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“Well, she was a cock-tease.”
“She was not. Anyway, a lot of girls do that.”
“I didn’t like it. She kept leadin’ me on and then stoppin’, over and over, the same thing. She didn’t know what she wanted.”
I thought of her in her silly bangs and ankle-length dresses, always carrying her books in front like a shield. What she wanted had always seemed so simple and pathetic.
“Elro, you’re upsetting me.”
“Can’t help it. You asked, and I told you.”
“But wait a minute. We were all at the pond the day she died. Someone would have heard her scream.”
“Nobody did.” He was like Eddie in his pleasure in direct, plain answers that told you nothing.
I thought for a second. “How’d you do it, then? I want to know.”
“Simple. I took her out beyond the float when no one was around, and I told her I was tired of waitin’. Then I put my hand down her suit and told her if she screamed, I’d hold her under. When she started to scream, I held her under, just like I said. I figured she’d let up and go along with me, but she just kept fightin’ until …” Elro looked at me and the corners of his mouth twitched up in a smile.
I didn’t say anything for a long time. My chest was starting to heave, so I pulled my arms tight around myself. “I don’t believe it. You’re drunk,” I said finally.
“Am not.” He swigged again. “She was cock-teasin’ me. A man’s got certain needs, and you mess with those needs, and who knows what can happen.”
“You’re lying.”
“You don’t have to believe me.”
“Elro, you tell me you’re lying or I’m gonna jump out of this truck.”
He braked sharply, slamming me against the dashboard. My left wrist hurt from bracing my impact.
“So get out,” he said. “But I ain’t lyin’.”
The truck had stopped along the side of the road. In the half light, I could see a ditch and, beyond that, a field of low-growing plants. Elro wagged his head at me. Now I could see the effects of the whiskey. His mouth was hanging open, and his eyes were wild. He reached over and poked me in the shoulder with his finger.
“Ouch.”
“So you still think I’m lyin’?” He poked me hard again.
“Cut it out.”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m getting out.”
“Go ahead,” he said. But I didn’t trust him. He was too twitchy and excited, too dangerous.
“Go ahead,” he taunted. “What are you waitin’ for?” His lips were wet, his eyes were BBs, rolling around in his head, but always settling back on me.
I worked my right hand slowly to the door handle and sneaked my left hand under my bag of clothes. Suddenly, I gaped out the window. “Look! A cop!” I yelled, and in that instant, I was out the door, pulling away from his clawing fingers. I ran down the side of the ditch and took a leap across the bottom, hoping to make it in one bound. My foot sank in mud up to the ankle. I pitched forward, keeping my balance by splashing down with the other foot into a worn-out stream that was trickling through the weeds. The truck door slammed. Elro was coming. Leaning forward, I hauled my left foot out and planted it, dripping muck, on drier ground in front. Still, my right foot was sinking. With a heave, I pulled forward and shot free, stumbling onto the bank on the other side. But something was wrong. I’d lost my shoe. My right foot had slipped out, and now the loafer was buried under six inches of mud.
There wasn’t time to fish for it. Elro had walked around in front of the truck and was standing in the beams of the headlights, squinting in my direction. “Wait up!” he yelled thickly. Seeing me pause, he scrambled down the ditch after me.
With the weeds stabbing into my bare foot, I ran up the other side and slipped through the loose strands of barbed wire on the fence at the top. Before me was a pink-purple sea, a field planted in clover. The soft moist leaves felt soothing on the bottom of my scraped-up foot. I ran a few steps into the field and stopped to take off my other shoe. Elro had given up and was slowly climbing back to the pickup. I started running again. The clover was cool and downy and the stems slid in between my toes, tickling up a wave of excitement, as if I were doing something terribly fun but wrong. I ran for fifty yards, a hundred yards, until my chest was pounding, and my Piggly Wiggly bag seemed weighted with cans. Finally, I stopped and drew deep gulps of air. The opposite edge of the field was still far off, marked by a long ridge of trees that turned the sun’s rays into orange spikes. Close by, a handful of small, graceful birds darted over the clover, their morning songs rippling the air.
Back at the pickup, Elro was framed by the headlights. Bending down, one arm braced against the hood, he was retching in agony. Every few seconds, the deep, rasping sound rolled across the field, answering the clear lilt of the birds. His body shook. It was painful to watch him. By now, he’d emptied everything and was just having spasms. After a while, I sat down in the clover. He went on for about ten minutes, passing through periods of calm before the agony hit him again. At last, he was quiet for a long time. He slumped against the fender of the truck, and his head drooped down over his chest, as if his neck were a long, loose rope. Eventually, he straightened up, got something out of the cab and walked around to the back of the truck, away from where he’d been sick. He stood on the edge of the ditch, looking out over the field. He couldn’t see me, and after a few seconds he called out my name. His voice was high and weak from all the wretching. I just sat and waited and listened. He called again and again. Shading his eyes from the early sun, he searched methodically from one side of the vast field to the other. It must have been terrible for him, like looking out at a sea into which someone had disappeared.
“Martha!” he yelled.
