• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1605 0

There he was, and there was Lucy, swinging her legs, singing The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and it was nice, and he told himself that no afternoon in his whole life had been like this one, not even the afternoon after he had licked the stuffings out of Weary Reilley. He had felt sick from the fight then, and the gang had all been around and made things a lot different from now, with himself and Lucy sharing and owning all the niceness themselves. And he had a feeling that this was a turning point in his life, and from now on everything was going to be jake. He had always felt that some time something would happen to him, and it was the thing that was going to make his whole life different; and this afternoon was just what was going to turn the trick; it was Lucy. Living was going to be swell now, and different from and nicer than it had ever been before. The only thing the matter with it all was that it couldn’t last forever. That was the way things were; they ended, just when they began to be most jake.

A bird cooed above them. He usually thought it was sissified to listen or pay attention to such things as birds singing; it was crazy, like being a guy who studied music, or read too many books, or wrote poems and painted pictures. But now he listened; it was nice; he told himself how nice it was.

If some of the kids knew what he was doing and thinking, they’d laugh their ears off at him. Well, if they did, let ‘em; he could kick a lot of mustard out of the whole bunch of ’em. He gazed up at the bird. Some white stuff dropped on him, and somehow, seeing the bird that sang like this one doing that, well, it kind of hurt him, and told him how all living things were, well, they weren’t perfect; just like the sisters had said they weren’t in catechism. He was glad Lucy hadn’t noticed it. They sat. Lucy touched his sleeve, and told him to listen to the bird music. He listened. But Lucy was suddenly distracted by an oh-socute-and-so-darling baby, being led below them by a nursemaid.

They sat. Studs swinging his legs, and Lucy swinging hers, she chattering, himself not listening to it, only knowing that it was nice, and that she laughed and talked and was like an angel, and she was an angel playing in the sun. Suddenly, he thought of feeling her up, and he told himself that he was a bastard for having such thoughts. He wasn’t worthy of her, even of her fingernail, and he side-glanced at her, and he loved her, he loved her with his hands, and his lips, and his eyes, and his heart, and he loved everything about her, her dress, and voice, and the way she smiled, and her eyes, and her hair, and Lucy, all of her. He sat, swinging his legs, restless, happy, and yet not so happy, because he was afraid that he might be acting like a droop, or he might be saying or doing something to make her mad. He wanted the afternoon never to end, so that he and Lucy could sit there forever; her hands stole timidly into his, and he forgot everything in the world but Lucy.

“Isn’t it awfully nice here?” she said.

“Yeah!” gruffed he.

He wanted to say more, and he couldn’t. He wanted to let her know about all the dissolving, tingling feelings he was having, and how he felt like he might be the lagoon, and the feelings she made inside of him were like the dancing feelings and the little waves the sun and wind made on it; but those were things he didn’t know how to tell her, and he was afraid to, because maybe he would spoil them if he did. He couldn’t even say a damn thing about how it all made him want to feel strong and good, and made him want to do things and be big and brave for her.

His tongue stuck in his mouth.

They sat swinging their legs.

And Time passed through their afternoon like a gentle, tender wind, and like death that was silent and cruel. They knew they ought to go, and they sat. Accumulating shadows raked the scene which commenced to blur beneath them. They sat, and about them their beautiful afternoon evaporated, split up and died like the sun that was dying a red death in the calm sky. Lucy said that it was getting late,