I felt a rough hand push me aside. I heard a crack and saw our bow in two pieces, twisting awkwardly on its string in the air. My friend’s red-faced father jerked the arrow out of the ground and snapped it over his khaki-trousered knee. I heard a boy saying, “David’s gonna get it.” Joyce’s voice was crying, “Run, David!” and “No, Daddy!” in an even tempo.
The meadow was emptying with stern scoldings, an occasional slap, and tears. My friends’ arms were being jerked, little feet were bouncing in the air beside the stamping strides of enraged parents heading back to the trailers. I sat there stunned, with the crying protests of my friends filling the air, feeling the familiar sense of guilt at another thing I couldn’t understand.
One of the oldest girls, who made cupcakes of mud for the little girls’ pretend tea parties and usually let me wear her old doll’s blanket as a cape, took my hand. She was smiling, with her warm hand on the top of my head, saying, “Time to go home.”
A few months later, my mother and I were visiting the Airstream. Joyce was inside watching cartoons. David had brand-new sneakers right out of the box. They smelled great and he was singing to himself under his breath, “Paul Parrot, Paul Parrot, the shoes you ought to buy, they make your feet run faster, as fast as I can fly.” He went outside and sat on the stairs leading to the trailer door. Unsure of myself, I sat on the stair above him. Behind the screen door our mothers sat drinking coffee. Joyce was playing in a chair, watching Bluto make improper advances on Olive Oyl. I watched David and tried to retain as much of his big-boy ways as I could. I watched with envy as he tied his own shoe. I saw him clear his throat like the men and spit a rolling little ball into the dust beside the stairs. I asked where he was going.
“Jake’s.”
I asked, “Could I go?”
He gave the expected answer. “No.”
I asked the obvious question. “Why not?”
He gave the only answer. “Because you’re too little.”
He called into the trailer, “Ma, I’m going to Jake’s.”
He jumped off the stairs and ran out of the yard, imitating to perfection an internal combustion engine of tremendous horsepower, and buzzed down the dusty lane and around the front of the trailer. I followed, watching as little explosions of dirt jumped behind his feet with each stride. It was the first time I was conscious of running. This led to hours of practice running and looking over my shoulder at the tufts of dirt flying behind me.
God and country. Joyce and I took the yellow church bus to Sunday school off base. I enjoyed the clean clothes, Graham crackers, metallic-tasting orange juice, and coloring books. Jesus and sheep, more Jesus and sheep. Lights and bushels. Burning bushes. Little Moses floating in his basket. The teacher looked like Peggy Lee, who was at that time singing “Fever” on the Hit Parade. I thought my teacher was Peggy Lee and I began to associate Sunday school with early stirrings of the erotic.
One early August morning, several parents found themselves sitting under canvas awnings, drinking iced coffee and escaping the oven-like trailers. We’d heard the rumor of a plan to caravan cars to the lake in the afternoon and then to a drive-in movie. The word spread from the woods and yard to yard, until the trailers were streaming with picnic baskets being carried to cars. Suntan lotion was smeared over tiny backs and older kids stood in impatient knots as families prepared for the outing. It was the second time in the summer we were heading toward pine needles, cool shade, hot sun, muddy shores, hot dogs — all to be followed with the miraculous treat of a drive-in. In an hour, six carloads were ready.
There was a delay in getting under way. The problem was Joyce. We sat silently, sweating in the cars as, one by one, someone went to the Airstream, opened and closed the door and soon reemerged, smiling, shrugging, and shaking their heads. First her mother, then her father, then David, then a neighbor. Then calls from drivers and honking horns. Joyce had locked herself in the bathroom. Just as her father was telling the rest that they’d catch up, my mom disappeared into the trailer. Joyce’s embarrassed mother stood by the stairs; her father sat behind the wheel popping a beer with his “church key.” A couple of minutes later, my mother came out holding Joyce’s hand and smiling. Joyce’s chin was quivering and one fist was rubbing an eye.
“She wants to talk to you,” Mom said to me. Joyce walked to our Oldsmobile and faced me. I said, “Joyce, let’s go.” She looked at me and seemed very far away.
I tried again. “Don’t ya wanna go?”
With a shamed look on her face and a hint of anger in her voice, she said, “I don’t love Jesus.”
I was shocked. Of course we loved Jesus. We learned that in Sunday school. And He loved us. But more importantly, Jesus had nothing to do with this trip to the lake. I stared at her. She stared at me. I reached out of the window and she extended her hand.
“C’mon, Joyce.”
She looked crushed. It was the first time I saw that look that told me I did not understand something very important.
Mom walked her to her parents’ car. Mom stuck her head into the driver’s window, her chin resting on her folded arms. Three or four men leaning against the car, drinking beer, listened to what she was saying. Then they exploded in laughter. My mom pulled her head back out and reached one arm inside to pat Joyce on the shoulder. The others took turns hugging and patting Joyce through the window, but her expression never changed. She continued staring at me from a million miles away.
Mom walked over to our car and got into the front seat next to Dad. She was saying, as she slid her bulky hips over the seat, “Joyce had a little problem with Jesus. She doesn’t like him watching her go to the bathroom.”
Dad laughed a single cough, and switched on the ignition. He turned his shoulder so he faced me, sitting alone in the back seat, as he reversed down the dusty lane, saying, “Jesus.”
As we passed her, Joyce looked white and more like a painting frozen on a wall than my friend in a car. Her eyes remained on me for a second, and then shifted to the car floor. I thought she looked scared.
On the drive to the lake, the assorted Fairlanes and Plymouths were filled with kids — except ours, since I always threw up in the car. We parked on a huge grass lot facing the lake. My father said disgustedly, “Go wash off.”
I weaved my nauseated way to the water’s edge, followed closely by Joyce. I walked into the water, submerged, waded to the shore and sat next to her. I stuck my hands in the warm brown mud. She was sitting with her knees drawn up under her chin. We watched her brother lead a pack of bodies blasting full speed into the shallows and stroking out to the raft anchored in the middle of the lake with a riot of older kids lying around, diving and dunking each other. They were followed a few seconds later by a cascade of whooping fathers.
“How come you didn’t want to come?” She shrugged. I waited. Nothing. I said, “Jesus sees everything, but He doesn’t care.” She said, “But I do.”
We sat there a minute more in silence. Then she said, “And at night I see Him looking at me through the roof when I’m trying to sleep.”
I said, “He looks after us. He loves children.” She said, “Why?” I didn’t know so I didn’t say anything.
We quit talking and began to play. We played hard through the long afternoon and into the early evening. The only interruption was the period just after lunch when we watched the older kids sitting alone, smoking cigarettes at a picnic table, passing the hour that would keep us from drowning from the cramps in the water. The sun got lower in the surrounding hills and our parents were running low on beer, so we packed up a little early and made our way toward the Lakeside Drive-in.
We stopped at