we were too young to deal with the consequences of that. If we had, I’m not sure we would have ridden home as darkness settled over the woods.
That phase of our trance ended on the day I heard a noise from the floor below us. It wasn’t a footstep or a voice, but it was a distinctly human sound. A cough maybe, or a wheeze. As quietly as I could, I climbed down the ladder and made my way through the fallen boards that lay tangled in vines and thorns. As I neared an old, broken-wheeled wagon parked under the second-floor joists, I heard weight shift on wood. I froze, my heart pounding, then took three quick steps forward and froze again. I was looking into the eyes of an old black man with a grizzled salt-and-pepper beard. He was lying in the wagon on a pile of big green leaves, a dead cigar stub in his mouth.
Instinct told me to bolt back the way I came, but something stopped me. Maybe it was that he lay supine in the wagon and showed no inclination to rise. Perhaps it was the look of amusement in his features or the weariness in his eyes. As we stared at each other, he lifted a small paper bag and took a swig from the dark bottleneck protruding from it. Then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and gave me an avuncular grin.
“You been up there two hours and I ain’t heard that girl holler yet,” he said. “What you doin’ up there? Readin’ the Bible together?”
“What?” I asked dully.
“I said, what you doin’ up there? I shoulda heard that girl holler two, three times by now. She old enough.”
“Whuh—who are you?” I stammered.
“I ain’t nobody. Who you?”
“Marshall McEwan.”
“You ain’t a Weldon?”
“No, sir. I’m friends with Pete Weldon, though.” The Weldons still owned the land the barn sat on. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Willis. I work for Mr. Weldon.”
I weighed this answer. “Mr. Weldon pays you to sleep in his barn?”
The man scowled. “Don’t get smart now, Marshall. I wouldn’t want to have to get up and teach you a lesson.”
By this time I had studied “Willis” a bit. He was a lot heavier than I, and he looked pretty strong, but I was sure I could outrun him. Of course, Jet was upstairs. She could probably outrun him, too. But she would have to get safely to the ground before she could.
“I’m guessing you don’t want me to tell Mr. Weldon you were here,” I said.
Willis scowled again. “I’m guessing you don’t want him knowing you out here, either, smart boy.”
I shrugged and tried to look nonchalant.
“Why don’t we make a little deal?” Willis suggested. “We’ll both just keep our business to ourselves.”
I waited a decent interval, then said, “That sounds cool.”
“Okay, then. You’d best get back up there and tend to business. That girl prob’ly gettin’ nervous by now.”
I took a tentative step back. “Are you gonna be here anymore? I mean, after today?”
“I been here other times, too, if that’s what you wonderin’. My old lady kicked me out the house, and I ain’t got no place to stay.”
“You sleep out here?”
Willis nodded. “Right now, anyways.”
I thought about this. “Okay, then.”
“Hey,” he called as I turned to go. “Don’t be afraid of it.”
“What?”
“Girls ain’t made of glass, boy. They want it, same as you. Don’t be afraid to work it. And lick it, too. You lick it?”
My face was turning purple. The old man laughed.
“Whatever you been doin’, try it ’bout twice as hard. Start gentle, but take it up steady, you understand? That girl’ll holler in three, fo’ minutes, I guarantee.”
“Um … I gotta go,” I croaked, backing away fast, then turning to run.
His cackling laughter followed me back up the ladder.
I found Jet waiting at the top, looking frightened, but once I explained what had happened, she calmed down. I didn’t think we should return to the barn anymore, but Jet thought it was fine.
Two days later, we discovered I’d been right.
On that day, some dopeheads from the public high school showed up at the barn and sat outside in the clearing, getting high. Jet and I hid in silence on the second floor, waiting for them to leave. But when they started building a campfire, we knew we had to go. We tried to slip away unnoticed, but they heard us trying to sneak out the far side of the barn. In seconds they surrounded us and started the usual bullying that older guys love to deal out to young guys as tall as me. It was during this hazing that they noticed how beautiful Jet was.
The conversation that followed that realization scared me in a way I’d never experienced before. These guys didn’t look like the potheads I knew, gentle dudes who’d rather lie on their backs staring at the moon than exert a single muscle. These guys looked like what my father called “dopers,” needle freaks. As they talked, I saw all the blood leave Jet’s face. They were sixteen or seventeen, pale and dirty looking. And they meant to have her. The tallest one told Jet to take off her clothes before it got too dark to see her. If she refused, he said, they would take them off for her. When she didn’t move to obey, one guy said he wanted to see what A-rab pussy tasted like. I wanted to protect her, but I couldn’t see any option other than getting honorably beaten within an inch of my life. I didn’t want Jet to know how scared I was, but when I stole a glance at her, I saw tears on her cheeks. That was when I heard a low, dangerous voice speak from the darkness under the barn.
“You boys ’bout to buy yourselves a boxcar full of trouble.”
The leader’s head snapped left. Like me, he saw Willis coming through the dark barn door, looking pretty goddamn intimidating. I suppose the three older teenagers could have taken that old man, but they didn’t look too sure they wanted to find out what it would cost them to do it.
“What you gonna do, nigger?” asked the leader, sounding more petulant than threatening.
Willis regarded him in silence for about ten seconds. Then he said, “What I’m gon’ do? That’s what you axed? Well …” Willis scratched his bearded chin. “I’ll prob’ly start by bendin’ you over that log there and fuckin’ you up da ass. That’s how we broke in fresh stuff like you in Parchman. You’ll feel just like a girl to me, boy. Tighter, prob’ly.”
My blood ran cold when Willis said that, but the threat had its intended effect. The three freaks shared a long look. Then the smallest skittered into the darkness under the trees. The other two followed, though the leader vowed revenge from the shadows. It was hard to believe the situation had changed so fast. It was as though a grizzly bear had scattered a pack of dogs.
“Were
