Jolly Read online

  On Saturday I’ll have Mary by the donkies,

  That’s the time that I’ll have

  Mary by the ass!

  The white stucco school—its two long rooms divided by a central hall that ended where the bell rope hung down awaiting as reward to a well-behaved boy or girl heavy enough to turn the great rusted bell—whose wrought iron and wooden-topped desks held the ink and knife cuts of a thousand secrets and spring agonies—whose thin-worn chalkboards had felt the thrill of words and the terror of numbers transmitted to them from countless sweaty hands—behind which stood the hedge now much taller through which Jolly and Rachet had watched their older brothers engage Anna Lou Inkner in sexual intercourse after school one day and which they interpreted conjointly as a pretty silly way to take a leak—between a girl’s legs.

  “Where is this place, Jolly?” asked Di Carson. She leaned forward to tap her cigarette on the edge of the ash tray. “You’re not exactly a terrific conversationalist, you know.” Jolly watched the back of her neck and bare shoulders ripple in the muted reflection from the car’s lights. Her hair was caught with a green ribbon and hung white and long, straight down between her shoulder blades. He reached one hand forward and pressed the tail of hair against her flesh. Her head lifted, and beneath his hand he felt her body tense. She pushed slowly until his hand lay between her back and the seat. She turned toward him, eyebrows lifted, her lids nearly closed, a faint dimple playing at one corner of her lips whose heavy paint made them black in the dim light. His hand slid across her back as she twisted, and entered, as if by accident, between her dress and her skin under her arm. Because the soft lump of flesh startled him, he would have withdrawn his hand had she not stayed it with one of her own. She had begun to mutter something when his mouth closed the last inch gap. His other hand covered hers as it moved to his leg.

  “This the place, Joll?” Luke asked, imperviously.

  Jolly withdrew his hand. “Yes,” he said. “There. You turn in down there at the gate.”

  Luke eased the heavy car through the gate, over the cattle-guard, and in among perhaps fifty cars parked disorderedly before a long and low building—a building known as the Community Hall—that would reverberate to the booted feet of a hundred latter-day cowboys and farmers and their moccasin-footed women until perhaps three or four o’clock in the morning, at which time Ben the janitor would begin his weekly transformatory ablutions that caused Community Hall to become Community Church in which many of these same men and women would gather again at ten o’clock on Sunday morning.

  Bright yellow light streamed from two doors propped open to catch the breeze. From across the parking lot, before the music could actually be heard, could be felt an indefinable vibration of thumping instruments and pounding feet. Among the cars in the lot were three or four small groups of people, mostly men, gathered in starlit communion with a bottle of whiskey. By midnight most of the bottles would be empty and only couples would be seen in or among the cars. Those young men left without female consort by that time would have already gathered once or twice behind the hall to watch two of their friends roll furiously and silently in the dust like hot-blooded bulls testing their first year’s horns.

  At the door of the hall Luke and Jolly paid a dollar and a half each for the tickets to a white-haired and bosomy lady who stamped the backs of their left hands with a purple three-leaf clover.

  “God, look at the hicks,” said Babe Wooten, squinting into the convolution of children and adults.

  “I’m looking, I’m looking!” said Di Carson. The others turned to her, sensing the thrill in her voice, and followed her impudent gaze.

  Against the near wall coursed the stag line, which moved with one Stetsoned head, one pair of insolent eyes, watching its prey enter the door, calculating the possibilities of intrusion from the gait of the girls and the size of their escorts. The brim of its tan hat curled convulsively to either side of a point set so low above the eyes that its head tilted backward perpetually in order for the eyes to see at all. Turned high among curls on the back of the neck was the collar of a custom-tailored, long-sleeved and flowered shirt, so tight that the nipple of the left breast pointed under the double thickness of a pocket, the right breast bared—except for black damp hair—weighted open by a row of pearl snaps repeated on the long, closed cuffs. The thumbs hooked into back pockets of Levis carefully shrunk and stitched so that not an excess wrinkle could appear anywhere except across the groin to accentuate genitals held high and forward. Hidden beneath the Levis—but for the toe and high riding heels—were the boots, the left crossed over the instep of the right. The only portion of the body to touch the wall was a point high between the shoulders in order that the delicate hips remained thrust forward.

  Jolly felt the color rise to his face and heard Di stifle a low moan that seemed not to issue from her lips but from a spot farther down, below the surface. Jolly glanced at his own clothes and damned himself. He too wore Levis and a pearl-snapped shirt, but the effect was casual, unstudied, wrong.

  “Let’s dance.” He pulled her to him roughly. Whirling her into the melee, he made his way as quickly as possible, despite kicks and elbows, across the dance floor, near the stage where the three-piece band played.

  “They make a hell of a racket, don’t they,” he said to Di in a desperate attempt to divert her attention. “That’s Old Lady and Mr. Coon playing the guitar and fiddle. That’s Mrs. Decker beating the piano. She only comes out of her hole on Saturday nights to play those same three chords over and over for six or seven hours.” He was breathless, and he felt the beer they had drunk in the car begin to fog, and he was afraid he would soon babble.

  “The Old Coons must be about a hundred. But they still keep playing every week. I guess. She calls the square dances, too. They’ll do some square dancing tonight, I imagine. You ever square-danced? He drinks about a barrel every night. When I was a little boy he used to tell me that if I’d do the church-going for him he’d do the whiskey-drinking for me. Ha, ha. I wonder if he—”

  “Take it easy, stud.” Di lifted her lips and breathed on his neck. “Take it easy.” She stretched back her neck and studied his face curiously. “The beer gettin’ you? I never heard you talk so much.”

  He pulled her head into his shoulder and raised his right hand until it spread over the bare skin of her back. “No. There’s nothing the matter with me.” Her skin was damp and cool to touch, but it seemed to have a second layer beneath the cool one that was warm. He moved his hand down to her waist where there was cloth again. Beneath the pressure of his fingers her hips moved forward to meet his. Gradually his steps slowed until they were standing nearly still. Around them couples whirled; the bright full skirts of the women swept round and round, punctuated by the long, blue, stamping legs of the men. To Jolly, as his head bent beside Di’s so that his chin just touched her shoulder, close to her neck, there seemed to be no bodies above the whirling skirts and legs. His eyes fixed as if stunned, he saw the colors flash, and he shared, rather than heard, the beat of the music and the steady delicious rhythm of the dancers. Nearly motionless, Jolly felt insanely that all the heat of the crowded room had been gathered up into that one spot between him and Di where her hips moved to return to him each thrust of his own. When the music stopped, he believed for a moment that he could not remember how to step back, how to separate himself from her. His shirt stuck to his chest where he had pressed himself too hard against her.

  Di brushed the hair back on her temples. The dimple skirted one corner of her lips again. Curious, her eyes watched Jolly’s. He followed a drop of perspiration as it slipped down her neck, hesitated, then wriggled like some giant amoeba down the cleavage of her breasts. He wanted to put his thumb there to stop it before it ran from sight.

  “Hey,” she said. Her hand covered his, but she did not remove it right away. She laughed slowly and low. “I see why the guys call you Fingers.”

  “They got any Cokes or anything to drink here?” she
asked, looking vaguely about the room.

  “Yeh. Over there.” He indicated a wide serve-through opening from the kitchen. “They’ve probably got Cokes and all.” She began to lead him across the floor, but he tugged back on her hand.

  “Di,” he said. “Wait. Wait a minute.’

  She turned to face him. “What’s the matter with your voice?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Let’s go outside awhile.”

  “Outside?”

  “Yes. To the car. You want to go to the car awhile?” He began to pull her hand toward him.

  Di did not move. She plucked at Jolly’s arm with her other hand and said “Jolly?” in an incredible, little voice. He saw that her eyes had grown wide and stared past him, over his shoulder.

  Jolly turned. There behind him stood a young man who had been watching the back of his neck, evidently, but who now shifted his eyes darkly to meet Jolly’s. Held slightly before him in one hand, the blade just resting on the other palm, was a knife glinting bluely against his flowered shirt.

  Jolly’s gaze dropped to the knife and then back quickly to the lips curled over a hand-rolled cigarette, then on to the man’s eyes, one of which squinted against the smoke.

  “Bill!” Jolly exploded. “Bill Kemp!”

  “H’lo, you little bastard. Thought it uz you.” The man’s lips smiled on the side opposite the cigarette. “I’m still gonna cut off yer goddam ears.” He brandished the knife.

  Jolly laughed. “You scared the crap outta me, Bill. What are you still doing around here, anyway?”

  “Waitin’ to cut off yer goddam ears.” The young man’s eyes flicked sideways to Di, then slid down her and back to Jolly. “Er maybe you ready to have somethin’ else cut off by now.” Jolly could smell the whiskey on his breath.

  “Bill, this is Diane Carson. Bill’s been threatening to cut off my ears for the last ten years since I surprised him and a heifer in his dad’s barn one day.”

  “Never mind, Osment, never you mind,” spoke Bill Kemp quietly. His eyes traced Di’s body insolently. “I tell ya what, Osment, you little sonuvabitch. I won’t never cut off yer goddam ears ner nothin’ else if ya let me have at it with yer lady this dance.” He smiled at Jolly. “Course it won’t make no difference if ya let me ’r not, ya know.”

  Jolly reached for Di’s hand again. “How about a little later, Bill. Di and I were just going out for a—for a while. A beer,” he stammered.

  Bill Kemp did not say anything. Neither did Di. They only watched each other.

  “Come on, Di,” Jolly said. He felt her slipping away even before her hand did. “We could just have a beer.” He knew the back of his neck was turning red. “Dammit, Bill,” he said, “Goddamit!”

  Bill’s eyes never left Di’s, but his right arm swung up a little, an almost imperceptible bit, and from his hand the knife blade caught dull light and winked.

  Jolly felt Di’s hand pull from his. She moved into Bill’s arms as if she had danced with him all her life. Or had been practicing for the occasion. Jolly walked to the wall and squatted there and lit a cigarette. He saw Di’s green skirt disappear into the crowd beside Bill’s long, blue-fitted legs.

  Bill Kemp must be about twenty-two or twenty-three, Jolly figured. It was a wonder he remained in Skull Valley, but then people had said Bill Kemp would never amount to anything—the Kemps never did. After the day Jolly came upon Bill in the act of attempted sodomy with the heifer, they became friends of a sort—at least Bill took time to pull out his knife and joke with Jolly at the Saturday night dances—and that same afternoon, Bill, at that time twice his age, introduced Jolly to the mystery of masturbation, an act beyond the power of the seven-year-old, but it provided information that, stored away, was of use five years later.

  A pair of pillar legs hove into Jolly line of vision and stopped, thigh-level with his face. Before looking upward his eyes were drawn down the meshed legs to where they overhung white comfort oxfords. “Mrs. Arney!” he said, before seeing her face. He dropped his cigarette on the floor and stood.

  “Jolly Osment, I declare. I thought ’twas you a-settin’ there like a blessed injun.” Mrs. Arney’s wide face broke in all directions.

  “Hello, Mrs. Arney. Yes, it’s me.”

  “Well, I declare. How you’ve growed! Last time I seen you you weren’t taller’n a minute.” Her body shook in gargantuan merriment.

  “Yes, ma’am. I guess I have grown some.”

  “Still a-goin’ to Sunday School?” Mrs. Arney had commandeered all the boys and girls of the valley above the age of four for twenty-five years. “Ours is still a-goin’ strong.” She raced up and down the valley every Sunday morning in her ancient school bus gathering in her flock.

  “Yes’m. I still go some—to church.” Jolly glanced beyond her at the whirling colors.

  Her bosom began shaking before the laugh sounded in her throat. “That’s a blessin’ truly. Like I was sayin’ to the Lord the other night—how’s Mattawilde?”

  “What? Oh, Mother. She’s fine, thanks. She—”

  “Like I was sayin’ to the Lord the other night, maybe He got caught up on His rest on Sundays, but I swan if some a His shepherds—I like to think of myself as a shepherd, which ain’t so far wrong, ya know—I got more’n a thousand head a Angoras yet—some a His shepherds have to work a deal harder on Sunday than any other. Takes more persuadin’ ever year to get these young rascals out come Sunday mornin’.”

  “You’re looking fine, Mrs. Arney. You been well?” Jolly asked and immediately felt ridiculous.

  “A-man. Anybody kin see I’m still as fat and healthy as I ever been, and I intend to remain this a-way, the Lord willin’ in His mercy.” Her great arms akimbo, she partially turned to scrutinize the crowd. “That’s what I’m a-doin’ here, tonight. Somebody gotta keep a eye on these here youngsters and send ’em home or they ain’t never goin’ to make it ta Sunday School in the morning.”

  “I guess it is sort of late—for these little kids,” Jolly offered.

  “I say a-man to that, son. It’s pert’ nearly eleven o’clock in the night. Well, I reckon I oughta see if I cain’t drop a few hints about the time a night. It’s a mercy anybody makes it ta Sunday School any more. However, as you remember from your lessons, Jolly Osment, the Lord worketh in mysterious ways.” She lifted a hand in salute and moved away laboriously, her laugh rollicking above the din, leaving Jolly to ponder the applicability of her final remark.

  Jolly subconsciously heard the music reach a tonic chord and stop, raggedly. A long, shrill cry broke from somewhere among the heated pack, rose to an insane pitch, suspended and then was cut short with a sharp upward yelp. The cry was repeated once or twice from diverse sides of the room. The cowboy’s yell, it was used equally to drive cattle, to replace the city wolf-whistle, or as an inexplicable and carefree expression of whiskeyed joy.

  While the band recessed, most of the elderly couples and little children crowded about the refreshment counter. Jolly walked away toward the doors where the stags and young couples moved out into the cooler night air, dispersed along the porch and stairs, and out among the parked cars where their presence was signaled by red dots of fire from cigarettes.

  “Well, horse-patookus. Where ya been?” Luke and Babe strolled up hot and disheveled from dancing. “Where’s Di?”

  “Oh, she’s in the can, I think.”

  “Who’s that she was with?” asked Babe.

  “Where?”

  “On the dance floor.”

  Jolly affected a grin. “Oh, he’s an old friend of mine. Bill Kemp.” He laughed shortly. “I let him dance with her for a minute.”

  Babe winked at Luke. “If you call that dancing, what they were doing.” She squeezed Luke’s hand, and his arm went about her waist.

  “Well, old buddy, we’re going to the car for a little something.” Luke slapped Jolly on the shoulder. “Beer, that is,” he grinned.

  “OK. See you.” Jolly watched them move
through the knot of people on the steps. They walked arm in arm down a path between the cars, then cut to the side, toward the limousine, and out of sight. Jolly wondered fleetingly how Luke always managed so well with the girls. There was something about him that attracted and held them, but no one could have said what it was.

  When the red dots of light began to arch briefly in the parking lot, and the dancers began to drift, rested and cooled, back into the hall, Jolly moved in with them.

  “You got a stamp?”

  “Oh, yeh. Here.” He showed his hand with the purple clover.

  He stood against the wall a little way from the doors and watched the dancers bunch and spread, their feet nervous on the floor. Old Cab Coon stumped by unsteadily, on his way to the band stand. As he approached, his colorless eyes, the skin pulled down in wet folds beneath them, passed over Jolly. “You bin a-goin’ to church, son?” he cracked.

  Jolly straightened from the wall in surprise. “Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir. You?”

  “You do the church-goin’, son, and I’ll do the whiskey-drinkin’.” The old man wheezed past without changing his gait, intent on reaching the band stand where his wife glowered, awaiting his return.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Jolly laughed. “The old goat remembered me!” Pleased, he followed the old man’s progress until he stood erect on the band stand and raised his indomitable fiddle—not to his chin, but about midway on his chest. Mrs. Decker lifted her long black skirts and stepped onto the platform. With her handkerchief she dusted the piano stool, gave it a shake and sat on it, prepared to play her three-chord repertoire (in any key, in any octave) for another hour until the next intermission.

  Mrs. Coon grasped the microphone, a superfluity, and announced: “Form up, folks. We’re a-gonna do ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’ for the kiddies ’fore they gotta go home.”