Chap. 3
You Will Find Me Down by the River
Sunday was hot. The church was hot, but the Reverend Virgil Rhodes was not one to abbreviate the service; it was his duty - wind, rain, hail, snow, heat - to see that God was not cheated out of what was His due. Fidgeting like a child, Sweet Pea was impatient; for she knew that Colleen was waiting. Sweet Pea could tell even her father also was impatient, but she suspected it was not actually the heat that was bothering her father. He had always sung enthusiastically at church, but since her return - since she had brought the news of Rocket's death - Sweet Pea could tell that her father's singing no longer came from the heart. As the congregation rose for the last hymn, Sweet Pea studied her father obliquely. Yes, the weight of life was heavy on his shoulders. If only things could be as before...
Her parents were put out that Sweet Pea would be missing the usual Sunday dinner, which followed church. Her mother, however, was pleased that her daughter had made a new friend. Her father, always distrustful of outsiders, scowled at Sweet Pea as they left the church. She was accustomed to this sort of thing, and she paid no attention to her father's disapproving face.
As Sweet Pea crossed the dusty parking lot toward Colleen's Jeep, her mother called out, "You girls have fun."
Sweet Pea waved to her mother and hopped into the Jeep. Before releasing the clutch, Colleen impishly smiled at Sweet Pea; and the Jeep flew away from the church. Down the road it raced like Dillinger's getaway car loaded with bank loot. Sweet Pea pointed the way through the back lots of the village, where the boys raced their old jalopies, and passed the water tower. Bouncing all the time, like a ride at the firemen's field days. Then along country lanes with rows of corn on each side, the Jeep sailed like clouds overhead, kicking up dust and spitting gravel from the tires. Sweet Pea was guiding Colleen to the river, to Browne's swimming hole.
As they neared the river, the Jeep flushed out five quail. They flew noisily overhead, amidst the dust thrown up by the Jeep. With her eyes, Sweet Pea followed the birds in the sky until she was blinded by the sun. At that moment her heart ached; she wished an impossible wish. She wished that she and Colleen could fly away into that yellow sky.
Sweet Pea watched Colleen's hand as she manipulated the stick shift. A thick cloud of dust enveloped the Jeep as Colleen brought it to a stop by the river's edge. Colleen ground the Jeep into neutral and jerked the parking brake. Slowly the dust dissipated. As if they had run all the way, the girls sat silently for a while, catching their breath.
"It's obvious that something is troubling you," Colleen said. "Tell me about it."
"It's a long story," Sweet Pea said.
"I've come prepared for that."
Colleen reached behind her seat and pulled out a bottle of rye. She uncorked it, took a big swallow like a sailor on shore leave, and passed the bottle to Sweet Pea. She choked down some, and it burned as it went down her gullet. The heat spread like flames from her chest.
"Shit, that's powerful!" Sweet Pea said.
"But, it will make your story easier."
"No," Sweet Pea said. "No, it won't." And she took another mouthful before passing the bottle back to Colleen.
"It is time to be unburdened," Colleen said, taking the bottle.
"Rocket had always been volatile and impulsive."
"And she ran away from home," Colleen said. "I know that much. And you followed."
"Yeah. I was almost eighteen. I thought I could protect her."
There was silence.
Sweet Pea took the rye and drank some more.
"She was already in over her head when I reached her." Sweet Pea started to sob. "I wasn't much help."
"What happened?" Colleen asked softly.
"White slavery," Sweet Pea said. "This guy called Blue promised Rocket a job in the kitchen of the asylum were he worked, but he kept us prisoners. If we resisted, they pumped us fill of drugs. If we still resisted, it was lobotomy for us. That's what happened to the other girls, Baby Doll, Amber, and Blondie. Blue had them turned into real-life sex toys. He was the Chief Warder and he forged paperwork all the time."
"Jesus Christ," Colleen sighed.
"He wasn't much help either."
"What happened to Rocket?"
"A new girl, Baby Doll, came in. You look something like her, by the way. They faked her commitment papers, her step-father wanted her out of the way so he could get his hands on her mother's fortune," Sweet Pea explained. "Blue was going to sell her cherry to a special client and then have her lobotomized before enjoying her himself, but she vowed to escape. Baby Doll wasn't going to be enslaved. She wasn't going to be possessed. Rocket joined her quest right away. Said she wanted to go home."
"You got out."
"Yeah." Sweet Pea could not continue her story. She was weeping now. "But the others...didn't."
Colleen re-corked the rye and took Sweet Pea into her arms. The only other words she could understand - Sweet Pea shouted them out in anger and anguish - were
"...He stabbed her..."
That was enough. The end of the girl's story was the sharp blade of a knife.
Colleen held Sweet Pea for a long time.
Even after her tears subsided, Sweet Pea felt her face burning. Suddenly, she left the Jeep and headed straight to the water. Colleen was alarmed and followed close behind the grief-stricken girl. It was a relief to Colleen, when Sweet Pea knelt and splashed cool water on her face. Instantly Sweet Pea felt better. It was as if the river water washed away her despair. Impulsively Sweet Pea stood up and began pulling off her clothes.
"I'm going for a swim!" she announced to her astonished friend.
And quickly, she was naked and bounded into the river with big splashes.
"All right," Colleen said, with noticeably less enthusiasm. But she too was soon naked and splashing into the water.
The hot summer sun made it the perfect afternoon for skinny dipping. The dark greenish water was cool and refreshing.
When the two girls came out of the water, Colleen jogged up to the Jeep, and pulled out a blanket and spread it out for them to lie upon.
"Is there anything that you don't have in that wreck?" Sweet Pea asked.
"I was a Girl Scout," Colleen replied. "If you had gotten a cramp, there's a life jacket I could have thrown to you."
Sweet Pea laughed. "You're joking!"
"I am. But there is a length of rope."
They both lay down on the blanket.
Sometimes, miracles are small.
Surely, Sweet Pea thought Eden must have been like this: the silver flashes of the river scintillating beneath the summer sun; the sweet smell of freshly mown clover wafting to her on a gentle whiff of air; the faintly fishy smell of the water flowing nigh; the smell of newly harvested hay from the next field over; and nude bodies, young and hale, lying in the sun, both warm with the heat of life.
Sweet Pea propped herself up on her left elbow, and with her right hand took up the skeleton key that hung on a chain around Colleen's neck.
"What's the story of this key?" Sweet Pea asked.
Colleen gazed up, not at Sweet Pea but beyond, gazed at the fathomless blue sky.
"Long, long ago," Colleen said nearly to herself, "a magical being gave the key to me and said that it would unlock hearts. I've worn it ever since."
Sweet Pea let go of the key. As if it belonged there and nowhere else, Sweet Pea slid her right hand onto Colleen's left breast. She felt the strong heart beating beneath. She felt the living blood flowing in the flesh. Colleen closed her eyes, and Sweet Pea gently squeezed. A slight moan escaped Colleen's lips. Sweet Pea kissed her.
When their mouths parted, Colleen said:
"I want you, but I must tell you that what we share cannot last."
"I'm yours," Sweet Pea declared. "Crucify me, if that makes you happy."
Colleen kissed her in reply. In that moment only the kiss mattered. To be thus set free was intoxicating.
All at once, Sweet Pea's hands were gliding all over Colleen's body and the blonde girl's caresses where everywhere on her own body. As if time were the enemy, Sweet Pea was kissing Colleen all over: eye, ear, nipples; navel, thigh, toe, frantically devouring the spiritual nourishment of her flesh.
Through the static electricity set off in her body by Colleen's tongue, Sweet Pea heard the words -
This is my body which is given for you...
And their bodies became as two snakes uroborically writhing in the grass.
[contd]