We were barley 17 and we were barely dressed: When I had just turned 10 years old my father and I lived in a one room cabin on the north west side of Yakima Wa. There were four of them all identical and set side by side across from each other. It was a mini community and I recall the four lost souls who habituated the other three cabins very fondly. Two cast outs and the other other two self exiled from the rest of the 9 to 5 401k security obsessed folks that made up the bigger community around us. We were an island on to our selves. The cabins are still there and look like maybe one family of illegals live there, who knows but anyone who could afford to live anywhere els would. Roy Decker lived in the cabin directly across from ours and our doors were no more than 10 paces from each other. Just enough room for a plastic table where he and my father would drink thunderbird wine and Olympia beer. Roy was the epitome of a lovable looser. He was in his 60s and his ears had never quit growing and were massive and when he got excited and misty drunk which was more or less his constant state he would flick his right spongy ear lobe with his right index finger and stamp his right foot and laugh that timeless old man laugh all full of joy and kindness the kind of laugh that makes you trust him as soon as you hear it and a laugh that only belongs to kind old drunks. His ear lobe would quiver long after he had flicked it like a bowl of jello when you shake it. His nose had never quit growing either and was covered in gin blossoms but they in no way diminished the kindness his weathered face exuded. He was right out of some Steinbeck novel. Canary Row, Of Mice & Men or Grapes of Wrath. Pick a story and he is in it, maybe the wise old Box Car Hobo who teaches and mentors the vulnerable young hero the way of the rails. You know the guy I am talking about, well that was Roy Decker. I always loved to be close to him and always felt safe and like I was with a child 10 times my age but a child just the same. Directly next to is was his son Lary and Lary was a pathetic drunk. Not mean just sad missing his front teeth and oddly feminine. No mater how hard I tried I couldnt bring my self to like Lary like I did is father and it seems to me his father had a harder time liking him more than I did. My dad was alway kind to Lary but he never left me alone with him. Across from Lary there was a couple who names are lost to time but I remember them vividly. They werent drunks and neither sad or lovable. They were interesting and exciting. Looking back I guess they must have been hippies. She is what I will call her. She was very young maybe 18 or 20. Its hard to gauge age when your 10. Everyone just seems bigger and older. She was blond and she didnt care much for clothing. She was alway half naked and Roy and my father used to watch her intently when she would wash her close and hang them on the community line, Lary how ever paid her no mind. He, is what we will call her old old man which is what she called him. He has morphed in my mind over the years. He has become the Sam Elliot character from MASK. I cant remember as much about him except he was kind to me and I liked it much better when He wasnt there. He didnt sear a place in my memories like She did. He spent allot of time away which I never understood. I cherished every moment I was allowed to be close to her. I would lay on the floor of our hot little cabin sweat accumulating on my round flushed cheeks . I would think about her checks and how full they were and how the sweat would run down her back when she hung up her mystical garments. I was fascinate by them. Mine where all torn levies, ruff and frayed and t shirts that where drab and boring but her clothes were anything but ruff, drab or frayed. They were shear and soft and full of vivid colors. There was something about the sweat beads rolling down her sun kissed skin starting from the nape of her neck all the way down the line of her spine to a place I spent countless hours dreaming about but had never seen and never thought I would be lucky to see. I wanted in the worst way trace my finger down the tracks left by those glorious breeds of sweat. I just wanted to feel what she must feel like. It was a much simpler time there was no internet or even phones in our little community. All I knew of a womans body is what my imagination created and I had a very vivid imagination. When He was gone She would come nock on our ruff little ill fitting door. She loved candles and I had be come obsessed with making them. I had saved a little money from what I had gotten picking pares that summer and bought some wax and wicks and was almost always busy making her candles when those wonderful nocks would come. I would jump of the chair and almost for get to turn off the stove. My dad hated my new hobby because making candles only made our hot little cabin hotter but my dad loves me and has always tolerated my eccentric behaviors. These visits where always the same. I would fallow her to her cabin which was so much nicer than ours. A womens touch can make any hovel a palace. We would first walk to the gas station and grab two bottles of coke, she always payed but on a few occasion she let me buy them and nothing and I mean nothing brought me greater joy than buying her a coke. I wouldnt fell like quite the little man and that would send me off Into dreams of being a man, with her in her cabin. I could think of no better life. Maybe He wouldnt come back and I could make enough money picking Apples in the fall and pruning and thinning in the winter and I was already making a full mans pay picking cherries in the spring. I had it all figured out, that was if He one day left for ever. I would take care if her an maybe find out where those sweat beads went. Maybe I could go there too. Of course I was barley 10 years old and He was always going to come back. He was a nice young man and loved her very much and they were living and adventure that I was completely unaware of. He knew where the sweat beads went and he went there too. That didnt stop me from my dreams and nothing then or now ever has. Dreams are strong in me and I always find a way to make them reality. They were only in that cabin for a few months but they are months that mean a great deal to me. She new I loved and was obsessed with music. Any music I could hear I soaked up and hearing music back then for a poor boy with out a record player or a radio wasnt always easy. I could hear a song once and know it word for word. It was 1980 and the 70s were giving way to a new time and music but she held on to the 70s. The record I remember most was Meatloafs Bat out of Hell. I couldnt believe their was a fat singer named meatloaf and that people listened to him. Her music was nothing like the Hank Williams and Left Frizzle records my dad had. I would proudly bring my dads records over and she would listen and say things like groovy and other words that held no meaning for me and never sounded right when I said them. My dad had two 50s and skipped the 60s altogether and since he was my window to the world I was limited on most current world things though I knew the classics. She was always amazed by the books I read and that always made me feel special. When she would tell me what a handsome man I was going to be and brush my sloppy hair from my always dirty face I would almost shoot strait to the moon. I always walked taller on those days. I would spend hours looking in the mirror trying to see what she saw in me. The last night I got to spend with her before He came home the last time and took her away from me we where setting in the one room of her cabin and I watching with a despair I had never felt as she packed her mystical garments that I knew I would never see again. She played me a song she said reminded her of me and when ever she heard it for the rest of her life She said She would think of me. She said She was jealous of all the pretty girls who would get to kiss me when I got older. She payed it over and over and packed her clothes and the few belongings they had. Then with out any warming she looked at me in a way she never has before and reached her hand to me and I for the first time touched her and just her hand was better than I even envisioned. She took a long drink off of the bottle of wine which I had snuck from Roy for her earlier that day, by now the bottle was almost gone. Ill never under stand why she did what she did next but I dont question miracles. She took my hand in hers and placed is under her shirt on her breast then leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I can still feel those happy beads of sweat on her Brest and how round, soft and firm She was and her lips sour from the wine still tasted better than anything I had ever tasted. Then she gave me my hand back and played her favorite song again and said those lucky girls may get me but She will always have my first kiss. Then she turned and finished the bottle and and continued to pack. That night on my floor in that hot little cabin I couldnt sleep. I didnt even think about her. I could only think about all the pretty girls she was jealous of and what they were doing at that moment and if they were thinking about me even though we had never met and wouldnt for years. The last thing I heard before sleep and dreams came to me was her little record player still playing her favorite song. We were barely 17 and we where barely dressed over and over. The next morning her little record player and a few records were on the flimsy plastic table with a small piece of pink diary paper that had only a heart scribbled on it. That night in my hot cabin I could feel September blowing through the cracks in the door, it was starting to get cooler. I dreamt of her that night like always and were life was going to take her and before sleep came for me I listened to her favorite song over and over. 17 was still a world away to me but being barley dressed with a beautiful girl all of a sudden seemed allot closer... :)
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 02:14:33 +0000