When you want somebody it takes up a lot of space, when you decide to let it go, the space opens up again. My yearning was born in that space, the child of dashed hopes and something ancient I couldn’t quite hear, calling me. All I knew was there had to be more. Even my beloved Park was feeling small, like clothes a little outgrown. Robert Earle got up real early on the twins’ birthday and started blowing up sky-blue balloons with helium. By the time Fred and Elvis woke up the entire ceiling of the trailer was covered with sky-blue balloons. Sky-blue balloons were hanging off the outside of the trailer, sky-blue balloons were hanging off the dead cars left to rust, sky-blue balloons were hanging off the phone poles, sky-blue balloons were everywhere, even some of the chickens were sporting sky-blue balloons. Everybody showed for the twins’ birthday: Stupid Bill and mean, old Lucille; Fat Jack and Laurette; Lureen and Luna, going through a skinny phase, her Wild Daughters. Then there was Dirk and Betty with Derry and Dallas and Betty even smiled at me, which made me feel good all over. Everybody brought food, you never seen so much food. We had macaroni salad, potato salad, fried chicken, three-bean casserole, cold cuts, bug juice, and coca-cola. The kids and Stupid Bill were all in costume because it was Halloween. It was loud, it was noisy, it was hopping, and the twins loved it. They jumped into the party, Superman capes flying, and were picked up and held and cooed over like little kings. Robert Earle and I kept sneaking round the side of the trailer for little sips of helium, then we’d talk nonsense just to hear how funny our voices sounded and fall on the ground laughing. The third time we did that I fell on top of him, felt him move hard into me, and even though he wasn’t it was like he was. “We gotta get back to the party,” Robert Earle said, pushing me off and we didn’t go for helium after that. I took a balloon over to Daddy’s grave afterwards with pictures of the twins to show him. I hunkered down and filled him in with what was going on. I told him how Luna and her Wild Daughters had moved out their trailer and in with Lureen. I told him how no-account Seth was still in Luna’s trailer but at least she wasn’t living with him. I told him how Robert Earle was practically running the Dross and just back from some secret Way of the Horns thing. I told him how much I loved my babies, how I hit heaven when they’d come find me in bed in the mornings and crawl all over me, and I told him to give Sweet Sam my best. Then I told him about the yearning inside me and that I didn’t know what it was. A pebble hit me smack in the back of the head and when I turned I saw Robert Earle standing a few yards away. “Where are the boys?” I asked. “Lureen’s got em.’ “Are you gonna sit over here or are you just gonna stand over there?” Robert Earle crossed his arms in front of him and shifted his weight slowly from his right leg to his left. “Your nerves ride higher than most people’s, Emma,” he said after a bit. “No shit Sherlock,” I said lying back on the ground and then his face was over mine and it blotted out the sky. I will always remember his face moving towards me as he lowered his body slow onto mine. It was the naked face of my own yearning. I will always remember the feel of him as our clothes came off and I couldn’t stop shaking or crying and my skin felt stretched and sore. “Easy sweetheart,” he whispered, “easy now.” Emma - Genesis 2: The Passion of Emma Ray
Posted on: Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:35:43 +0000
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