• If you walked through the woods, keeping the creek on your left and went straight til you saw the lightning tree what's half dead and bore right, following the foot trail a piece, you'd see my place. Now I didn't live there or nothing, but it was mine just the same. It's where I'd go when I wanted to think about things or just be alone for a while. What it was was an old slave shack from back in the Civil War days, but hadn't nobody lived there in years. Oh, I suppose the occasional hobo'd stop there for a night or two, but I'd never seen one. My daddy told me to stay away from it on account of its being so old and run down. I reckoned he thought it was liable to fall right on my head if I so much as looked at it cross eyed. But I figured it was safe enough so I tended to disregard Daddy's wariness and fears and such. Hell, by the time he found out about the place I'd staked my claim on it about three months.

    Well, anyway that was my place. Now I wasn't but about sixteen or seventeen at the time. But I knew what was what. I figured anything I didn't know about after sixteen years of life probably wasn't much worth knowing. Well, almost anything. I made an exception for sex. The way I reckoned was, though I didn't know anything at all about the art of conjugal bliss, people made such a fuss about it it was bound to be important. So important, I didn't dare let on I was ignorant about it. Well, I mean, I knew the basics. I knew for damn sure that babies didn't come from a stork or under a mushroom or in a cabbage patch. I'd taken Health class in school, and Daddy had signed the permission slip for when they divided up the boys and the girls and taken each group off to different areas of the school for "Hygiene Day."

    The football coach, Coach Buford, took the boys to the locker room of the gym. Now Coach Buford was big butterball of a man, and he sweated a lot. I wasn't sure what this "hygiene" talk was going to be about, but I didn't think the locker room was the best place to talk about hygiene, and I sure as hell didn't think that sweaty old Coach Buford was the best authority to be preaching to us about it. But that was the way it was going to be, and at least it got me out of an algebra test I hadn't really studied for.

    "Alright boys," Buford belched . "You all know why we're here. I'm supposed to talk to you about sex."

    Now that got everybody's attention. All the whispering, giggling, and chattering stopped, and we all looked at the coach intently. Now, I didn't think Coach Buford could be any better spokesperson on sex than he could on personal hygiene. It was kind of like a fish reflecting on the dangers of air pollution: not unbelievable exactly, but not all that likely either. One thing I did know about sex was that it required a girl's consent ninety-nine percent of the time, and the coach, as persuasive as he may have been in the locker room of the losing team at half-time, just didn't seem likely to be able to sway a girl's affections no matter how many showers he took.

    He stood there in front of us for the longest time not saying anything but "Well...ah...you see..." and finally "Aw hell I don't know why they stick me with this crummy detail every spring. Look here boys. If you ain't careful you'll wind up with something Ajax won't take off, and you'll go blind besides. And if I catch you doing it I'll kick your little perverted asses. Understand?"

    We all said yes we did, and since we still had about half an hour to go till we had to return to class, Buford let us practice our free throws on the basketball court.

    It was Brother Robert, our pastor at church, who expanded on the dangers of sex for us. He said it was a sin, unless you were married (and then you could only do it one way). It was what caused the Fall of man (I asked him once about the apple. "Allegory, son, allegory," was all he'd say). It was a filthy, dirty act steeped in putrefaction, and if you did it you'd suffer eighty different ways of damnation.

    After all this hoopla, I knew I'd want to try it. Besides nothing could be as nasty as all that, unless you did it with livestock or Bertha Crumb, the 350 pound barmaid who apparently charged three dollars a pop to do it. But I'd rather guess about it the rest of my life before I'd pay even eighty cents to find out about it from Bertha. I figured if I'm gonna suffer as much as Buford and Robert said, I might as well sin with someone who, if not good looking, at least was halfway agreeable company.

    So, sitting on the porch of my place, I'd generally fall to speculating about sex. The only person I'd admit my lack of experience to was Gardener Smith. I knew him from when he was State wrestling champ two years ago. I had just got my job cleaning the gym, and he 'd always be practicing with somebody in the afternoons while I cleaned. He was nineteen, so he could offer me the voice of maturity I so desperately needed during this trying time of my innocence.

    "Look," he'd tell me. "There ain't nothing to it. All you got to do is be nice to a girl and she'll let you do it no problem. If that don't work give her some beer, she'll come around."

    "You done it?" I'd ask.

    "Well, now. I don't reckon I should say yay or nay. A gentleman ain't supposed to talk about who he has or hasn't done it with."

    "Well, Jesus, Gardener. I didn't ask for their names and addresses. I just want to know if you've done it or not."

    Gardener would look off into the woods, take a sip from his beer, and reply, "And I'm telling you it ain't none of your business." Which I took to mean "I ain't had three dollars all at one time yet."

    I swear Gardener tried harder to get me laid than he did himself. Once, he tried to fix me up with Jenny Calhoun, a girl so desperate for love she dated a married man, from Ohio for God's sake, for six months until his wife found out and took a potshot at her in the parking lot of Molly's Motel out on Highway 19.

    Jenny said I was too immature; I didn't even get to third base.

    After this he set me up with Ol' Lady Simms, who was neither. Ol' Lady Simms was thirty-three, divorced and gossip had it that she was quite the Mrs. Robinson. The year before she had, apparently, extended her personal "compliments" to half the graduating class of Owen High. Rumors aside, she didn't so much remind me of Anne Bancroft as she did of Barbara Billingsey.

    I barely got to first.

    He, then, set me up with Anne Marie Harris. Anne Marie was famed throughout the school for being willing to do it with just about anybody. She supposedly did it with a whole football team during half-time of the homecoming game. The visiting team. So Gardener was pretty sure I'd have no trouble.

    I never even got up to bat.

    After this, he quit trying.

    "Either you get up some money or you might as well take your vows, buddy." he said.

    About six months after failing to score with Anne Marie, I met Emily.

    I had pretty much given up on being able to get lucky with my own personal charms and was just about to swallow my pride and raise three bucks, when she showed up. Literally on my doorstep. When I walked into the shack one afternoon, there she was. Asleep on the floor of my front room. Of course, I didn't realize she was a girl at the time. I figured her for one of the occasional hobos I never saw spending nights in my place. She was all covered up with tattered blankets, scraps of paper, and old clothes. In fact, I couldn't figure out if she was a hobo or the nest of some hellacious rat king like in that Christmas movie with the Russian ballerina fella.

    I was just about to sweep her up when she moved, and I found out she was a person. When she sat up, I saw that she was a girl. Not a woman or a lady, a girl. But a very well developed one, if a little filthy.

    Emily Blanchard was fourteen, though you couldn't tell by either sight or sound.

    "Who the hell're you?" She growled when she saw me. "And where the hell'd you come from?"

    "Well, Missy," I replied adopting my best high and mighty tone, "I might just ask you the same question. This is my place you're messing up."

    She looked around the room staring pointedly at the shot out windows, punched in walls, and piles of wood, paper, and leaves in the corners, and snorted. "Well, if I'm messin' the place up, looks to me like I've had a little help." Then she smiled, and if I hadn't seen her before this, I swear I'd have thought she was about twenty-two. I'm telling you, this girl was gorgeous. "You want a smoke?" She began digging into her pile of rags, which turned out to be a cloth sack, and pulled out a couple of cigars.

    "Ain't you a little young to be smoking them things?"

    "I reckon I'm old enough to do quite a few things you don't wanna know about."

    "That so?" I reached over and took one of the cigars, not wanting to be outdone by this girl.

    She didn't answer; she just handed me a scratched up gold Zippo with "J.B." engraved on it. I looked at the letters.

    "Joanne?"

    "Jimmy. Jimmy Blanchard. My a*****e pervert of a father."

    "You're Jim Blanchard's daughter?"

    "Well, I just said he was my father, and I obviously ain't his son."

    Jim Blanchard was an old drunkard widower who lived off behind the old corn mill on Blevins Road. Gardener said old Jim had killed his wife in a fit of drunken jealousy. I wasn't too sure I believed him, but I didn't discount it outright.

    "You still ain't told me what you're doin on my place."

    "I don't think it's really any concern of yours, if you wanna know God's truth."

    "Well, Missy," I liked using that word "missy;" it made me feel in control. "Well, Missy, I don't think I can let you stay here if you don't level with me. Especially now I know where you come from. I'd just soon go tell your daddy where you are, and let him deal with it."

    "My name is Emily, and if you so much as breathe at my father I swear to God and Moses I'll kill you."

    For some reason, I felt she meant it so I let the matter drop. The place was in pretty poor shape, I figured. Emily wasn't hurtin nobody sleeping out here, so I told her she could stay as long as she wanted, providing she kept the place up and didn't burn it down. Besides, Old Jim had about a hundred kids, and I didn't think there was any danger of his ever being sober enough to notice her gone until she was at least thirty.

    "You mean to tell me you've had a girl stashed up in that old shack for a month now and you ain't tried to do nothing with her?" Gardener hadn't been out to my place for a while. His folks gave him a raise on his weekly allowance, and he'd had better places to spend it. He only showed up this Saturday because Bertha had taken a few days off to go visit her mother and help pay for the old lady's electrolysis. When he saw Emily there, he was surprised, but figured I'd kept the secret to myself in order to get in some good experience without having to share. You should've seen his jaw drop when I told him I hadn't even tried nothing with her. I bet a whole herd of sheep could've fit right between his teeth.

    "What in God's good grace is wrong with you boy?" He stammered. "You afflicted or what?"

    "No. I just hadn't thought much about it, that's all. I mean she's only fourteen."

    "I don't rightly see your point. She's a Blanchard, I'm sure she knows all about it. Besides, even if she were a Rockerfeller, I think an exception could be made for a fourteen year old looking that good."

    "Gardener," I said feeling a funny sinking feeling in my stomach. "Ain't you got any morals or common decency at all?"

    "Sure I go to church." He answered, but that wasn't what I had asked him so I just turned around and went home.

    Well, I thought a good deal about what Gardener said the rest of that day. Especially about the fact that she was a Blanchard and probably knew all about it. I thought about Emily not ever telling me why she ran away, and I thought about poor old drunk Jim Blanchard and how he'd been widowed damn near fourteen years. I thought about morality, and how Gardener apparently figured going to church was morality enough. I wondered if it was, but I didn't think so. Besides Gardener only went to church to try and see up Sister Joyce's skirt's when she sat up so high playing the organ. I didn't think that really counted for going to church, anyway.

    That night I had a dream. At first it was like any dream I might have had whenever I felt particularly frustrated. Only this time instead of Anne Marie or even Ol' Lady Simms, It was Emily Blanchard. As soon as I realized it, I got that same funny sinking feeling in my stomach, and I knew it wasn't no ordinary sex dream. Emily really was incredible looking and that made my sinking speed up. I was falling from a great height and I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. When I did stop, I looked in a mirror which was suddenly right at my head, and I saw Emily under me but she was tied up and she had a bruise on her eye. But that wasn't the most disturbing part of the dream. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked like old Jim Blanchard. But that wasn't the most disturbing part of the dream. Emily looked into the mirror, too. She said, "Momma." That was the most disturbing part of the dream. I made myself wake up.

    It was three in the morning and I couldn't get back to sleep. I felt dirty, but a shower didn't help me any. I felt ashamed of myself, even though I hadn't really done anything. I knew why Emily ran away, and I knew why she wouldn't ever talk about it. I also knew she could stay at my place as long as she wanted and I'd never try anything. Not if she lived there until she was thirty-three.

    Three weeks later Coach Buford was arrested for doing it with Anne Marie Harris. I guess he heard about her and the visiting team at the homecoming, and thought the home team deserved a chance at a goal. Anyway, I felt sorry for Anne Marie, I figured she must have had some problems to do it with such a sweaty butterball of a man like Buford. I didn't know what I felt for the coach, confusion I guess. I couldn't think straight. I was in the gym when they came for him and I heard what they got him for. When they cuffed him and took him out, he looked right at me and asked if I'd lock up the office. As they led him away I called after him. They stopped and he looked at me expectantly.

    All I could think to say was "What about Ajax?" I didn't mean any disrespect, really. But I think he took it as such, because he spit at me before they hauled him out.

    I went to my place that afternoon. I figured Gardener would be there and I wanted to tell him what happened, but as I neared the place, I realized that everything was real quiet. It was eerie. Then I heard some shuffling coming from one of the shot out windows, and when I looked I saw that Gardener was there. All hundred and sixty pounds of him. Emily was there, too.

    It was just like my dream, only this time I was the mirror. And this time the sinking feeling was rising. I stood transfixed outside that window, my mind a sheet of white. Gardener looked up at me and grinned. I was stuck floating in my stomach rising towards the white in my head. I couldn't do anything until Emily looked, too. She wasn't crying; she wasn't whimpering; she was just there. She said, "Momma."

    To this day I'm not sure how I got through that window so fast. I only know that it took me about three seconds to reach Gardener. He was still grinning like an idiot when I kicked him in the ribs and knocked him over. He was still grinning like an idiot when I straddled his chest and punched him twice in the nose. He was still grinning like an idiot when he flipped me over and grabbed my neck. Neither one of us saw Emily with the two-by-four. She hit him once to knock him off me, and then he took off out the window.

    After he had been gone awhile I sat up and rubbed my neck. Emily was sitting in the corner hugging her knees up to her chin. She rocked back and forth, but I still couldn't tell if she was crying. Maybe.

    I took her out to the creek later and watched while she bathed. She didn't look twenty-two any more; she looked fourteen.

    "She's just a child," I thought. Then I thought about Ajax and blindness, and eighty ways of damnation. I thought about Anne Marie and how she had done it with the coach and the football team. I thought about Jenny Calhoun and the husband from Ohio. I thought about Mrs. Simms and how she was all alone cause her husband ran off with his accountant. I even thought of Bertha and her mother's electrolysis. I figured that maybe they all had reasons for what they did, maybe good ones. Just cause they had sex didn't make them less people. I realized that nothing, not sex, not anything, could ever be as black and white as Coach Buford and Brother Robert, and even Gardener, made it out to be.

    Emily could stay at my place as long as she wanted and I'd never try anything. Not if she lived there until she was thirty-three.