Dolly's Pregnant # 1
I left the trailer and walked down the slope of the front yard into the tall grass beside the road. The back yard was scarred with the tracks of mini-bikes and the trail that our feet made out to Trixie's doghouse, but here near the ditch under the three trees that sheltered our front windows from the road, the grass was full and wet in the shade. I pointed my feet downhill, lay face first into the green sea and felt it come up over my ears. Everything outside of the greenness melted, a blade up each nostril, silent, I watched the ants and beetles come into view. Sometimes a walking stick inched by in the background, padding over the helicopter seeds from the maples overhead. I didn't think about teachers or any of the boys I was interested in at school out here. I thought about how this ground would feel with moccasins on my feet, what it would be like to ride a pony that wasn't tethered to a metal merry-go-round and seemed sleepy.
I took my nose out of the grass and shifted onto my cheek. Rose was coming down the road on her bike, slinging gravel from under her back wheel. I could almost see the freckles in a constellation across the top of her nose, but mostly she looked like she was riding through a forest made of blades of grass. Her back tire jumped whenever she hit a big stone. It was like watching a movie except that I could feel the sun poke through when the wind moved the leaves of the trees. Patches, like a pile of coins spilled on a table passed over the blonde hair on my arms; I felt my breasts fill the furrows in the ground. An ant took a short cut across my middle finger.
When my eyes moved back to the road from my hand, Rose had disappeared into the jungle. She might be holding still behind one single blade of green so I moved my head a half an inch downhill. Nothing. I hadn't heard the bike pass behind me, and I was sure that I would have, being so close to the road. By pressing my chest into the grass I raised my head a little above the earth. I saw one cock-eyed handlebar and a spinning wheel in the middle of the road. I came to her knees and saw Rose to the side of her bike, one foot threaded through the spokes of the back wheel. She was sitting on the gravel looking at her scraped shin, sucking in mouthfuls of air and gritting her teeth. Any second now, Rose would be able to start crying out loud.
"What'd ya do, ya dummy?" I imagined her mopping great swathes of sympathy out of Mother on the phone tonight. And Mrs. Neehan too. Out would come the peroxide, the methiolate and bandaids, and somehow I was sure that both of them would ask me why I hadn't been watching Rose more closely.
I stood up and swooped down through the shallow ditch and then up onto the brown of Macintosh Road. Rose had her face to the sky by the time I reached her, still gulping, tears pouring into the collar of her shirt.
"It's not that bad, you just scraped your knee, see? Most of it's just dirt."
"S'not!" She had forgotten to really bawl because she was offended.
"Is too, you're not even gonna have a scar I bet. Shut up."
I was trying to untangle her shoe from the wheel, but the laces of her sneaker had wound around the spokes.
Because of the wind, I felt the truck through the ground before I heard it. I snapped my head to the side and saw a tan GMC, not his, not Frank's, spraying dust to both sides behind it and heading straight for us in the middle of the road. From where I was crouching, it looked very big and it didn't look like it was going to slow down......
I took my nose out of the grass and shifted onto my cheek. Rose was coming down the road on her bike, slinging gravel from under her back wheel. I could almost see the freckles in a constellation across the top of her nose, but mostly she looked like she was riding through a forest made of blades of grass. Her back tire jumped whenever she hit a big stone. It was like watching a movie except that I could feel the sun poke through when the wind moved the leaves of the trees. Patches, like a pile of coins spilled on a table passed over the blonde hair on my arms; I felt my breasts fill the furrows in the ground. An ant took a short cut across my middle finger.
When my eyes moved back to the road from my hand, Rose had disappeared into the jungle. She might be holding still behind one single blade of green so I moved my head a half an inch downhill. Nothing. I hadn't heard the bike pass behind me, and I was sure that I would have, being so close to the road. By pressing my chest into the grass I raised my head a little above the earth. I saw one cock-eyed handlebar and a spinning wheel in the middle of the road. I came to her knees and saw Rose to the side of her bike, one foot threaded through the spokes of the back wheel. She was sitting on the gravel looking at her scraped shin, sucking in mouthfuls of air and gritting her teeth. Any second now, Rose would be able to start crying out loud.
"What'd ya do, ya dummy?" I imagined her mopping great swathes of sympathy out of Mother on the phone tonight. And Mrs. Neehan too. Out would come the peroxide, the methiolate and bandaids, and somehow I was sure that both of them would ask me why I hadn't been watching Rose more closely.
I stood up and swooped down through the shallow ditch and then up onto the brown of Macintosh Road. Rose had her face to the sky by the time I reached her, still gulping, tears pouring into the collar of her shirt.
"It's not that bad, you just scraped your knee, see? Most of it's just dirt."
"S'not!" She had forgotten to really bawl because she was offended.
"Is too, you're not even gonna have a scar I bet. Shut up."
I was trying to untangle her shoe from the wheel, but the laces of her sneaker had wound around the spokes.
Because of the wind, I felt the truck through the ground before I heard it. I snapped my head to the side and saw a tan GMC, not his, not Frank's, spraying dust to both sides behind it and heading straight for us in the middle of the road. From where I was crouching, it looked very big and it didn't look like it was going to slow down......