child, but we hadn’t reached the stage where I could nag, “Think about the baby, dear.”
When Dot brought out the plates, she raised an eyebrow and looked at Maurey. “Well?”
“No.”
Dot’s face lit like the sun. “You didn’t go through with it?”
“No.”
“I’m so happy.”
Maurey sprinkled extra sugar on her toast. “You never told me you’d be happy if I chickened out.”
Dot slid into the booth next to me and patted my hand. “Honey, ever’one says, ‘Do what you think best, it’s your body,’ but they’re all pulling for you to keep the baby, they’re pleased when you do.”
“Why is that?”
“That’s the way the world is. Life is neater than anything else.”
For all her grins and giggles, Dot was a deep thinker too.
“So, are you going to keep the baby?” Dot asked.
Funny how virtual strangers can ask about things that would be personal coming from loved ones. Maurey wouldn’t give me an answer to that question, but to Dot she shrugged both shoulders and said, “I guess so.”
Made me happy. “Yippee.”
Maurey swung in the booth. “You’re happy I’m going through with it?”
“Sure, I’m ready to be a father.”
“Sam, you’ll turn fourteen after it’s born.”
“I’m ready.”
“And you’ve never lived in a small town. Things are liable to get ugly around here come summer.”
Dot nodded in agreement.
“I don’t care.”
“If my boyfriend doesn’t break your legs, my dad probably will.”
I paused a moment on that one. “You still have a boyfriend?”
“Whose jacket am I wearing?”
“You could give it back?”
“No.”
We zipped into intense eye lock until Dot got nervous and slid from the booth. “I’ll leave you young parents to yourselves.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“We’re friends.”
Caspar attended the Culver Military Academy way back in the Dark Ages. He rode in the Black Horse Troop and he learned all about leadership. I don’t have much use for leadership qualities. Caspar talks about Culver with the same gleam as Mr. March the barber on World War II.
“The friendships last a lifetime,” he said.
I never saw any of his Culver pals around the manor house.
“It’ll make a man out of you. If Lydia had gone there she wouldn’t be the mess she is today.”
“She’d be a man?”
“She wouldn’t be immoral.”
There’s something odd about being eight, nine years old and being told three times a week your mom is immoral.
“Don’t you want to ride ponies with your comrades? Culver has the finest fencing program in the nation.”
“Do they play baseball?”
He buried himself in the
I didn’t want to end up like Lydia or Caspar either one. I wanted to end up like Willie Mays.
Sunday night a consideration kept me awake after Maurey snuggled up with her bear and went under. The next morning I would leave the joys of impending parenthood and return to the seventh grade and Howard Stebbins. English first period wouldn’t be so bad; at least my clothes stayed on throughout the entire class. The locker room before and after PE was the vulnerable point. If he caught me in nothing but a jock strap I’d be easy pickings for whatever stance he chose to take. The stance thing worried me. Stebbins and I had never given a holy hoot for each other, only now we had something in common—Buddy Pierce. I’d fucked his daughter, Stebbins fucked his wife. Not just fucked, we’d run rampant through the household impregnating every hole in sight. If he found out, Buddy would be understandably pissed to the point of blood flowing. The man
This gave Howard and me a common danger and people with a common danger tend to slide into an us- against-the-enemy deal.
I didn’t want that. Stebbins was the coach; he was the enemy. Loyalty to Maurey called for despising the thing Howard had done to Buddy while ignoring the fact I’d done almost the same thing. I’d never thought of humping his daughter as doing something to the man. I’d been doing it to her, or, more truthfully, she’d been doing it to me. But, Sunday night, as I lay in bed listening to Maurey sleep, I started checking the deal out from Buddy’s point of view.
I—an out-of-stater—had lain lengthwise on his little girl and slid my dick into her body. I induced orgasm in a thirteen-year-old.
Which would piss the cowboy off the most—daughter or wife? That was the crucial question that would tell whether I had power over Howard Stebbins or he had it over me.
All I knew about the cowboy code came from the movies where no Western people had sex except when the Apaches raped women, and Indians always killed the women they came in. John Wayne would kick butt if someone humped his daughter or wife. Daughters would be worse because of the innocence factor, although—lucky me— John Wayne’s code didn’t allow beating the holy crap out of a little boy.
Another bottom line was that if Maurey had the baby we were a sure bet to get caught anyway. Howard still had a shot at the clean getaway, which meant from a blackmail point of view I had his ass.
Maurey laughed in her sleep. I liked that. Sleeping next to someone was kind of neat.
Right then, I adopted my attitude. Lydia would be my model. Whenever Caspar caught her with her pants in the wrong spot, she whipped herself into self-righteous rage.
Tomorrow, I’d walk up to Howard Stebbins before English class and say, “Coach, I am justified and you’re dog poop,” and play it by ear from there.
Of course I didn’t walk up to Howard Stebbins and say, “I am justified.” There’s probably not a kid in Wyoming who has ever said “I am justified.”
Instead, I sat at my desk four rows behind Maurey and watched the back of her head while Stebbins droned on about
