Thirty-Nine #2
“If I’m gonna join you out there, these dress shoes are gonna get me killed.
” Shug dropped his other shoe. He reached down and did the same with his socks, then placed one bare foot, then the next on the trunk, gripping with his toes.
He stepped carefully, staying low, in a squat, grabbing one branch and then the next, navigating a little maze of limbs.
The weight of their bodies bent the sycamore, causing it to bow. Trudy’s nails were digging into her palms, her fists clenched so hard. She tried to dismiss thoughts of the tree snapping and its midnight visitors plummeting. She tried to keep Jimmie’s face out of her mind.
Meechum sidled up to his player and said, “So. Here we are. Next play QB-1. What is it?”
“No.” June Bug shook his head. “Stop saying that. There’s no play after this one.” His voice cracked and he started crying again.
Coach Meechum’s hands gripped the trunk on either side of his hips. What would she do if they fell? Trudy couldn’t look, and she couldn’t not look. She wondered if maybe Shug had a rope or something in his truck.
Their four white feet were the same color as the sycamore bark and looked like four birds trying to fly from their nest, but too scared to fly more than several inches.
“I know it seems that way,” Shug said. “But jumping in the river won’t solve it.”
June Bug shook his head harder. “You don’t . . . know what it’s like to be whatever this is . . . with another boy.”
The only sounds for what seemed like an eternity was June Bug breaking another stick, Trudy’s teeth chattering in the cold, and an owl in the distance.
“You know what happened at church two Sundays ago?” June Bug asked, finally. “This guy, some missionary, visited. You know what he does?”
Shug listened.
“He preaches at prisons,” June Bug scoffed.
“He bragged about this one guy ... this murderer ... who killed a little girl and admitted to it. Strangled her to death. This killer? He grabbed her neck and squeezed the life out of a little girl.” June Bug’s stick breaking grew angrier.
“And the whole church praised Jesus because he got saved.” June Bug looked at Shug, his face wet and wrinkled up again, he sucked in his bottom lip and screamed, “Is that the kind of fresh start you’re talking about, coach?
Because as far as I can see, you can murder a little girl, and everybody will praise the Lord.
But if you’re like me ... if you’re . .. a faggot ... !”
The word faggot echoed out of the hollow and down the river like a demon.
The tree shook with each gulp between June Bug’s sobs, which escaped from a body that had long outgrown such a scared little boy.
Coach Meechum tried to put his arm around him but was too unsteady and had to grab hold of the trunk again.
Shug’s chest rose and fell as he sat there, allowing June Bug’s wailing to echo through the night and sail down the river.
Perhaps Shug took it all in himself, trying to hear as best he could, trying to relate it to something he understood.
If they weren’t at risk of falling, Shug probably would have embraced the boy, taken some of his pain into his own body.
But the air and the rocks and the water would have to do until they could come down off that tree, off that cliff.
“I don’t know what’s true,” June Bug squeaked out.
After June Bug’s breathing steadied, after his sobs and lamenting subsided, Coach Meechum said, “I think that’s horse shit.”
June Bug looked at Shug, incredulous. “What?”
“You heard me. That’s all horse shit, JB.”
“Coach. Don’t make me jump. Is that what you want?”
“People don’t jump off cliffs because they don’t know the truth, June Bug. You know the truth; you’re just scared of it.”
June Bug was caught up in expectations, appearances, and status. His whole life had been trying so hard to perpetuate what generations of dead men before him had established. Trudy realized she and June Bug weren’t really that different.
“I’m not gonna sit here and listen to this,” June Bug said. “I’ll die right now. Is that what you want?”
“That would be a damn shame, son. Someone with a heart as big as yours? One that’s full of a love so enormous that it breaks all the rules? A love so big, you don’t even comprehend it yourself.”
June Bug couldn’t take his eyes off Shug.
“Most people spend their whole lives avoiding what their heart tells them. Most folks? They just float along like some piece of driftwood in this river, kowtowing to everyone’s expectations. I mean, Jesus, what would we expect from Mayor Leon Moody’s son, you know?”
“That’s why I’m ending it.” June Bug braced himself, placed his hands on the tree trunk, looked down into the blackness, ready to slide off. “I don’t want this life.”
“If that’s your choice, I reckon I can’t stop you, but there sure ain’t a lick of courage in that.”
“Well, there ain’t no courage in going back home either. Living daddy’s life?” June Bug broke his stick, and broke his stick, and broke his stick until he had one piece left. He stuck it between his teeth.
Trudy had closed her eyes, which had filled with tears.
When she opened them, she saw three quarterbacks sitting on that tree.
She knew her mind was playing tricks on her, but there he was; his broad shoulders had joined June Bug’s and Shug’s, all six of their quarterback feet swinging and dancing on the Alabama air.
Jimmie’s smile brightened the moonlight a few ticks.
Trudy didn’t believe in ghosts; she didn’t know how all that afterlife stuff worked, but perhaps Jimmie, who had caused so much pain out of his own self-loathing, had swum down the river from the old rope swing where he’d urged Trudy to let go.
Maybe tonight, he’d swum all that way to join his brothers here on this sycamore growing out of a rock, to urge June Bug to let go in his own way.
June Bug wiped his face with his sleeve. “How am I gonna face Daddy?”
“One play at a time, son.”