishes, like some fairy godmother in the sky – and plays favorites about it, yet. I mean, one mother will pray that her child not die of leukemia and God says okay; then another one prays the same and her child dies, and this is God? I don’t think so.

  I figure God (or whoever) made the universe and the world and the whole shebang, left it all in the rather shaky hands of mankind, and then retired to a nice trailer park in Boca Raton. Everything after that, I think – war and peace and hunger and plenty and good and bad and mediocre – can be attributed to and/or blamed on human beings and/or plain old blind luck. Period. End of Sermonette.

  Anyway, it was the Sunday after Leslie Crandall was spirited out of town, and in church both Leslie and Todd were quite conspicuous by their absence. It was Youth Choir Sunday, and the Leslie-and-Todd Scandal was the talk of the robe room, to the tune of many of the same kids who hadn’t spoken to Todd Waterson in days suddenly deciding we all must pray for him and Leslie, because this is what happens when we succumb to sin and blah blah blah. And I’m getting sick to my stomach, because I know for a fact that the only thing keeping a lot of these people from being in the same boat as Leslie and Todd is dumb luck.

  It’s this kind of thing that makes me wonder why I bother with church at all. Why I do is partly because I like singing in the choir, but mostly because there are some really beautiful guys in the youth group – Todd, Mitch Franklin, and a few others – and I usually don’t mind enduring a little hypocrisy for the chance to give a guy a hug and tell him I love him (in Jesus, of course), or hold his big sweaty hand during prayer. Before Marshall came along, it was about the best I could do.

  From the choir stand, I could see that there were an unusual number of absentees in the congregation. Efrem and I exchanged glances from across the room where he sat with his mom and dad right next to my mom and dad, all four of the parents looking rather as if there were a vaguely unpleasant odor permeating the church. I could also see that Pastor Crandall was about as tense as I’d ever seen him. I could swear I could see the Pastor’s back muscles knotting beneath the jacket of his powder-blue leisure suit – Efrem always says Pastor Crandall dresses like a used-car salesman – but maybe it was just the feeling I got watching him attempt to get through his sermon, all the while knowing what his congregation really wanted was an explanation of how he allowed his only daughter to get royally knocked up without the benefit of a proper church wedding. It was so uncomfortable that I had to look away.

  My mind wandered, first to Cherie – I wondered how she’d behave the next day, wondered how I should behave. Then to Marshall, remembering his arm around my shoulders, his hand on mine. I started getting hard, and I bowed my head and whispered a quick “Lord is my shepherd” to myself.

  Chapter Twelve

  As it turned out, it was a waste of energy worrying about Cherie. Come Monday morning, she annexed herself to my right arm as usual, as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed. Which made me a little nervous at first. It was like some two-bit Tarzan movie where one explorer says to another one, “It’s quiet – too quiet.” I tried to hold up my half of the conversation with Efrem while waiting for the other shoe to drop, when Cherie said, “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh?”

  “Why don’t you and Todd do ‘Blackbird’ for the Spring Recital?

  As an interlude number, I mean.”

  Which was not the worst of ideas. After all, “Blackbird” was one of my favorite songs, and modesty aside, I did a pretty fair job of it.

  Besides which, it was a good opportunity to help Todd feel – well, included, y’know? Frankly, he’d been so awfully tight with Leslie for so awfully long that I’m not sure if he had many friends worth the title, other than her.

  When Todd arrived, I flagged him over and he hurried (as much as Todd ever hurries).

  “How’s it goin’,” he said.

  “Missed you in church yesterday,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Efrem said, making what was for him a valiant attempt at being pleasant.

  “I wasn’t feeling well.” Todd inspected the toes of his boots.

  “Better now?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Good. You know, we were just talking about you. And I was thinking” – Cherie pinched me on the arm – “that is, Cherie suggested that perhaps we – you and I, that is … that we could maybe do ‘Blackbird’ for the Spring Recital. What do you think?”

  “Well.…”

  “It’s a real good song for me, and you do the accompaniment so well.” I wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  “But I’m not even in choir.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Elmgreen will have any problem with that. Do you, Cherie?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Of course not. Well? Would you do
that for me? Please?”

  “Okay. Sure.” Todd smiled, really smiled, treating me to a nice shot of his dimples. He’s got one on each cheek, and believe me, boys and girls, a guy could fall into them.

  “Great. Mr. Elmgreen’s gonna use this Friday’s rehearsal as sort of an audition time for the interludes. Can you make it?”

  “Sure. I got study hall fourth period.”

  “Then it’s a deal. In fact, why don’t we run through it now.”

  “Do we have time?”

  “Sure.”

  Todd unpacked his Ovation, gave her a quick tuning, and we did the song. When we were done, Todd had that look on, and I knew he was thinking about Leslie.

  “Any word from her?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll hear. Soon.” A flimsy excuse for a pep talk, but it was the best I could do. Cherie leaned forward and, without letting go of my arm with her left hand, reached out with her right and stroked Todd’s hair just one long, slow stroke, letting her hand rest softly against Todd’s head for a short moment. And we were all very quiet for a minute, the four of us.

  Finally, I said, “So Todd, when do you suppose you’ll get around to giving me my ring?” One more lame attempt at levity, I guess.

  Todd didn’t smile. I think he tried to, but it wouldn’t come. He just sort of cocked his head to one side and said, “Guess you’ll have to wait till I’m croaked.”

  And we all laughed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next few days are little more than a blur. I was just marking time, impatiently marking time until Thursday, when I’d see Marshall again. I wandered through my classes like a sleepwalker, all but unable to pass myself off as a functioning student. I wrote Marshall’s name so many times I had to change all my book covers. I looked him up in the phone book, scribbled down his number, memorized it, and nearly called it about seven thousand separate times. Each time I picked up the phone, my hand shook and my stomach tightened like a crescent wrench, and I’d drop the phone back down without so much as punching one button. And I’d tell myself: he’s not home. He won’t answer. And besides, even if he were home and did answer, what would I say? Hey there, I realize we’ve only just met and we’re not exactly friends or anything, but I just called to tell you I haven’t thought about anything but you for five or six days running.