Jesus Land (5 page)

Sometimes we lie on lawn chairs in the backyard in the late afternoon and watch thunderheads churn toward us. We’ll see a breeze riffle the Browns’ cornfield across the lane and lift our faces expectantly to the cool, metal-smelling air and we’ll know we’re in for a good squall. We’ll stay reclined in our chairs as the dark clouds seethe and flicker with lightning, until the cold hard raindrops pelt us, competing to see who can withstand the storm the longest before sprinting under the eaves.

But those are the exciting afternoons. Most times, it’s a devil wind riffling the Browns’ cornfield, and it blasts over us like a hair dryer, pelting us with the smell of dirt and onion grass and manure, and offering no refreshment at all. But we stubbornly remain in our lawn chairs as the overcast sky fades into deeper shades of gray and Mother finally rings the supper bell, because there’s nothing better to do.

As we watch the sky, we talk about things that would make country living easier. For David, that would be a BMX bike. He says he could build a ramp behind the garden and do all these tricks where you flip upside down and land perfectly centered on the fat rubber tires. Says he’s seen it done in magazines. Me, I’d get a horse. A golden palomino that I’d ride bareback through the fields, all the way back to town.

Sometimes we discuss Harrison.

“Do you think all the kids will be like those farm boys?” David will ask, his eyebrows creasing with worry.

“Nah, they can’t all be that ignorant,” I’ll respond. “Some of them have got to be normal.”

Usually he lets it go at that, sitting back in his lawn chair with a sigh, but sometimes he persists.

“But what if they
are
all like that?” David asks one afternoon as we watch the darkening sky. “Ronnie Wiersma told me they hate black people at Harrison and call them names, you know, like the ‘N’ word.”

Ronnie is a know-it-all at our church, Lafayette Christian Reformed. He went to Lafayette Christian School too, same as all the church kids do, and graduated two grades ahead of us.

“What does Ronnie know? He’s at West Side.”

“His older brother went to Harrison.”

“Yeah, but that was a long time ago, like three years.”

The subject of Harrison always puts me in a foul mood. School starts in a week, and we still don’t have any friends, or any answers to our question.
What will it be like
? I try to reassure David that everything will be okay.

“Those farmers were just being stupid that day,” I tell him. “We caught them off-guard is all. Now that they know who we are, they won’t bother us.”

All I can do is hope this is true. We often hear them in the distance as we garden: the whine of their dirt bikes banging over homemade tracks, the blare of their car radios as they tear between cornfields, the explosions of their guns as they shoot cans or grackles or squirrels, silencing the world for a long moment afterward.

Jerome, David, and I walk into Harrison on the first day of school sporting matching Afros that envelop our heads like giant black cotton balls. As we stride down the entrance corridor bobbing and grinning like J.J. on
Good Times,
our classmates recoil in horror.

No.

This will not happen.

This is a nightmare.

I will myself awake and stare at the wind-up alarm clock on the bedside stand. It’s almost six. I stare at it until the black minute hand jerks over the red alarm hand and the clock rattles to life, jittering over the wood surface. I wait until the nightmare dissipates completely, then I slap it quiet.

It’s the Tuesday before classes start and swim team tryouts are in thirty minutes; the coach wants to make sure people can handle the early-morning workouts once school starts. I figure it might be a good way to meet potential friends.

I hear Mother rumbling around in the kitchen, opening and closing drawers and cupboards, but by the time I walk into the great room, pulling my hair into a tight pony tail, she’s gone. I stand at the kitchen counter, gulping down coffee and generic granola doused with powdered milk. The sky is pink outside the great room windows, the orchard and garden wrapped in pink mist.

It’s a mile and a half to Harrison, a right on County Road 650 and a left on County Road 50. I had Mother measure it with the van’s odometer last Sunday after church.

After brushing my teeth, I wheel my ten-speed from the garage onto the gravel driveway. Lecka hears me and crawls from her doghouse, yawning and batting her tail in furious circles. She strains against her collar, whining, and I walk my bike over to her.

“Wish me luck, girl,” I say, tugging on her ears.

As I turn to mount my bike, the venetian blinds in the master bedroom window clap shut. Mother?

I shrug and mount the bike, standing on the pedals to force the Schwinn’s tires over the slippery gravel lane until I reach County Road 650. As I cruise by the Browns’ white clapboard house, a dog barks in the dark interior. Opposite the Browns’, a red barn slowly collapses into overgrown weeds. Next to it, a pair of meadowlarks trill in a sugar maple. Then there’s an alfalfa field, bright with yellow blossoms. I inhale the sweet air and am seized by a sudden joy at the beauty around me. It’s still early, and life hasn’t acquired its sharp edges.

The road dips over a small creek before passing a double-wide trailer mounted on railroad ties. Pink gingham curtains hang daintily in the windows, and the muted voice of a news announcer floats through the ripped screen door along with the smell of percolating coffee.

At the intersection of County Road 650 and County Road 50 is a small brick building where farmers met in the days before telephones to discuss business. I turn left onto the ragged asphalt ribbon of County Road 50, which bisects cornfields and dairies until it reaches town, ten miles away. As I pedal up a small rise, the concrete expanse of William Henry Harrison High School swoops into view, sprouting mushroom-like between fields.

My early-morning joy slams into stomach-grinding fear. I glance at my watch—6:25—before shifting my bike into tenth gear and crouching low behind the handlebars, racing toward my new school.
Bring it on
.

As I ride closer, I notice tire tracks have ripped donuts into the front lawn. Across from the school, a cow barn is covered in graffiti. “H
ARRISON
K
ICKS
A
SS
!” “R
AIDERS
R
OCK
!” “W
ESTSIDE
I
S
C
RUISIN
’
FOR A
B
RUISIN
’!” West Side. That’s where our three older siblings went to school; it’s Lafayette’s smart high school, where the Purdue professors send their kids.

I swerve into the driveway and pedal to the back of the building, remembering the location of the gym from our orientation tour. There they are, about twenty girls, clumped around the back door, bags dumped at their feet. A few sit on the curb, smoking. They look up at me with sullen faces when I coast into view. I am relieved that this look is common to all teenage girls and not just me, as Mother believes.

“What’s wrong with you?” she’ll ask, scowling. “Why don’t you smile more?”

She’s one to talk.

The bike racks are located across from the gym entrance, and as I unwind my bike chain from under the seat, I sneak peeks at the girls. A couple of the smokers I’ve seen before, a fat girl with blond pigtails and a girl in a Tab Cola shirt.

The day after we moved in, Jerome, David, and I were so bored that we rode five miles along the shoulder of Highway 65 to a Kwik Mart. A group of girls, stuffed into cut-offs and tube tops, their eyes raccoonish with black eyeliner, were leaning against the shaded wall of the cement shack. They sucked on popsicles and cigarettes and jutted out their hips at the trucks and jacked-up Camaros that pulled in for gas.

They tittered when we glided into the station, panting and sweat-stained. It was a scorcher, one of those days where the heat feels likely to peel your skin right off. Jerome stopped beside the gas pumps and gawked at the girls while David and I propped our bikes against the building.

“Better watch out, Rose Marie,” one of them shouted. “I think he likes you.”

Rose Marie twisted her dirty blond pigtail around a finger, staring at Jerome and sliding her grape popsicle in and out of her mouth real slow. Her friends squawked with laughter, then poked their fingers in their mouths and made gagging noises.

Jerome grinned at Rose Marie and tucked his fists under his biceps to make the muscles pop out, Totally Clueless. Seeing this exchange, I ran into the Kwik Mart and bought an orange push-up before racing away on my bike. I didn’t want to be seen with the boys at that moment.

“What’d you take off for?” David asked when he caught up to me, an ice cream sandwich melting in his hand. Jerome was farther behind him.

“The smell of gasoline makes me sick,” I lied.

After threading the bike chain between the front tire and the rack, I click the combination lock shut and stand to face the crowd.

Dozens of eyes land on my face, then slide away. It’s a small community. They know who I am. I’m the girl from that new family, the one with the blacks. Sure enough, Rose Marie elbows the Tab girl and they both stare at me, smirking. I unzip my backpack and pretend to dig around in it for something important as I cut a wide circle around them.

There’s a girl sitting alone against the wall and I walk in her direction. She’s dark-haired and olive-skinned, blatantly foreign to these parts as well. We belong together, she and I; we’re both outsiders. She watches me approach, but looks away when I stop and lean against the wall a few feet away from her.

I look at my watch. 6:37.

“So the coach is late?” I ask, trying to sound casual as I zip my backpack closed.

“Seems that way,” she says without looking at me. She plucks a dandelion from the ground and flicks its head off between her index finger and thumb.
Mary had a baby and its head popped off . . .
Her shoulder-length black hair is feathered about her face, Farrah Fawcett–style, just like mine and every other girl’s here.

“You nervous?” I ask, a bit loudly.

She shrugs.

Across the road, a row of cows plods single file toward the graffitied barn. “E
AT
, S
HIT, AND
D
IE!
” someone wrote over the wide entrance.

“So, what’s your name?” I ask her, sitting in the grass.
Talk to me, please.
Finally she looks at me, her black bangs skimming her dark eyes like a frayed curtain.

She says something in a foreign language.

“What?”

“You can call me Mary.”

“What country are you from?”

“Arcana,” she says.

“Where’s that at?”

“’Bout two hours east of here.”

“Oh,” I laugh, embarrassed. “I’m Julia. Guess we’re both new.”

She nods, and plucks another dandelion from the ground.

Squeals pierce the air and we turn to watch a group of girls surging around a boy who’s standing over a bicycle, across from the gym entrance. He’s shirtless despite the chill air, wearing only light blue satin running shorts. He thrusts out his chest— tan, broad—and a few of the girls grope it as he laughs.

They scatter when a black Camaro roars into the parking lot. It screeches to a stop slantways across two spaces, and a man in aviator sunglasses jumps out.

“There he is,” Mary says. “Coach Shultz.”

The shirtless boy pedals away, and we stand and move toward the other girls. Coach Schultz comes at us with swooping arms.

“Everyone inside! We’re late!”

“No, you are,” someone mutters.

He jingles a key into the door and holds it open, sizing up bodies as they flow into the building. I thrust back my shoulders as I walk by him, hoping to make a good impression.

In the dank locker room, Mary and I migrate silently to a corner. I try to keep my eyes to myself as I quickly strip off my shorts and T-shirt and snap into my Speedo, but can’t help but notice when the big-chested girl next to me unhooks her bra and her boobs fall down like half-filled water balloons. My own boobs are still little-girl pointy—I’m what people call a “late bloomer.” At sixteen and a half, I haven’t gotten my period yet and am still cursed with a boyish, narrow-hipped body.

The door cracks open and there’s a whistle blast.

“Enough lollygagging, girls!”

Coach Schultz orders us to pair up for warm-up exercises, and everyone immediately nabs a partner, leaving Mary and me for each other. I walk over to her. We do ten minutes of stretching on the tile floor next to the pool, and then the real competition begins.

The coach has us swim fifty yards, freestyle. Some of the girls claw through the water like cats, barely reaching the halfway flag before wheezing to a stop. Coach Schultz orders them out of the pool, and among them I see Rose Marie, sucking in air through her smoker’s mouth and coughing. I grin; the process of elimination has begun.

When my turn comes, I knife through water, happy to deafen the murmuring around me. Twelve strokes to the deep end, flip
turn at the black T painted on the bottom, twelve strokes back. This is one thing I do well.