Uneasy Going

 

How do I come off as being so easy-going, you ask?

I think that being a good person makes life a little easier, and I like to think I am a good person. And if I am good it is only because I have been blessed through life, especially through those vitally important coming of age years; blessed with good teachers, mentors, and (I do not regret adding to their ranks) some proper villains. 

Yes, it requires a good villain to flesh the innocence of youth from a boy. Otherwise he becomes... well, a sucker. Or rather, he remains a sucker. And suckers, out of necessity, live nervous lives. Let’s face it, the lessons taught in school and church are vital building blocks to manhood, but a few good villains will do those lessons one better, as a proper villain shapes those memories for a boy, providing examples of degeneracy which aren’t easily forgotten; the ones that burn into him like a branding iron, tattooing his conscience with their shame.

And once shamed we box those burning memories up in our minds, saving the lessons learned from them for later on; when the adult world is delivering us it’s hardest knocks, or we turn to them to rein things in when times are so good that a simple run of luck leads us to believe that we have figured it all out. We need reminders that we felt that way once before, like the world was ours when it wasn’t. Those lessons in time that become the ballast which keeps our keels level through life’s rough waters, and which serve us the rest of our lives as a beacon to fall back on in times of trouble and anguish... and I certainly carry my share of these lessons around with me through life, although I must say that one accidental day spent with a girl named Katie Kerry is my all-time favorite most villainous memory; a memory that keeps lust, love, and consequently life, in perspective.

I have never told this story before, but Katie is long gone from this town now, and I believe y‘all might take a little something away from my mistake, something that might help you through your difficult times. And besides… you have asked for it:

I remember it well. It was a day when the river was up, and the fish wouldn’t bite. A brassy, morning sun was laid low against the clearest of skies. It had seemed to pause there, enjoying the perfect morning as I was, simmering down it‘s heat in watery waves despite the shade trees which grew thin and snakelike along the river’s meandering path between lush fields of young, waist-high corn. But brassy suns were as common as the cornstalks where I grew to manhood, so I was unfazed by it. Hell, I wasn‘t even concerned with the rough bark of the downed tree I had made a perch of, bark which scratched right through the canvas seat of my cover-alls, until I managed to wiggle around and get properly situated, anyways. None of that mattered on this morning though, as the tall grass beneath the trees was so soft, cool, and wet from the night’s leftover dew that it tickled on bare feet finally freed from their heavy farm boots. It was all so comfortable that I’d almost decided it didn’t really matter if a bass struck or not, but I reeled in my line anyways, so’s to try a slower spot. I was fixing to pitch towards a deep pool near the bank when I first glimpsed Katie Kerry coming up through the corn.

Now, I knew Katie of course. Ours is a small town, but being two years ahead of me and my friends in school Katie never had much use for us, mostly positioning her nose even higher upwards than her pug when we were around, or goin’ on about how childish we all acted, and saying as how “she was a woman,“ saying that as though it was something we should all be lucky to have around. But truth be told we never had much use for her neither, at least I didn’t, so I wasn’t all that happy to see her coming, as always before I’d had this fishing spot to myself. Besides, everyone knew that girls were bad luck for fishing, but I sat and watched her come anyways, feeling some cautious curiosity at the unexpected sight of her. 

First thing I noticed was that she wasn’t caring a pole. The second thing was, I’d always taken Katie’s hair for brown, but the sun showed it fiery red against the mid-June corn, proving me wrong, and the skin beneath her hair, like the skin on the bare arms swinging briskly at her sides, was all doughy white, and seemed fit to burn as the sun inched up higher in the sky. She was close enough now that I could see Katie’s pert nose, and it’s required splash of Irish freckles. She was smiling as she came along, lost in some happy thought, thinking herself alone, and probably wishing to be. It was an easy look to recognize, as wanting to be alone was a feeling I well knew. She stopped flat when she saw me, and her smile fell away.

Katie stood there a long while, hands on hips, saying nothing, and I at looking at her. She had a “something smells bad” look on her face, and I reckon I did too. I’d never cared much for girls, but lately things were different, and even more uncomfortable around them. I was in the midst of a change which tousled at both my body and mind. My voice had lowered, and my skinny, boyish frame was expanding, tipping the scales in my favor if in a tussle. And here lately I had been looking at girls differently than I had looked at them just this past school year, my looks becoming more curious, and lasting a mite longer.

Take Katie Kerry for instance. I’d known Katie most of my life, and she was no beauty. She’d always been a might thin and haughty, and too pigeon-toed for good running, but looking at her there, barefoot on that dirt path, her legs sticking out creamy-white from a thin, cotton dress which hung just barely to her mid-thigh, I felt an unfamiliar stir inside which swept my head up in a whirlpool and then spit my tongue out as useless dead wood. For whatever the reason, whether or not those legs could run fast seemed of little importance anymore, not like it had when we‘d played Red-Rover, or Kick-the-Can those summers ago.

Her eyes left mine for the water, and I realized she’d come for a swim, but when they fell back on me their haughtiness was gone. They had taken on a softer, rounder, doe-like expression, making me immediately suspicious of I-had-no-idea what. Just as my back began to protectively stiffen Katie raised her arms, crossing her forearms in front of her chest, and using them that way she pulled the short sleeves of her dress down off of either shoulder with the opposite hand. To my astonishment the dress remained stuck there, half-way down her upper arm. I sat watching, mesmerized, wondering what she was up to, my fishing pole still in hand, hook and bait forgotten. She dropped her arms then, letting the dress fall with them, bouncing me to my feet in shocked amazement as the blood siphoned from my head, leaving me as thirsty for oxygen on the river’s bank as a fish was out of water.

It seemed a long, long time that she stood there, her arms helplessly at her sides, the dress in a pile at her feet, her face having assumed a childlike, trusting countenance. Granted, her skin was a shade too pale, her knees were still a bit knocked, and she was still Katie Kerry, but the sight of her naked before me, and the realization of what it meant, swelled an ache up within me.

Still wordless, Katie high-stepped out of the tangle at her feet and tip-toed towards the water, stepping in just over her ankles, where she stopped to adjust to the cold, her backside now exposed to me. She glanced back at me over her shoulder, pulling the hair away from her eyes with her fingers. They met mine then, her eyes, and she sort of smiled; the loneliest, saddest, womanly trickiest of all smiles. I would have done anything for her in that moment, when she smiled at me in that way… anything at all. 

She waded in further, her hips pushing her legs forward seductively in the heavy water until it covered her knees, and then her thighs, and crept ever closer to the parts I didn’t want hidden. She dove forward then, her stretched form graceful and lithe, her bare buttocks highly arched with nary a splash as it disappeared, and then her daintily pointed toes. I took a step closer, eager for her to rise. As the seconds passed my heart and loins pounded for her until she surfaced as girls ever surface, face first and high, so that her hair pasted otter-like behind her head, and so that the water clung to her eyelashes in sparkling little beads while her shivering lips curled into a smile brought about by the thrill of it all. 

”Oh my God, it’s so cold!” These were the first and only words so far blustered. Katie tread water then; her cinnamon hair, apple-green eyes, and quivering smile youthfully framed by the murky water. She tread water and waited, her eyes boring into mine until the pressure of them squeezed me, and the dare they taunted. She expected me to follow!

My face flushed at the thought. I was woefully unprepared. I had never been naked in front of anyone before, much less a girl. There was a pounding in my groin, and a flush in my face, and I suddenly longed to be somewhere, anywhere else.

”What’s the matter, Huck? You scared?” It came out as sing-songy, and nettlesome. She had found just the words, and expressed them in just the way, to gain my commitment.

”Of course I ain’t scared!”

”Well? Come on, then.”

But still I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was more than scared. I was terrified. I was wearing nothing but denim coveralls and underpants. How quickly could I remove them and jump in? Not quickly enough.

”Come on, already!” Her voice held a sterner tone this time, a tone my mother used when she’d had enough, so I reached up and unhooked the button on one shoulder strap, and then the other, but I didn’t let them go. Her expression had become more serious now. She tread herself a bit closer, curious. Gathering my nerve before she got any closer I pulled down the coveralls, and stepped out of my drawers. 

I looked down at myself; at my farmer’s tan ridiculously white in the light of day, and my maturing manhood appearing small, but eager as it throbbed in her direction. Shame flushed my face as I awaited an attack that didn’t come. When I looked up Katie was not laughing. In fact, her face must have looked much as mine had appeared moments ago as I ogled her. Emboldened, I leapt from the river’s bank. I surfaced as a boy will, shaking my head, slinging water and hair wildly about. Our faces examined one another from 10’ apart as our bodies undulated secretly beneath the surface. A current pulled me closer. She did not react negatively to it, so I pulled at the water, creating my own current, pulling myself closer yet. There were 5’ between us now, so little distance that I could see the skin on her chest looking fish-belly white through the greenish water, and the occasional, titillating flash of her breasts as they floated up, and sank below. I took a pull nearer, and a laughing Katie pushed the water playfully away, maintaining the distance, if not furthering it. I closed again. She laughed, and turned to swim away. I caught her ankle, using it to pull her back, and this time she came to me willingly. We were very close now, so that our arms and legs sometimes bumped, and sometimes lingered when they did, touching, sparking the water with youthful electricity. I had never seen her from this close, and was nearly overcome with her beauty. The cold water had flushed her cheeks, and something, possibly the cold, blushed her quivering lips. Water droplets highlighted the tiny, blondish hairs on her upper lip, and on her cheeks. Her eyes smiled into mine, even if those quivering lips could not.

We floated into a current which swept Katie into me. We grasped one another in surprise, and fear, yet when the current released us we remained willfully entangled. I found a place where my feet touched bottom. Her hands settled on my shoulders, looking tiny there as they held her mouth above the waterline, while below the surface our legs bumped, and hers parted around mine. She pulled herself up then, her mouth reaching for mine, and we kissed, our tongues seeking and searching. As we did she reached down, guiding me into her. My body spasmed once inside, producing a moan which led to more spasms, and more moans, until overcome with sensory pleasure and emotional confusion I pulled away from her, my eyes still tightly squeezed, and huskily voiced, “I love you, Katie Kerry.”

The surprise appearance of a cottonmouth dropping down from an overhead branch could not have ruined the moment more. “Huckleberry Hoo! I knew it! You are just a stupid kid! What the hell is wrong with you?” She pulled away from me then, letting me go. She swam hard for shore, her bare bottom flashing just above the water. Once ashore she looked back, buck naked and unashamed of it. “Can’t a girl just have some fun? Damn you, if you tell anyone about this, I’ll make your life hell, you little shit!” Her dress was on in a moment, and the last thing I heard as she disappeared through the corn was, “Stupid kid! Just imagine? Thinking that was love?” Followed by a steady stream of laughter which never abated until she had completely disappeared from view.

Well friends, perhaps I was a kid, because it had felt like love to me there in the moment… at least more like love than anything I had experienced up to then. And perhaps Katie Kerry was a villain, I don’t know. I do know that I went back to that fishing hole every day for the next couple of weeks after that day, but Katie never showed, and the infatuation slowly faded. I met other girls eventually, one in particular who allowed things to progress at a better, more manageable pace, and she taught me what love was. And I was much more cautious with my, “I love you’s” that next time, waiting until the feelings were less in my head, and more properly in my heart. But either way, Katie Kerry taught me some things about love too, and hers were life lessons that no boy could ever forget… least of all this one.

The end

Inspired by a bluegrass tune called “Fox on the Run”.

According to a quick Google search, the song was written by an Englishman named Tony Hazzard, made famous by “The Storyteller,” Tom T. Hall, and will be heard still today several times over at any bluegrass festival you happen to attend.

She walks through the corn leading down to the river

Her hair shone like gold in the hot morning sun

Those first two lines always pulls me in, as I can see “her” walking

through the corn in my mind's eye, which makes for a great story beginning,

and is why I chose this song to expound upon.

She took all the love that a poor boy could give her

And left me to die like a fox on the run.

Now everybody knows the reason for my fall

A woman tempted me down at Paradise Falls

(a slight change by me, as “Paradise Hall” in the song makes her sound like a prostitute, and I didn’t want to go there)

This woman tempted me and she took me for a ride

Now like a lonely fox, boys, I need a place to hide

Not all the lyrics, but I think you get the drift.