anymore.” I had wanted a Sony Walkman forever.
A few PE classes later, Daryl invited me over to swim. We rode our bikes to his house after morning class. His family lived on their farm south of town, off Knox Road. Other than my Aunt Charlene and her husband, the Stones were the only family I knew that had a swimming pool. Daryl’s older brother, James, a junior at Indiana University and home for the summer, drove a brand-new red Trans Am with T-tops and always seemed to have people around. Daryl’s mom and dad were just as popular. Their house, designed by Mrs. Stone, had been custom-built for entertaining. Rumors circulated around the county that the Stones’ money came from transporting drugs for which the trucking business served as a front. It was the only way they could have that kind of money, people said.
Parked in their four-car garage was a restored pink 1957 Thunderbird, which Daryl said belonged to his mother. Her father bought it for her to take to college—she was a Northwestern graduate. Daryl’s parents had met there. Alongside the Thunderbird was Mr. Stone’s restored black 1964 Corvette Stingray. A Cadillac Seville and Lincoln Town Car served as their everyday cars. I’d never seen one family with so many vehicles. Daryl and I spent the afternoon swimming and soaking in the sun.
“Hey, you hungry?” he asked.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Let’s go get Strombolis,” he said.
“That sounds great.”
Bowman’s Pizza on Broadway had been in business as long as my family’s restaurant. It was a staple in the community and a regular on many kitchen tables.
As Daryl and I stepped out of the pool and walked dripping toward the house, he turned to me then pointed, “Go ahead, shower over there. I’ll grab us some towels.” Affixed to the house near its expansive wooden deck, and somewhat secluded by two hemlocks, was an outdoor shower.
“Outside?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s no big deal. No one’s going to see you.”
I walked to the side of the house and turned on the water. Somehow I summoned up the courage to step out of my wet bathing suit and into the stream of water. It was warm. I felt as if I were getting away with something, like I shouldn’t be showering naked outside. This is the life, I thought. Daryl soon appeared with towels.
“Looks like someone’s got some shrinkage,” he said, smirking. Thank God the pool water had been cold. My body didn’t have time to react to the warm shower and Daryl’s presence. “Here, grab a towel. Hold the car keys. We’re taking the ’Vette!” he said.
I stepped out of the shower—leaving the water running—placed his keys on the deck railing, and began to towel off. Daryl peeled off his swimsuit and stepped in. His water-slicked black hair and body glistened in the sunlight. The tiny prism-like droplets streamed across his smooth, taut skin, descended the curves of his triceps, forearms, thighs, and calves, the tiny beads becoming trapped in the smattering of dark chest and pubic hair. Daryl was an athlete: track, cross-country, tennis, golf, and varsity basketball. I wished my body looked like his. Walking away, my towel wrapped round me, carrying my swimsuit, I took one last glance behind me at Daryl showering. I definitely wanted a body like his.
Once Daryl and I were dry and dressed, we walked around the house to the garage. “Are you sure we should do this?” I asked.
“Oh, come on. Get in. Do you always worry about stuff this much?” he asked, opening the driver’s door.
The Corvette’s hardtop hung from the garage rafters above us. I helped unlock the soft-top and fold it back, securing it behind the two seats. We hopped in. When Daryl started the engine, I could feel the car’s power vibrate beneath my seat. The idling engine sounded restrained, first whining, then rumbling.
He backed out of the garage, then pointed the car toward the long paved driveway and punched the gas. The tires squealed; the sleek fiberglass body fishtailed before the tires took traction and rocketed us down the drive toward the Stones’ front gate, pinning my back momentarily against the passenger seat.
The Stones’ driveway led to Knox Road, a desolate two-lane stretch of blacktop, with farm fields of knee-high corn on one side and grazing cattle on the other.
“How fast do you think we can go?” Daryl asked, yelling above the sound of wind and Prince’s “Darling Nikki” blasting from the aftermarket Bose speakers and cassette radio, cows and corn passing in a blur.
“I have no idea.”
“The speedometer goes up to 160. I bet we can redline it.”
“Go for it!” I said.
Soon the Corvette was racing down the road, its engine revved like a car in the Indianapolis 500.
“Guess how fast we’re going?” he asked.
“No idea,” I said, gripping the bottom of my seat with my right hand. Ahead of us lay the curved approach to Highway 41. “Think we should slow down?” I asked.
“Naw. Watch this. My brother does it all the time.”
Approaching the curve, having no real knowledge of how fast we were going and allowing no regard for existing traffic, the car railed down the access road, shooting like a pinball across the two southbound lanes and into the northbound lanes, its speed sending the car into the highway’s median, its tires kicking up gravel and dirt behind us. Once Daryl gained control and steered the car back onto the pavement, keeping it between the lines of the inner lane, I looked behind us. Fortunately, there were no other cars—just a brown dust cloud hanging in our wake.
“That’s fucking awesome,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, and still white-knuckling my seat.
“It’s like a roller-coaster turn, sort of. Like the Beast at Kings Island. My brother can take it faster in his car.”
I was scared to death. But my fear was intricately mingled with the thrill of being in Daryl’s presence, and this would be the experience against which I’d compare all my friendships and future loves.
* * *
Daryl had once seduced me. And standing there behind the restaurant, I wondered if he was doing the same with Trace. A silly thought, perhaps. I’d hoped Rosabelle’s initial uncertainties regarding Daryl’s return to Fort Sackville and his intentions, his manipulative ways and self-serving air inherited from his mamma, were incorrect, but after watching Daryl dropping off Trace and considering the ease with which a teenage boy could be drawn in by a confident, charismatic man in a vintage sports car—sports cars by design are meant to seduce—I began to reconsider her thoughts. But Trace was not yet a man. Trace had just turned seventeen. Maybe I was projecting my long-ago teenage entanglement with Daryl onto Trace. Certainly Daryl knew better than to mess with a teenage boy, right? I had to rid my mind of the thought. After all, I’d not been around Daryl in years. He was a lot of things; a pedophile I was certain he wasn’t. Was I jealous? That, I thought, is really twisted. But no, I was not jealous. Daryl was good-looking, and as a teenager myself I had been attracted to him, but we had both been teenagers. He was a man now, and so was I. Perhaps I was suspect of his newfound man of God status, which contradicted his previous actions. I guess that’s what born-again means: a delineation or separation of oneself from one’s past transgressions. Was I concerned with Daryl’s thoughts regarding our high school experience or his opinion of me today?
