The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers [119]
‘What kind of drinks you got?’ Harry asked. The storeman started to name them over. Mick opened the ice box and looked inside. Her hands felt good in the cold water. ‘I want a chocolate Nehi. You got any of them? ‘ ‘Ditto,’ Harry said. ‘Make it two.’
‘No, wait a minute. Here’s some ice-cold beer. I want a bottle of beer if you can treat as high as that’ Harry ordered one for himself, also. He thought it was a sin for anybody under twenty to drink beer--but maybe he just suddenly wanted to be a sport. After the first swallow he made a bitter face. They sat on the steps in front of the store.
Mick’s legs were so tired that the muscles in them jumped.
She wiped the neck of the bottle with her hand and took a long, cold pull. Across the road there was a big empty field of grass, and beyond that a fringe of pine woods. The trees were every color of green--from a bright yellow-green to a dark color that was almost black. The sky was hot blue.
‘I like beer,’ she said. ‘I used to sop bread down in the drops our Dad left. I like to lick salt out my hand while I drink. This is the second bottle to myself I’ve ever had.’
The first swallow was sour. But the rest tastes good.’
The storeman said it was twelve miles from town. They had four more miles to go. Harry paid him and they were out in the hot sun again. Harry was talking loud and he kept laughing without any reason.
‘Gosh, the beer along with this hot sun makes me dizzy. But I sure do feel good,’ he said.
‘I can’t wait to get in swimming.’
There was sand in the road and they had to throw all their weight on the pedals to keep from bogging. Harry’s shirt was stuck to his back with sweat. He still kept talking. The road changed to red clay and the sand was behind them. There was a slow colored song in her mind--one Portia’s brother used to play on his harp. She pedaled in time to it.
Then finally they reached the place she had been looking for.
‘This is it! See that sign that says PRIVATE? We got to climb the bob-wire fence and then take that path there--see!’ The woods were very quiet. Slick pine needles covered the ground. Within a few minutes they had reached the creek. The water was brown and swift. Cool. There was no sound except from the water and a breeze singing high up in the pine trees.
It was like the deep, quiet woods made them timid, and they walked softly along the bank beside the creek.
‘Don’t it look pretty.’
Harry laughed. ‘What makes you whisper? Listen here!’ He clapped his hand over his mouth and gave a long Indian whoop that echoed back at them. ‘Come on. Let’s jump in the water and cool off.’
‘Aren’t you hungry?’
‘O.K. Then we’ll eat first. We’ll eat half the lunch now and half later on when we come out’ She unwrapped the jelly sandwiches. When they were finished Harry balled the papers neatly and stuffed them into a hollow tree stump. Then he took his shorts and went down the path.
She shucked off her clothes behind a bush and struggled into Hazel’s bathing-suit The suit was too small and cut her between the legs.
‘You ready?’ Harry hollered.
She heard a splash in the water and when she reached the bank Harry was already swimming. ‘Don’t dive yet until I find out if there are any stumps or shallow places,’ he said. She just looked at his head bobbing in the water. She had never intended to dive, anyway. She couldn’t even swim. She had been in swimming only a few times in her life--and then she always wore water-wings or stayed out of parts that were over her head. But it would be sissy to tell Harry. She was embarrassed. All of a sudden she told a tale: ‘I don’t dive any more. I used to dive, high dive, all the time. But once I busted my head open, so I can’t dive any more.’ She thought for a minute. ‘It was a double jack-knife dive I was doing. And when I came up there was blood all in the water.
But I didn’t think anything about it and just began to do swimming tricks. These people were hollering at me. Then I found out where all this blood in the water was coming