Meteors in August Read online

  Nina had seen him. Nina said she looked out our window one night after I was asleep and saw Myron Evans perched up in our maple tree just looking at her. If anything, I thought this proved Myron was just like any other man in town. Before Nina ran away, boys flocked in our driveway day after day, popping wheelies on their bikes, doing handstands—trying to make her turn her head. Her silky yellow hair fell straight to the middle of her back. She had our mother’s fine nose and pale skin, flushed cheeks, and eyes like no other eyes I’ve seen, green eyes flecked with gold fires. I remembered hearing, more than one time, the ping of a stone hitting our window long after dark and Nina saying to me, “Hush, baby, it’s nothing.” That last summer, I saw boys in the trees and boys in the grass. Often, the pained, surprised coo of an owl made Nina stop stroking my head and go to the window. If Myron Evans was one of those owls, who could blame him?

  At two o’clock Gwen and I stuffed our pillows into our bags. As we crept down the alley toward the Evans place, we got sidetracked by the sweet smell of strawberries in Joanna Foot’s garden. Kids who stole from Mrs. Foot risked a double thrashing: one from her and one from their parents when she called them at two-thirty in the morning to come fetch their thieving hoodlums. She’d been in one foul mood ever since her husband Elliot had left her. Freda Graves had been vindicated; her warnings about the evils of alcohol came true in ways we’d never dreamed. Elliot Foot fell prey to temptation when Olivia Jeanne Woodruff came to work at his bar. She was barely nineteen years old, and she didn’t wait till her daddy was cold in the ground before she sold his house and bought herself a Winnebago. She wanted her home on wheels, wanted to be ready to roll. She was ready, all right, and she rolled out of town with Elliot Foot.

  Elliot left the week before Christmas, and by summer Joanna was talking about planting a headstone in the family plot. Catching kids stealing berries was Joanna Foot’s primary delight these days. Zachary Holler had been dragged out of her strawberry patch by his hair and beaten with a willow switch in her kitchen. She stood barely five feet but weighed close to two hundred. Her bottom was a solid pack of shifting flesh, her neck a roll of lumpy fat. Even Zack Holler had to drop his pants and take his licking; there was no arguing with a woman like that.

  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.

  4

  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?”

  Arlen clucked. “No, dear Evelyn, I know for a fact it’s not. You have to put up with Dean, and he’s not pretty sometimes, but at least you don’t have four of his brats besides. Excuse me, three brats. Lucy is an angel, a blessing, youngest child always is. She saves me. But Les and the boys are enough to drive a woman to the state home. All day long I run like a slave—washing clothes, scrubbing sinks, digging up potatoes—and Les comes crashing in the door stinking of sweat and railing at me because supper isn’t on the table. ‘Why don’t you wash up?’ I say, sweet as syrup. ‘Supper’ll be ready when you are.’ He yells, ‘I’m ready now, woman,’ screams it like he has to make up for being so short.” She sucked on her cigarette. “And the boys have all picked up his fine personal habits. Someday I swear I’m gonna tell them the slop bucket’s out in the yard, and if they smell like pigs, they’ll eat like pigs. Just last week Les went off fishing with Justin and Marshall, and all three of them dumped their fish in the sink when they got home, proud as can be, and not one of those fish was clean. Woman’s work, they can’t be bothered. Then Justin has the gall to say, ‘I’m starving, Ma. Can you fry up some bacon and eggs for me?’ Lucky for him I didn’t have a knife in my hand right then. I would have stuck him, I swear. That boy should be married and out of the house, twenty-five years old and still drinking his mama’s milk, but I wouldn’t wish him on any girl.”

  Mom nodded. When Arlen got on a roll it was best to hear her out.

  “I thank God,” Arlen said, “that two of my babies had the good sense not to wake up in this world. Lord, what would I do if I had six instead of four? Or seven, counting Jesse?”

  “Arlen!”

  “Oh, don’t try to hush me. I know it must be some kind of evil to stop grieving for a boy who drowned, or to be glad your babies were stillborn, but I am glad—well, not glad, but relieved.” Arlen didn’t stop long enough to see my mother’s eyes turn watery, or to notice how she twisted her napkin till it tore. “And I’m more than glad this spring has gone dry, and I don’t have to worry about any accidents. Not that I’d have to worry much anyway—Les hardly looks at me in a friendly way anymore. I think he’s got a girl. Fine by me. Only thing is there isn’t much choice in this town and I’m afraid he might be banging the Fat Lady; he’s bound to get the clap from her sooner or later. She even takes the Indians. I shouldn’t care about that either, I guess. Of course it’d be just my luck for him to get the notion to climb on top of me some night and I’d be stuck with it too.”

  “Arlen, please,” Mom said, “Lizzie.”

  “She don’t know what this is all about, do you, honey?”

  I shook my head. The idea of flabby Uncle Lester forcing himself on Aunt Arlen struck me as ridiculous.

  I didn’t think Uncle Les was so bad. He wasn’t as rough as my father. When he rubbed my scalp, it didn’t burn, and when he kissed my cheek, his whiskers didn’t scratch my face. He knew a couple of tricks. At church picnics, he’d pull nickels and sticks of Beeman’s gum out of the ears of all the children who talked to him. Uncle Les looked soft and harmless when he stood beside hard-angled Aunt Arlen. If he took advantage of her, Arlen would have to be halfway agreeable.

  My aunt stayed an hour too long. She didn’t notice—or didn’t mind—that Mother kept popping up to wash one more cup, to scrub at grease on the stove, or to wipe the counter that was already clean.

  Finally Arlen stretched and said, “Better be off before Lester comes looking for me.” Mom and I stepped out on the back steps with her. “Come here and give your old aunt a kiss good-night, Lizzie,” she said. Her strong fingers dug into my back. She bussed me, a loud, wet smooch, and whispered, “If you ever want to know the truth about men, you come see me, honey.” I thought of the kinds of things Arlen said about men, that they were helpless as children and smelly as goats. I knew she could never answer the questions I had, the ones that would help me understand why Nina ran away.

  Arlen’s chickens squawked when she opened her gate. I had no affection for these creatures. The stink of them wafted through our kitchen door on summer nights. They lived petty, brutal lives, were stupid enough to hold their noses in the air and drown in the rain, cruel enough to pluck each other’s butt bald. After a thunderstorm the shells of their eggs were so soft they broke in your hand; the slimy white and brilliant yolk oozed through your fingers. Even when a chicken was a handful of fluff, even when you couldn’t resist holding it, stroking it with one finger, the ungrateful thing was still likely to shit in your palm.

  Mother pulled me back in the house. “Don’t trust everything Arlen says,” she told me. “And whatever you do, don’t repeat anything she says.”

  Who would I tell? I thought. Mother was always reminding me to be careful: Don’t talk about your sister. Don’t show anyone your grades. Don’t let on your daddy got a raise.

  I didn’t like having so many secrets. They heaped in my head; my brain was full of things I wasn’t supposed to say. I dragged our stories behind me, a bag full of bones and dirty rags. I tried to forget my load, to leave it behind, but with a word or a touch my mother could remind me: pick it up, pick it up. And when I did, I never failed to see my sister, to hear the spray of gravel against our bedroom window, and feel myself jolt up in bed.

  I was nine years old again. Nina put her cool hand on my forehead and told me it was nothing, nothing, a branch scraping the glass. I pretended to sleep. She slid out of bed and dressed, standing in the square of icy moonlight that fell on our floor. I heard her tiptoe down the stairs, her feet bare. I knelt on the bed to look outside and there was Nina, running across the front lawn, her shimmering hair flying behind her. Someone stepped out of the shadows near the hedge and I almost yelped to warn her, but he grabbed her, and she wasn’t afraid. She hugged him so tight I thought she wanted him to stop breathing in her arms.

  They lay their hands on each other’s face, as tenderly as God must touch the souls of unborn children, the ones called back before they fell to earth,
the ones too dear for human life.

  In the morning Nina nestled next to me in bed. “I saw you leave,” I said.

  And she whispered, “No, baby, I’ve been right here all night. It was just a dream.”

  Now, looking back at that night, I recognized this boy in my memory: tall and black-haired, slim as a shadow—even at midnight Billy Elk was unmistakable. I had always known him, the son of the big Indian and that Furey woman.

  So many boys loved Nina that summer. He didn’t steal her or tie her hands. I saw how she flung herself in his arms. She chose. She wanted him. The others she teased or ignored. If she could have loved someone else, a good boy, the right kind, perhaps she would have married him instead of running away, but I would have lost her all the same.

  I tossed from side to side in the hot dark, thinking about what Aunt Arlen had said, that she was glad she ended up with four children instead of seven. Maybe she was relieved when those two babies were born dead. I wasn’t there. But I saw her the day Jesse drowned, and I saw Jesse too, and there was nothing peaceful about either one of them. We were all swimming at Moon Lake. It was the summer Nina left, but she was still with us that day in July. Jesse splashed me in the face and swam away. That was the last I saw of him. At first we thought he was playing a joke on us, hiding up in the woods; that would be just like Jesse, doing something mean that he thought was funny. We called and called. The sun was white, burning all the color out of the sky. Arlen wailed at the water, glittering and green, and at the white hot sun too, as if they could tell her. We dove again and again, a hundred places, a thousand. Then we sat on the beach shivering in the heat.

  Jesse was hiding—but not in the woods. He hid where we were forbidden to swim, where we didn’t bother to look because we all obeyed, except Jesse that day in July. He didn’t come out till he was good and ready, till his swim trunks had ripped in the place that they’d snagged, till the lake had stilled, its surface turned to glass, hard and imperturbable, God’s great blind eye, a perfect mirror of a cloudless sky.