My hands are free when I go to meet Switch after school at the power lines. The gin he told me to bring is in a mason jar in Margo’s khaki bag, slung over my shoulder hanging down at my hip. I feel pioneery with my arms unfolded and loose—no books to clutch—like I can catch anything coming at me. Plus, the strap of the bag has me antsy, diagonal and taut against my chest. This is new and Switch is new, and he’s taking me off the map to see the old coaster where Dead Kelly lost her head.
• • •
What Switch calls me before this afternoon: Margo’s Little Sister, Little, Never my name—never Lucy.
• • •
We walk beyond the crest of the hill, under the zaps and hiss of electricity, away from the neighborhood traffic below. Just me and Switch. We’ve never been alone before. We’ve never been anywhere except in front of his locker when I circle around everyday after chem. I bring out the gin when I’m told. He unscrews the lid, gulps, and wipes his chin with the hem of his t-shirt. I see his hipbone shine at me, but he doesn’t notice me looking; he’s watching the strap at my chest.
“Have some too, Smiley.”
I’m so happy with the latest nickname I overlook how he’s offering me something that’s already mine.
• • •
What I don’t overlook: He doesn’t say much, but when he does, his voice is softer. Gentle. Maybe it’s because there are no walls or maybe it’s being near the power lines, like a sound wave thing, like physics. Or maybe he likes me. And if he likes me, maybe this is a date.
• • •
Dead Kelly’s fame reached our street six years ago when I was actually little, long before anyone like Switch called me Little. That June I beat Margo at sun staring. We’d sprawl on lawn chairs, dig our toes between the plastic webbing, and clamp our eyes open with our fingers. First to blink lost. Loser paid at the ice cream truck. Over Nutty Buddies we heard about the headless girl roaming the crabgrass and thistle out past the power lines where Cedar Fun Grove used to be. Word was she tricked her way onto the coaster, stretched from the balls of her feet at the height chart, slipped from the lap bar. Would have bled to death even if she’d kept her head.
• • •
What I learned that summer: The words decapitation, coagulation, ejaculation. The fact of hardness altogether, as told by Margo, who learned it from her sex ed teacher. The difference between the piercing itch of the sun in my eyes and the sharp pain of a lash under my lid.
• • •
Two hills and three sips of gin later, we’re in the woods and Switch hooks his finger on my belt loop as we walk. My cutoffs are loose, so his gait tugs the denim around me this way and that. I’m glowy linked to him, pulled along, steered—like a ray he’s unspooled. The tree bark resembles nooks of brownies hot from the oven and I remember I haven’t eaten all day. I don’t want to say I’m hungry because I don’t want him to think I’m thinking about food. And I don’t want to mention my shoes being too small and hurting, either. Still I’m giddy. Maybe from drinking gin or maybe from being on my first date, if this is a date. And then there it is, across the sweep of ragweed and brambles, high and spiny like the skeleton of something gigantic that needed to lie down—the craggy remains of the coaster that killed Dead Kelly.
• • •
What I can’t possibly know: In three years, Switch will leave for college where everyone will call him by his given name—Charles. Six years after that, he’ll watch a video on how to please women. He’ll kneel in front of spread-kneed lovers, feigning admiration for their vulvas, which he’ll euphemize as diamonds and butterflies the way the video instructs. He’ll end up ghosting every person he dates, and will eventually resent actual butterflies and diamonds. Playing poker will become unbearable.
• • •
Switch lays his flannel on the dirt under the biggest drop—the place where there would be tracks if the cops hadn’t removed them after the accident. He says if we lie back and look over the tops of the cedars, we can see the last thing Dead Kelly saw. He draws me down easy by the strap. “Come here.” From there all I see is the lowering sun. I start to tell him how I’m the champion of sun staring, but his mouth covers mine. His tongue is clumsy on my teeth and I barely stifle a giggle. I like the weight of him, but too soon, he rolls me on top. He’s gentle when he pushes my shoulders lower. He’s gentle when he says, “Little,” and unzips his jeans. And when I see his gentle eyes asking or telling, I understand how I can want something without choosing it.
• • •
What won’t occur to me for years: The afternoon I spent with Switch, my feet were still growing. I had yet to buy a pair of shoes without first nestling my heels into the back of one of those metal devices. All the infatuations I ever had stemmed from a wish to orbit myself. It took seeing the milky spines of books shelved next to a window before I began to worry about my own retinas.
• • •
On his flannel over the dirt and clover, my tongue figures out what Switch is after. I’m propelled by a toggling power—present one second, gone the next—a flicker of my own strength. But his eyes are closed. Watch me, I want to say. Look. Don’t you know I’m the sun champ?
Ruth LeFaive lives in Los Angeles where she is working on a collection of linked short stories. Her writing has appeared in Best Small Fictions 2018, Atticus Review, CHEAP POP, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. Find her online at ruthlefaive.com or on Twitter @ruthlefaive.
© 2018 Ruth LeFaive. Published by LITTLE FICTION | BIG TRUTHS, November 2018.
Images from The Noun Project (credits: kesaryvamshi).
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