Somewhere Between the Sand Pile and the Disco
Kate Felix
The grandmas sent you out to the yard and continued their drinking on the hot veranda. You found me at the sand pile in my brother’ s brown corduroys. There was no sense dressing up for Grandma’ s house since I always came home filthy.
You carried a pail and shovel, purchased that morning from Bargain Harold’ s, and marched toward me like you were going to war. I watched your approach through half-lidded eyes until your kangaroo sneaker struck the ground, half-an-inch from my outstretched hand. You were a rogue animal on my sand pile, so I shifted my chin to face you. You raised your palm against the glaring rays of the day and inquired,“ You’ re a boy, right?” I thought of the horrid pink canopy that covered my bed and the abandoned doll-house beside it. I stared at your fingers, filthy before they had even hit the sand, and knew my answer.“ Of course.” There, in the sweltering heat of my seventh summer, it seemed just another of my inconsequential childhood lies. You relaxed your posture, lowered yourself to sit beside me, and said you hated girls. I told you the truth, that I did too, and the last embers of your suspicion were extinguished. You clapped your hand on my back and shared a secret you had learned from your cousin Charlie: There was a crooked hole inside of ladies where their dick should be.“ Crooked?““ You could get it stuck in there.” I hadn’ t heard. Together we constructed a fortress of sand. You bumped me with your knees and elbows, but you never apologized. I shoved you gently aside, but you neither yielded nor acknowledged my touch. I enjoyed the steady pressure between us, and the feeling that the slightest miscalculation might suddenly upset our balance. We walked to the edge of the sand pile and you swaggered, legs parted, like a cowboy. I copied your stride and let my crotch guide me. The taught leash between my legs urged me onward, toward the blazing sun of our shared high noon. Heady with my restless masculinity, I launched a ball of sand straight at your ass. You turned to me accusingly, flexed your filthy fists, and smiled a devil’ s smile.
We rolled on the ground like puppies. We growled and smacked each other with open palms, but it was all part of a perfect game. You pinned me under your skinny legs and straddled me while you panted. Our shirts came loose and our flat chests heaved together as we grappled in the hot summer sun.
10 Cauldron Anthology