Finding My Thunder (17 page)

“I’m
just a kid,” I said. “You make everything so difficult…like I have to know all
this…. I’m not a preacher. That’s you. I’m fifteen.”

“Nearly
sixteen,” she whispered, trying to tease but I didn’t smile.

But
she’d let go of my hand a few minutes before when we got mad. But this time
when she took it, squeezed it, I didn’t pull away.

“You’re
a young woman. Just starting to emerge. It takes time, baby girl, to understand
yourself. You have to be thoughtful to give yourself time.”

“Danny
is good. And I love him.” I looked at her. “Just…let me be with him and figure
it out. I’m not stupid.”

She
smiled at me. But it was sad. “I wouldn’t take him away. I’m not that
powerful…am I?”

“I’ll
be…thoughtful.” And I had no idea what that meant, but she seemed a little relieved
that I’d used her word.

I
was walking again, this time with Sooner, a rope leash, her agitated and
breathing, teats huge. Dr.
Cowlie
lived two blocks
over. He had a veterinary in his basement. He was old but kind. His backyard
was an animal graveyard, a potter’s field for cats and dogs. It was creepy and
caring and weird.

I
went in and the old lady he’d had as an assistant for a hundred years was
behind a tall roll-top desk.

“I
got a dog that I took in and it had puppies and I need to get it a license and
so I need shots for her.”

“You
have an appointment with Doc?”

“No
Ma’am. Just…I walked her over here cause I have to get the license today.”

“You
the Grunier girl?”

“Yes
Ma’am.”

“I
think you have an open account. Your mother. Some cats she took in…never paid
Doc.” She rifled through an old card file long as a shoebox. Oh Lord would the
torture never end?

“I
don’t know about that. I only have the money for this dog.” I was thanking God Danny
had not been here to witness my further humiliation.

“What’s
the matter Nellie?” Doc came from the back room in his white coat.

Nellie
told him the deal about my mama’s shameful running up the bill and I remembered
the cat thing, the one we had got in a fight and got so sick and her bringing
it here, and others, other times. “Well…how are you
doin
’?”
he asked.

I
shrugged. “Okay.”

“Well,
bring this dog back in here. We won’t worry about that other, Nellie,” he said
while she was clicking her tongue and talking under her breath about no wonder
he couldn’t retire to Florida when he didn’t even have the sense to make sure….

Doc
went on about how Sooner looked like she’d had pups alright. How many did she
have?

I
told him. “I was wondering…those dogs are so different. Can there be more than
one father?”

He
laughed. “Sure. There can be several fathers if she keeps breeding while she’s
in heat.”

“I
wonder if it’s the same with humans?”

“I
have a doctor friend says it probably happens more than folks know.”

Doc
said the puppies needed wormed and shots and I said I’d work on getting them
in, but for now I had to take care of this one.

He
asked me again how she’d come to me and I told him and he went to the board
where folks posted pictures of animals they’d lost but no one was looking for
Sooner and her pups, not at all.

She
was old according to him. Too old to still be breeding and she’d had several
litters.

Well,
Sooner did not like Doc but she was intimidated enough to let him poke around
some, but when he stuck that thermometer right up her butt-hole, next thing I
knew they were waking me up from my new position on the floor.

I
was feeling none too strong on the walk home. Like all my days, this one had
proved taxing so far. I had thanked Doc and he knew the license was
twenty-three dollars so he had charged me a neat ten, seeing as I told him I
had twenty and I’d fainted so pathetically on his floor hitting my head on a
stool he had there and now I had a big goose egg growing under my hair.

I
had wormer for Sooner and she had her shots now and I had the tag and receipt. I
took her to the police station and Bixby was not there, just the lady at the
desk and I bought the license. I had tied Sooner out front and she had barked
but without too much pep for the experience at Doc’s had also taken the starch
out of her spine.

I
heard the hooting behind me and I thought, what now? Dickens went flying past
on his bike, did a dramatic arcing skid that left a mark on the road and came
back toward me. He had his shirt unbuttoned and his skinny chest and belly
showed over his cut off pants. His tennis shoes were raggedy and filled with
holes from doing the Fred Flintstone brake work in his bike tricks. He was
smiling at me, and his hair was long and floppy over his eye. He may not look
like Danny, but he sure did act like him.

“Hey
Hilly.”

“Hey
Dickens. How you been?”

“Where’d
you get that old dog? I seen her at your house when I go by.”

“She’s
my Sooner. She’s got pups.”

So
he straddled his bike mostly and accompanied me home, and wanted to see the
pups so I took him there. Soon as my dog plopped down the pups were digging
their ways over each other to nurse. We were about out of food she ate so much.

I
went in and got us some cherry popsicles Naomi always kept for me my whole life
and made an ice bag for my head and we sat with the puppies, me and Dickens. He
was interested in all the colors and shapes of the dogs.

I
told him what Doc said, about different fathers. Then I watched him play and I
was thoughtful, thinking about Danny, so dark in his family…and me now so pale
in mine…and Eugene and Mama walking the line, toeing over and Naomi making them
stay back, stay away. Like with me and Danny…Naomi rushing in with her stop
sign.

And
I wondered, was I in heat? Is that what Naomi saw? What she’d seen before…what
she knew?

It
was only partly her words, so much more, her lip that twitched, her eyes, her
silence, a word given and twenty more thrown out.

Finding My Thunder 27

That
evening when Danny pulled behind Naomi’s house, he had already been home to
clean up from working for Lonnie. He had on jeans that didn’t smell like oil, a
black t-shirt that was torn a little on the shoulder, and his scuffed up boots.
Perfect as always.

Sooner
came barreling from behind the house to bark at him. I had to run to the gate
to get her away so Danny could enter. Dickens was still there as he’d pretty
much fallen in, and he dove onto Sooner and put his arms around her neck.

“What
are you doing here?” Danny asked his brother working the latch and entering the
yard. “They’ll be having supper soon so you need to get.”

“I’m
hanging out with Hilly and the dogs,” Dickens said making the swooping motion
with his head like he did to get the hair out of his eyes.

Danny
sighed. “I told you not to bother her.”

“I’m
not,” he defended, his tongue a deep red from the popsicles.

I
told Danny right away about the shots. I tried to give him the seven dollars I
had left over but he said we’d use it for dog food. Lonnie had paid him
finally, he said, so he’d filled the car with gas and wanted to buy me some
supper.

“Oh
man, me too?” Dickens begged. “I want to go with you guys.”

Danny
sighed. “We’re not ‘The Mod Squad.’ No.”

“Oh,
come on,” Dickens whined.

“So,
I guess you still have your job,” I said, checking his beautiful face for
bruises and to change the subject.

“Yeah.
Lonnie even shook my hand,” Danny said. “He wanted to make sure I understood
there were no hard feelings. But he didn’t want me spying…like I’m the Man from
Uncle and his shop is Commie headquarters. Then he went on about how it’s gone
down at the house, and I just said, hey Lonnie, I’m temporary until the army
gets me, and I will do you a good job and all. Just…let’s not ever talk about
Hilly. Or talk much at all except about work.

“And
I stared at him hard ass and he just shut-up.”

I
was so impressed and tried not to look or sound too worshipful but geez…he’d
picked up that pipe for me…and so many things…now this. I wore Mama’s skirt
again and I was running my sweaty hands over it. “You said that?

“Yeah.
It pissed him off…but what doesn’t?”

I
nodded. “You’re like,” I checked to make sure Dickens was messing with Sooner
and not big-
earing
, “…my own personal
Illya
Kuryakin
,” I whispered.

He
grinned a little. He looked at Dickens too, and that one was rolling in the
dirt in front of Sooner. “You can…think of how to reward me later…baby.” His
tongue was poking out his cheek. He was so cute I almost couldn’t breathe.

I
laughed and shrugged and said dumbly, “Okay,” which sounded about as cool as
‘shucks.’

He
flushed a little too, then. “You’re lucky my brother is here.”

He
laughed some more, but he got close enough to kiss me quick.

Dickens
said, “
Ew
,” and Danny said, “Get your butt home.”

They
argued some more and Dickens managed to still stay around because he insisted
he had to go in back and say good-bye to the puppies.

“Somebody
is gonna be sorry when they have to sleep in the monkey cage,” Danny said.

I
supposed that’s what Dickens must have called the room he shared with the
younger brothers.

Once
Dickens went around the house Danny said, “We have to take them tonight, Robert
said. To…okay…don’t laugh…to the council.”

“Take
the dogs?” I said a little panicked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh,
let me go,” Dickens begged, suddenly back and having heard us.

I
went to the porch and plopped onto the steps. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

“You
know it’s best,” Danny said kindly.

“What…what
council?” I asked.

He
smirked. “A hippie council…a meeting where they make their rules…where everyone
votes…. So it’s like…they’re Indians or something.”

“Oh,
I
gotta
go,” Dickens whined.

I
felt so sorry for the kid. I could see Danny ready to run him home, but I said,
“Just let him go.”

The
heat had lifted and it was a beautiful evening. We pulled up to a rural
setting, a big house, not fancy at all, looking like it was on a second life,
maybe had been abandoned but was being shown some love, on a budget and with a
definite psychedelic flavor as huge peace signs covered one side of the
two-storied stucco.

Jefferson
Airplane blasted over funnel shaped speakers attached to the front corners of
the house masking the sounds of nature, if there was any nature now that sheer
volume had pretty much run every animal, insect and bird out of the area, no
doubt.

But
across the yard, beyond, a pond and even with the music, the voices of a group
of people having a good time splashing and partying.

We
walked to the house and a woman in the doorway, her shirt hiked and a kid, like
two years old, its legs wrapped around her waist, its lips attached to her
naked breast. The mother was tall and lanky, wearing short cut-offs and black
sandals. She said Robert was swimming with ‘them all,’ at the pond. She pointed
at Sooner, “That’s the dog
comin
’ in tonight and
she’s got pups?”

I
thought it a little weird that Sooner’s teats were dragging and this woman’s
were kind of doing the same thing, not dragging but making milk. But she was
nice, so passive, and Dickens was running Sooner all over the yard just to get
away from the boobs I think.

“We’ve
been wanting a dog,” she said.

“Well...,”
Danny said, having to clear his throat a couple of times, “how about nine of
them?”

She
said, “Righteous. There’s a lot of love around here.”

So
Dickens was showing her Sooner and Sooner stood while the lady petted her, and
the baby nursed the whole time like this lady could stand on her head and the
kid would just keep on.

Danny
and Dickens didn’t seem too thrown by that and I guessed with all the kids
maybe they’d seen it before, but I was cringing a little and holding my wrists
over my nipples until I caught myself.

And
Danny was smiling at me, laughing a little and he whispered, “Need some help?”
and I slapped his arm.

So
she told us to go on down to the pond and we could bring Sooner in the house
and she’d get her some water.

I
said, “She won’t go in a house.” And right after I said it she followed that
lady in without giving it a thought and made a liar out of me.

Danny
said, “She likes it here.”

And
that didn’t make me as happy as I knew it should.

So
we started for the pond in the trail through the long grass because it didn’t
look like they worried about keeping the lawn trimmed. We could smell the pot
and Danny looked at me but he kept walking toward the action.

Someone
was hooting, much as Danny might at the quarry. Danny was in the lead and he
told Dickens to stay back like we were walking into a real tribe of Indians.

I
fell back from a big attack of shyness. I wasn’t good with groups, even at
Temple where I knew everybody, lots of people at once…it always threw me. I was
a high school kid and I was asking a big, big favor of pretty much complete
strangers except for Robert. I was leaving my dog with them. My Sooner.

Danny,
still in the lead, put his arm out, fingers splayed. I halted, but Dickens did
not, actually pushing against Danny’s arm craning his neck to see.

Robert
called out, “Danny, hey man!”

Then
he was coming up out of the water in our direction. Dickens turned toward me
laughing, his eyes and mouth open wide saying, “Oh man, you
gotta
see this.”

And
I could see, when he moved, that Robert was bare, his hand over his parts, his
other hand holding a joint. He’d been smoking while he stood in the water,
soaking his lower half, the parts I’d never seen in real before now.

Not
far behind him, a woman, wild red hair and bare on top, big
roundy
breasts, shorts on the bottom, beyond her, other side of the pond a group of
all sizes just wearing their skins, one guy swinging on a rope, his body in a
ball, feet meeting hands, crack to the wind, toward us. I mean, this hit all of
us all at once.

Danny
was a quick responder. He did a couple of things at the same time, he said,
“Put some pants on man,” to Robert, and he grabbed Dickens and turned him around
and stuck his head under his arm. Dickens started to protest right away, and Danny
turned quick toward me and said, “Back, back….” and not much else, his face
looking shocked, and ruddier than usual.

And
he herded us back to the car, and Dickens was laughing and saying, “Oh man,
that guy’s
johnson
and that lady’s tits. They were
all naked.”

I
had my hand over my mouth not knowing how we could just get down to business
after this…business.

And
when I looked at Danny he was mad, but then he laughed some too and slapped
Dickens on the back of his head and said, “Shut up.”

We
were herded around the car like chicks to the mother hen, not knowing what to
do with ourselves, but here came Robert wearing some crazy looking pajama pants
like from Africa or something. They were bright yellow.

“Hey
man! Don’t need to run away. We’ve all got the same stuff, right man?”

“Are
we doing this thing? Or should we come some other time?” Danny said.

“No…stay
man. We’ll have the meeting. They’re done at the pond. The water’s perfect,
man. You ought to come in.”

“No,”
Danny said. “We don’t do naked, man.”

“Oh
yeah. Like when your consciousness gets raised…but I know. I was the same way,
like
bangin
’ everything at first, but you get used to
it…,” then he laughed and added, “
bangin
’
everything.”

“Hey…Robert…my
little brother, man. Should we come back some other time?”

“No
man. Mellow out. Come in the house, man,” he said.

“You
want to go?” Danny said to me.

“I
don’t know,” I said. I did want to go, but Sooner was in the house.

“Come
on,” Danny said to us and we followed him, followed Robert’s canary pants.

“He
looks like Ali Baba,” I whispered to Danny.

He
didn’t laugh. He called to Robert, “Hey…are people in
there
wearing clothes?”

“It’s
cool, man. It’s all cool in here,” Robert said holding the door for us.

We
went in the house, ended up in the kitchen. It was functional and clean,
plywood tables covered with oil cloth in a blue tavern check. The walls were
bright yellow. The kitchen was open to what must be a living room. Low tables
in there lined with colorful pillows on the floor. A turntable with gigantic
stereo speakers. Lots of macramé and plants.

We
sat on some of the cushions. Sooner didn’t even greet me she was so busy eating
something brown out of a bowl placed next to another bowl filled with water. She’d
already left me.

They
started to file in then, the swimmers from the pond. They were sort of dressed
now, T-shirts and towels and cut-offs—four guys, long hairs. The red-hair and
another woman, a blond older than me.

They
introduced themselves and we said hey and they got drinks and there was a well
dug into bowl of hummus they wanted us to try, like a common pot, and it was
flesh-colored and we were both saying, “No thanks,” except for Dickens who was
reaching his dirty hand for some of the pita bread and Danny grabbed his wrist
and told him, “no.”

And
Dickens actually obeyed.

Red
and blond took great note of Danny. The blond one knew who he was even though
he was younger in school. The red hair was from somewhere else. But she was
pretty taken with him. Of course I’d seen this about a hundred times, but it
bothered me and I chewed on my lip.

The
red-haired one got closer and touched Danny’s face, saying how cute he was.

I
felt my heart lurch into my throat. He couldn’t get any more deeply flushed
than he was. He looked at me and I saw a level of guilt that was so disturbing
I had to fight tears washing over my eyes.

Under
the table he grabbed my hand. But she was smiling at him, well they both were,
at Dickens too, and he kept making this sound low in his throat cause the
red-haired one had on a halter top and the recent exposures were right beneath
the thin fabric in-case anyone needed a refresher. These boobs weren’t like the
nursing ones.

So
Robert was introducing us, and for the most part everyone seemed pretty high, Robert
included. Mama and Lonnie had taught me to recognize the ins and outs of that.

The
boys…well men, I guess…were most attentive to me. They called me ‘mama,’ and
‘little mama,’ like Robert did and one, handsome, maybe the leader, if that was
allowed with all the equality and all, but he was called Felix, and he wanted
me to sit by him, and Danny’s hand was tight on me, and Dickens thought it was
funny, but he was pretty close to my other side, and Sooner was behind me now
half sitting on my pillow.

They
were passing a couple of bottles of wine, and the blond and one of the guys
started kissing like we weren’t there. Another guy was firing up a big pipe
with water in its base, and loud music came from the giant speakers.

“Hilly,
Hilly,” Robert said sitting on the table practically in front of me, “you
gotta
go upstairs and see our recording studio.”

“Robert,
man, what about the dog?” Danny said loud over all the mayhem.

Felix
was also near me, towering over me, telling me I had great lines in my face and
he wanted to draw me. “I’d like to draw your body, man. Stand up so I can see
you, Mama.”