She(Elysse Saunders) walked around in the partial gloom, the red, purple, the orange, temperature dropping, quietude being whispered by the night creatures—insectoid things rubbing their thighs together—stopping momentarily in abject wonder around Dos Llaves—it empty, the blacktop and concrete surround insulate like a pizza stone, transmitting as a battery the elapsed day’s warmth.
Was quiet, dusk and the descent of darkness upon the town—the insects were getting louder, but there was something more—melody inside gloom, carrying as if on the breeze—infantile condensation of singular hopes brushing together into one scatterbox—something of a bandstand, maybe, near the middle of town, down through the historical district, a point she thought moot at the late hour—and in ambience, smelling warm blacktop and a hint of melody, the mere jazz of it where she stood was sufficient to nourish her spirit, despite prior intention.
Where were they? -she thought to herself.
She walked a wide turnaround, pointing herself back towards her own house, listening to her sneakers on the blacktop—at once rigid in the soles, but also absorbing—she listened to that contradiction, and each soft thunk she heard, and something of muffled echo that accompanied each step.
Behind a white spray of reflection in what might have been a dining room on the other side of that window, an old woman—Miss Emma--regarded her, and realizing they were looking at each other, in that same notch of eternity, Miss Emma waved at her and there was the trace of a smile on her face. She lived in an ancient Colonial house that still had the overhang on the left side of the house that was originally made for sheltering buggies—horse drawn buggies, that is, in the 1800’s. The old Samson House, one of the Historic District properties along the way, sat facing the lot next to Dos Llaves, did the Colonial-styled Samson House, an anachronism that seemed to sit on the shoulders of the town, not insistent loudly, but maybe, like Miss Emma, staring into the conscience of the modern world, much the same as the modern world always wrestled to redefine the archaic.
The usual wanderers along the thoroughfare, that were not along the street that evening:
what was happening elsewhere
was they knew.
From the science teacher at the school, the mailman, the varsity football quarterback, the football team punter, the varsity wrestler ranked third in the whole state, another who’s uncle owned the Chevrolet dealership in the next nearest town, who were all, but ordinary men, and sundry others, ranged from the well-healed to the grotesque—with the mayor and the animal control officer each lurking somewhere in the safety and anonymity that comes with standing in a crowd—they had a common reason among them.
16-40 years of age, were they all, and Kevin, pretending at a mere 14 yrs and 7 months.
Of Kevin himself, he was perhaps too jealously proud to be called a king, and his real pride was kept hidden out of sight—for he knew a world that provoked him unendingly by thwarting most of the things he ever cared for: he was a child, student and product of many masters, as such and usually he put the “lick” sound in the word “conflict”, the same as a curious untame creature would taste of anything that interested it, in the hopes of service to the appetite.
And as there are milestones in life that approach, foretold through friends of friends, classroom calendars and other sundry forms of record, the shining truth had been uncovered and made plain—a cause, a reason by which so many man would pledge themselves and risk posterity, dignity and property.
The good word had filtered through them, a distillate varying in potency, purity—a smile’s evolution into a greedy leer; the truth of the matter had evolved: a 13-year-old, one of the new young men of the big school saw it innocently, at first, and watched as that piece of information became sort of an introduction into manhood, as good in the eyes of the particular tribe of man, in the heat of it, as breaking a maidenhead like one of the lead dogs of a pack.
It was a classroom calendar—I tell you.
He noticed the 14th of the month had a pink heart on it—a Friday made important somehow, marked.
The addition was marked “Elysse S. 16th Birthday”;
and as she walked home, those 16-40 year old men were gathered at the Country Club pro shop, to have a cigar and a shot of strong drink--
in celebration of the 16th Birthday of Elysse S.
