I'm sure that by now you're sick and tired of all these smug little
notices authors of raunchy S&M and sex stories have been putting at the
top of their files. But just in case you aren't, here's another one:




                     WARNING!  WARNING!  WARNING!

                THIS STORY CONTAINS RAUNCHY S&M AND SEX
           IF YOU DON"T LIKE THIS SHIT, THEN DON'T READ IT!

                            END OF WARNING                              NOLA11.TXT

                              "The Game"
                            "By Curt Strap"

                               CHAPTER 1

     I was alone back by the brook, lying on my stomach across the Big
Rock with a tin can in my hand. I was scooping up crayfish. I had two of
them already in a larger can beside me. Little ones. I was looking for
their mama.
     The brook ran fast along either side of me. I could feel the spray
on my bare feet dangling near the water. The water was cold, the sun
warm. 
     I heard a sound in the bushes and looked up. The prettiest girl I'd
ever seen was smiling at me over the embankment.
     She had long tanned legs and long red hair tied back in a ponytail.
She wore shorts and a pale-coloured blouse open at the neck. I was
thirteen. She was about fourteen or fifteen. And she had big boobs. 
     I smiled back at her, though I was rarely agreeable to strangers.
     "Crayfish," I said. I dumped out a tin of water.
     "Really?"
     I nodded.
     "Big ones?"
     "Not these. You can find them, though."
     "Can I see?"
     She dropped down off the bank just like a boy would, not sitting
first, just putting her left hand to the ground and vaulting the
three-foot drop to the first big stone in the line that led zigzag
across the water. She studied the line a moment and then crossed to the
Rock. I was impressed. She had no hesitation and her balance was
perfect. I made room for her. There was suddenly this fine clean smell
sitting next to me.
     Her eyes were green. She looked around.
     To all of us the Rock was something special. It sat smack in the
middle of the deepest part of the brook, the water running clear and
fast around it. You had room for four kids sitting or six standing up.
It had been a pirate ship, Nemo's Nautilus, and a Indian canoe among
other things. Today the water was maybe three and a half feet deep. She
seemed happy to be there, not scared at all.
     "We call this the Big Rock," I said. "We used to, I mean. When we
were kids."
     "I like it," she said. "Can I see the crayfish? I'm Nola."
     "I'm David. Sure."
     She peered down into the can. Time went by and we said nothing. She
studied them. Then she straightened up again.
     "Neat."
     "I just catch 'em and look at 'em a while and then let 'em go."
     "Do they bite?"
     "The big ones do. They can't hurt you, though. And the little ones
just try to run."
     "They look like lobsters."
     "You never saw a crayfish before?"
     "I don't think they have them in New York City."  She laughed. I
didn't mind. "We get lobsters, though. They can hurt you."
     "Can you keep one? I mean, you can't keep a lobster like a pet or
anything, right?"
     She laughed again. "No. You eat them."
     "You can't keep a crayfish either. They die. One day or maybe two,
tops. I hear people eat them too, though."
     "Really?"
     "Yeah. Some do. In Louisiana or Florida or some-place."
     We looked down into the can.
     "I don't know," she said, smiling. "There's not a whole lot to eat
down there."
     "Let's get some big ones."
     We lay across the Rock side by side. I took the can and slipped
both hands into the brook. The trick was to turn the stones one at a
time, slowly so as not to muddy the water, then have the can there ready
for whatever scooted out from under. The water was so deep I had my
shirt sleeve shirt rolled all the way up to my shoulders. I was aware of
how long and skinny my arms must look to her. I know they looked that
way to me.
     I felt pretty strange beside her, actually. Uncomfortable but
excited. She was different from the other girls I knew, from Denise or
Cheryl on the block or even the girls at school. For one thing she was
maybe a hundred times prettier. As far as I was concerned she was
prettier than anyone I knew. Probably she was smarter than the girls I
knew too, more sophisticated. She lived in New York City after all and
had eaten lobsters. And she moved just like a boy. She had this strong
hard body and easy grace about her.
     All that made me nervous and I missed the first one. Not an
enormous crayfish but bigger than what we had. It slipped backward
beneath the Rock.
     She asked if she could try. I gave her the can.
     "New York City, huh?"
     "Yup."
     She rolled up her sleeves and dipped down into the water. And that
was when I noticed the scar.
     "Jeez. What's that?"
     It started just inside her left elbow and ran down to the wrist
like a long pink twisted worm. She saw where I was looking.
     "Accident!" she said. "We Were in a car." Then she looked back into
the water where you could see her reflection shimmering.
     "Jeez."
     But then she didn't seem to want to talk much after that.
     "Got any more of 'em?" 
     I don't know why scars are always so fascinating to boys but they
are, it's a fact of life, and I just couldn't help it. I couldn't shut
up about it. Even though I knew she wanted me to, even though we'd just
met. I watched her turn over a rock. There was nothing under it. She did
it correctly though; she didn't muddy the water. I thought she was
terrific. 
     She shrugged.
     "A few. That's the worst."
     "Can I see 'em?"
     "No. I don't think so."
     She laughed and looked at me a certain way and I got the message.
And then I did shut up for a while.
     She turned another rock. Nothing.
     "I guess it was a bad one? The accident?"
     She didn't answer that at all and I didn't blame her. I knew how
stupid and awkward it sounded, how insensitive, the moment I said it. I
blushed and was glad she wasn't looking.
     Then she got one.
     The rock slid over and the crayfish backed night out into the can
and all she had to do was bring it up. She poured off some water and
tilted the can toward the sunlight. You could see that nice gold colour
they have. Its tail was up and its pincers waving and it was stalking
the bottom of the can, looking for somebody to fight.
     "You got her! First try!" 
     "Great! She's really great."
     "Let's put her in with the others."
     She poured the water out slowly so as not to disturb her or lose
her exactly the way you were supposed to, though nobody had told her,
and then when there was only an inch or so left in the can, plunked her
into the bigger can. The two that were already in there gave her plenty
of room. That was good because crayfish would kill each other. Sometimes
they'd kill their own kind, and the two others were just    little guys.
     In a while the new one calmed down and we sat there watching her.
She looked primitive, efficient, deadly, beautiful. Very pretty colour
and very sleek of design.
     I stuck my finger in the can to stir her up again.
     "Don't."  Her hand was on my arm. It was cool and soft.
     I took my finger out again.
     I offered her a stick of Wrigley's and took one myself.
     Then all you could hear for awhile was the wind whooshing through
the tall thin grass across the embankment and rustling the brush along
the brook and the sound of the brook running fast from last night's
rain, and us chewing.
     "You'll put them back, right? You promise?"
     "Sure. I always do."
     "Good."
     She sighed and then stood up.
     "I've got to get back I guess. We've got shopping to do. But I
wanted to look around first thing. I mean, we've never had a woods
before. Thanks, David. It was fun."
     She was halfway across the stones by the time I thought to ask her. 
 "Hey! Back where? Where are you going?"
     She smiled. "We're staying with the Chandlers. Susan and I. Susan's
my sister."
     Then I stood too, like somebody had jerked me to my feet on
invisible strings.
     "The Chandlers? Ruth? Donny and Willie's mom?"
     She finished crossing and turned and stared at me. And something in
her face was different now all of a sudden. Cautious.
     It stopped me.
     "That's right. We're cousins. Second cousins. I'm Ruth's niece I
guess."
     Her voice had gone odd on me too. It sounded flat-like there was
something I wasn't supposed to know. Like she was telling me something
and hiding it at the same time.
     It confused me for a moment. I had the feeling that maybe it
confused her too.
     It was the first time I'd seen her flustered even including the
stuff about the scar.
     I didn't let it bother me though.
     Because the Chandlers' house was right next door to my house, and
Ruth was...well, Ruth was great. Even if her kids were creepy sometimes.
Ruth was great.
     "Hey!" I said. "We're neighbours! Mine's the brown house next
door!" I watched her climb the embankment. I especially watched her ass.
When she got to the top she turned and her smile was back again, the
clean open look she'd had when she first sat down beside me on the Rock. 
    She waved. "See you, David." 
     "See you, Nola." 
     Neat, I thought. Incredible. I'll be seeing her all the time.
     It was the first such thought I'd had about the Game since last
year.
     That day, on that Rock. I met my adolescence head-on in the person
of Nola Augustine, a stranger, older than me, with a sister, a secret,
long red hair, great boobs and a nice ass. That, I think, said much for
our future possibilities and, of course, for hers. 
     When I think of her that day...I still get turned on.                               CHAPTER 2

     Early the following morning I walked next door.
     I was feeling shy about it, a little awkward, and that was pretty
unusual because nothing could have been more natural than to see what
was going on over there.
     It was morning. It was summer, and that was what you did. You got
up, ate breakfast and then you went outside and looked around to see who
was where. The Chandler place was the usual place to start. Laurel Ave
was a dead end street. A single shallow cut into the half circle of
woodland that bordered the south side of West Maple and ran back for
maybe a mile behind it. When the road was first cut during the early
1800's the woods were so thick with tall first-growth timber they called
it Dark Lane. That timber was all gone by now but it was still a quiet,
pretty street. Shade trees everywhere, each house different from the one
beside it and not too close together like some you saw.
     There were still only thirteen homes on the block. Ruth's, ours,
five others going up the hill on our side of the street and six on the
opposite.
     Every family but the Zorns had kids. And every kid knew every other
kid like he knew his own brother. So if you wanted company you could
always find some back by the brook or the crab apple grove or up in
somebody's yard whoever had the biggest plastic pool that year or the
target for bow and arrow. If you wanted to get lost that was easy too.
The woods were deep. The Dead End Kids, we called ourselves. It had
always been a closed circle. We had our own set of rules, our own
mysteries, our own secrets. We had a pecking order and we applied it
with a vengeance. We were used to it that way.
     But now there was somebody new on the block. Some body new over at
Ruth's place.
     It felt funny.
     Especially because it was that somebody.
     Especially because it was that place.
     If felt pretty damn funny indeed.
     Ralphie was squatting out by the rock garden. It was  maybe eight
o'clock and already he was dirty. There were  streaks of sweat and grime
all over his face and arms and  legs like he'd been running all morning
and falling down in deep clouds of dust. Falling frequently. Which he
probably had, knowing Ralphie. Ralphie was ten years old and I don't
think I'd ever seen him clean for more than fifteen minutes in my life.
His shorts and T-shirt were crusty too.
     "Hey Woofer."
     Except for Ruth, nobody called him Ralphie-always Woofer. When he
wanted to he could sound more like the Robertsons' basset hound Mitsy
than Mitsy could.
     "Hiya, Dave."
     He was turning over rocks, watching potato bugs and thousand-
leggers scurry away from the light. But I could see he wasn't interested
in them. He kept moving one rock after the other. Turning them over,
dropping them down again. He had a Libby's lima' beans can beside him
and he kept on shifting that too, keeping it close beside his scabby
knees as he went from rock to rock.


     "What's in the can?"
     "Nightcrawlers," he said. He still hadn't looked at me. He was
concentrating, frowning, moving with that jerky nervous energy that was
patented Woofer. Like he was a scientist in a lab on the brink of some
incredible fantastic discovery and he wished you'd just leave him the
hell alone to get on with it.
     He flipped another rock.
     "Donny around?"
     "Yep." He nodded.
     Which meant that Donny was inside. And since I felt kind of nervous
about going inside I stayed with him awhile. He upended a big one. And
apparently found what he was after.
     Red ants. A swarm of them down there beneath the rock-hundreds,
thousands of them. All going crazy with the sudden light.
     I've never been fond of ants. We used to put up pots of water to
boil and then pour it on them whenever they decided it would be nice to
climb the front-porch steps over at our place-which for some reason they
did about once every summer. It was my dad's idea, but I endorsed it
entirely. I thought boiling water was just about what ants deserved.
     I could smell their iodine smell along with wet earth and wet cut
grass.
     Woofer pushed the rock away and then reached into the Libby's can.
He dug out a nightcrawler and then a second one and dumped them in with
the ants.  
     He did this from a distance of about three feet. Like he was
bombing the ants with worm meat. The ants responded. The worms began
rolling and bucking as the ants discovered their soft pink flesh.
     "Sick, Woofer," I said. "That's really sick."
     "I found some black ones over there," he said. He pointed to a rock
on the opposite side of the porch. "You know, the big ones. Gonna
collect 'em and put 'em in with these guys here. Start an ant war. You
want to bet who wins?"
     "The red ants will win, " I said. "The red ants always win" 
     It was true. The red ants were ferocious. And this game was not new
to me.
     "I got another idea," I said. "Why don't you strip and crawl
through the ant hill? Pretend you're Son of Kong or something."
     He looked at me. I could tell he was considering it. Then he
smiled.
     "Naw," he said. "That's retarded. But you could make a prisoner do
it." 
     I got up. The worms were still squirming.
     "See you, Woof," I said. 
     I climbed the stairs to the porch. I knocked on the screen door and
went inside.
     Donny was sprawled on the couch wearing nothing but a pair of
wrinkled white slept-in boxer shorts. He was only three months older
than I was but much bigger in the chest and shoulders and now, recently,
he was developing a pretty good belly, following in the footsteps of his
brother, Willie. It was not a beautiful thing to see and I wondered
where Nola was now.
     He looked up at me from a copy of Weird Tales.
     Personally I'd pretty much quit most comics since the Comic Code
came in and you couldn't get Web of Mystery anymore.
     "How you doin', Dave?"
     Ruth had been ironing. The board was leaning up in a  corner and
you could smell that sharp musky tang of clean, superheated fabric.
     I looked around. 
     "Pretty good. Where's everybody?"
     He shrugged. "Went shopping."
     "Willie went shopping? You're kidding."
     He closed the comic and got up, smiling, scratching his armpit.
     "Naw. Willie's got a nine-o'clock appointment with the dentist.
Willie's got cavities. Ain't it a killer?"
     Donny and Willie had been born an hour and a half apart but for
some reason Willie had very soft teeth and Donny didn't. He was always
at the dentist's.
     We laughed.
     "I hear you met her."
     "Who?"
     Donny looked at me. I guess I wasn't fooling anybody.
     "Oh, your cousin. Yeah. Down by the Rock yesterday. She caught a
crayfish first try."
     Donny nodded. "She's good at stuff," he said.
     It wasn't exactly enthusiastic praise, but for Donny-and especially
for Donny talking about a girl-it was pretty respectful.
     "C'mon," he said. "Wait here while I get dressed and  we'll go see
what Eddie's doing."
     I groaned.
     Of all the kids on Laurel Avenue Eddie was the one I tried to stay
away from. Eddie was crazy. I remember Eddie walking down the street
once in the middle of a stickball game we were playing naked to the
waist with a big live black snake stuck between his teeth. Nature Boy.
He threw it at Woofer, who screamed, and then at Billy Borkman. In fact
he kept picking it up and throwing it at all the little kids and chasing
them waving the snake until the concussion of hitting the road so many
times sort of got to the snake eventually and it wasn't much fun
anymore.
     Eddie got you in trouble.
     Eddie's idea of a great time was to do something dangerous or
illegal, preferably both-walk the crossbeams of a house under
construction or pelt crab apples at cars from the bridge--and maybe get
away with it. If you got caught or hurt that was okay, that was funny.
It he got caught or hurt it was still funny.
     Linda and Betty Martin swore they saw him bite off the head of a
frog once. Nobody doubted it.
     His house was at the top of the street on the opposite side from
us, and Tony and Lou Morino, who lived next door, said they heard his
father giving him the strap all the time. Practically every night. His
sister got it too. 
     My dad said Mr. Crocker was nice enough sober but a mean drunk. I
didn't know about that but Eddie had inherited his father's temper and
you never knew when it would go off on you. When it did, he was as
likely to pick up a stick or a rock as use his hands. We all bore the
scars some where. I'd been on the receiving end more than once. Now I
tried to stay away.
     Donny and Willie liked him though. Life with Eddie was  exciting,
you had to give him that much. Though even they knew Eddie was crazy. 
Around Eddie they got crazy too.
     "Tell you what," I said. "I'll walk you up. But I'm not  gonna hang
around up there."
     "Ahh, come on."
     "I've got other stuff to do."
     "What stuff"
     "Just stuff."
     "What're you gonna do, go home and listen to your mother's Perry
Como records?"
     I gave him a look. He knew he was out of line.
     He laughed.
     "Suit yourself. Just wait up a minute. I'll be right there."
     He went down the hall to his bedroom and it occurred to  me to
wonder how they were working that now that Nola and Susan were there,
just who was sleeping where. I walked over to the couch and picked up
his comic. I flipped the pages and put it down again. Some girl was
getting hers from a monster. Then I wandered from the living room to the
dining area where Ruth's clean laundry lay folded on the table and
finally into the kitchen. I opened the Frigidaire. As usual there was
food for sixty.
     I called to Donny. "Okay to have a Coke?"
     "Sure. And open one for me, will ya?"
     I took out the Cokes, pulled open the right-hand drawer and got the
bottle opener. Inside the silverware was stacked all neat and tidy. It
always struck me as weird how Ruth had all this food all the time yet
had service only for five-five spoons, five forks, five knives, five
steak knives, and no soup spoons at all. Of course except for us Ruth
never had any company that I knew of. But now there were six people
living there. I wondered if she'd finally have to break down and buy
some more.
     I opened the bottles. Donny came out and I handed him one. He was
wearing jeans and sneakers and a T-shirt. The T-shirt was tight over his
belly. I gave it a little pat there.
     "Better watch it," I said.
     "Better watch it yourself, homo."
     "Oh, that's right, I'm a homo, right?"
     "You're a retard is what you are."
     "I'm a retard? You're a shank." 
     "Shank? Girls are shanks. Girls and homos are shanks. You're the
shank." He punctuated it with a punch to the arm which I returned, and
we jostled a little.
     Donny and I were as close to best friends as boys got.
     We went out through the back door into the yard, then around the
driveway to the front, and started up to Eddie's. It was a matter of
honour to ignore the sidewall. We walked in the middle of the street. We
sipped our Cokes. There was never any traffic anyway.
     "Your brother's maiming worms in the rock garden," I told him.  He
glanced back over his shoulder. "Cute little fella, ain't he."
     "So how do you like it?" I asked him. "Having Nola and her sister
around?"
     He shrugged. "Don't know. They just got here." He took a swig of
Coke, belched, and smiled. "That Nola's pretty cute, though, ain't she?
Shit! My cousin!"
     I didn't want to comment, though I agreed with him.
     "Second cousin, though, you know? Makes a difference. Blood or
something. I dunno. Before, we never saw'em."
     "Never?" ,
     "My mom says once. I was too young to remember.
     "What's her sister like?"
     "Susan? Like nothing. Just a little kid. What is she, eleven or
something?"
     "Woofer's only ten."
     "Yeah, right. And what's Woofer?"
     You couldn't argue there.
     "Got messed up a little in that accident, though."
     "Susan?"
     He nodded and pointed to my wrist. "Yeah. Broke. 
     "Jeez."
     We finished our Cokes. We were almost at the top of the hill. It
was almost time for me to leave him there. That or suffer Eddie.
     "They both died, y'know," he said.
     Just like that.
     I knew who he meant, of course, but for a moment I just couldn't
get my mind to wrap around it. Not right away. It was much too weird a
concept. Parents didn't just die. Not on my street. and certainly in
places more dangerous than Laurel Avenue. That happened in movies or in
books. You heard about it on Walter Cronkite.
     Laurel Avenue was a dead-end street. You walked down the middle of
it.
     But I knew he wasn't lying. I remembered Nola not wanting to talk
about the accident or the scars and me pushing.
     I knew he wasn't lying but it was hard to handle.
     We just kept walking together, me not saying anything, just looking
at him and not really seeing him either.
     Seeing Nola.
     Suddenly it was not just that she was pretty or smart or able to
handle herself crossing the brook-she was almost unreal. Like no one I'd
ever met or was likely to meet outside of books or the Matinee. Like she
was fiction, some sort of heroine.
     I pictured her back by the Rock and now I saw this person who was
really brave lying next to me. I saw horror. Suffering, survival,
disaster.
     Tragedy.
     All this in an instant.
     Probably I had my mouth open. I guess Donny thought I didn't know
what he was talking about.
     "Nola's parents, numbnuts. Both of'em. My mom says they must have
died instantly. That they didn't know what hit'em. "He snorted. "Fact
is, what hit'em was a Chrysler."
     And it may have been his rich bad taste that pulled me back to
normal.
     "I saw the scar on her arm," I told him.
     "Yeah, I saw it, too. Neat, huh? 
     My mom says they're  lucky to be alive."
     "She probably is."
     "Anyhow that's how come we've got'em. There isn't anybody else.
It's us or some orphanage somewhere." He smiled. "Lucky them,?"
     And then he said something that came back to me later. At the time
I guessed it was true enough, but for some reason I remembered it. I
remembered it well. He said it just as we got to Eddie's house.
     "My mom says Nola's the lucky one," he said. "My mom says she got
off easy. For now."
                               CHAPTER 3

      Directly across from us not half a block away was an old six room
schoolhouse called Central School where we all used to go as little
kids, grades one through five. They held the Carnival there on the
playground every year. Ever since we were old enough to be allowed to
cross the street we'd go over and watch them set up.
     For that one week, being that close, we were the luckiest kids in
town.
     Only the concessions were run by the Kiwanis--the food stands, the
game booths, the wheels of fortune. The rides were all handled by a
professional touring company and run by carnies. To us the carnies were
exotic as hell. Rough looking men and women who worked with cigarettes
stuck between their teeth. squinting against the smoke curling into
their eyes, sporting tattoos and calluses and scars and smelling of
grease and old sweat. They cursed, they drank beer as they worked. like
us, they were not opposed to spitting in the dirt.
     We loved the Carnival and we loved the carnies. You had to. In a
single summer afternoon they would take our playground and transform it
from a pair of baseball diamonds, a blacktop, and a soccer field into a
brand new city of canvas and whirling steel. They did it so fast you
could hardly believe your eyes. It was magic, and the magicians all had
gold tooth smiles and "I love Velma" etched into their biceps.
Irresistible.
     It was still pretty early and when I walked over they were still
unpacking the trucks.
     This was when you couldn't talk to them. They were too busy. Later
while they were setting up or testing the machinery you could hand them
tools, maybe even get a sip of beer out of them. The local kids were
their bread and butter after all. They wanted you to come back that
night with friends and family and they were usually friendly. But now
you just had to watch and keep out of the way.
     Cheryl and Denise were already there, leaning on the backstop fence
behind home plate and staring through the links.
     I stood with them.
     Things seemed tense to me. You could see why. It was only morning
but the sky looked dark and threatening. Once a few years ago it had
rained every night of the Carnival except Thursday. Everybody took a
beating when that happened. The grips and carnies worked grimly now, in
silence.
     Cheryl and Denise lived up the street across from one another. They
were friends but I think only because lived near each other. They didn't
have much in common. Cheryl was a tall skinny brunette who would
probably be pretty a few years later but now she was all arms and legs,
taller than I was and two years younger. She had two brothers Kenny and
Malcolm. Malcolm was just a little kid who sometimes played with Woofer.
Kenny was almost my age but a year behind me in school.
     All three kids were very quiet and well-behaved. Their parents, the
Robertson's, took no shit but I doubt that by nature they were disposed
to give any.
     Denise was Eddie's sister. Another type entirely.
     Denise was edgy, nervous, almost as reckless as her brother, with
a marked propensity toward mockery. As though all the world was a bad
joke and she was the only one around who knew the punch line.
     "It's David," she said. And there was the mockery, just pronouncing
my name. I didn't like it but I ignored it. That was the way to handle
Denise. If she got no rise she got no pay-off and it made her more
normal eventually.
     "Hi Cheryl. Denise. How're they doing?"
     Denise said, "I think that's the Tilt-a-Whirl there. Last  year
that's where they put the Octopus."
     "It could still be the Octopus," said Cheryl.
     "Unh-unh. See those platforms?" She pointed to the wide sheets of
metal. "The Tilt-a-Whirl's got platforms. Wait till they get the cars
out. You'll see."
     She was right. When the cars came out it was the Tilt-a-Whirl. Like
her father and her brother Eddie, Denise was good at mechanical things,
good with tools.
     "They're worried about rain," she said.
     "They're worried." said Cheryl. "I'm worried!" She sighed in
exasperation. It was very exaggerated. I smiled.There was always
something sweetly serious about Cheryl.You just knew her favourite book
was Alice in Wonderland.
     The truth was, I liked her.
     "It won't rain," Denise said.
     "How do you know?"
     "It just won't." Like she wouldn't let it.
     "See that there?" She pointed to a huge gray and white truck
rolling to the centre of the soccer field. "I'll bet that's the Ferris
wheel. That's where they had it last year and the year before. Want to
see?"
     "Sure," I said.
     We skirted the Tilt-a-Whirl and some kiddie boat rides they were
unloading, walked along the cyclone fence that separated the playground
from the brook, cut through a row of tents going up for the ring-toss
and bottle-throw and whatever, and came out onto the field. The grips
had just opened the doors to the truck. The painted grinning clown head
on the doors was split down the middle. They started pulling out the
girders.
     It looked like the Ferris wheel all right.
     Denise said, "My dad says somebody fell off last year in Atlantic
City. They stood up. You ever stand up?"
     Cheryl frowned. "Of course not."
     Denise turned to me.
     "I bet you never did, did you?"
     I ignored the tone. Denise always had to work so hard to be such a
brat all the time.
     "No," I said. "Why would I?"
     "Cause it's fun!"
     She was grinning and she should have been pretty when she grinned.
She had good white teeth and a lovely, delicate mouth. But something
always went wrong with Denise's smile. There was always something manic
in it. Like she really wasn't having much fun at all despite what she
wanted you to think.
     It also disappeared too fast. It was unnerving.
     It did that now and she said so only I could hear, "I was thinking
about The Game before."
     She looked straight at me very wide-eyed and serious like there was
something more to come, something important. I waited. I thought maybe
she expected me to answer. I didn't. Instead, I looked away toward the
truck.
     The Game, I thought. Great.
     I didn't like to think about The Game. But as long as Denise and
some of the others were around I supposed I'd have to.
     It started early last summer. A bunch of us--me, Donny, Willie
Woofer, Eddie, Tony and Lou Morino, and finally, later Denise--used to
meet back by the apple orchard to play what we called Commando. We
played it so often that soon it was just "The Game."
     I have no idea who came up with it. Maybe Eddie or the Morino's. It
just seemed to happen to us one day and from then on it was just there.
     In The Game one guy was "it." He was the Commando. His "safe"
territory was the orchard. The rest of us were a platoon of soldiers
bivouacked a few yards away up on a hill near the brook where, as
smaller kids, we'd once played King of the Mountain.
     We were an odd bunch of soldiers in that we had no weapons. We'd
lost them, I guess, during some battle. Instead it was the Commando who
had the weapons--apples from the orchard, as many as he could carry.
     In theory he also had the advantage of surprise. Once he was ready
he'd sneak from the orchard through the brush and raid our camp. With
luck he could bop at least one of us with an apple before being seen.
The apples were bombs. If you got hit with an apple you were dead, you
were out of the game. So the object was to hit as many guys as you could
before getting caught.
     You always got caught.
     That was the point.
     The Commando never won.
     You got caught because, for one thing, everybody else was sitting
on a fairly good-sized hill watching and waiting for you, and unless the
grass was very high and you were very lucky, you had to get seen. So
much for the element of surprise. Second, it was seven against one, and
you had just the single "safe" base back at the orchard yards away. So
here you were firing wildly over your shoulder running like crazy back
to your base with a bunch of kids like a pack of dogs at your heels, and
maybe you'd get one or two or three of them but eventually they'd get
you.
     And as I say, that was the point.
     Because the captured Commando got tied to a tree in the grove, arms
tied behind his back, legs hitched together.
     He was gagged. He was blindfolded.
     And the survivors could do anything they wanted to him while the
other--even the "dead" guys--looked on.
     Sometimes we all went easy and sometimes not.
     The raid took maybe half an hour.
     The capture could take all day. 
     At the very least, it was scary.
     Eddie, of course, got away with murder. Half the time you were
afraid to capture him. He could turn on you, break the rules, and The
Game would become a bloody, violent free-for-all. Or if you did catch
him there was always the problem of how to let him go. If you'd done
anything to him he didn't like it was like setting free a swarm of bees.
     Yet it was Eddie who introduced his sister.
     And once Denise was part of it the complexion of The Game changed
completely.
     Not at first. At first it was the same as always. Everybody took
turns and you got yours and I got mine except there was this girl there.
     But then we started pretending we had to be nice to her.  Instead
of taking turns we'd let her be whatever she wanted to  be. Troops or
Commando. Because she was new to The game, because she was a girl.
     And she started pretending to this obsession with getting of us
before we got her. Like it was a challenge to her. Every day was really
going to be the day she won at commando.
     We knew it was impossible. She was a lousy shot for one thing.
     Denise never won at Commando.
     She was twelve years old. She had curly brown-red hair and her skin
was lightly freckled all over.
     She had the small beginnings of breasts, and thick pale prominent
nipples.
     I thought of all that now and fixed my eyes on the truck,  the
workers and the girders.
     But Denise wouldn't leave it alone.
     "It's summer," she said. "So how come we don't play?"
     She knew damn well why we didn't play but she was right too in a
way--what had stopped The Game was nothing more than that the weather
had gotten too cold. That and the guilt of course.
     "We're a little old for that now, I lied." 
     She shrugged. "Uh-huh. Maybe. And maybe you guys are chicken."
     "Could be. I've got an idea, though. Why don't you ask your brother
if he's chicken."
     She laughed. "Yeah. Sure. Right."
     "Cheryl wants to play too," she smirked. "More girls, more fun."
     "Ask your brother," I said. 
     The sky was growing darker.
     "It's going to rain," said Cheryl, looking a little embarrassed. 
     The men certainly thought so. Along with the girders, they were
hauling out canvas tarps, spreading them out in the grass just in case.
They were working fast, trying to get the big wheel assembled before the
downpour. I recognized one of them from last summer, a wiry blond
southerner named Billy Bob or Jimmy Bob something who had handed Eddie
a cigarette he asked for. That alone made him memorable. Now he was
hammering pieces of the wheel together with a large ballpeen hammer,
laughing at something the fat man said beside him. The laugh was high
and sharp, almost feminine.
     You could hear the ping of the hammer and the trucks' gears
groaning behind us, you could hear generators running and the grinding
of machinery and then a sudden staccato pop, rain falling hard into the
field's dry hard-packed dirt.
     "Here it comes!"
     I took my shirt out of my jeans and pulled it up over my head.
Cheryl and Denise were already running for the trees.
     My house was closer than theirs. I didn't really mind the rain. But
it was a good excuse to get out of there for a while. Away from Denise.
     I just couldn't believe she wanted to talk about The Game. And
invite Cheryl.
     You could see the rain wouldn't last. It was coming down too fast,
too heavily. Maybe by the time it was over some of the other kids would
be hanging around. I could lose her.
     I ran past them huddled beneath the trees.
     "Going home!" I said. Denise's hair was plastered down over her
cheeks and forehead. She was smiling again. Her shirt was soaked dear
through.
     I saw Cheryl reach out to me. That long bony wet arm dangling. "Can
I play next time?" 
     I pretended I didn't hear. 
     The rain was pretty loud over there in the leaves. I figured Cheryl
would get over it. I kept running.
     Denise and Eddie, I thought. Boy. What a pair.
     If anybody is ever gonna get me into trouble it'll be them.
     One or the other or both of them. It's got to be.
     Ruth was on the landing taking in the mail from her mailbox as I
ran past her house. She turned in the doorway and smiled and waved to
me, as water cascaded down the eaves.                               CHAPTER 4

     "I'll tell you one thing I don't like," she said.
     She said it almost in a whisper, like maybe she expected somebody
to hear and then report to someone else and as though we were
confidants, equals, co-conspirators.
     I liked that a lot. I leaned in close.
     "What?" I said.
     "That basement," she said. "I don't like that at all. That
shelter."
     I knew what she meant.
     In his day Willie Chandler Sr. had been very handy.
     Handy and a little paranoid.
     So that I guess when Khrushchev told the United Nations, "We will
bury you, "Willie Sr. must have said something like the fuck you will
and built himself a bomb shelter in the basement.
     It was a room within a room, eight by ten feet wide and six feet
high, modeled strictly according to government specifications. You went
down the stairs from their kitchen, walked past the stuff stored beneath
the stairs and the sink and then the washer and dryer, turned a corner
and walked through a heavy metal bolted door--originally the door to a
meat locker-and you were inside a concrete enclosure at least ten
degrees colder than the rest of the place, musty-smelling and dark.
There was one electrical outlet and two light fixtures.
     Willie had nailed girders to the kitchen floor beams and supported
them with thick wooden posts. He had sandbagged the only window on the
outside of the house and covered the inside with heavy half-inch
wire-mesh screening. He had provided the requisite fire extinguisher,
battery-operated radio, axe, crowbar, battery lantern, first-aid kit and
bottles of water. Cartons of canned food lay stacked on a small heavy
handmade hardwood table along with a sterno stove, a travel alarm clock
and an air pump for blowing up the mattresses rolled in the corner.
     All this built and purchased on a milkman's salary.
     He even had a pick and shovel there, for digging out after the
blast. The one thing Willie omitted and that the government recommended
was a chemical toilet.
     They were expensive. And he'd left before getting around to that.
Now the place was sort of ratty-looking-food supplies raided for Ruth's
cooking, the extinguisher fallen off its wall mount, batteries dead in
the radio and lantern, and the items themselves filthy from solid years
of grim neglect. The shelter reminded Ruth of Willie. She was not going
to clean it.
     We played there sometimes, but not often.
     The place was scary.
     It was as though he'd built a cell there-not a shelter to keep
something out but a dark black hole to keep something in. And in a way
its central location informed the whole cellar. You'd be down there
drinking a Coke talking with Ruth while she did her laundry and you'd
look over your shoulder and see this evil-looking bunker sort of thing,
this squat concrete wall, constantly sweating, dripping, cracked in
places. As though the wall itself were old and sick and dying.
     We'd go in there occasionally and scare each other.
     That was what it was good for. Scaring each other. And nothing much
else. We used it sparingly.                                         CHAPTER 5

     "I'll tell you, what's missing from that godamm carnival's a good
old-fashioned harem dance!"
     It was Tuesday night, the second night of carnival and Ruth was
watching a game show on television. She held a beer in one hand and a
cigarette in the other and sat low in the big overstuffed chair by the
fireplace, her long legs stretched out on the hassock, barefoot.
     Woofer glanced up at her from the door. "What's a harem dance?"
     "Harem dance, harem dance. Dancin'girls, Ralphie. That and the
freak show. When I was your age we had both. I saw a man with three arms
once."
     Willie looked at her. "Nah," he said.
     But you could see she had him going.
     "Don't contradict your mother. I did. I saw a man with three
arms-one of'em just a little bitty thing coming out of here."
     She raised her arm and pointed to her armpit neatly shaved and
smooth inside the dress. Willie and Woofer looked at her intently. 
     We sat around the Zenith in an irregular circle,  Woofer on the
carpet next to Ruth, me and Willie and Donny on the couch, and Eddie
squatting directly in front of the television so that Woofer had to
shift to see around him. Times like this you didn't have to worry about
Eddie. If anybody could control him Ruth could.
     "What else?" asked Willie.  "What other stuff did you see?" ,
     He ran his hand over his oily hair--He was always doing that. I
guess he enjoyed the feel of it. 
     "Mostly things in bottles. In formaldehyde. Little shrunken
things-goats, cats. All kinds of stuff. That's going back a long time.
I don't remember. I do remember a man that must have weighed five, six
hundred pounds, though. Took three other fellas to haul him up. Fattest
damn thing I ever saw or ever want to see."
     We laughed, picturing the three guys having to help him up. We all
knew Ruth was careful of her weight.
     "I tell you, carnivals were something when I was a girl."
     She sighed.
     You could see her face go calm and dreamy-looking then the way it
did sometimes when she was looking back-way back. All the way back to
her childhood. I always liked watching her then. I think we all did. The
face seemed to soften and for somebody's mother, she was almost
beautiful.
     "Ready yet?" asked Woofer. It was a big thing for him tonight,
being able to go out to the carnival this late. He was eager to get
going.
     "Not yet. Finish your sodas. Let me finish my beer."
     She took a long deep pull on the cigarette, holding the smoke in
and then letting it out all in a rush. The only other person I knew who
smoked a cigarette as hard as Ruth did was Eddie's dad. She tilted the
beer can and drank. 
     "I wanna know about this harem dance," said Willie. He leaned
forward next to me on the couch, his shoulders turned inward, rounded.
     As Willie got older and taller his slouch got more pronounced. Ruth
said that if he kept on growing and slouching at this rate he was going
to be a hunchback. A six-footer.

     "Yeah," said Woofer. "What's it supposed to be? I don't get it."
     Ruth laughed. "It's dancing girls, I told you. Doncha know
anything? Half naked too, some of them."
     She pulled her dress up to halfway over her thighs, held it there
a moment, fluttered it at us, and then flapped it down again. The boys
looked at her legs then looked away, embarrassed. 
     "Skirts up to here," she said. "And little teeny brassieres and
that's not all--sometimes no brassiere. Maybe a ruby in the belly button
or some thing. With little dark red circles painted here, and here."
     She indicated her nipples, making slow circles with her fingers.
Then she looked at us.
     "What'd you think of that?"
     I felt myself flush.
     Woofer giggled.
     Willie and Donny were watching her intently. Eddie became very
interested.
     She laughed. "Well, I guess nothing like that's gonna be sponsored
by the good old Kiwanis, though, is it? Not those boys. Hell, they'd
like to. They'd love to! But they've all got wives. Damn hypocrites."
     Ruth was always going on about the Kiwanis or the Rotary or
something. She was not a joiner. We were used to it.
     She drained her beer and stubbed out the cigarette.
     She got up.
     "Finish your drinks, boys," she said. "Let's go. Let's get out of
here. 
     "Nola? Nola Augustine!"
     She walked into the kitchen and dropped her empty beer can in the
garbage pail.
     Down the hall the door to her room opened and Nola stepped out,
looking a little wary at first--I thought . I guessed it was Ruth's
shouting. Then her eyes settled on me and she smiled.
     So that was how they were working it, I thought. Nola and Susan
were in Ruth's old room. It was logical because that was the smaller of
the two. But it also meant that either Ruth was bunking on the
convertible sofa or with Donny and Woofer and Willie I wondered what my
parents would say to that.
     "I'm taking these boys out for popcorn over at the fair, Nola. You
take care of your sister and keep yourself out of the kitchin. Don't
want you getting fat on us."
     "Yes, ma'am."
     Ruth turned to me.
     "David," she said, "you know what you ought to do? You ought to go
say hi to Susan. You never met and it's not polite."
     "Sure. Okay."
     Nola led the way down the hallway ahead of me. Their door was to
the left opposite the bathroom, the boys' room straight on. I could hear
soft radio music coming from behind the door. Nola opened the door and
we went inside.
     When you're thirteen, little kids are little kids and that's about
it. You're not even supposed to notice them, really. They're like bugs
or birds or squirrels or somebody's roving house cat--part of the
landscape but so what. Unless of course it's somebody like Woofer you
can't help but notice.
     I'd have noticed Susan though.

     I knew that the girl on the bed looking up at me from her copy of
Screen Stories was eleven years old--Nola had told me that-but she
looked a whole lot older. 
     Except for the bright blue eyes it was almost like meeting Nola.
The same long silky auburn hair and soft delicate features, the same
look of sad long-time vulnerability. Like someone cast ashore.
     "You're David," she said.
     I nodded and said hi.
     The green eyes studied me. The eyes were intelligent. Warm too. And
now she seemed both younger and older than eleven.
     I smiled.
     She looked at me a moment more and smiled back at me and then went
back to the magazine. Nola stood watching from the doorway. I didn't
know what to say.
     I walked back down the hall. The others were waiting. I could feel
Ruth's eyes on me. I looked down at the carpet. "There you go," she
said. "Cute, isn't she?"                               CHAPTER 6

     Two nights after the carnival a bunch of us slept out together.
     We begged our parents aloud and frequently until finally our
parents said it would be okay if we camped out as long as it was under
supervision-meaning in somebody's backyard. So that was what we did.
     I had a tent so it was always my backyard. Personally, I preferred
my own. My yard ran straight back into thick deep woods, spooky and dark
at night with the shadows of elm, birch and maple trees and wild with
sounds of crickets and frogs from the brook. It was that and a lot more.
Not that we did much sleeping.
     At least that night we didn't.
     Since dusk we'd been lying there telling sick jokes and reading
Playboy in a tent that was built for four--me, Donny, Willie, Kenny
Robertson and Eddie.
     Woofer was being punished for playing with his plastic soldiers in
the wire-mesh incinerator in the yard again otherwise he might have
whined long enough and loud enough to make us take him too. But Woofer
had this habit.He'd hang his knights and soldiers from the mesh of the
incinerator and watch their arms and legs burn slowly along with the
trash, imagining God knows what, the plastic dripping, the soldiers
curling, the black smoke pluming up.
     Ruth hated it when he did that. The toys were expensive and they
made a mess all over her incinerator.
     There wasn't any beer but we had canteens and thermoses full of
Kool-Aid so that was all right. Eddie had half a pack of his father's
unfiltered cigarettes and we'd close the tent flaps and pass one around
now and then. We'd wave away the smoke. Then we'd open the flaps again
just in case my mom came out to check on us--though she never did.
     Donny rolled over beside me and you could hear a candy wrapper
crush beneath his bulk.
     That evening when the truck came by we'd all gone out to the street
to stock up.
     Now, no matter who moved, something crackled.
     Willie was on the other side of me over against the tent. I could
smell--occasionally and unpleasantly, his sweat and his bad breath. 
     "My old man's into Playboy," Eddie said. "Buys it every month. So
I hock it off him outa his drawer, read the jokes, check the broads, and
put it back again. He never knows. No sweat."
     "You better hope he never knows," said Kenny.
     Eddie looked at him. Kenny lived across the street from him and we
all knew that Kenny knew that Eddie's dad used the strap on him and his
sister.
     "No shit," said Eddie. There was warning in his voice. You could
almost feel Kenny edge away. He was just a skinny little guy but he had
some status with us because he already had the downy dark beginnings of
a mustache.
     "You get to see all of'em?" asked Kenny.
     "Jeez. I hear there was one with Margot Kidder."
     "Not all of'em," said Eddie.
     He lit a cigarette so I closed the flaps again.
     "I saw that one, though," he said.
     "Honest?"
     "Sure did." 
     He took a drag on the cigarette, being very cool about it. Willie
sat up next to me and I could feel his big flabby belly press softly
into my back. He wanted the cigarette but Eddie wasn't passing just yet.
     "Biggest tits I've ever seen," he said.
     "Bigger than Barbara Streisand's?" 
     "Shit! Much bigger." he said. Then he and Donny and Kenny cracked
up laughing-though actually it shouldn't have been all that funny. 
     "Tell us about Barbara. You see her nipples?"
     "Sure you do. She's got this great body and these little juicy
pointy nipples on these great big tits and this great ass. But her legs
are skinny."
     "Fuck her legs!" said Donny.
     "You fuck'em," said Eddie. "I'll fuck the rest of her."
     "You got it!" said Kenny. "God. Nipples and everything! Amazing."
     Eddie passed him the cigarette. He took a quick drag and then
passed it on to Donny.
     "The thing is," Kenny said, "she's a movie star. You got to wonder
why she'd do that kind of thing."
     "What kind of thing?" Donny asked.
     "Show her tits that way in a magazine."
     We thought about it.
     "Well, she's not really a movie star," Donny said. "I mean, Natalie
Wood's a movie star. Barbara Streisand's just sort of in some movies."
     "A starlet," said Kenny.
     "Naw," said Donny. "She's too fucking old to be a starlet. 
     "Anyway, you got to figure Playboy's not just a magazine, either,"
said Donny. "You know, it's Playboy. I mean, MariLyn Monroe was in
there. It's the greatest magazine ever."
     "You think? Better than Mad?" Kenny sounded sceptical.
     "Shit, yes. I mean, Mad's casual. But it's just for kids, you
know?"
     "What about Famous Monsters?" asked Kenny.
     That was a tough one. Famous Monsters had just appeared  and all of
us were crazy for it.
     "Sure," said Donny. He took a drag on the cigarette and smiled. The
smile was all-knowing. "Does Famous Monsters of Filmland show tits?" he
said.
     We all laughed. The logic was irrefutable.
     He passed the smoke to Eddie, who took a final drag and stubbed it
out on the grass, then flipped the butt into the woods.
     There was one of those silences where nobody had anything to say,
we were all off alone there somewhere.
     Then Kenny looked at Donny. "You ever really see it?" he said.
     "See what?"
     "Tit."
     "Real tit? "
     "Yeah."
     Donny laughed. "Eddie's sister."
     That got another laugh because everybody had.
     "I mean on a woman."
     "Nah."
     "Anybody?" He looked around.
     "My mother," said Kenny. You could tell he was shy about it.
     "I walked in one time, into her bathroom and she was putting her
bra on, for a minute I saw." 
     "A minute?" Donny was really into this.
     "No. A second."
     "Jeez. What was it like?"
     "What do you mean what was it like? It was my mother, for
chrisssake! You little pervert."
     "Hey, no offense, man."
     "Yeah. Okay. None taken."
     But all of us were thinking of Mrs. Robertson now. She was a
slim-waisted, long-legged woman but her breasts were pretty big. It was
at once difficult and interesting and slightly repulsive to try to
picture her that way.
     "I'll bet Nola's are nice," said Willie.
     It just hung there for a moment. But I doubt that any of us were
thinking about Mrs.Robertson any more.
     Donny looked at his brother.
     "Nola's?"
     "Yeah."
     You could see the wheels turning. But Willie acted as though Donny
hadn't understood. Trying to score points on him.
     "Our cousin, dope. Nola." 
     Donny just looked at him. Then he said, "Hey, what time's it?"
     Kenny had a watch. "Quarter to eleven."
     "Great!"
     And suddenly he was crawling out of the tent, and then he was
standing there. Peering in, grinning.
     "Come on! I got an idea!"      
     From my house to his all you had to do was cross the yard and go
through a line of hedge and some trees and you were right behind their
garage.
     There was a light on in the Chandler's bathroom window and one in
the kitchen and one in Nola and Susan's bedroom. By now we knew what he
had in mind. 1 wasn't sure I liked it but I wasn't sure I didn't,
either.
     Obviously, it was exciting. We weren't supposed to leave the tent.
If we got caught that would be the end of sleeping out and a lot of
other stuff as well.
     On the other hand, if we didn't get caught it was better than
camping. It was better than beer.
     Once you got into the mood of the thing, it was actually kind of
hard to restrain yourself from giggling.
     "No ladder," whispered Eddie. "How we gonna do this?"
     Donny looked around. "The birch tree," he said.
     He was right. Off to the left of the garage, about fifteen feet
from the house was a tall white birch bent badly by winter storm. It
drooped halfway down over the garage. 
     "We can't all climb it," said Kenny "It'lI break." 
     "So we'll take turns. Two at a time. 
     "Okay. Who's first?"
     "Hell, it's our tree." Donny grinned. "Me and Willie's first."
     I felt a little pissed at him for that. We were supposed to be best
friends. But then I figured what the hell, Willie was his brother.
     He sprinted across the lawn and Willie followed.
     The tree forked out into two strong branches. It was easy. The rest
of us followed. We had a good straight view into the bedroom and a fair
one into the bathroom.
     Willie kept changing position though, trying to get comfortable. 
It was easy to see how out of shape he was. He was awkward just handling
his own weight. 
     We watched the house, the kitchen window, looking for Ruth, hoping
not to see her.
     Eddie pulled out the pack of smokes and lit one.
     "Hey!" whispered Kenny. "They might see!"
     "You might be stupid," said Eddie. "You cup it under your hand.
Like this. Nobody sees."
     I was tying to make out Donny's and Willie's face but I couldn't.
They just lay there. 
     I hadn't been aware of the frogs or crickets but now I was, a
percussive drone in the silence. All you could hear was them and Eddie
pulling hard on the cigarette and exhaling and the occasional creak of
the birch tree. There were fireflies in the yard blinking on and off,
drifting.
     "See anything?"
     "Nothing," Willie said. It was surprising how angry he sounded. As
though it were Nola's fault for not showing. As  though she'd cheated
him. But then Willie always was an asshole.
     I looked at Donny. The light wasn't good back there but it seemed
to me he had that same intent, studied look as when he'd been looking at
Ruth talking about the harem girls and what they wore and didn't wear.
It was as though he were trying to figure something out and was a little
depressed because he couldn't get the answer.
     She'd be at the window any moment now and we'd see. It didn't
bother me at all that I was probably betray my Nola by spying on her. I
hardly even thought of her as Nola. It was as though it wasn't really
her that we were looking for. It was something more abstract than that.
A real live girl and not some black-and-white photo in a magazine. A
woman's body.I was finally going to learn something. What you had was a
case of greater priority.
     We settled in.
     I glanced at Kenny. He was grinning. It occurred to me to wonder
why the other guys had acted so prissy. This was fun! Even the fact that
you were scared was fun. Scared that Ruth would appear suddenly on the
porch, telling us to get our asses out of there. Scared that Nola would
look out the bathroom window straight into your eyes.
     I waited, confident.
     The bathroom light went off but that didn't matter. It was the
bedroom I was focused on. That's where I'd see her. Straight-on. Naked.
Flesh and blood, and someone I actual even knew a bit slightly. I
refused to even blink.I could feel a tingling down below where I pressed
against the tree.
     Wild, I thought. I'm lying here in this tree. She's in there. I
waited. The bedroom light went out. Suddenly the house went dark.




     I could have smashed something. And now I knew exactly how the
others had felt and exactly why they'd looked so mad at her, mad at Nola
because it felt like it was her fault, as though she was the one who'd
got us up here in the first place and promised so much and then
delivered nothing. And while I knew this was irrational and dumb of me
that was exactly how I felt all the same.
     Bitch, I thought.
     And then I did feel guilty. Because that was personal. That was
about Nola.
     And then I felt depressed.
     It was as though part of me knew-didn't want to believe it or even
think about it but knew all along.I was never going to get that lucky.
It had been bullshit from the beginning.
     Just like Eddie said.
     And somehow the reason for that was all wrapped up with Nola and
with girls and women in general, even with Ruth and my mother somehow.
     It was too big for me to grasp entirely so I suppose my mind just
let it slide.
     What remained was depression and a dull ache.
     "Come on," I said to Kenny. He was staring at the house, still not
believing it, like he was expecting the lights to come right back on
again. But he knew too. He looked at me and I could tell he knew.
     All of us did.
     We trooped back silently to the tent.
     Inside it was Willie, finally, who put the canteen down and spoke.
     He said, "Maybe we could get her into The Game."
     We thought about that.
     And the night wound down.                               CHAPTER 7

     I knocked on the back screen door.
     Nobody answered.
     I opened it and walked inside.
     I heard them laughing right away. It was coming from one of the
bedrooms. Nola's was a kind of high-pitched squealing sound, Woofer's a
hysterical giggle. Willie and Donny's were lower, more masculine-
sounding.
     I wasn't supposed to be there-I was being punished. I'd been
working on a model of a B-52, a Christmas present from my father, and I
couldn't get one of the wheels on right. So I tried about three or four
times and then hauled off and kicked it to pieces against the bedroom
door. My mother came in and it was a whole big scene and I was 
grounded.
     My mother was out shopping now. For a moment at least, I was free.
     I headed for the bedrooms.
     They had Nola up against the bedroom wall in a corner by the
window.
     Donny turned around.
     "Hey, David! She's ticklish! Nola's ticklish!" And then it was like
there was this prearranged signal because they all went at her at once,
going for her ribs while she twisted and tried to push them away and
then doubled over, elbows down to cover her ribs, laughing, her long red
ponytail swinging.
     "Get her!"
     "Get her, Willie!"
     I looked over and there was Susan sitting on the bed, and she was
laughing too.
     "Owww!"
     I heard a slap. I looked up.
     Nola's hand was covering her breast and Woofer had his own hand up
to his face where the redness was spreading and you could see he was
going to cry. Willie and Donny stood away.
     "What the hell!"
     Donny was mad. It was fine if he belted Woofer but he didn't like
it if anybody else did.
     "You bitch!" said Willie.
     He took an awkward open-handed swing at the top of her head. She
moved easily out of his way. He didn't try again.
     "What'd you have to do that for?"
     "You saw what he did!"
     "He didn't do nothin."
     "He pinched me."
     "So what."
     Woofer was crying now. "I'm telling!" he howled.
     "Go ahead," said Nola.
     "You won't like it if I do," said Woofer.
     "I don't care what you do. I don't care what any of you do." She
pushed Willie aside and walked between them past me down the hall into
the living room. I heard the front door slam.
     "Little bitch," said Willie. He turned to Susan. "Your sister's a
goddamn bitch." Susan said nothing. He moved toward her though and I saw
her flinch.
     "You see that?"
     "I wasn't looking," I said.
     Woofer was sniffling. There was snot running all down his chin.
     "She hit me!" he yelled. Then he ran past me too.
     "I'm telling Ma," said Willie.
     "Yeah. Me too said Donny. She can't get away with that." 
     Donny nodded.
     "She really whacked him."
     "Well, Woofer touched her tit."
     "So what. He didn't mean to."
     "You could get a shiner like that."
     "He could still get one."
     "Bitch."
     There was all this nervous energy in the room. Willie and Donny
were pacing like pent-up bulls. Susan slid off the bed. 
     "Where you going?" said Donny.
     "I want to see Nola," she said quietly.
     "Screw Nola. You stay here. You saw what she did, didn't you?"
     Susan nodded.
     "All right then. You know she's gonna get punished, right?"
     He sounded very reasonable, like an older brother explaining
something very patiently to a not-too-bright sister. She nodded again.
     "So you want to side with her and get punished too?" 
     "No."
     "Then you stay right here, okay?"
     "All right."
     "Right in this room."
     "All right."
     "Let's find Ma," he said to Willie.
     I followed them out the bedroom through the dining room and out the
back door. 
     Ruth was around back of the garage, weeding her patch of tomatoes.
She wore shorts and a blouse that was much too big for her. The scoop of
the neck hung open wide.
     She never wore a bra. I stood over her and I could see her breasts
almost to the nipple. They were big and pale and they trembled as she
worked. I kept glancing away, afraid she'd notice, but my eyes always
headed back there. 
     "She did?" She didn't seem concerned. She just kept weeding.
     "Slapped him," said Donny.
     "Why?"
     "We were just fooling around."
     "Everybody was tickling her," said Willie. "So she hauls off and
clobbers him in the face. Just like that."
     She tugged out a patch of weeds. The breasts shook. They had
gooseflesh on them. I was fascinated. She looked at me and my eyes got
to hers just in time.
     "You like to tickle her too, David?"
     "Huh?"
     "Tickling Nola?"
     She smiled. 
     She got to her knees and then stood up and pulled off the dirty
work gloves.
     "Where's she now?"
     "Don't know," said Donny. "She ran out the door."
     "How about Susan?"
     "She's in the bedroom."
     "She saw all this?"
     "Yeah."
     "Okay."
     She marched across the lawn toward the house and we followed.
Woofer and I watched her hips. At the porch she wiped her hands over her
hips. She pulled off the scarf that bound her short brown hair and shook
it free.
     I figured I had maybe twenty minutes before my mother came home
from shopping so I went inside. I had to see what was going to happen.
     We followed her into the bedroom. Susan sat right where we left her
on the bed looking at a magazine. 
     "Susan? Where's Nola?"
     "I don't know."  She left."
     Ruth sat down next to her on the bed. 
     "Now I'm told you saw what happened here, that right?"
     "Yes, Woofer touched Nola and she hit him."
     "Touched her?"
     Susan nodded and placed her hand over her chest. 
     "Here," she said.
     Ruth just stared for a moment. Then she said, "And did you try to
stop her?"
     "Stop Nola you mean?"
     "Yes. From hitting Ralphie."
     Susan looked bewildered. "I couldn't. It was too fast, Woofer
touched her and then right away Nola hit him."
     "You should have tried, honey." She patted her head again. "Nola's
your sister."
     "Yes."
     "You hit somebody in the face and it can do all kinds of things.
You could miss and break an eardrum, poke out an eye. That's dangerous
behaviour."
     "Yes, I know."
     "And you know what it means to be in connivance with somebody who
does that kind of thing?"
     She shook her head.
     "It means you're guilty too, even though maybe you didn't do
anything in particular. You understand me?"
     "I don't know."
     Ruth sighed. "Let me explain to you. You love your sister, right?"
     Susan nodded.
     "And because you love her, you'd forgive her something like this,
wouldn't you?  Like hitting Ralphie?"
     "She didn't mean to hurt him. She just got mad!"
     "Of course she did. So you'd forgive her, am I right?"
     " Uh-huh." 
     Ruth smiled




     "Well now you see that's just plain wrong. That just what puts you
in connivance with her. What she did wasn't right, it's bad behaviour,
and you forgiving her just because you love her. that's not right
either. You got to stop this sympathizing, Suzie. It doesn't matter that
Nola's your sister. Right's right. You got to remember that if you want
to get along in life. Now you just slip over the side of the bed here,
pull up your dress and slide down your underpants."
     Susan stared at her. Wide-eyed, frozen.
     Ruth got off the bed. She unbuckled her belt.
     "C'mon," she said. "It's for your own good. I got to teach you
about connivance. You see, Nola's not here for her share. So you got to
get it for both of you. Your share's for not saying, hey, cut that out,
Nola-sister or no sister. Right's right. Her share's for doing it in the
first place. So you come on over here now. Don't make me drag you."
     Susan just stared. It was as though she couldn't move.
     "Okay," said Ruth. "Disobedience is another thing."
     She reached over and firmly-though not what you'd call roughly-
took Susan by the arm and slid her off the bed. Susan began to cry. Ruth
turned her around so she faced the bed and leaned her over. Then she
pulled up the back of her red dress and tucked it into her waistband.
     Willie snorted, laughing. Ruth shot him a look.
     She pulled down the white cotton panties, down around her ankles.
     "We'll give you five for conniving, ten for Nola. And ten for
disobeying. Twenty-five."
     Susan was really crying now. I could hear her. I watched the stream
of tears roll down across her cheek. I felt suddenly excited. I never
seen anyone, especially a girl get it before.  We all got it though.
Some impulse from Donny and Willie told me the same. Ruth must have seen
that.
     "You can stay and watch, boys. Girls just cry. There's nothing you
can do about it. But this is for her own good and you being here's a
part of it and I want you to stay."
     The belt was leather. It was gonna hurt. We knew that.
     She doubled it over and raised it above her head. It whistled down. 
     Smack.
     Susan gasped and began crying in earnest, loudly. 
     Her behind was as pale as Ruth's breasts had been, covered with a
Fine thin platinum down. And now it trembled too. I could see a red spot
rise high on her left cheek. 
     I looked at Ruth as she raised the belt again. He lips were pressed
tight together. Otherwise she was expressionless, concentrating.
     The belt fell again and Susan howled.
     A third time and then a fourth, in rapid succession.
     Her ass was splotchy red now.
     A fifth.
     She seemed to be almost gagging on tears, her breath coming in
gulps.
     Ruth was swinging wider. Really getting in to it. We had to back
away.
     I counted. Six. Seven, Eight, nine, ten.
     Susan's legs were twitching. Her knuckles white where she gipped
the bedspread.
     I'd never heard such crying.
     But then of course that was part of it. She might just as well have
been tied there.
     And that made me think of The Game.
     Here was Ruth, I thought, playing The Game. I'll be goddamned.
And even though I winced every time the belt came down I just couldn't
get over it. The idea was amazing to me. An adult. An adult was playing
The Game. It wasn't the same exactly but it was close enough.
     And all of a sudden it didn't feel so forbidden any more.
     The guilt seemed to fall away. But the excitement of it remained.
I could feel my fingernails dig deep into the palms of my hands.
     I kept count. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
     There were tiny beads of perspiration across Ruth's upper lip and
forehead. Her strokes were mechanical. Fourteen. Fifteen. Her arm went
up. Beneath the belt-less, shapeless blouse I could see her bare belly
heave.
     "Wow!" 
     Woofer slipped into the room between me and Donny. 
     Sixteen.
     He was staring at Susan's red, writhing buttocks. "Wow he said
again."
     And I knew he was thinking what I was thinking-what we all were
thinking. Punishments were private. At my house they were at least. At
everybody's house, as far as I knew.
     This wasn't punishment. This was The Game..
     Seventeen. Eighteen...Nineteen, Twenty...
     She was going to get another five. Twenty-one, twenty-two,
twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five. It was over. 
     Susan fell to the floor.
     Ruth bent over her.
     She was sobbing, her whole body twitching now, head buried between
her arms, her knees drawn up tight to her chest. 
     Ruth was breathing heavily. She pulled up Susan's panties. She
lifted her up and slid her back on the bed, lying her on her side and
smoothing the dress down over her legs.
     "All right," she said softly. "That'll do. You just rest now. And
then we all just stood a moment, listening to the muffled sobbing. 
     Ruth looked around at each of us, then smiled. 
     I heard a car pull in next door.
     "Shit!" I said. "My mother!"
     I raced through the living room, out the door to the side of their
house and peered through the hedges. My mother was pulled in all the way
to the garage. She had the back of the car open and was bent over
lifting out bags of groceries. 
     I dashed across the driveway to our front door and ran up the
stairs into my room. I opened a magazine. 
     I heard the back door open.
     "What have you been doing?"
     "Nothing, reading.                                CHAPTER 8

     We spent the rest of the afternoon playing catch. 
     That was what we were doing when Nola came by again. 
     I noticed that her hair was just a little oily, like she hadn't
washed it that morning. She still looked nice though.
     "Want to do something?" she said. 
     "What?" I looked around. I guess I was afraid the others would
hear. 
     "I don't know. Go down by the brook?" 
     Donny threw me the ball. I pegged it at Willie. As usual he slumped
after it too slowly and missed. 
     "Never mind," said Nola. "You're too busy." She was irritated or
hurt or something. She started to walk away. 
     "No. Hey. Wait."    
     I couldn't ask her to play. It was hard ball and she had no glove. 
     "Okay, sure, We'll go down to the brook. Hang on a minute." 
     There was only one way to do this gracefully. I had to ask the
others.
     "Hey guys! Want to go down to the brook? Catch some crayfish or
something? It's hot here."  
     Actually the brook didn't sound bad to me. It was hot.       
     "Sure. I'll go," said Donny. Willie shrugged and nodded. 
     "Me too," said Denise.     
     "Great," I thought. Denise. Now all we need is Woofer and Cheryl.
     "Let's stop at the house," said Donny. "Get some jars for the
crayfish and a thermos of Kool-Aid." 
     We went in through the back door and you could hear the washing
machine going in the basement. 
      "Donny? That you?" 
     "Yeah, Ma." 
     He turned to Nola. "Get the Kool-Aid, will ya? I'll go down after
the jars and see what she wants." 
     I sat with Willie and Denise at the kitchen table. There were toast
crumbs on it and I brushed them onto the floor. There was also an
ashtray crammed with cigarette butts. I looked through the butts but
there was nothing big enough to crib for later.
     Nola had the thermos out and was carefully pouring lime  Kool- Aid
into it from Ruth's big pitcher when they came upstairs.
     Willie had two peanut butter jars and a stack of tin cans with him.
Ruth was wiping her hands on a towel. 
     She was wearing white shorts and a skimpy halter top. I sneaked a
long look. You could see the outline of her underpants. She smiled at us
and then looked over at Nola.
     "What are you doing?" she said. 
     "Just pouring out some Kool-Aid." 
     She dug into the pocket of her apron and took out a pack of smokes
and lit one. 
     "Thought I said stay out of the kitchen." 
     Donny wanted some Kool-Aid. It was Donny's idea." 
     "I don't care whose idea it was." 
     She blew out some smoke. 
     "It's only Kool-Aid," said Nola. 
     Ruth nodded. 
     "Question is," she said, taking another drag of the cigarette,
"question is, what did you sneak before I got here? Maybe some beer?" 
     Nola finished pouring and put down the pitcher. "Nothing," she
sighed. "I didn't sneak anything." 
     Ruth nodded again. "Come here," she said. 
     Nola just stood there. 
     "I said come over here." 
     She walked over. 
     "Open your mouth and let me smell your breath." 
     "What?" 
     Beside me Denise began to giggle. 
     "Don't sass me. Open your mouth." 
     "Ruth..." 
     "Open it." 
     "No!" 
     "What's that? What'd you say?" 
     "You don't have any right to..." 
     "I got all the right in the world. Open it." 
     "No!" 
     "I said open it, liar." 
     "I'm not a liar." 
     "Well..I know your a slut. "So I guess you're a liar too." Open
it!" 
     "No." 
     "Open your mouth!" 
     "No!" 
     "I'm telling you to." 
     "I won't." 
     "Oh yes you will. If I have to get these boys to pry it  open you
will." 
     Willie snorted, laughing. Donny was still standing in the doorway
holding the cans and jars. He looked excited. 
     "Open your mouth, slut."  
     That made Denise giggle again.  
     Nola looked Ruth straight in the eye. She took a breath. And for a
moment she suddenly managed an adult, almost stunning dignity. 
     "I told you Ruth," she said. "I said no!" 
     Even Denise shut up then. 
     We were astonished. 
     We'd never seen anything like it before. Kids were powerless.
Almost by definition. Kids were supposed to endure humiliation, or run
away from it. If you protested, it had to be oblique. You ran into your
room and slammed the door. You screamed and yelled. You brooded through
dinner. You acted out-or broke things accidentally on purpose. You were
sullen, silent. You screwed up in school. And that was about it. All the
guns in your arsenal. But what you did not do was you did not stand up
to an adult and say go fuck yourself in so many words. You did not
simply stand there and calmly say no. We were still too young for that.
So that now it was pretty amazing. 
     Ruth smiled and stubbed out her cigarette in the cluttered ashtray. 
    "I guess I'll go get Susan," she said. "I expect she's in her room."

     And then it was her turn to stare Nola down. It lasted a moment,
the two of them facing off like gunfighters. Then Nola's composure
shattered.   
     "You leave my sister out of this! You leave her alone!" Her hands
were balled up into fists, white at the knuckles. And I knew that she
knew, then, about the beating the other day. I wondered if there had
been other times, other beatings. But in a way we were relieved. This
was more like it. More like what we were used to. 
     Ruth just shrugged. 
     "No need for you to get all upset about it, Nola. I just want to
ask her if she knows about you raiding the fridge in between meals. If
you won't do what I ask, then I guess she'd be the one to know."  
     "She wasn't even with us!" 
     "I'm sure she's heard you, honey. I'm sure the neighbours have
heard you. Anyhow, sisters know, don't they. Sorta instinctive, really." 
    She turned toward the bedroom. "Susan?" 
     Nola reached out and grabbed her. And it was like she was a whole
other girl now, scared, helpless and desperate.
     "God damm you!" she said. 
     You knew right away it was a mistake. 
     Ruth whirled and smacked her. 
     "You touch me? You touch me, dammit?" 
     She slapped her again as Nola backed away, and again as she
stumbled against the refrigerator, off balance, and fell to her knees.
Ruth leaned over and gripped her jaw, pulling on it hard.
     "Now you open your goddamn mouth, you hear me? Or I'll kick the
living shit out of you and your precious little sister. You hear me?
Willie? Donny?" 
     Willie got up and went to her. Donny was grinning. 
     "Hold her." 
     I felt frozen. Everything was happening so fast. I wanted in. I was
aware of Denise sitting next to me, goggle-eyed. 
     "I said hold her." 
     Willie got out of his seat and took her right arm and I guess Ruth
was hurting her where she held tight to her jaw because she didn't
resist. Donny put his jars and cans on the table and took hold of her
left arm. Two of the cans rolled off the table and clattered to the
floor.  
     "Now open, tramp." 
     And then Nola did fight, trying to get to her feet, bucking and
rolling against them, but they had her tight. Willie was enjoying
himself, that was obvious. Donny too. Ruth had both hands on her now,
trying to pry her jaws apart. 
     Nola bit her. 
     Ruth yelled and stumbled back. Nola squirmed to her feet. Willie
twisted her arm behind her back and yanked it up. She yelled and doubled
over and tried to pull away, shaking her left arm hard to get it away
from Donny in a kind of simultaneous panic and she almost made it.
Donny's grip was uncertain enough, she almost got it free. 
     Then Ruth stepped forward again. 
     For an instant she just stood there, studying her, looking I guess
for an opening. Then she balled up a fist and hit her in the stomach
exactly the way a man would hit a man, and nearly as hard. What you
heard was like somebody punching a basketball. 
     Nola fell, choking, and gasped for breath. 
     Donny let her go. 
     "Jesus!" whispered Denise beside me. 
     Ruth stepped back. 
     "You want to fight?" she said. "Okay. Fight." 
     Nola shook her head. 
     "You don't want to fight? No?" 
     She shook her head. 
     Willie looked at his mother. 
     "Too bad," he said quietly. 
     He still had her arm. And now be started twisting. She  doubled
over. 
     "Willie's right," said Ruth. "It is too bad. Come on, Nola honey,
fight. Fight him." 
     Willie twisted. She jumped with the pain and gasped and shook her
head a third time. 
     "Well I guess she just won't do it," said Ruth. "This girl don't
want to do anything I say today." 
     She shook the hand Nola had bitten and examined it. 
     From where I sat it was just a red spot. Nola hadn't broken the
skin or anything. 
     "Let her go," said Ruth. 
     He dropped her arm. Nola slumped forward. She was crying.
     I'd pretended I didn't like to watch. 
     I saw Susan standing in the hall, holding on to the wall, looking
frightened, standing around the corner. Eyes riveted on her sister. 
     "I gotta go," I said in a voice that sounded strangely thick to me. 
    I was aware of Ruth watching me. 
     I got up. I didn't want to go by Nola for some reason.  Instead I
walked past Susan to the front door. She didn't seem to notice me. 
     "David," said Ruth. Her voice was very calm.
     "Yes?" 
     "Just between us here. You saw what you saw. But it's nobody's
business but ours. You know? You understand?" 
     I hesitated, then nodded. 
     "Good boy," she said. "I knew you would. I knew you'd understand.
You're always welcome here, you know." 
     I walked outside. It was a hot, muggy day. Inside it had been
cooler. 
     I walked back to the woods, cutting away from the path to the brook
and into the deeper woods behind the Morino house. 
     It was cooler there. It smelled of pine and earth. I kept seeing
Nola slumped over, crying. And then I'd see her standing in front of
Ruth looking her coolly in the eye saying I told you I said no. For some
reason these alternated with remembering an argument with my mother
earlier that week. You're just like your father, she'd said. I'd
responded furiously. Not nearly as well as Nola had. I'd lost it. I'd
raged. I'd hated her. I thought about that now in a detached kind of way
and then I thought about all this other stuff today. 
     It had been an amazing morning. But it was as though everything
cancelled everything. I walked through the woods.  I was excited about
next time at Ruth's.                                CHAPTER 9

     You could get from my house to the 7-eleven through the woods by
crossing the brook at the Big Rock and then walking along the far bank
past two old houses and a construction site, and I was coming home that
way the next day with a Three Musketeers, some red licorice and some
bubble gum which I'd stolen. 
     I heard  Nola scream. I knew it was her. It was just a scream. It
could have been anybody's. But I knew. I got quiet. I moved along the
bank. 
     She was standing on the Big Rock. Willie and Woofer must have
surprised her there with her hand in the water because her sleeve was
rolled up and the brook water beaded her forearm. Woofer was holding a
long switch and he must have cut her across the backs of her bare legs. 
     Now they were pelting her with stones. Woofer's aim, at least, was
good. But then Willie was aiming for the head. A harder target. He
always went wide. While Woofer hit her first on her bare knee and then,
when she turned, in the centre of the back.
     She turned again and saw them pick up more rocks. Woofer fired
again. He hit the water spraying her legs.
     There was nowhere for her to go except into the brook. She couldn't
have scaled the high bank beside me, at least not in time. So that was
what she did.
     She went into the water.
     The brook was running fast that day and the bottom was covered with
mossy stones. I saw her trip and fall almost immediately while another
rock smashed into the water nearby.
     She hauled herself up, gasping and wet to the shoulders, and tried
to run. She got four steps and fell again.
     Willie and Woofer were howling, laughing so hard they forgot to
throw their rocks any more.
     I could see the outline of her breasts through the wet blouse.
     She got up and this time kept her footing and splashed downstream.
When she turned the corner there was good heavy thicket to cover her.
     It was over. Amazingly nobody had seen me. They still didn't. I
felt like a ghost. 
     I watched them walk off laughing down the path to their  house. I
could hear them all the way, voices gradually fading.
     Assholes, I thought. They're having all the fun
     I crossed carefully across the Rock to the other side.                              CHAPTER 10

     Nola fought back.
     It was dusk, a warm night gracefully fading to dark, and there were
hundreds of us out there on blankets in Memorial Field in front of the
high school waiting for the fireworks to start.
     Donny and I sat with my parents--I'd invited him over for dinner
that night-and they sat with their friends the Henderson's, who lived
two blocks away.
     The Henderson's were Catholic and childless, which right away meant
that something was wrong, though nobody seemed to know what it was
exactly. Mr. Henderson was big and outdoorsy and given to plaid and
corduroy, what you'd call a man's man, kind of fun. He raised beagles in
his backyard and let us shoot his BB guns sometimes when we went over.
Mrs.Henderson was thin, blond, pug-nosed, and pretty. Donny once said he
couldn't see the problem. He'd have fucked her in a minute.
     From where we sat we could see Willie, Woofer, Nola, Susan and Ruth
across the field sitting next to the Morino family.
     The entire town was there.
      If you could walk or drive or crawl you came to the fireworks.
Apart from the Parade it was our one big spectacle of the year.
     And pro forma the cops were there. Nobody really expected any
trouble. The town was still at the stage where   everybody knew
everybody, or knew somebody else who did. You went out and left your
door open all day in case somebody came by and you weren't there.
     The cops were family friends, most of them. My dad knew them from
the bar or from the VFD. Mostly they were just making sure that nobody
threw cherry bombs too near the blankets. Standing around waiting for
the show like the rest of us. Donny and I listened to Mr. Henderson who
was talking about the beagles' new litter and drank iced tea from the
thermos. We liked it. 
     The public-address system blared.
     A quarter-moon was up over the high school building. In the dim
gray light you could see little kids chasing each other through the
crowd. People were lighting sparklers. Behind us a full pack of two
inchers went off like machine-gun fire. 
     We decided to get some ice cream.
     The ice-cream truck was doing a bang-up business, kids wading in
four deep. We gradually pushed our way through without getting stepped
on. I got a Brown Cow and Donny got a Fudgesicle and we hauled ourselves
back out again.
     Then we saw Nola by the side of the truck, talking to Mr. Jennings.
     And it stopped us dead in our tracks.
     Because Mr. Jennings was also Officer Jennings. He was a cop.
     And there was something in the way she was acting, gesturing with
her hands, leaning forward sort of into him, so that we knew right away
what she was saying.
     It was scary, shocking.
     We stood there rooted to the spot.
     Nola was telling. Betraying Ruth. Betraying Donny and everybody.
     She was facing away from us.


     For a moment we just stared at her and then as if on cue we looked
at each other. 
     Then we went over. Eating our ice creams. Very casually.
     We stood right beside her off to one side.
     Mr. Jennings glanced at us for a second but then looked off in the
general direction of Ruth and Willie and the others, and then, nodding,
listening carefully, looked attentively back to Nola.
     We worked studiously at the ice creams. We looked around.
     "Well, that's her right, I guess," he said.
     "No," said Nola." You don't understand."
     But then we couldn't hear the rest of it.
     Mr. Jennings smiled and shrugged. He put a big freckled hand on her
shoulder.
     "Listen," he said. "For all I know maybe your parents would've felt
exactly the same. Who's to say'? You've got to think of Miz Chandler as
your mom now, don't you?"
     She shook her head.
     And then he became aware of us, I think, really aware of Donny and
me and who we were for the first time and what we might mean in terms of
the conversation they were having there. You could see his face change.
But Nola was still talking, arguing.
     He watched us over her shoulder--looked at us long and hard.
     Then he took her arm.
     "Let's walk," he said.
     I saw her glance nervously in Ruth's direction, but it was getting
hard to see by now, pretty much full dark with only the moon and stars
and the occasional sparkler to see by, so there wasn't much chance that
Ruth had noticed them together. From where I stood the crowd was already
a shapeless mass like scrub and cactus studding a prairie. I knew where
they were sitting but I couldn't make them out or my parents and the
Henderson's either.
     But you knew perfectly well why she was scared. I felt  scared
myself. What she was doing felt exciting and forbidden, exactly like
trying to see her through the window's from the garage roof. 
     Mr. Jennings turned his back to us and gently moved her away. 
     "Shit," said Donny. 
     I heard a whoosh. The sky exploded. Bright white puff balls popped
and showered down.
     Oooooooo, went the crowd.
     And in the ghostly white light of the aftershock I looked at him.
I saw confusion and worry.
     "What are you going to do? " I asked him.
     He shook his head.
     "He won't believe her," he said. "He won't do nothin'. Cops talk
but they never do anything to you."
     It was like something Ruth had said to us once. Cops talk but they
never do. He repeated it now as we walked back to our blankets like an
article of faith. Like it had to be. Almost like a prayer.                              CHAPTER 11

     The prowl car pulled in around eight the following evening. I saw
Mr. Jennings walk up the steps and knock and Ruth let him in. Then I
waited, watching out my living-room window. Something turning over and
over in my stomach.
     My parents were at a birthday party at the Knights of Columbus and
my sitter was Linda, eighteen and freckled and, I thought, cute, though
nothing compared to Nola. At seventy-five cents an hour she couldn't
have cared less what I was doing so long as it was quiet and didn't
interfere with her watching TV.
     We had an agreement, Linda and I. I wouldn't tell about her
boyfriend coming over or the two of them necking on the sofa all night
and I could do pretty much whatever wanted on condition that I was home
in bed before my parents returned. She knew I was getting too old for
sitters anyhow.
     So I waited until the prowl car pulled away again and then I went
next door. It was about quarter to nine.
     They were sitting in the living room and dining room. All of them.
It was quiet and nobody moved and I got the feeling it had been that way
for a long time. Everybody was staring at Nola. Even Susan was.
     I had the strangest feeling. 
     It was a sense of escalation.
     That the stakes were higher now.
     I stood in the doorway. It was Ruth who acknowledged me.
     "Hello, David," she said quietly. "Sit down. Join us."
     Then she sighed. "Somebody get me a beer, will you?"
     Willie got up in the dining room and went into the kitchen, got a
beer for her and one for himself, opened them and handed one to her.
Then he sat down again.
     Ruth lit a cigarette.
     I looked at Nola sitting in a folding chair in front of the blank
gray eye of the television. She looked scared but determined. 
     "Well now," said Ruth. "Well now."
     She sipped the beer, smoked the cigarette.
     Woofer squirmed on the couch.
     I almost turned and went out again.
     Then Donny got up in the dining room. He walked over to Nola. He
stood there in front of her.
     "You brought a cop here after my mom," he said. "After my mother."
     Nola looked up at him. Her face rigid. 
     His hand shot up and slashed across her face. His hand was poised
in front of her, ready, trembling. It looked like it was all he could do
not to hit her again and a whole lot harder this time.
     She stared at him, aghast.
     "Sit down," Ruth said quietly.
     It was like he hadn't heard her.
     "Sit down!"
     He pulled himself away. He stalked back into the dining room. Then
there was a silence again.
     Finally Ruth leaned forward. "What I want to know is this. What did
you think, Nola? What went through your mind?"
     Nola didn't answer.

     "What I mean to say is, did you think he was gonna take you away
or something? You and Susan? Get you out of here?
     "Well I'll tell you it's not gonna happen. He's not gonna take you
anywhere, girlie. Because he doesn't care to. If he'd cared to he'd have
done it on the spot back at the fireworks and he didn't, did he?
     She sighed. "I guess I got to think about this," she said. Then she
got to her feet and walked into the kitchen. She opened the
refrigerator.
     "You get to your room. Susie too. And stay there."
     She reached for a beer and then laughed.
     "Before Donny gets to thinking he might come over and smack you
again."
     She opened the can of Budweiser.
     Nola took her sister's arm and led her into the bedroom.
     "You too, David," said Ruth. "You better get on home. Sorry. But I
got some difficult thinking to do."
     "That's okay."
     "You want a Coke or something For the road?" I smiled. For the
road. I was right next door.
     "No, that's okay."
     "Want me to sneak you a beer." 
     She had that old mischievous twinkle in her eye. The  tension
dissolved. I laughed. 
     "That'd be cool."
     She tossed me one. I caught it.
     "Thanks," I said.
     "Don't mention it," she said and this time all of us laughed,
because "don't mention it" was a code between us. It was always what she
said to us kids when she was letting us do something our parents
wouldn't want us to do or let us do in our own houses. Don't mention it.
     "I won't," I said.
     I stuffed the can into my shirt and went outside.
     When I got back to my house Linda was curled up in front of the TV
set. She looked sort of glum. I guessed that Steve wasn't showing up
tonight.
     "Night," I said and went up to my room.
     I drank the beer and thought of Nola. I wondered if I should try to
help her somehow. There was a conflict here. I was still attracted to
Nola and liked her but Donny and Ruth were much older friends. They
needed helping. Nola didn't. Kids got slapped, after all. Kids got
punched around. I wondered where this was going.
     "What do we do now?" said Ruth.
     I stared at my wall and began to wonder about that too.                              CHAPTER 12

      What Ruth decided was that, from then on, Nola was never allowed
to leave the house alone. Either she was with her, or Donny or Willie.
Mostly she didn't leave at all. So that I never had a chance to ask Nola
what she wanted done, if she wanted something done, never mind deciding
whether I'd actually do it or not.
     It was out of my hands. Or so I thought.
     That was a relief to me.
     If I felt that anything was lost--Nola's confidence, or even just
her company--I was never all that aware of it. I knew that things had
taken a pretty unusual turn next door and I guess I was looking for some
distance from it for a while, to sort things out for myself.
     So I saw less than usual of the Chandlers for the next few days and
that was a relief too. I hung around with Kenny and Denise and Cheryl,
and even with Eddie now and then when it felt safe.
     The street was buzzing with news of what was happening over there.
Sooner or later every conversation came back to the Chandlers. What made
it so incredible was that Nola had gotten the police involved. That was
the revolutionary act, the one we couldn't get over. Could you imagine
turning in an adult--especially an adult who might just as well have
been your mother to the cops? It was practically unthinkable. Yet it was
also fraught with potential. You could see Eddie in particular stewing
over the idea. Daydreaming about his father I guessed. A thoughtful
Eddie was not something we were used to either. It added to the
strangeness.
     But apart from the business with the cops ail anybody really knew
including me was that people were getting punished a lot over there for
seemingly little reason, but that was nothing new except that it was
happening at the Chandlers'. That and the fact that Willie and Donny
were participating. But even that didn't strike us as too odd.
     We had The Game as precedent.
     No, mostly it was the cops. And it was Eddie who, after a while,
had the final word on that subject.
     "Well, it didn't get her shit though, did it," he said.
     Thoughtful Eddie.
     But it was true. And strangely enough, in the course of the week
that followed our feelings slowly changed toward Nola as a result of
that. From admiration at the sheer all-or-nothing boldness of the act,
at the very concept of challenging Ruth's authority so completely and
publicly, we drifted toward a kind of vague contempt for her. How could
she be so dumb as to think a cop was going to side with a kid against an
adult, anyway? How could she fail to realize it was only going to make
things worse? How could she have been so naive, so trusting, so stupid?
     The policeman is your friend. Horseshit. None of us would have done
it. We knew better.







     You could actually almost resent her for it. It was as though in
failing with Mr. Jennings she had thrown in all our faces the very fact
of just how powerless we were as kids. Being "just a kid " took on a
whole new depth of meaning, of ominous threat, that maybe we knew was
there all along but we'd never had to think about before. Shit, they
could dump us in a river if they wanted to. We were just kids. We were
property. We belonged to our parents, body and soul. It meant we were
doomed in the face of any, real danger from the adult world and that
meant hopelessness, and humiliation and anger. 
     It was as though in failing herself Nola had failed us as well. 
     So we turned that anger outward. Toward Nola.
     I did too. Over just that couple of days I flicked a slow mental
switch. I stopped worrying. I turned off on her entirely.
     Fuck it, I thought. Let it go where it goes.
     Where it went was to the basement.                              CHAPTER 13

     The day I finally did go over and knock on the door nobody
answered, but standing on the porch I was aware of two things. One was
Susan crying in her room loud enough to hear her through the screen. The
other was downstairs. A scuffling. Furniture scraping roughly across the
floor. Muffled voices. Grunts, groans. A whole rancid danger in the air.
     The shit, as they say, was hitting the fan.
     It's amazing to me how eager I was to get down there.
     I took the stairs two at a time and turned the corner. I knew where
they were.
     At the doorway to the shelter Ruth stood watching. She smiled and
moved aside to let me by.
     "She tried to run away," she said. "But Willie stopped her."
     They were stopping her now all right, all of them. Willie and
Woofer and Donny all together, going at her like a tackle dummy against
the concrete wall, taking turns, smashing into her stomach.  She was
already long past arguing about it. All you heard was the whoosh of
breath as Donny hit her and drove her tightly folded arms into her
belly. Her mouth was set, grim. A hard concentration in her eyes.  
     And for a moment she was the heroine again. Battling the odds.
     But just for a moment. Because suddenly it was clear to me again
that all she could do was take it, powerless. And lose. And I thought at
least it's not me.
     If I wanted to I could even join them. 
     For that moment, thinking that, I had power.
     That sense of power.
     It didn't occur to me to consider that this was only a power
granted to me by Ruth, and perhaps only temporary. It was quite real
enough. As I watched, the distance between Nola and me seemed suddenly
huge, insurmountable. It was not that my sympathies toward her stopped.
But for the first time I saw her as essentially other than me. She was
vulnerable. I wasn't. My position was favoured here. Hers was as low as
it could be. Was this inevitable, maybe? I remembered her asking me, why
do they hate me? I didn't have any answer for her. Had I missed
something? Was there maybe one flaw in her I hadn't seen that
predetermined all of this? For the first time I felt that maybe Nola's
separation from us night be justified.
     I wanted to feel it was justified.
     Because it seemed to me that so much of this was strictly personal,
part of the nature of the world as I saw it. I've tried to think that it
was all the fault of my parents' warfare, of the cold blank calm I
developed in the centre of their constant hurricane. 
     No the truth is that it was me. That I'd been waiting for this, or
something like this, to happen all along. 
     And I asked myself: Whom did I hate? Whom and what did I fear?
     In the basement, with Ruth, I began to learn that anger, hate, fear
and loneliness are all one button awaiting the touch of just a single
finger to set them blazing toward destruction.
     And I leaned that they can taste like winning.
     I watched Willie step back. For once he didn't look clumsy. His
shoulder caught her squarely in the stomach, lifted her off her feet.
     I suppose her only hope was that one of them would miss and smash
his head against the wall. But nobody was going to. She was tiring.
There was nowhere to manoeuvre, no where to go. Nothing to do but take
it till she fell. And that would be soon now.
     Woofer got a running start. She had to bend her knees in  order not
to take it in the groin. Woofer's favourite target. 
     "Cry, goddammit!" Willie yelled. Like the others he was breathing
bard. He turned to me.
     "She won't cry," he said.
     "She don't care," said Woofer.
     "She'll cry," said Willie. "I'll make her."
     "Too much pride," said Ruth behind me. "Pride goes before a fall.
You ought to all remember that. Pride falls." Donny rammed at her.
     Football was his game. Her head snapped back against the cinder
block. Her arms fell open. The look in her eyes was glazed now. Woofer
caught her again low in the unprotected belly. 
     She slid a few inches down the wall.
     Then she stopped and held there.
     Ruth signed. 
     "That'll be enough for now, boys," she said. "You're not going to
get her to cry. Not this time."
     She held out her arm, beckoning.
     "Come on."
     You could see they weren't done yet. But Ruth sounded bored and
final.
     Then Willie muttered something about stupid whores, and one by one
they fled past us.
     I was last to leave. It was hard to take my eyes away. That this
could happen.
     I watched her slide down the wall to squat on the cold concrete
floor.
     I'm not sure she was ever aware of me.
     "Let's go," said Ruth, smiling at me. "You'll get your chance." 
     She closed the metal door and bolted it shut behind me.
     And Nola was left in there in the dark. Behind the door to a meat
locker.
     We went upstairs and poured some Cokes. Ruth got out cheddar cheese
and crackers. We sat around the dining room table.  I could still hear
Susan crying in the bedroom, softer now. Then Willie got up and turned
on the television and you couldn't hear her any more.
     We watched for a while.
     Ruth had a women's magazine open in front of her on the table. She
was smoking, flipping through the magazine, drinking from her Coke
bottle.
     She came to a photo--a bikini ad--and stopped.
     "I don't see it," she said. "The woman's ordinary. You see it?"
     She held up the magazine.
     Willie looked and shrugged and bit into a cracker. But I thought
the woman was pretty. About Ruth's age, maybe a little younger, but
pretty.
     Ruth shook her head. 
     "I see her everywhere I look, "she said, "I swear it. Everywhere.
Big model. And I just don't see it. A redhead. Maybe that's it. Men like
redheads. But hell, Nola's got red hair. And Nola's hair' prettier than
that, doncha think?" 

     I looked at the picture again I agreed with her.
     "I just don't see it," she said frowning. "Nola's definitely
prettier than that. A whole lot prettier."
     "Sure she is," sad Donny.
     "World's crazy," said Ruth. "It just don't make any sense to me at
all. The pretty ones are gonna get it good!" 
     She cut a slice of cheese and placed it on a cracker.
     "You bet," Woofer snickered.                               CHAPTER 14

     "We told her about The Game," said Donny.
     "Who?"
     "Ruth. My mom. Who else, shit-for-brains?"
     Donny was alone in the kitchen when I came in, making a peanut
butter sandwich that I guess was dinner that night. There were smears of
peanut butter and grape jelly and bread crumbs on the counter. Just for
fun I counted the sets of silverware in the drawer. There were still
only five.
     "You told her?"
     He nodded. "Woofer did."
     He took a bite of the sandwich and sat down at the dining-room
table, I sat across from him. There was a half-inch cigarette burn that
I hadn't seen before. 
     "Jesus. What'd she say?"
     "Nothin". It was weird It was like she knew, you know?"
     "Knew? Knew what?"
     "Everything. Like it was no sweat. Like she figured we were doing
it all along. Like every kid did."
     "You're kidding."
     "No. I swear."
     "Bullshit."
     "I'm telling you. All she wanted to know was who was with us so I
told her."
     "You told her? Me? Eddie? Everybody?"
     "Like I said she didn't care. Hey. Would you please not blow your
cool on this, Davy? It didn't bother her."
     "Denise? You told her about Denise too?"
     " Yeah. Everything."
     "You said she was naked?"
     I couldn't believe it. I'd always thought that Willie was the
stupid one. I watched him eat the sandwich. He smiled at me and shook
his head.
     "I'm telling you. You don't have to worry about it," he said.
     " Donny."
     "Really."
     "Donny."
     "Yes, Davy."
     "Are you nuts?"
     "No, Davy."
     "Do you realize for a goddamm second what would happen to me
if...?"
     "Nothing's going to happen to you, for God's sake.  Will you stop
being such a friggin' queer about it? It's my mom for God's sake.
Remember?" 
     "Oh that makes me feel just fine. Your mom knows we tie naked
little girls to trees. Great."
     He sighed. "David, if I'd known you were gonna be such an amazing
retard about it I wouldn't have told you."
     "I'm the retard, right?"
     "Yeah," He was pissed now. He popped the last gooey corner of the
sandwich into his mouth. He stood up. 

     "Look, jerk. What do you think is going on in the shelter right
now? Right this minute?"       
     I just looked at him. How did I know? Who cared?
     Then it dawned on me. Nola was there.
     "No," I said.
     "Yes," he said. He went to the refrigerator for a Coke.
     "Bullshit."
     He laughed. "Will you stop saying bullshit" Look, don't believe me.
Go take a look. Hell, I just came up for a sandwich."
     I ran downstairs. I could hear him laughing behind me.
     It was getting dark outside so the basement lights  were on, naked
bulbs over the washer/dryer and under the stairs and over the sump pump
in the corner.
     Willie was standing behind Ruth at the door to the shelter.
     They both had flashlights in their hands.
     Ruth lit hers and waved it at me once like a cop at a roadblock.
     "Here's Davy," she said.
     Willie gave me a glance. Who gives a shit.
     My  mouth was open. It felt dry. I licked my lips. I nodded to Ruth
and looked around the corner through the doorway. And it was hard to
comprehend at first, I guess, because maybe it was out of context, and
probably because it was Nola, and definitely because Ruth was there. It
felt dream-like, or like some game you play on Halloween when everyone
is in costume and nobody's quite recognizable as themselves even though
you know who they are. Then Donny came downstairs and slapped his hand
down on my shoulder. He offered me the Coke.
     "See?" he said. "I told you."
     I did see.
     They'd taken ten penny nails and driven them into the beams along
the ceiling-two nails, about three feet apart. They'd cut two lengths of
clothesline and tied Nola's wrist's and looped a line over each of the
nails and then run the lines down to the legs of the heavy worktable,
tying them off down there rather than up at the nail so that they could
be adjusted, tightened, just by untying each one and pulling it around
the loop and then tying it tighter again.
     Nola was standing on a small pile of books-three thick red volumes
of the World Book Encyclopedia.
     She was gagged and blindfolded.
     Her feet  were  bare. Her shorts and short-sleeve blouse were
dirty. In the space between the two, stretched out as she was, you could
see her navel.
     Nola was an inny.
     Woofer paced around in front of her running the beam of his
flashlight up and down her body.
     There was a bruise just under the blindfold on her left cheek.
     Susan sat on a carton of canned vegetables, watching. A blue strand
of ribbon made a bow in her hair.
     Off in the corner I could see a pile of blankets and an air
mattress. I realized Nola had been sleeping there. I wondered for how
long.
     "We're all here," said Ruth.                              CHAPTER 15

     A dim amber light bled in from the rest of the basement but mostly
it was just Woofer's beam in there and the shadows moved erratically
along with him when he moved, making things look strange and fluid and
ghostly. The wire mesh over the single high window seemed to shift back
and forth by subtle inches. The two four-by-four wooden posts supporting
the ceiling slid across the room at odd angles. The axe, pick, crowbar
and shovel stacked in the corner opposite Nola's bed appeared to switch
positions with one another, looming and shrinking as you watched,
shapeshifting. The fallen fire extinguisher crawled across the floor.
     But it was Nola's own shadow that dominated the room head back,
arms wide apart, swaying. It was an image straight out of all our horror
comics, out of The Black Cat with Lugosi and Karloff, out of Famous
Monsters of Filmland, out of every cheap twenty-five-cent paperback
historical thriller about the Inquisition ever written. Most of which I
figured we'd collected. It was easy to imagine torchlight, strange
instruments and processions, braziers full of hot coals. I shivered, not
at the chill but at the potential. 
     "The Game is she's got to tell," said Woofer. 
     "Okay. Tell what? " Ruth asked.
      "Tell anything. Something secret."
     Ruth nodded, smiling. "Sounds right. Only how's she going to do
that with the gag on?"
     "You don't want her to tell right away, Mom," said Willie. "Anyway,
you always know when they're ready."
     "You sure? You want to tell, Nola?" said Ruth. "You ready?"
     "She's not ready," insisted Woofer. 
     But he needn't have bothered. Nola didn't make a sound.
     "So now what? "Ruth asked. 
     Willie pushed off from the doorjamb where he was leaning and ambled
into the room. "Now we take a book away," he said. He bent over, pulled
out the middle one and stepped back. The ropes were tighter now. Willie
and Woofer both had their flashlights on. Ruth's was still at her side,
unlit. I could see some red around Nola's wrists from the pull of the
ropes. Her back arched slightly. The short-sleeve shirt rode up. She was
only just able to stand with her feet down flat on the two remaining
books and I could already see the strain in her calves and thighs. She
went up on her toes for a moment to take the pressure off her wrists and
then sank down again. Willie switched off his flashlight. It was
spookier that way. Nola just hung there, swaying slightly.
     "Confess," said Woofer. Then he laughed. "No. Don't, "he said.
     "Do another book," said Donny. 
     I glanced at Susan to see how she was taking this. She was sitting
with her hands folded in the lap of her dress and her face looked very
serious and she was staring intently at Nola but there was no way to
read what she was thinking or feeling at all. 
     Willie bent down and pulled out the book. She was up on the balls
of her feet now.  Still made no sound. The muscles of her legs defined
themselves sharply against her skin. 
     "Let's see how long she can go like that," said Donny "It's gonna
hurt after a while."  
     "Nah," said Woofer. "It's still too easy. Let's do the last one.
Get'er up on her tiptoes." 
     "I want to watch her a while see what happens." 
     But the fact was that nothing was happening. Nola seemed determined
to tough this out. And she was strong, 
     "Don't you want to give her a chance to confess? Isn't that the
idea?" asked Ruth. 
     "Nah," said Woofer. "Still too soon. C'mon. This is no good. Take
the other book, Willie." 
     Willie did. And then Nola did make some kind of sound behind the
gag, just once, a sort of tiny exhaled groan as all at once just
breathing became harder. Her blouse pulled up to right beneath her
breasts and I could see her belly rise and fall in an irregular laboured
rhythm against her rib cage. Her head fell back for a moment and then
came forward again. Her balance was precarious. She began to sway. Her
face flushed. Her muscles strained with tension. 
     We watched, silent. She was beautiful. The vocal sounds that
accompanied her breathing were coming more frequently now as the strain
increased. She couldn't help it. Her legs began to tremble. First the
calves and then the thighs. A thin sheen of sweat formed over her ribs,
glistened on her thighs. 
     "We should strip her," Donny said. 
     The words just hung there for a moment, suspended as Nola was
suspended, tipping a balance that was every bit as precarious. Suddenly
it was me who felt dizzy. 
     "Yeah," said Woofer. 
     Nola had heard. She shook her head. There was indignation, anger
and fear there. Sounds came from behind the gag. No, No, No. 
     "Shut up," said Willie. She started trying to jump, pulling on the
ropes, trying to throw them off the nails, squirming. But all she was
doing was hurting herself, chafing her wrists. She didn't seem to care.
She wasn't going to let it happen. She kept trying. "No. No." 
     Willie walked over and thumped her on the head with the book. She
slumped back, stunned. I looked at Susan. Her hands were still clasped
together in her lap but the knuckles were white now. She looked directly
at her sister, not at us. Her teeth were biting hard and steadily at her
lower lip. I couldn't watch her. I cleared my throat and found something
like a voice. 
     "Hey, uh...guys...listen, I don't really think..." Woofer whirled
on me. 
     "We've got permission!" he screamed. "We do! I say we take off her
clothes! I say strip her!" 
     We looked at Ruth. She stood leaning in the doorway, her arms
folded close into her belly. There was something keyed tight about her,
like she was angry or doing some hard thinking. Her lips pressed
together in a straight line. Her eyes never left Nola's body. Then
finally she shrugged.
     "That's The Game, isn't it?" she said.
     Compared with the rest of the house and even the basement it was
cool down there but now, suddenly, it didn't feel cool. Instead there
was a growing filmy closeness in the room, a sense of filling up, a
thickening,  a slow electric heat that seemed to rise from each of us
filling and charging the air, surrounding us, isolating us, yet somehow
mingling us all together too. You could see it in the way Willie stood
leaning forward, the World Book clutched in his hand.  In the way Woofer
edged closer, the beam of his flashlight less erratic now, lingering
caressing Nola's face, her legs, her stomach.  I could feel it from
Donny and Ruth beside me, seeping in and over and through me like some
sweet poison, a quiet knowledge shared. We were going to do this. We
were going to do this thing.
     Ruth lit a cigarette and threw the match on the floor.
     "Go ahead," she said.
     Her smoke curled into the shelter.
     "Who gets to do it?" said Woofer.
     "I do," said Donny.  
     He stepped past me. Both Woofer and Willie had their flashlights on
her now. I could see Donny dig into his pocket and bring out the
pocketknife he always carried there.  He turned to Ruth.
     "You care about the clothes, Ma?" he asked.
     She looked at him.
     "I won't have to do the shorts or anything,"  he said. "But..."
     He was right. The only way he was going to get the blouse off her
was to rip or cut it off.
     "No," said Ruth. I don't care."
     "Let's see what she's got," said Willie.
     Woofer laughed.
     Donny approached her, folding out the blade.
     "Don't start anything," he said. "I won't hurt you. But if you
start something we'll just have to hit you again. You know? It's
stupid."
     He unbuttoned the blouse carefully, pulling it away from her body
as though shy of touching her. His face was red. His fingers were
awkward. He was trembling.
     She started to struggle but then I guess thought better of it. The
unbuttoned the blouse hung shapeless over her. I could see she wore  a
white cotton bra underneath. For some reason that surprised me. Ruth
never wore a bra. I guess l'd assumed Nola wouldn't either.
     Donny reached over with the penknife and cut through the left
sleeve  up to the neckline. He had to saw through the seam. But he'd
kept the blade sharp. The blouse fell away, behind her.   
     Nola began to cry.
     He walked over to the other side and cut through the right sleeve
the same way. Then he jerked the seam apart, a quick tearing sound. 
Then he stepped back.
     "Shorts," said Willie.
     You could hear her crying softly and trying to say something behind
the gag. 
     "No. Please."
     "Don't kick," said Donny.
     The shorts zipped halfway down the side. He unzipped them and
tugged them down over her hips, adjusting the thin white panties upward
as he did so, then slid the shorts down over her legs to the floor. The
leg muscles jerked and trembled.
     He stepped away from her again and looked at her.
     We all did.
     We'd seen Nola wearing g just as little I suppose. She had a
two-piece bathing suit. Everybody did that year. Even little kids. And
we'd seen her wearing that. But this was different. A bra and panties
were private and only other girls were supposed to see them and the only
other girls in the room were Ruth and Susan. And Ruth was allowing this.
Encouraging it. The thought was too large to consider for long. Besides,
here was Nola right in front of us. In front of our very eyes. The
senses overwhelmed  all thought, all consideration.
     "You confess yet, Nola?" Ruth's voice was soft.
     She shook her head yes. An enthusiastic yes.
     "No she don't," said  Willie. "No way."  A sheen of greasy sweat
rolled off his flattop down across his forehead. He wiped it off.      
        We  all  were  sweating  now.  Nola  most of all.  Droplets
glistened in her armpits, in her navel, across her belly.
     "Do the rest," said Willie. "Then maybe we'll let her confess."
     Woofer giggled. "Right after we let her do a dance for us." he
said.
     Donny stepped forward. He cut the right strap of her bra and then
the left. 
     Nola's breasts slid upwards slightly, straining free of the cups. 
     He could have unsnapped it from the back then but instead he walked
around in front of her. He slid the blade beneath the thin white band
between the cups and started sawing.
     Nola was sobbing.
     It must have hurt to cry like that because every time her body
moved the ropes were there, pulling at her. The knife was sharp but it
took a little while. Then there was a tiny pop and the bra fell away.
Her breasts were bare.
     They were whiter than the rest of her, pale and perfect and lovely. 
They shuddered with her crying. The nipples were pinkish brown and-to
me-startlingly long, almost flat at the tips. Tiny plateaus of flesh. A
form I'd never seen before and wanted instantly to touch.
     I'd stepped farther into the room. Ruth was completely behind me
now.
     I could hear myself breathing.
     Donny knelt in front of her and reached up. For a moment it looked
like adoration, like worship. Then his fingers hooked into the panties
and drew them down over her hips, down her legs. He took his time.
     Then that was another shock.
     Nola's hair.
     A small tuft of pale blond-orange down in which droplets of sweat
gleamed.
     I saw tiny freckles on her upper thighs. I saw the small fold of
flesh half hidden between her legs. I studied her. Her breasts. How
would they feel to touch? Her flesh was unimaginable to me.  The hair
between her legs. I knew it would be soft. Softer than mine. I wanted to
touch her. Her body would be hot. It trembled uncontrollably. Her belly,
her thighs, her strong pale white ass.
     The stew of sex ripened, thickened in me.
     The room reeked of sex.
     I felt a hard weight between my legs. I moved forward, fascinated.
I stepped past Susan. I saw Woofer's face. pale and bloodless as he
watched. I saw Willie's eyes riveted to that tuft of down.
     Nola had stopped crying now. I turned to glance at Ruth. And She'd
moved  forward too, and was standing inside the doorway now. I saw her
left hand move against her right breast, the fingers gently closing, and
then fall away.
     Donny knelt beneath her, looking up. "Confess," he said.
     Her body began to spasm.
     I could smell her sweat.
     She nodded. She had to nod.
     It was surrender.
     "Get the ropes," he said to Willie.
     Willie went to the table and untied the ropes, let out some slack
until her feet came down flat on the bare cement floor, then tied them
off again.
     Her head fell forward with relief.
     Donny stood up and removed the gag. I realized it was Ruth's yellow
kerchief. Then, she opened her mouth and he pulled out the rag they'd
wadded up and stuffed in there. He threw the rag on the floor and put
the kerchief in the back pocket of his jeans.  A corner hung out
slightly.  For a moment he looked like a farmer.
     "Could you...? My arms..." she said. My shoulders...they hurt."   
     "No," said Donny. "That's it. That's all you get."
     "Confess," said Woofer.
     "Tell us how you play with yourself," said Willie. "I bet you put
your finger in, doncha?"
     "No. Tell us about necking. "Woofer laughed.
     "Yeah, said  Willie, grinning.
     "Cry," said Woofer.
     "I already did cry, " said Nola. And you could see she'd got a
little bit of the old tough defiance back now that she wasn't hurting
quite so much any more.
     Woofer just shrugged. "So cry again," he said.
     Nola said nothing.
     I noticed that her nipples had gone softer now, a smooth
silky-looking shiny pink.
     God! She was beautiful.
     It was as though she read my mind.
     "Is David here?" she said. 
     Willie and Donny looked at me. I couldn't answer.
     "He's here," said Willie.
     "David..." she said. But then I guess she couldn't finish. She
didn't need to, though. I knew by the way she said it. She didn't want
me there. I knew why too. And knowing why shamed me just as she'd shamed
me before. But I couldn't leave. The others were there. Besides, I
didn't want to. I wanted to see. I needed to see. Shame looked square in
the face of desire and looked away again.
     "And Susan?"
     "Yeah. Her too." said Donny.
     "Oh God."
     "Screw that," said Woofer. "Who cares about Susan? Where's the
confession?"
     And now Nola sounded weary and adult. "Confession's stupid," she
said. "There's no confession."
     It stopped us.                               
     "We could haul you right on up again," said Willie.
     "I know that."
     "We could whip you," said Woofer.
     Nola shook her head. "Please. Just leave me alone. Leave me he. 
There's no confession."


     And the thing was that nobody really expected that. For a moment we
all just stood around waiting for somebody to say something, something
that would convince her to play The Game the way it was supposed to be
played. Or force her. Or maybe for Willie to haul her back again like
he'd said. Anything that would keep it going further. 
     But in just those few moments something was gone. To get it back
we'd have to start all over again. I think we all knew it. The sweet
heady feeling of danger had suddenly slipped away. It had gone as soon
as she started talking. That was the key. Talking, it was Nola again.
Not some beautiful naked victim, but Nola. A person with a mind, a voice
to express her mind, and maybe even rights of her own. 
     Taking the gag off was a mistake. 
     It left us feeling sullen and angry and frustrated. So we stood
there. 
     It was Ruth who broke the silence. "We could do that," she said,
     "Do what?" asked Willie. 
     "Do what she says. Leave her alone. Let her think about it awhile.
That seems fine to me." 
     We thought about it. 
     "Yeah," said Woofer, "Leave her alone. In the dark. Just hanging
there." 
     In was one way, I thought, to start over. 
     Willie shrugged. 
     Donny looked at Nola. I could see he didn't want to leave. He
looked at her hard. He raised his hand. Slowly, hesitantly, he moved it
toward her breasts. 
     And suddenly it was like I was part of him. I could feel my own
hand there, the fingers nearly touching her. I could almost feel the
slick moist heat of her skin. 
     Ruth turned to go. She stomped out her cigarette butt on the floor
and waved to us. "You better gag her again before you leave." 
     I looked at Donny, who was looking at the rag on the floor. 
     "It's dirty," he said. 
     "Not that dirty," said Ruth. "I don't want her screaming at us all
night. Put it in" 
     Then she turned to Nola. 
     "You want to think about one thing, girl." she said. "Well, two
things exactly. First that it could be your little sister and not you
hanging there. And second that I know some of the things you've done
wrong. And I'm interested to hear them. So maybe this confessing isn't
such a kid's game after all. I can hear it from the one of you or I can
hear it from the other. You think about that." she said and turned and
walked away. 
     We listened to her climb the stairs. 
     Donny gagged her. 
     He touched her tits.
     We thought about what she said. It was not just Nola but all of us
stripped and naked, that could be hanging there.                               CHAPTER 16

     Lying in bed, we were haunted by Nola. We couldn't sleep. Time
would pass in total silence in the warm dark and then somebody'd say
something, how she looked when Willie took the last book away, what it
must feel like to stand there so long with your hands tied over your
head, whether it hurt, what it was like to finally see a girl's naked
body, and we'd talk about that a while until moments later we got quiet
again as each of us wrapped himself up in own little cocoon of thought
and dreams
     But there was only one object to these dreams. Nola. Nola as we'd
left her. And finally we had to see her again. Donny'd no sooner
suggested it than we saw the risks involved. Ruth had told us to leave
her alone. The house was small and sounds carried, and Ruth slept one
thin door away, in Susan's room--was Susan lying awake like us? thinking
of her sister? directly above the shelter. If Ruth awoke and caught us
the unthinkable might happen--she might exclude us all in the future. We
already knew there'd be a future. But the images we remembered were too
strong. It was almost as though we needed confirmation to believe we'd
really been there. Nola's nudity and accessibility were like a siren's
song. They absolutely beckoned. We had to risk it.
     The night was moonless, black. Donny and I climbed off the top
bunks. Willie and Woofer slid out beneath. Ruth's door was closed. We
tiptoed past. For once Woofer resisted the urge to giggle, Willie lifted
one of the flashlights off the kitchen table and Donny eased open the
cellar door. The stairs squealed. There was nothing to do about it
except pray and hope for luck. The shelter door squeaked too but not so
badly. We opened it and went inside, standing barefoot on the cold
concrete floor the same as she was-and there was Nola, exactly as we
remembered as though no time at all had passed, exactly as we'd pictured
her. Well, not quite. Her hands were white, splotched with red and blue.
And even in the flashlight's thin uneven light you could see how pale
her body was. She was all goose flesh, nipples puckered up brown and
tight. She heard us come in and made a soft whiny sound. 
     "Quiet," whispered Donny.
     She obeyed" We watched her. It was like standing in front of some
sort of shrine or like watching some strange exotic animal in a zoo.
Like both at once.
     And I wonder now if anything would have been different had she not
been so pretty, had her body not been young and healthy and strong but
ugly, fat, flabby. Possibly not. Possibly it would have happened anyway.
The inevitable punishment of the outsider. But it seems to me more
likely that it was precisely because she was beautiful and strong, and
we were not, that Ruth and the rest of us had done this to her. To make
a sort of judgment on that beauty, on what it meant and didn't mean to
us.
     "I bet she'd like some water," said Woofer. She shook her head.
Yes. Oh yes please. 
     "If we give her water we got to take off the gag," said Willie.
     "So what? She won't make noise." He stepped forward. "You won't
make any noise, will ya, Nola? We can't wake Mom." No. She shook her
head firmly side to side. You could tell she wanted that water a lot. 
     "You trust her?" Willie said. 

     Donny shrugged. "If she makes any noise then she gets in trouble
too. She's not stupid. So give it to her. 
     "Why not?" 
     "I'll get it," said Woofer. 
     There was a sink beside the washer/dryer. Woofer turned it on and
we could hear it lightly running behind us. He was being unusually quiet
about it. Unusually nice, too, for Woofer. Willie untied the gag just as
he'd done earlier and pulled the dirty wad of rag out of her mouth. She
moaned and began to work her jaw side to side. Woofer came back with ann
old glass fruit jar full of water. 
     "I found it by the paint cans," he said. "It don't smell too bad."
     Donny took it from him and tilted it to Nola's lips. She drank
hungrily, making small glad noises in her throat every time she
swallowed. She drained the jar in no time.
     "Oh God," she said. "Oh God. Thank you."
     And it was a weird feeling. Like everything was forgiven. Like she
was really grateful to us.
     It was amazing in a way. That just one jar of water could do that.
     I thought again how helpless she was.
     And I wondered if the others were feeling what I was feeling-this
overwhelming, almost dizzying need to touch her. To put my hands on her.
To see exactly what she felt Like. Breasts, buttocks, thighs. That
blond-red curly tuft between her legs.
     Exactly what we shouldn't do.
     It made me feel like fainting. The push and pull. It was that
strong.
     "Want some more?" said Woofer.
     "Could I? Please?"
     He ran out to the sink and then back again with another jar full.
He gave it to Donny and she drank that too.
     "Thanks. Thank you."
     She licked her lips. They were chapped, dry, split in places.
     "Do you...do you think you could...? The ropes...they hurt me a
lot."
     And you could see they did. Even though her feet were flat on the
floor she was still stretched tight.
     Willie looked at Donny.
     Then they both looked back at me.
     I felt confused for a moment. Why should they care what I thought?
It was like there was something they were looking for from me and they
weren't sure that they'd find it.
     Anyway, I nodded.
     "I guess we could," said Donny. "A little. On one condition
though."
     "You have to promise not to fight."
     "Fight?"
     "You have to promise not to make any noise or anything and you have
to promise not to fight and not to tell anybody later on. Tell anybody
anytime."
     "Tell what?"
     "That you asked us to touch you."
     And there it was.
     It was what we'd all been dreaming about in that bedroom upstairs.
I shouldn't have been surprised. But I was. I could hardly breathe. I
felt like everybody in the room could hear my heartbeat.
     "Touch me?" said Nola.
     Donny blushed deeply. "You know."
     "Oh my God," she said. She shook her head. "Oh Jesus. Come on."
     She sighed. Then thought for a moment.
     "No," she said. 
     "We wouldn't hurt you or anything," said Donny. "Just touch. "
     "No."
     Like she'd weighed and considered it and simply couldn't see her
way clear to do that no matter what happened and that was her final say
on the matter.
     "No. Please don't do that to me. Any of you."
     She was mad now. But so was Donny.
     "We could do it to you anyway, jerk-off. Who's gonna stop us?"
     "I won't let you."  She had us for now.
     "Okay," said Donny. "Fine. Then we leave the ropes the way they
are. We put the gag back on and that's that."
     You could see she was close to tears. But she wasn't giving in to
us. Not yet . Her voice was bitter.
     "All right," she said. "Gag me. Do it. Leave. Get out of here!"
     "We will."
     He nodded to Willie and Willie stepped forward with the rag and
scarf.
     "Open up," he said.
     For a moment she hesitated. Then she opened her mouth. He put the
rag in and tied the scarf around it. He tied it tighter than be bad to,
tighter than before.
     It was hard to be naked and hanging there and proud at the same
time but she managed it.
     You couldn't help admiring her.
     "Good," he said. He turned to leave.
     I had an idea.
     I reached out and touched his arm as he passed and stopped him.
     "Donny?"
     "Yeah?"
     "Look. Let's do it tighter. Just a little. All we have to do is
push the worktable away an inch or two. Ruth won't notice. I mean, look
at her. You want her to co-operate? Morning's a long way off, you know
what I mean?"
     I said this in a voice low enough so that she couldn't hear.
     He shrugged. "Yah, we gave her a choice. She wasn't interested."
     "I know that," I said. And here I leaned toward and smiled at him
and whispered. "But she next time," I said. "You know? She'll remember.
Next time."
     We pushed the table.
     Actually we sort of lifted and pushed it so as not to make much
noise and with the three of us and Woofer it wasn't too hard. And when
we were done she was an inch tighter, just enough to lift her higher and
hurt her more. What a great idea.
     I was proud of myself.
     I felt smart and excited. I was out of my mind. I was crazy.                              CHAPTER 17

     Ruth exploded.
     She whacked the mug from her hands. It shattered against the
whitewashed cinder-block wall. Tea running down, the colour of urine.
     "Eat it!"
     She stabbed her finger at the toast. It had slipped halfway off the
paper plate.
     Nola held up her hands.
     "Okay! All right! I will! I'll eat it right away! All right?"
     Ruth leaned down to her so that they were almost nose to nose and
Nola couldn't have taken a bite then if she'd wanted to-not without
pushing the toast up into Ruth's face. Which wouldn't have been a good
idea. Because Ruth was fuming mad.
     "You fucked up Willie's wall," she said. "Goddamn you, you broke my
mug. You think mugs come cheap? You think tea's cheap?"
     "I'm sorry." She picked up the toast but Ruth was still leaning in
close. "I'll eat. All right? Ruth?"
     "You fucking better."
     "I'm going to."
     "You fucked up Willie's wall."
     "I'm sorry."
     "Who's going to clean it? Who's going to clean that wall?"
     "I will. I'm sorry, Ruth. Really."
     "Fuck you, sister. You know who's going to clean it?"
     Nola didn't answer. You could see she didn't know what to say. Ruth
just seemed to get madder and madder and nothing could calm her.
     "Do you?"
     "N...no."
     Ruth stood up straight and bellowed.
     "Su-san Su-san! You come down here!"
     Nola tried to stand. Ruth pushed her down again. And this time the
toast did fall off the plate to the floor. Nola reached down to pick it
up and got hold of the piece she'd been eating. But Ruth's brown loafer
came down on the other one.
     "Forget it!" she said. "You don't want to eat, you don't need to
eat."
     She grabbed the paper plate. The remaining piece of toast went
flying.
     "You think I should cook for you? You little bitch. You little
ingrate!"
     Susan came down the stairs. You could hear her way before you saw
her.
     "Susan, you get in here!"
     "Yes, Mrs. Chandler."
     We made way for her. She went past Woofer and he giggled.
     "Shut up," said Donny.
     But she did look pretty dignified for a little girl, neatly dressed
already and very careful how she walked and very serious- looking.
     "Over to the table," said Ruth.
     She did as she was told.
     "Turn around."
     She turned to face the table. Ruth glanced at Nola, and then
slipped off her belt.
     "Here's how we clean the wall," she said. "We clean the wall by
cleaning the slate."
     She turned to us.
     "One of you boys come over here and pull her shorts and get rid of
her panties."
     It was the first thing she'd said to us all morning.
     Nola started to get up again but Ruth pushed her down hard a second
time.
     "We're gonna make a rule," she said. "You disobey, you wise-mouth
me or the boys, you sass us, anything like that, missy and she pays for
it. She gets the thrashing. And you get to watch. We'll try that. And if
that doesn't work then we'll try something else."
     She turned to Susan.
     "You think that's fair, Suzie? That you should pay for your trash
sister. For what she does?" 
     Susan was crying quietly.
     "N...noooo," she moaned.
     "'Course not. I never said it was. Ralphie, you get over here and
bare this girl's ass for me. You other boys get hold of Nola, just in
case she gets mean or stupid enough to walk into the line of fire here.
     "She gives you any trouble, smack her. 
     And it went just like before, except that Nola was there. Except
that the reasoning was crazy. But by then we were used to that.
     Woofer pulled her shorts down, then her panties and nobody even had
to hold her this time while Ruth gave her twenty fast, with no letup,
while she screamed and howled as her ass got redder and redder- -and at
first Nola struggled when she heard the howling and crying and the sound
of the belt coming down but Willie took her arm and twisted it behind
her back, pressed her facedown into the air mattress so that she had all
she could do to breathe, never mind helping, tears running down not just
Susan's face but hers too and splotching the dirty mattress while Donny
and we stood watching and listening in our wrinkled pyjamas.                              CHAPTER 18

      What kept me coming back was that single unstoppable image of
Nola's body. It sparked a thousand fantasies, day and night. Violent
fantasies.
     I'd he lying in bed at night with the transistor radio   hidden
under the pillow and I'd close my eyes and there would be Nola and me
playing Monopoly sitting across from one another and I'd hit Boardwalk
or Marvin Gardens and she'd stand up and sigh and step out of her thin
white cotton panties while I picked up Ruth's belt. 
     Or the game would be The Game and there was nothing funny about it
at all.
     I felt nervous and jumpy.
     I felt like I had to go over. Just as I was afraid of what I'd find
when I did.
     Even my mother noticed it. I'd catch her watching me, lips pursed,
wondering, as I leapt up from the dinner table spilling the water glass
or lurched into the kitchen for a Coke.
     Perhaps that was one reason I never spoke to her. Or maybe it was
just that she was my mother, and a woman.
     But I did go over.
     And when I did, things had changed again. I let myself in and the
first thing I heard was Ruth talking in a low voice, and I realized it
had to he Nola she was speaking to. She had that tone she would never
have used to any of the rest of us, like she was a teacher talking to a
little girl, instructing. I went downstairs.
     Ruth was sitting in a folding chair, part of the old card table set
they kept down there, sitting with her back to me, smoking. Cigarette
butts littered the floor like she'd been there a while. The boys were
nowhere around.
     Nola was standing in front of her in just her panties. 
     Ruth was wearing jeans and a blouse.
     Ruth kept talking.
     You might have thought they were sisters at first, roughly the same
weight though Ruth was taller and skinnier, both of them with hair that
was slightly oily now. 
     Except that Ruth just sat there smoking, while Nola was up against
one of Willie's four-by-four support posts, arms tied tightly around it
behind her back, feet tied too. She had the gag on but no blindfold.
     "When I was a girl like you," Ruth was saying, "I was good."
     She lit a new smoke from the butt of the old one and tossed the
butt to the floor, and I guessed she hadn't noticed me behind her or
else she didn't care because even though Nola was looking right at me
with a strange sort of expression on her face; and even through I'd made
the usual noise coming down the rickety old stairs, she didn't turn or
stop talking, not even to light the cigarette. She talked right through
the smoke.
     "But my daddy drank like Willie," she said, "and I'd see him coming
in nights and head straight for the bedroom and mount my mother like a
mare. I'd hear 'em huffing and puffin' up in there, my mother moaning
and the occasional odd slap now and then and that was just like Willie
too. Because we women repeat the same mistakes as our mothers made
giving in all the time to a man. I had that weakness too and that's how
come I got all these boys he left me with to starve with. Can't work the
way I did. The men get all the jobs. And I've got kids to raise.
     "Oh, Willie sends the checks but it's not enough. You know that.
You see that. Your checks don't do much good either.
     "Can you see what I'm saying to you? You got the Curse. And I don't
mean your period. You got it worse even than I ever did. I can smell it
on you. You'll be doing just what my mother and I did with some asshole
beatin' up on you and fuckin' you and making you like it, makin' you
love it."
     "That fucking. That's the thing. That warm wet pussy of yours.
That's the curse, you know? That's the weakness. That's where they got
us. 
     "I tell you. A woman's nothing but a slut and an animal. You got to
see that, you got to remember. Just used and screwed and punished.
Nothing but a stupid loser slut with a hole in her and that's all she'll
ever be.
     "Only thing I can do for you is what I'm doing. I can sort of try
to hurt it outa you."
     She lit a match.
     "See?"
     She tossed it at Nola. It died reaching her and fell smoking to the
floor. She lit another.
     "See?"
     She leaned in farther this time and tossed it and when the match
hit her leg it was still burning. Nola squirmed against the four-by-
four and shook it off.
     "Strong young healthy girl like you-you think you smell so fresh
and good. But to me you smell like burning. Like hot cunt. You got the
Curse and the weakness. You've got it, Nola."
     There was a small black spot on her leg where the match had been.
Nola was looking at me, making sounds behind the gag.
     Ruth dropped her cigarette and shifted her foot to grind it out.
     She got off the chair, leaned down and struck another match. The
room seemed suddenly thick with sulphur. She held it close to Nola's
bare foot.
     "See?" she said. "I'd think you'd he grateful."
     Nola squirmed, struggling hard against the ropes. It scorched her
foot.
     The match burned low. Ruth shook it out and dropped it. Then she
lit another. She held it against her foot, the same place she'd already
burned. There was a feeling about her like some strange mad scientist
performing an experiment in a movie.
     Nola struggled. I watched the thin line of flame. Ruth just
continued to apply the match until it went out, then dropped it. 
     It was like Woofer with his soldiers in the incinerator.
     Only this was for real. Nola's high muffled squealing made it real. 
    She looked at me, laughing.
     Nola slumped with relief.
     I guess I looked pretty scared. Because Ruth kept laughing. And I
realized that part of her must have been aware I was there behind her
all along. But she didn't care. My eavesdropping didn't matter. Nothing
mattered but her concentration on the lesson she was giving Nola. It was
there in her eyes, something I'd never seen before.
     It's a cold, stark emptiness that has no laughter in it. No
compassion, and no mercy. It's feral. Like the eyes of a hunting animal.
     Like the eyes of snakes.
     That was Ruth.
     "What do you think?" she said. "Think she'll listen?"
     "I don't know," I said.
     "You want to play cards?"
     "Cards?"
     "Crazy Eights or something."
     "Sure. I guess." Anything, I thought. Anything you want to do.
     "Just till the boys come home," she said.
     We went upstairs and played and I don't think we said ten words to
each other the whole game.
     I drank a lot of Cokes. She smoked a lot of cigarettes.                              CHAPTER 19

     "She stinks," said Woofer. "She's dirty. We ought to wash her."
     I hadn't noticed any stink.
     And Woofer was one to talk.
     "Good idea," said Donny. "It's been a while. I bet she'd like it."
     "Who cares what she likes?" said Willie.
     Ruth just listened.
     "We'd have to let her come upstairs," said Donny. "She could try to
run away."
     "Come on. Where's she gonna go?" said Woofer. "Where's she gonna
run to? Anyway we could tie her."
     "I guess."
     "And we could get Susan."
     "I guess so."
     "Where is she?"
     "Susan's in her room," said Ruth. "I think she hides on me."
     "Naw," said Donny. "She reads all the time."
     "She hides. I think she hides."
     Ruth's eyes still looked strange and glittery to me, and I guess to
the others too. Because nobody contradicted her any further.
     "How about it, Ma?" said Woofer. "Can we?"
     "She could use it I suppose," she said dully.
     "We'll have to strip her," said Willie.
     "I'll do that," Ruth said. "You boys remember."
     "Yeah," said Woofer. "We remember. No touching."
     "That's right."
     I looked at Willie and Donny. Willie was scowling. He had his hands
in his pockets. He shuffled his feet, shoulders hunched.
     What a retard, I thought.
     But Donny looked thoughtful, like a full grown man with a purpose
and a job to do now and he was considering the best and most efficient
way to go about it.
     Woofer smiled brightly.
     "Okay," he said. "Let's get her!"      We trooped downstairs, Ruth
trailing a ways behind. Donny untied her, legs first and then the hands,
gave her a moment to massage her wrists and then tied them back together
again in front of her. He took off the gag and put it in his pocket.
     She licked her lips.
     "A drink?" she asked.
     "In a minute," said Donny. "We're going upstairs."
     "We are?"
     "Yeah."
     She didn't ask why.
     Holding onto the rope, Donny led her upstairs, with Woofer ahead of
him and Willie and I directly in back. Again Ruth lagged behind. I was
very aware of her back there. There was something, distant, not wholly
there. Her footsteps on the stairs seemed lighter than ours were,
lighter than they should be, barely a whisper though she moved slowly
and with difficulty. She bothered me.
     When we got upstairs Donny sat Nola down at the dining room table
and got her a glass of water from the kitchen sink.
     I had the strangest feeling. Of something winding down.
Disintegrating slowly.
      Nola finished her glass of water and asked for another. 
"Please," she said.
     "Don't worry," said Willie. "You'll get water."
     Nola looked puzzled.
     "We're gonna wash you," he said.
     "What?"
     "The boys thought it would be nice if you had a shower," said Ruth.
"You'd like that wouldn't you."
     Nola hesitated. You could see why. That wasn't exactly the way
Willie put it. Willie had said We're gonna wash you.
     "Y-yes." she said. 
     "Very thoughtful of them too," Ruth said. 
     Donny and I exchanged a look. I could see he was a little nervous
about he.
     "Think I'll have a beer," said Ruth.
     She got up and went to the kitchen. "Anybody join me?"
     Nobody seemed to want any. That in itself was unusual. She peered
into the refrigerator. She looked around. Then she closed it again.
     "None left," she said, coming back to the dining room.
     "Why didn't somebody buy beer?"
     "Mom," said Donny. "We can't. We're kids. They don't let us buy
beer."
     Ruth chuckled. "Right," she said.
     Then she turned around again. "I'll have a scotch instead."
     She dug into the cabinet and came up with a bottle. She walked back
into the dining room, picked up Nola's water glass and poured herself
about two inches of the stuff.
     "We gonna do this or not?" said Willie.
     Ruth drank. "Sure we are," she said.
     Nola looked from one of us to the other. "I don't understand," she
said. "Do what? I thought I was...I thought you were letting me have a
shower."
     "We are," said Donny.
     "We have to supervise, though," said Ruth.
     She took another drink and the liquor seemed to strike a sudden
fire in back of her eyes.
     "Make sure you get clean," she said.
     Nola understood he then.
     "I don't want it," she said.
     "Don't matter what you want," said Willie. "What matters is what we
want."
     "It's decided already," said Donny.
     She looked at Ruth. Ruth hunched over her drink watching her like
an old bird of prey.
     "Why can't you just...give me...a little privacy?"
     Ruth laughed." I'd have thought you'd have about had it with
privacy, down there all day."
     "That's not what I mean.  I mean..."
     "I know what you mean. And the answer is we can't trust you one
way, can't thrust you another. You'll go in there, throw a little water
on yourself, and that's clean."
     "No I wouldn't. I swear I wouldn't. I'd kill for a shower." 
     Ruth shrugged. "Well then. You got one. An you don't have to kill
for it, do you."
     "Please."
     Ruth waved her away. "Get outa that dress now, before you get me
mad."
     Nola looked at each of us one at a time and then I guess she
figured that a supervised shower was better than no shower at all
because she sighed.
     "My hands," she said.
     "Right," said Ruth. "Unzip her, Ralphie. Then undo her hands. Then
do 'em up again."
     "Me?"
     "Yeah."
     I was a little surprised too. I guess she'd decided to relax on
the no touching rule.
     Nola stood up and so did Woofer. The dress unzipped to halfway down
her back. He untied her. Then he went behind her again to slip the dress
off her shoulders.
     "Can I have a towel, please. At least...?"
     Ruth smiled. "You're not wet yet, " she said. She nodded to Woofer.
     Nola closed her eyes and stood very still and rigid while Woofer
took the short sleeves and dragged them down over her arms and bared her
breasts and then her hips and thighs, and then it lay at her feet. She
stepped out of it. Her eyes were still shut tight. It was as though if
she couldn't see us then we couldn't see her.
     "Tie her again," said Ruth.
     I realized I was holding my breath.
     Woofer walked around in front of her. She put her hands together
for him and Woofer started to tie them.
     "No," said Ruth. "Put them behind her this time."
     Nola's eyes flashed open.
     "Behind me but how am I gonna wash if...?"
     "If I say behind you then it's behind you and if I say stuff 'em up
your ass then you'll do that too! Don't you sass me! You hear?
Goddammit! Goddamn you!
     "I'll wash you that's how! Now do as I say. Fast!"
     And you could see that Nola was scared but she didn't resist as
Woofer took her arms behind her and tied them at the wrists. She'd
closed her eyes again. Only this time there were little pools of wet
around them.
     "All right, head her in," said Ruth.
     Donny marched her down the narrow hall way to the bathroom. We
followed. The bathroom was small but all of us crowded inside. Woofer
sat on the hamper. Willie leaned against the sink. I stood next to him.
In the hall opposite the bathroom there was a closet, and Ruth was
rummaging around in there. She came out with a pair of yellow rubber
gloves.
     She put them on. They went all the way up to her elbows.
     She leaned over and turned on the tap in the bathtub.
     The tap marked "H" for hot.
     That tap only.
     She let it run awhile.
     She tested it with her hand, letting it run down over the rubber
glove.
     Her mouth was a grim straight line.

     The water ran hard and steaming. Pounded against the drain. Then
she threw the setting to "Shower" and closed the clear plastic curtain.
     The steam billowed up.
     Nola's eyes were still shut. Tears streaked down her face. The
steam threw a mist over all of us now. Suddenly Nola felt it. And knew
what it meant. 
     She opened her eyes and threw herself back, frightened, screaming,
but Donny already had one arm and Ruth grabbed the other. She fought
them, bucking and twisting, screaming no-no. And she was strong. She was
still strong.
     Ruth lost her grip.
     "God damn you!" she bellowed. "You want me to get your sister? You
want me to get your precious Susan? You want her in here instead?
Burning?"
     "Yes!" she screamed. "Yes! you bitch! Get Susan! Get her! Strip
her, spank her naked. I don't give a damn any more!"
     Ruth looked at her, eyes narrowed. Then she looked at Willie. She
shrugged.
     "Get her," she said mildly.
     He didn't have to.
     I turned as he passed me and then saw him stop because Susan was
there already, watching us, standing in the hall.
     And she was crying too.
     Nola saw her too.
     And she crumbled.
     "Nooooooo," she cried. "Nooooooo. Pleeease..."
     And for a moment we stood silent in the warm heavy mist listening
to the scalding stream and to her sobbing. Knowing what would happen.
Knowing how it would be.
     Then Ruth threw the curtain aside.
     "Get her in," she said to Donny. "And be careful of your self."
     I watched them put her in and Ruth adjust the shower nozzle to send
the scorching spray up slowly over her legs and thighs and belly and
finally up over her breasts to shatter across her nipples while her arms
strained desperately to break free behind her and everywhere the water
hit went suddenly red, red, the colour of pain and at last I couldn't
stand the screaming.
     And I ran.                              CHAPTER 20

     But only once.
     I didn't run again.
     After that day I was like an addict, and my drug was knowing.
Knowing what was possible. Knowing how far it could go. Where they'd
dare to take it all.
     It was always they. I stood outside, or felt I did. From both Nola
and Susan on the one side and the Chandlers on the other. I'd
participated in nothing directly. I'd watched. Never touched. And that
was all. As long as I maintained that stance I could imagine I was, if
not exactly blameless, not exactly culpable either.
     It was like sitting in a movie. Sometimes it was a scary movie,
sure--where you worried whether the hero and heroine were going to make
it through all right. But just that. Just a movie. You'd get up when it
was over properly scared and excited and walk out of the dark and leave
it all behind.
     And then sometimes it was more like the kind of movies that came
along later--foreign movies, mostly--where the heroine didn't always get
away without getting it. The kind your parents didn't want you to see.
     Of course we wrote and directed these mind-films of ours as well as
watched them. So I suppose it was inevitable that we add to our cast of
characters.
     I suppose it was also inevitable that Eddie Crocker be our first
audition.
     It was a bright sunny morning toward the end of July, three weeks
into Nola's captivity, when I first went over and found him there.
     In the few days since the shower they'd let her keep her clothes
on--there were blisters and they were allowing them to heal--and they
were treating her pretty well all told, feeding her soup and sandwiches,
giving her water when she wanted it. Ruth had even put sheets over the
air mattress and swept the cigarette butts off the floor. And it was
tough to say whether Willie did more complaining about his latest
toothache or about how boring things had gotten.
     With Eddie, that changed.
     She was stripped when I got there. They had her bound and gagged
again, lying on her stomach over the worktable, each arm tied to one of
the legs of the table, feet tied together on the floor.
     Eddie had his belt off and was spanking her ass.
     Then he'd quit for a while and Willie'd work on her back, legs, and
rear with a leather belt. They hit her hard. Eddie especially. You could
see by the marks that it has been going on for awhile. 
     Woofer and Donny stood watching.
     I watched too. 
     Eddie was really into it, getting even, I guess, for the whippings
he got regularly.
     This was the kid who would just as soon hit you on the ass with a
switch or whack you in the balls with a stick as look at you.
     Eddie was passionate.
     It was hot that day and the sweat rolled off him, streamed out of
his close-cut carrot-red hair and down across his forehead. As usual he
had his shirt off so we could see his great physique and the smell of
his sweat rolled down his bare belly too.      

     He smelled salty and sticky-sweet. 
     I went upstairs. 
     Susan was sitting at kitchen table. There was a half-empty glass of
milk beside her. The television, for once, was silent. You could hear
the slaps and laughter from below.
     I asked for Ruth.
     Ruth, Susan said, was lying down in the bedroom. 
     So we sat there saying nothing. I got myself a Budweiser from the
fridge. 
     I sipped the beer.
     "So how you doin!" I asked.
     She didn't look up. "Fine," she said.
     I heard laughter from the shelter followed by the snap of leather
against bare rounded flesh.
     "That bother you?" I said. I meant the sounds.
     "Yes," she said. But she didn't say it as though it did. It as just
a fact of life.
     "A lot?"
     "Uh-huh."   
     I watched her and drank the beer. 
     "I can't make them stop, y'know?" I said.
     "I know."
     "Eddie's there. For one thing."
     "I know."
     "They like spanking her."
     I finished the beer.
     "I would if I could," I said. I wondered if it was true. So did
she.
     "Yes?" she said.
     And for the first time she looked up at me, eyes very mature and
thoughtful. A lot like her sister's.
     "'Course I would."
     "Maybe they'll get tired," I said, realizing as soon as I said it
how lame that sounded. Susan didn't answer.
     But then a moment later the sounds did stop and I heard footsteps
come up the stairs.
     It was Eddie and Willie. Both of them flushed, shirts open.
Willie's middle a fat, dead-white ugly roll. They ignored us and went to
the refrigerator. I watched them crack a Coke for Willie and a Bud for
Eddie and then push things around looking for something to eat. I guess
there wasn't much because they closed it again.
     "You gotta really give it to her," Eddie was saying. "She don't cry
much. She feels it though."
     If I had felt detached from all this, Eddie was in another realm
entirely. Eddie's voice was like ice. It was Willie who was fat and ugly
but it was Eddie who disgusted me.
     Willie laughed. "That's 'cause she's all cried out," he said. "You
should've seen her after her scrubbing' the other day."
     "Yeah. I guess. You think we should bring something down for Donny
and Woofer?"
     "They didn't ask for nothin'. They want it, let 'em get it."
     And they started to walk back down. They continued to ignore us.
That was fine with me. I watched them disappear

     "So what are we gonna do?" said Eddie. I felt his voice drift up
at me like a wisp of toxic smoke "Whip her?"
     "Yah," said Willie.
     And then he said something else but the sound of their footsteps on
the stairs drowned it out for us. Whip her? I felt the words slide along
my spine. 
     I'd wondered how far it could go, how it could end. Wondered it
obscurely, like a mathematical problem.
     I thought of Ruth lying in the bedroom.
     I thought of how they were down there all alone with her now-with
Eddie with them.
     Anything could happen.
     Anything. 
     It didn't occur to me to wonder why I still equated Ruth with
supervision. I just did. She was still an adult, wasn't she? Adults
couldn't let that happen, could they?
     I looked at Susan. If she'd heard what Eddie'd said she gave no
sign.                               CHAPTER 21

     Eddie was there every day after that for about a week. On the
second day his sister Denise came too. Together they force-fed her
crackers, which she couldn't really eat because the gag had been on over
night again and they'd denied her water. Eddie got mad and smacked her
across the belly with an aluminum curtain rod, bending the rod and
leaving a broad red welt across her stomach.
     The rest of the day they played tackle dummy again.
     Ruth was hardly ever there. 
     With Ruth not around the prohibition against touching Nola
disappeared.
     Denise was the one who started it. Denise liked to pinch. - - had
strong fingers for a girl her age. She would take Nola's flesh and twist
it, commanding her to cry. Most of the time Nola wouldn't cry. That made
Denise try harder. Her favourite targets were Nola's breasts--you could
tell because she saved them for last.
     And then, usually, Nola would cry.
     Willie liked to drape her over the table, pull down her pants and
smack her bottom.
     Woofer's thing was insects. He'd put a spider or a thousand- legger
on her belly and buttocks and watch her cringe. It was Donny who
surprised me. Whenever he thought that no one was looking he'd run his
hands across her breasts or squeeze them slightly or feel her between
her legs. I saw him plenty of times but I never let on.
     He did it roughly. And once when the gag was off I even saw him
kiss her. It was an awkward kiss and not tender.
     On Friday that week I had been working in the yard all afternoon
until about four o'clock, and when I went over I could hear the radio
blaring from the back-door landing so I went down and saw that the group
had expanded again.
     Word had gotten around.
     Not only were Eddie and Denise there but Kenny Robertson and his
sister Cheryl--crowded into that tiny shelter--and Ruth was standing in
the doorway watching, smiling as they shouldered and elbowed her back
and forth between them like a human pinball caught between a dozen human
flippers.
     Her hands were tied behind her.
     There were beer cans and Cokes on the floor. Cigarette smoke hung
over the room in thick grey drifting clouds. It ended with Nola on the
floor, bruised and sobbing. We trooped upstairs for refreshments. My
movie kept rolling.
     Kids came and went after that all that following week. usually they
did nothing but watch but Willie and Donny made her into what they
called a sandwich one day-when Ruth wasn't around-rubbing against her
from front and back while she hung from the ropes suspended from the
nails in the beams across the ceiling. Woofer had half a dozen garden
slugs to put all over her body. But unless it hurt, Nola was usually
quiet now. It was hard to humiliate her. And not much could scare her.
She seemed resigned. As though maybe all she had to do was wait and
maybe we'd all get bored by this eventually and it would pass. She
rarely rebelled. If she did we'd just call in Susan. But most of the
time it didn't come that. She'd climb out of or into her clothes pretty
much command now. Out of only when we knew Ruth wasn't going to be
around or if Ruth herself suggested it, which wasn't very often.
     And the third day Eddie came back again.
     I wasn't there that day-but I heard about it fast enough.
     It seemed that Ruth was upstairs lying down and they figured she
was asleep, napping. Woofer, Donny and Willie were playing Crazy Eights
when Eddie and Denise walked in.
     Eddie wanted to take off her clothes again, just to look he said,
and everybody agreed. He was quiet, calm. Drinking a Coke.
     They stripped her and gagged her and tied her faceup across the
worktable, only this time they tied each of her feet to one of the table
legs as well. Eddie's idea. He wanted to spread her. They left her
awhile while the game of cards went on and Eddie finished his
Coke.
     Then Eddie tried to put the Coke bottle up inside her.
     I guess they were all so amazed and involved with what he was doing
that they didn't hear Ruth come down behind them because when she walked
through the door there was Eddie with the lip of the Coke bottle already
inside her and everybody crowded around.
     Eddie and Denise got the hell out of there, fast, leaving her to
rail at Woofer and Willie and Donny.
     And then she said something like and you! you! to Nola and stared
at her furious like it was her fault and called her a whore and a slut
and no-good fucking trash-and then hauled off and hit her
twice, between her legs with her belt.
     And now she had bruises there. 
     I could picture it.                              CHAPTER 22

     Ruth was back into The Game.
     She was smoking as usual, sitting in a folding chair facing Nola.
There was a half-eaten tuna sandwich on a paper plate beside her and she
was using it as an ashtray. Two butts poked up out of the sagging wet
white bread.
     She was watching attentively, leaning forward in the  chair, eyes
narrowed. And I thought of the way she looked  when she was watching her
game shows on TV.
      But she watched Nola now with the same thoughtful intensity.
     While Woofer poked Nola with his pocketknife.
     They had hung her from the ceiling again, and she was up on her
toes, straining. She was naked. She was bruised. Her skin was damp now
beneath the sheen of sweat. But none of that mattered. It should have,
but it didn't. The magic--the small cruel magic of seeing her that way
hovering over me for a moment like a spell.
     She was all I knew of sex. And all I knew of cruelty. For a moment
I felt it flood me like a heady wine. I was with them again.
     And then I looked at Woofer.
     A pint-sized version of me, or what I could be, with a  knife in
his hand.
     No wonder Ruth was concentrating.
     They all were, Willie and Donny too, nobody saying a word, because
a knife wasn't a strap or a belt or a stream of hot water, knives could
hurt you seriously, permanently, and Woofer was small enough to only
just barely understand that, to know that death and injury could happen
but not to sense the consequences. They were skating thin ice and they
knew it. Yet they let it go. They wanted it to happen. They were
educating.
     I didn't need the lessons. So far there wasn't any blood but I knew
there was every chance that there would be, it was just a matter of
time. Even behind the gag and blindfold you could see that Nola as
terrified. Her chest and stomach heaved with fitful breathing. He poked
her in the belly. On her toes the way she was, there was no way she
could back away from him. She just jerked against the ropes
convulsively. Woofer giggled and poked her below the navel. Ruth looked
at me and nodded a greeting and lit another smoke. 
     Woofer slid the blade over Nola's ribcage and poked her armpit. He
did it so fast and recklessly I kept looking for a line of blood along
her ribs. But that time she was lucky. I saw something else though.
     "What's that"
     "What's what?" said Ruth distractedly.
     "On her leg there."
     There was a red two-inch wedge-shaped mark on her thigh, just above
the knee.
     She puffed the cigarette. She didn't answer.
     Willie did. "Mom was ironing," he said. "She gave us some shit so
Mom heaved the iron at her. Skinned her. No big deal, except now the
iron's busted."
     "No big deal my ass," said Ruth.
     She meant the iron. Meanwhile Woofer slid the knife back down to
Nola's belly- -this time he nicked her--just at the bottom of the
ribcage. 
     "Whoops," he said.
     He turned to look at Ruth. Ruth stood up.
     She took a drag on the cigarette and flicked off the ash.
     Then she walked over. Woofer backed away.
     "Dammit, Ralphie," she said.
     "I'm sorry," he said. He let go of the knife. It clattered to the
floor.
     You could see he was scared. But her tone was as blank as her face.
     "Shit," she said. "Now we got to cauterize." She lifted the
cigarette.
     I looked away. I heard Nola scream behind the gag, a shrill thin
muffled shriek that turned abruptly into a wail.
     "Shut up," said Ruth. "Shut up or I'll do it again."
     Nola couldn't stop.
     I felt myself trembling. I stared at the bare concrete wall. Hold
on, I thought, I heard the hiss. I heard her scream.
     I could smell the burning.
     I looked and saw Ruth with the cigarette in one hand while the
other cupped her breast through the grey cotton dress. The hand was
kneading. I saw the burn marks close together under Nola's ribs, her
body bathed in sudden sweat. I saw Ruth's hand move roughly over her
wrinkled dress to press between her legs as she grunted and swayed and
the cigarette drifted forward once again.
     I was going to blow it. I knew it. I could feel it building. I was
going to have to do something, say something. Anything to stop the
burning. I closed my eyes and still I saw Ruth's hand clutch at the
place between her legs. The scent of burning flesh was all around me. My
stomach lurched. I turned and heard Nola scream and scream again and
then suddenly Donny was saying Mom! Mom! Mom! in a voice that was hushed
and suddenly filled with fear.
     I couldn't understand.
     And then I heard it. The knocking.
     There was someone at the door.
     The front door.
     I looked at Ruth.
     She was staring at Nola and her face was peaceful and relaxed,
unconcerned and distant. Slowly she raised the cigarette to her lips and
took a long deep drag. Tasting her.
     I felt my stomach lurch again.
     I heard the knocking.
     "Get it," she said. "Go slow. Go easy."
     She stood quietly while Willie and Donny glanced at one another and
then went upstairs.
     Woofer looked at Ruth and then at Nola. He seemed confused,
suddenly just a little boy again who wanted to be told what to do.
Should I go or should I stay? But there wasn't any help for him, not
with Ruth that way. So finally he made up his own mind. He followed his
brothers.
     I waited until he was gone.
     "Ruth?" I said.
     She didn't seem to bear me.
     "Ruth?"
     She just kept staring.

     "Don't you think...? I mean, if it's somebody...Should you be
leaving it to them? To Willie and Donny?"
     "mmm?"

     She looked at me but I'm not sure she saw me. I've never seen
anyone feel so empty.
     But this was my chance. Maybe my only chance. I knew I had to push
her.
     "Don't you think you ought to handle it, Ruth? Suppose it's Mr.
Jennings again?"
     "Who?"
     "Mr. Jennings. Officer Jennings. The cops, Ruth."
     "Oh." 
     "I can...watch her for you."
     "Watch her?"
     "To make sure she doesn't..."
     "Yes. Good. Watch her. Good idea. Thank you, Davy."
     She started toward the doorway, her movements slow and dreamlike.
Then she turned. And now her voice was tight, sharp, her back straight.
Her eyes seemed shattered with reflected light.
     "You'd better not fuck up," she said.
     "What?"
     She pressed her finger to her lips and smiled.
     "One sound down here and I promise I'll use the strap on the both
of you. Punish you. Davy? Are we straight about that?"
     "Yes."
     "You sure?"
     "Yes ma'am."
     "Good. Very good."
     She turned and then I heard her slippers shuffling up the stars. I
heard voices from above but couldn't make them out.
     I turned to Nola.
     I saw where she'd burned her the third time. Her right breast.
     "Oh Jesus, Nola," I said. I went to her. "It's David."
     I slipped of the blindfold so she could see me. Her eyes were wild.
     "Nola," I said. "Nola, listen. Listen please. Please don't make any
noise. You heard what she said? She'll do it, Nola. Please don't scream
or anything, okay? I want to help you. There's not much time. Listen to
me. I'll take off the gag, all right? You won't scream? It won't help.
It could be anybody up there. The Avon Lady."
     "Ruth can talk her way out anything. But I going to get you out of,
you understand me? I'm going to get you out!" 
     I was talking a mile a minute but I couldn't stop. I slipped off
the gag so she could answer.
     She licked her lips.
     "How?" she said. Her voice a tiny painful rasp of sound.
     "Tonight. Late. When they're asleep. It's got to look like you did
it on your own. By yourself. Okay?"
     She nodded.
     "I've got some money," I said. "You'll be okay. And I can hang
around here and make sure nothing happens to Susan. Then maybe we can
figure out some way to get her away too. Go back to the cops, maybe.
Show them...this. All right?"
     "All right."
     "All right. Tonight. I promise."
     I heard the screened front door slam shut and footsteps cross the
living room, heard them coming down the stairs. I gagged her again. I
slipped on the blindfold.
     It was Donny and Willie.
     They glared at me.
     How'd you know?" asked Donny.
     "Know what?"
     "Did you tell him?"
     "Tell who? Tell him what? What are you talking about?"
     "Don't fuck around with us. Ruth said you told her it might be
Jennings at the door." 
     "So?"
     "So who do you think it was, assface?"
     "Oh, no, I thought. Oh shit. And I'd begged her not to cream. We
could have stopped it then and there. 
     I had to play through for them though.
     "You're kidding." I said.
     "I'm not kidding."
     "Mr. Jennings? My God, it was just a guess."
     "Pretty good guess." said Willie.
     "It was just a thing to say to get her..."
     "Get her what?" 
     Up there I thought.
     "To get her moving again. Christ, you saw her. She was like a
fucking zombie down here!"
     They looked at each other.
     "She did get pretty weird," said Donny.
     Willie shrugged. "Yeah. I guess so."
     I wanted to keep them going. So they wouldn't think about my being
here alone with her.
     "What'd you say?" I asked. "Was he after Nola?"
     "Sort of," said Donny. "Said he just dropped by to see how the nice
young girls were doing. So we showed him Susan in her room. Said Nola
was out shopping. Susan didn't say a word of course-didn't dare to. So
I guess he bought it. Seemed kinda uncomfortable. Kinda shy for a cop."
     "Where's your mom?"
     "She said she wanted to lie down awhile."
     "What'll you do for dinner?" 
     It was an inane thing to say but the first thing I thought of.
     "I dunno. Cook some dogs out on the grill I guess. Why? Want to
come over."
     "I'll ask my mother," I said. I looked at Nola. "What about her?"
I asked him.
     "What about her?"
     "You gonna just leave her there or what? You ought to put something
on those burns at least. They'll get infected."
     "Fuck her," said Willie. "I ain't sure I'm done with her yet."
     He bent over and picked up Woofer's knife.
     He tossed it in his hand. blade to handle, and slouched and grinned
and looked at her.
     "Then again maybe I am," he said. "I dunno. I dunno."
     He walked toward her. And then so that she could hear him very
clearly and distinctly he said, "I just don't know."
     Taunting her.
     I decided to ignore him.
     "I'll go and ask my mother," I told Donny.
     I didn't want to stay to see what his choice would be.
     There was nothing I could do, one way or the other. 
     Some things you had to let go of. You had to keep your mind on what
you could do. I turned and climbed the stairs. At the top I took a
moment to check the door.
     I was counting on their laziness, their lack of organization.
     I checked the lock.
     And yes, it was still broken.                              CHAPTER 23

     It was a time when even the guilty displayed a rare innocence.
     In our town burglary was unheard of. Burglaries happened in cities
but not out here-that was one of the reasons our parents had left the
cities in the first place. Doors were closed against the cold and wind
and rain, but not against people. So that when the lock on a door or
window snapped or rusted through over years of bad weather more often
than not it got left that way. Nobody needed a lock to keep out the
snow.
     The Chandlers' house was no exception.
     There was a screen door in back with a lock that I don't think had
ever worked-not in living memory. Then a wooden door that had warped
slightly and in such a way that the tongue of the lock didn't match with
the lip on the doorjamb any more.
     Even with Nola held prisoner there they'd never bothered to repair
it.
     That left the metal icehouse door to the shelter itself, which
bolted. It was a clumsy, noisy affair but all you had to was throw the
bolt.
     At three twenty-five in the morning I set out to see.
     I had a pen-light flashlight, a pocketknife and thirty-seven
dollars in snow-shovelling money in my pocket. I wore sneakers and jeans
and the T-shirt my mother'd dyed black for me. By the time I crossed the
driveway to their yard the T-shirt was plastered to my back like a
second skin.
     The house was dark.
     I stepped up onto the porch and waited, listening. The light was
still and clear beneath a three-quarter moon.
     The Chandler house seemed to breathe at me, creaking like the bones
of a sleeping old woman.
     It was scary. For a moment I wanted to forget about this, go home
and climb into bed and pull up the covers. I wanted to be in another
town entirely. All that evening I'd fantasized my mother or my father
saying, well David, I don't know how to break this to you but we're
moving. No such luck. I kept seeing myself getting caught on the stairs.
Suddenly the light would go on and there would be Ruth above me pointing
a shotgun. I doubt they even owned a gun. But I saw it anyway. Over and
over like a record stuck in the final groove.
     You're nuts, I kept thinking.
     But I'd promised.
     And as frightening as this was, today had scared me more. Looking
at Ruth I'd finally seen all the way through to the end of it. Clearly
and unmistakably. I'd finally seen Nola dying.
     I don't know how long I stood there waiting on the porch. Long
enough to hear the tall Rose of Sharon scrape the house in a gentle
breeze, to become aware of the frogs croaking from the brook and the
crickets in the woods. Long enough for my eyes to adjust to the darkness
and for the normally of frogs and crickets speaking to each other in the
night to calm me. So that after a while what I finally felt was not so
much the sheer terror I'd started with as excitement-- excitement at
finally doing something, something for Nola and for myself and something
no one knew had ever done.

     I opened the outer screen door.
     It made barely a whimper.
     The inner door was trickier. Its wood had expanded with humidity.
I turned the handle and pressed my fingers against the doorjamb, my
thumb against the door. I pushed slowly, gently.
     It groaned.
     I pushed harder and more steadily. I held tight to the handle,
keeping a slight backward pressure so that when it did open it wouldn't
pop and shudder.
     It groaned some more.
     I was sure the entire house was hearing this. Everybody.
     I still could run if I had to. It was good to know.
     Then all of a sudden it opened. With even less noise than the
screen had made.
     I listened.
     I stepped inside onto the landing.
     I turned on the pen-light. The stairs were cluttered with rags,
mops, brushes, pails-stuff Ruth used for cleaning along with jars of
nails and paint cans and thinner. Luckily most of it lined just the one
side, the side opposite the wall. I knew the stairs were going to be
firmest and least creaky right next to the wall, where they'd have
support. If I was going to get caught this was the likeliest place, the
place there'd be the most noise. I stepped down carefully.
     At each stair I'd stop and listen. I'd vary the time between steps
so there'd be no rhythm to it.
     But each stair had its say.
     It took forever.
     Then finally I was at the bottom. By then my heart felt ready to
burst! I couldn't believe they hadn't heard me.
     I crossed to the shelter door.
     The basement smelled of damp and mildew and laundry  and something
like spilt sour milk.
     I threw the bolt as quietly and evenly as possible. Metal squealed
against metal all the same.
     I opened the door and stepped inside.
     It was only then, I think, that I remembered what I was doing here
in the first place.
     Nola sat in the corner on her air mattress, her back against the
wall, waiting. In the thin beam of light I could see how frightened she
was and how badly the day had gone for her.
     They'd given her a thin rumpled shirt to put on and that was all.
Her legs were bare.
     Willie had been at them with the knife.
     There were lines and scratches crisscrossed across her thighs and
down her calves almost to her ankles.
     There was blood on the shirt as well. Dried blood mostly-but not
all. Some of it seeping through.
     She stood up.
     She walked toward me and I could see a fresh bruise on her temple.
     For all that she still looked firm and ready.
     She started to say something but I put my finger to my lips,
hushing her.
     "I'll leave the bolt and the back door open," I whispered.
     "They'll think they just forgot. Give me maybe a half an hour. Stay
to the wall side on the stairs and try not to run. Donny's fast. He'd
catch you. Here."
     I dug into my pocket and handed her the money. She looked at it.
Then she shook her head.
     "Better not," she whispered." If something goes wrong and they find
it on me they'll know somebody's been here. We'd never get another
chance. Leave it for me..." she thought for a moment. "Leave it at the
Big Rock. Put a stone on top of it or something. I'll find t, don't
worry."
     "Where will you go?" I said.
     "I don't know. Not yet. Back to Mr. Jennings maybe.
     Not too far. I want to stay close to Susan. I'll find a way to let
you know as soon as I can."
     "You want the flashlight?"
     She shook her head again. "I know the stairs. you keep it. Go
ahead. Go. Get out of here."
     I turned to leave.
     "David?"
     I turned again and she was suddenly next to me reaching  up. I saw
the tears gleam bright in her eyes just as she closed them and kissed
me.
     Her lips were battered, broken, chapped and torn.
     They were the softest, most beautiful things that had ever touched
me, that I had ever touched.
     I felt my own tears come all in a rush.
     "God! I'm sorry, Nola. I'm sorry."
     I could barely get it out. All I could do was stand there and
shake my head and ask her to forgive me.
     "David," she said. "David. Thank you. What you do last-that's what
counts."
     I looked at her. It was as though I were drinking her in,as though
I were somehow becoming her.
     I wiped my eyes, my face.
     I nodded and turned to go.
     Then I had a thought. "Wait," I said.
     I stepped outside the shelter and ran the flashlight beam across
the walls. I found what I was looking for. I took the tire iron off the
nails and walked back and handed it to her.
     "If you need to," I said.
     She nodded.
     "Good luck. Nola," I said and quietly closed the door.
     And then I was in the midst of it again, in the close jarring
silence of the sleeping house, moving slowly upward to the doorway,
weighing each step against the creaking of beds and the whispers of the
branches of trees.
     And then I was out the door.
     I ran across the yard to the driveway, cut through to the back of
my house and into the woods. The moon was bright but I knew the path
without the moon. I heard the water rushing full by the brook.
     At the Rock I stooped to pick up some stones and lowered myself
carefully over the embankment. The surface of the water gleamed in the
moonlight shattered over the rocks. 
     I stepped onto the Rock and dug into my pocket, put the money in a
pile and weighed it down with a small neat pyramid of stones.
     On the embankment I looked back.
     The money and the stones looked pagan to me, like an offering.
     Through the rich green scent of leaves I ran home.                              CHAPTER 24

     And then I sat in bed and listened to my own house sleeping.
     I thought it would be impossible to sleep but I hadn't counted on
strain and exhaustion. I dropped off just after dawn, my pillow damp
with sweat.
     I slept badly and late.
     I looked at the clock and it was almost noon. I got into my clothes
and ran downstairs, gulped down the requisite bowl of cereal because my
mother was standing there complaining about people who slept all day and
where it got them as adults-mostly jail and unemployment-and bolted out
the door smack into the sticky August sunlight.
     There was no way I dared going straight to the Chandlers'. What if
they'd figured it was me?
     I ran through the woods to the Rock.
     The little pyramid I'd made of stones and dollars was still there.
     In the light of day it no longer looked like an offering. It looked
like a pile of dog shit sitting on a pile of leaves. It sat there
mocking me.
     I knew what it meant. She hadn't got out.
     They'd caught her.
     She was still inside  , , I felt this terrible sick feeling in my
gut.
     I was angry and then I was scared and then I was plain confused.
Suppose they had decided it was me who threw the bolt? Or maybe they had
done something to make Nola tell them? 
     What was I supposed to do now?
     Get out of town?
     You could go to the cops, I thought. You could go see Mr.Jennings.
     And then I thought, great, and tell him what? That Ruth's been
torturing Nola for months and I know she has for a fact because I've
sort of been helping?
     I'd seen enough cop shows to know what an accomplice was.
     And I knew a kid-a friend of my cousin's-who'd done almost a year
in Juvenile for getting drunk on beer and stealing his neighbour's car.
According to him they could beat you, they could drug you, they could
stick you in a straightjacket if they wanted to. and they let you out
when they were damn good and ready.
     There's got to be some other way, I thought.
     Like Nola said about keeping the money-we could try again. Think it
through better this time.
     If they didn't know about me already.
     There was only one way to find that out.
     I climbed over to the Rock and gathered up the fives and singles
and put them in my pocket.
     Then I took a real deep breath.
     And then I went over.                              CHAPTER 25

     Willie met me at the door and it was clear that even if they knew
or suspected Willie had other more urgent business.
     "Come on," he said.
     He looked drawn and tired, excited though, and two combining to
make him uglier than ever. You knew he hadn't washed and his breath was
foul even for him.
     "Close the door behind you."
     I did.
     We went downstairs.
     And Ruth was there, sitting in her folding chair. And Woofer. Eddie
and Denise perched on the worktable. And Susan sat bloodlessly silent
crying next to Ruth.
     Every one of them sitting quiet while on the cold damp concrete
floor Donny lay grunting on top of Nola with his pants down around his
ankles, raping her, her naked body tied hands and feet between the
four-by-four support beams.
     And I guessed Ruth had finally changed her mind once and for all
about touching.
     I felt sick.
     I turned to get out of there.
     "Unh-unh," said Willie. "You stay."
     And the carving knife in his hand and the look in his eyes said he
was right. I stayed.
     They were all so quiet in there you could hear the two flies
buzzing. It seemed like a bad sick dream. So I did what you do in a
dream. Passively I watched it unfold.
     Donny covered most of her. I could see only her lower body-her legs
and thighs. Either they were very much bruised since yesterday or had
gotten very dirty. The soles of her feet were black.
     I could almost feel his weight on top of her, pressing down,
pounding her to the rough hard floor. She was gagged but not
blindfolded. Behind the gag I could hear her pain and the helpless
outrage.
     He groaned and arched suddenly and clutched her burned breast and
then rolled slowly off her.
     Beside me Willie breathed relief.
     "There now," said Ruth, nodding. "That's what you're good for."
     Denise and Woofer giggled.
     Donny pulled up his pants and zipped them. He glanced at me but
wouldn't meet my eyes. I couldn't blame him. I wouldn't have met his
either.
     Susan suddenly started sobbing.
     "Mommeee!"
     She kept rocking back and forth in her chair.
     "I want my mommeeee!"
     "Oh, shut up why doncha'" said Woofer.
     "Yeah," said Eddie.
     "Shut the fuck up," said Ruth. "Shut up!"
     She kicked her chair. She backed up and kicked it again and Susan
tumbled off it. She lay there screaming. 
     "Stay there!" said Ruth. "You just stay there! Stay where you are."
Then she looked around at the rest of us. "Who else wants a turn? " she
said. "Davy? Eddie? "
     "Me," said Willie.
     Ruth looked at him.
     "I don't know about that," she said. "Your brother's just had her.
Seems sorta like incest to me. I dunno."
     "Aw hell, Mom!" said Willie.
     "Well, it does. Not that the little whore would give a damn. But
I'd feel a whole lot better if it was Eddie or Davy."
     "Davy don't want her for chrissake!"
     "Sure he does."
     "No, he don't!"
     She looked at me. I looked away.
     She shrugged. "Maybe not. Boy's sensible. I know I wouldn't touch
her. But then I'm not a man am I.
     Eddie?"
     "I want to cut her," said Eddie.
     "Yeah. Me too!" said Woofer.
     "Cut her?" Ruth looked puzzled.
     "You said that we could cut her, Mrs. Chandler," said Denise.
     "I did?"
     "Sure you did," said Woofer.
     "I did? When? Cut her how?"
     "Hey. Come on, I want to fuck her," said Willie.
     "Shut up," said Ruth. "I'm talking to Ralphie Cut her how?"
     "Put something on her," said Ralphie "So people'd know. So people'd
know she was a whore." 
     "That's right. Like a scarlet letter or something." said Denise.
"Like in the Classic Comic."
     "Oh, you mean like brand her," said Ruth "You mean brand her, not
cut her." 
     "You said cut her," said Woofer.
     "Don't tell me what I said. Don't you tell your mother"
     "You did, Mrs Chandler," said Eddie "Honest You said cut her."
     "I did?"
     "I heard you. We all did."
     Ruth nodded. She thought about it. Then she sighed.
     "Okay. We'll want a needle. Ralphie, go up and get my sewing kit
out of the...I think it's in the hall closet."
     "Okay."
     He ran by me.
     I couldn't believe this was happening.
     Ruth," I said. "Ruth?"
     She looked at me. Her eyes seemed to quiver, to shudder in their
sockets. 
     "What." 
     "Your're not really doing this, are you?" 
     "I said we could. So I guess we will." 
     She leaned close to me. I could smell the cigarette smoke leaking
from every pore.
     "Mom," said Willie. He was whining now. 
     "What."
     "Why can't I?" 
     "Can't what?" 
     "Fuck her!"
     "Because I said so, goddammit! Now you leave me the hell alone
about it. You want to go skinny dipping into your own brother's scum?
That what you want? Don't talk to me. You're disgusting! Just like your
goddamn father."
     "Ruth," I said. "You...you can't do this."
     "Can't?"
     "No."
     "No? why not?"
     "It's not...it's not right."
     She got up. She walked over to me and I had to look at her. I had
to look straight in her eye.
     "Please don't tell me what's right, boy," she said. Her voice was
a low trembling growl. I was aware of her shaking with a fury that was
only barely under control. The eyes flickered. I stepped backward.
     I thought, my God, this was a woman I'd liked once. A woman I'd
thought funny, sometimes even pretty. One of the guys.
     This woman scared hell out of me.
     She'll kill you, I thought. She'll kill us all including her own
kids and not even care or think about it till later.
     If she feels like it.
     "Don't you tell me," she said.
     And I think she knew what was in my mind then. I think she read me
completely.
     It didn't concern her. She tumed to Willie.
     "This boy tries to leave," she said. "Cut his balls off and hand'em
over here to me. You got that?"
     WillIe returned her smile. "Sure, Mom," he said.
     Woofer came runnIng into the room holding a battered shoe box. He
handed it to Ruth.
     "It was In the bedroom on the dresser."
     "oh."
     She opened it. I caught a glimpse of jumbled twine and balls of
thread, pincushions, buttons, needles. She put it down on the worktable
and rummaged through It.
     Eddie moved off the table to give her room and peered down over her
shoulder.
     "Here we go," she said. She turned to Woofer. "We have to heat this
though, or she'll get an infectIon."
     She held a long thick sewIng needle.
     The room was suddenly crackling with tensIon.
     I looked at the needle and then at Nola lying on the floor and she
was lookIng at it too and so was Susan.
     "Who gets to do it?" said Eddie.
     "Well, I guess to be fair you can each do a letter. That okay?"
     "Great. What'll we write?"
     Ruth thought about it.
     "Suppose we keep it simple. How 'bout we write, 'I fuck. Fuck me.'
That ought to do it. That ought to tell whoever needs to know."     
"Sure," said Denise. "That'll be great." To me at that moment she looked
just like Ruth. The same twitching light in her eyes, the same tense
expectancy.
     "Wow," said Woofer. "That's a lot of letters. Almost two each."
     Ruth counted, nodded.
     "Actually," she said, "If DavId doesn't want in on this, and I
suspect be doesn't, you could make it two each and I'll just take the
one over. DavId?"
     I shook my head.
     "I figured," said Ruth. But she didn't seem angry or mockIng about
it.
     "Okay," said Ruth. "I'll take the I. Let's do it."
     "Ruth?" I said. "Ruth?"
     WIllIe moved closer to me, moving the carving knife in slow lazy
circles right beneath my chin. He made me very nervous because you
couldn't tell with Willie. I looked at Eddie and watched him fiddle with
the blade of his own Swiss Army knife, eyes cold and dead as I knew
they'd be even before I looked. Then I looked at Donny. It was a new
Donny. There was no help from him either.
     But Ruth just turned to me, still not angry, sounding calm and sort
of weary. Almost like she were trying to tell me something I should have
known all along, strictly for my own benefit. As though she were doing
something really nice for me. As though of all of the people here in
this room, I was her favourite. 
     "David," she said, "I'm telling you. Just leave this be." 
     "I want to go, then," I said. "I want to get out of here."
     "No." 
     "I don't want to see this."
     "Then don't look."
     They were going to do it to her. Woofer bad matches. He was heating
the needle.
     I was trying not to cry.
     "I don't want to hear it either."
     "Too bad," she said. "Unless you got wax in your ears you'll hear
it plenty."
     And I did.                              CHAPTER 26

     When it was over and they'd finished swabbing her with the rubbing
alcohol I walked over to see what they'd done. Not just this but last
night and this morning too.
     It was the first I'd been near her all day.
     They'd removed the gag once they'd finished, knowing she was
too weak now to say much anyhow. Her lips were puffy and swollen. One of
her eyes was closing, turning red and purple. I saw three or four new
cigarette bums on her chest and collarbone and one on her inner thigh.
The triangular burn from Ruth's iron was an open blister now. There were
bruises on her ribs and arms and over her calves and thighs where
Willie'd cut her the day before.
     And there were the words I FUCK FUCK ME
     Two-inch letters. All in capitals. Half-burned and half-cut deep
into the flesh across her stomach.
     Written in what looked like the shaky hesitant hand of a six-year
old schoolboy.
     Now you can't get married," said Ruth. She was sitting again,
smoking, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. Willie and Eddie
had gone upstairs for cokes. The room stank of smoke and sweat and
alcohol.
     "See, it's there forever, Nola," she said. "You can't undress for
anybody, ever. Because he'd see those words there."
     I looked and realized it was true.
     Ruth had changed her for life. 
     The burns and bruises would fade but this would stay-- legible
however faintly, even thirty years from now. It was something she'd have
to think about and explain each and every time she stood naked in front
of someone. Whenever she looked in a mirror she'd see it there and
remember.
     And showers after gym class. How could she handle that, in a room
full of teenage girls? 
     Ruth wasn't worried. It was like Nola was her protegee now.
     "You're better off," she said. "You'll see. No man will want you.
You won't have kids. It'll be a whole lot better that way. You're lucky.
You thought it's good to be cute? To be sexy? Well, I'll tell you, Nola.
A woman's better off loathsome in this world."
     Eddie and Willie came in laughing with a six-pack of Cokes and
passed them around. I took one from them and held it, trying to keep the
bottle steady. The faint sweet scent of caramel was sickening. One sip
and I knew I'd vomit. I'd been trying not to ever since it started.
     Donny didn't take one. He just stood by Nola looking down
     "You're right, Ma," he said after a while. "It makes things
different. What we wrote I mean. It's weird."
     He was trying to puzzle It out. Then finally be got a handle on it.
     "She ain't so much anymore," he said.
     He sounded a little surprised and even a little happy.
     Ruth smiled. The smile was thin and shaky.
     "I told you," she said, "You see?"
     Eddie laughed, walked over and kicked her in the ribs. Nola
barely grunted. "Nah. She ain't much," he said.
     "She ain't nothin'!" said Denise. She swigged her Coke.

     Eddie kicked her again, harder this time, in full solidarity with
his sister.
     Get me out of here, I thought.
     Please. Let me go.
     "I guess we could string her up again," said Ruth. 
     "Let her stay," said Willie.
     "Its cold down there. I don't want no runny noses or no sneezing.
Haul her back on up and lets have a look at her." 
     Eddie untied her feet and Donny freed her hands from the
four-by-four but kept them tied together and looped the line over one of
the nails in the ceiling.
     Nola looked at me. You could see how weak she was. Not even a tear.
Not even the strength to cry. Just a sad defeated look that said, you
see what's become of me? 
     Donny pulled on the line and raised her arms tight above her head.
He tied it off at the worktable.
     Something had changed. 
     It was as though in carving the letters across her they'd stripped
her of all power to excite--to elicit either fear or lust or hate. What
was left was so much flesh now. Weak. And somehow contemptible. 
     Ruth sat looking at her. 
     "There's one thing we should do," she said
     "What?" said Donny. 
     Ruth thought. "Well," she said, "we got her so no man's gonna want
her now. Problem is, see. Nola might still want him." She shook her
head. Life of torment there." 
     "So?" 
     She considered. We watched her. 
     "Tell you what you do," she said finally. "Go upstairs to the
kitchen and get the barbecue. 
     "Why?"
     "Just do it," she said.
     He went up and got the barbecue and came back down. 
     Ruth stood up.
     "Okay. Who's got a match? I'm out."
     "I got some," said Eddie.
     He handed them to her. She stooped and picked up the      tire iron
I'd given to Nola last night.
     I wondered if she'd had any chance to use it.
     "Here. Take this," she said. She handed the iron to Eddie.
     "Come on."
     They put down the Cokes and walked past me. Every body wanted to
see what Ruth had in mind. Everybody but me and Susan. But Susan just
sat on the floor where Ruth had told her to sit and I had Willie's knife
about two feet from my ribcage.
     So I went too.
     "Light it." said Ruth. They looked at her.
     "The barbecue." she said. 
     Woofer, Denise and Donny watched Eddie light it. Ruth      lit a
cigarette with Eddie's matches. Willie stayed behind me.
     I glanced at the staircase just a few feet away. Beckoning.


     "See, here's the thing," Ruth said. "A woman doesn't want a man all
over her body. No. She only wants him one place in particular. Know what
I mean, Denise? No? Not yet? Well you will. Woman wants a man in one
particular place and that's right down here between her legs."
     She pointed, then pressed her hand to her dress to show
them. 
     "Now you burn her a little there and you know what happens? You
take away the desire. We use the iron on her for awhile.
     The room was hushed as they stared at her for a moment, not quite
believing what they were hearing.
     I believed her. I started to tremble as though it were me naked
with them. Because I could see it, smell it, hear her screams. I could
see all the way down into Nola's future--the living, consequences of
such an act.  And I trembled. I was with savages. I had lived with them.
I'd been one of them. Like the swarms of ferocious red ants that Woofer
liked to play with.
     I broke for the stairs.
     I heard Willie curse and felt his knife graze the back of my shirt.
I grabbed the wooden banister and twisted onto the stairs.
     I stumbled. Below me I saw Ruth pointing, shouting, her mouth a
wide black empty gaping hole. I felt Willie's hand grasp my foot and
pull. Beside me were paint cans and a bucket. I swept them down the
stairs behind me and heard him curse again and Eddie too as I wrenched
my foot away. I got to my feet. I crashed blindly up the stairs.
     The door was open. I flung open the screen.
     The summer heat washed over me in a single heavy wave. I couldn't
scream. I had to gasp for air. I heard them close behind me. I leapt
down the stairs.
     "Move!" Donny yelled.
     Then suddenly he was on top of me, the momentum of his leap from
the landing knocking me down and knocking the breath out of me and
rolling him away from me. I was faster than he was. I got to my feet. I
saw Willie to the side of me, blocking my way to my house. I saw the
knife glint in the sunlight. I didn't try.
     I ran past Donny's outstretched arms across the yard heading toward
the woods.
     I was halfway there when Eddie hit me, threw himself hard across
the back of my legs. I went down and suddenly he was all over me,
punching, kicking, trying to gouge my eyes. I rolled and twisted. I had
weight on him. I wrestled him over. He grabbed my shirt. I let it tear
and pulled away. I stumbled back and then Donny was on me too and then
Willie and it was only when I felt Willie's knife at my throat and felt
it cut that I stopped struggling.
     "Inside, cunt," he said. "And not a fucking word!"
     They marched me back.
     The sight of my own house tormented me. I kept looking at it for
signs of life but there weren't any.
     We went up and then down into the cool, paint-smelling dark.
     I put my hand to my throat. My fingers came up wet with just a
little blood.
     Ruth stood there, arms folded tight across her breasts.
     "Fool," she said. "Now where the hell were you going?"
     "I didn't answer.

     "Well, I guess you're with her now," she said. "Don't know what the
hell we're going to do with you all."
     She shook her head. Then she laughed.
     "Just be glad you don't have one of them littLe spots like she
does. 'Course, then, you've got something else to worry about, don't
you?"
     Denise laughed.
     "Willie you go get some rope. I think we better tie him up in case
he feels like wandering again."
     Willie went into the shelter. He came back with a short length of
rope and handed Donny the knife. Donny held it while Willie tied my
hands behind me.
     Everybody watched and waited.
     And this time Donny seemed to have no trouble at all looking
me in the eye.
     "You always did like a fire, Woofer" said Ruth. She turned to the
rest of them. She sighed.
     "Who wants to do this now?" she said.
     "I do," said Eddie.
     She looked at him, smiling a little. It seemed to me the very same
look that-once, not long ago at all, had been very much reserved for me.
     I guess I wasn't her favourite kid on the block anymore.
     "Get the tire iron," she said.
     And Eddie did.
     They held it to the flames.
     It was very quiet.
     When she judged it was hot enough him to remove it and we all went
back to where Nola was hanging.
     She fainted when Eddie touched her with the iron, gone rigid and
then suddenly limp as though struck by a bolt of lightening. 
     I couldn't imagine the pain.                       A Comment from the Author:

     The comments and suggestions posted by readers are what keep the
authors going. The same is true for me. I've got a general direction I
want to go with NOLA series from here, but that's all. The door's wide
open for specific scenes and characters. I'd love for all you "Anons"
out there to contribute your suggestions. If nobody does, the NOLA
series will probably go on anyway but the more suggestions I get the
better the product, I hope.

Please post any comments to French Connection BBS (914-278-6266) or
Leather Rose BBS (312-665-0111). I visit both regularly.

                            And a Question:

     Does anyone out there still like whips?  Or for that matter canes,
straps, paddles, tawses, martinets, cat-o'-nines, riding crops, or even
an occasional good old fashioned bundle of birch switches? I haven't
seen a good flagellation story in ages. What ever happened to naughty
young schoolgirls getting their asses caned by lecherous old
headmasters? I'm not talking about spanking people. That's its own
little club, and they mostly frown on us hard core B&D and S&M freaks.
I'm talking about the whip 'em till they bleed world. Are any of us
"flag" freaks still out there?  Comments please.

Curt Strap
January, 1994