Wishbone

It was Thanksgiving on Pungo Creek. Mama was carving the turkey. Ivy and I were waiting impatiently for her to carve down to the wishbone. Ivy sat on one side of the table and I sat on the other, ready to take a hold of the slippery wishbone.

I knew I’d win. I was almost three years older than Ivy. But I also knew I would never get the things I wished for. I’d never got to go to Camp Seagull. I would never get my own pony. I would never get to go to New Bern to buy school clothes at Belk Tyler’s. Aunt Sarah either sewed my clothes or I wore Kate’s hand-me-downs. I tried to forget that awful day when someone had recognized one of Kate’s dresses and made fun of me. I never got my wishes. Stephen Pool never tried to kiss me at recess – especially after I told the teacher he was kissing the other girls to get back at him.

Before we could pull the wishbone Aunt Sarah interrupted us. “If you put the whole wishbone over font door, the first eligible man to walk into the house will be your husband.” Now that was almost worth giving up a wish for – especially since my wishes never came true anyway. After some debate Ivy and I agreed to forgo the pull and hang the wishbone. Then we waited…and waited. Not many eligible men crossed our threshold. We just hoped it wouldn’t be one of Mama’s drinking buddies. We hadn’t figured out how we would determine whose husband he would be. We just waited, as the wishbone got dryer and dryer. Around Easter we were about to give up when our cousin Jess walked through the door. He was 16 and looked just like Elvis Presley had looked in Love Me Tender.

“Mama would shit a brick if either of us married Jess” I whispered to Ivy as Jess loitered in the kitchen out of earshot.

“We can’t marry him, silly. He’s our cousin.” Ivy replied.

A few days later, sitting in the back of the yellow school bus, with Jess at the wheel, I remembered the wishbone as I watched him lure girls up to the front of the bus with the promise of letting them sit on the heater next to the driver’s seat. Then he would put his left hand up their skirts and drive the bus with his right hand. I saw all this but I never told anyone.
At recess I often saw my Jess in the corner of the schoolyard smoking cigarettes and talking to the older girls.

When he’d call out to me, I’d pretend I didn’t hear him, but he kept on teasing me. “I can see your panties, little cousin. Come on over here and let me show you what I’ve got waiting for you. I tried to avoid being alone with him. I could avoid him on the schoolyard, but not on the bus. I was his first stop in the morning and so I was alone with him until we picked up Billy Creadle. That was the longest ten minutes of my day.

He always laughed when I crawled on the empty school bus and headed straight to the back as far away from him as I could.

“Why don’t you come up here and keep me company, little cousin. You’re giving me the impression you don’t like me.”

“I’m fine back here, Jess” I always answered, taking my usual seat by the back emergency door.
One morning it was freezing cold. The ground was icy. Mama walked with me to the end of the lane and waited with me for the bus. “I don’t want you falling down and breaking your leg. I don’t have money to waste on a doctor.” She stood in the cold with me smoking her cigarette. The smoke came out of her nose. I exhaled. My warm breath made a similar cloud in the icy air. When the bus stopped in front of us, Mama stomped out her cigarette.

“Wasn’t sure you’d be coming today, Jess. It’s mighty cold. You be careful on these roads. They’re going to be slick.”

“You’re right about that. I almost put this bus in the ditch just getting from my house. Don’t worry, Aunt Rose. I’ll take it real easy.”

I climbed on and headed to the back of the bus.

“Sit up here on the heater next to me” Jess said indicating the metal box on the floor next to his left leg. “It’s nice and warm.”

“No thank you” I said taking my usual seat.

Mama stepped up on the lower step out of the snow and yelled at me “Don’t be a ninny, Clara. Come back up front here where it’s warm. You’ll catch pneumonia back there. I told you. I don’t have money to waste on doctors.”

“I’m fine, mama, really. I’m warming up already.”

“Don’t be a goose. Get your tail up here and put it on that heater or I’ll blister it for you.”

“Ok, Mama. I’m coming.” I walked slowly back to the front of the bus, crawled under the metal bar and sat down on the heater box.

Jess shook his head and grinned at Mama as she stepped down from the bus. He closed the door and jerked the bus into gear.

“I’ve got you now, little cousin,” he said, still grinning down at Mama who was waving at him through the closed door.

I tried to scramble away from him but he gripped my wrist with his left hand as he drove the bus with his right. “You ain’t going no damn place.”

The warmth seeped through my gingham skirt and cotton underpants. The heater sucked and blew. I smelled gasoline, cigarettes and ivory soap. I saw him. Close. His black hair carefully combed into a ducktail that tickled his turned up collar. I tasted my breakfast again as undigested eggs and fat back tried to creep up the back of my throat. He touched me. First gently – almost lovingly – on my left thigh – at the spot above my knee sock. ….

“You stop or I’ll tell.”

“You tell and I will kill your baby sister and I’ll make you watch.”

That was the first time. After that Jess got bolder.

When Mama and Aunt Sarah were around, Jess behaved like a perfect gentleman. He came by often. Sometimes he was dropping off groceries from Uncle Benjamin or offering to help with chores. Other times he just showed up for no reason.

I heard a knock at the door. Jess walked into the kitchen without waiting for anyone to open the door. “You’re alone, aren’t you, cousin? Don’t lie to me. I know you are because I heard Daddy say he was taking Sarah to the doctors today. Your Mama’s out there in our fields working like a nigger and your sister is over at my house playing with Kate. That just leaves you and me. He grabbed my arm before I could get away and pulled me into the living room. Laika was sleeping on a blanket near the fire.

“You better be quiet. Don’t want to wake the baby, now do we?” He sat down on the sofa and pulled me onto his lap. He covered my mouth with his right and used his left hand to pull up my dress. His fingers worked their way into my underpants. “I know that girls like this. They say they don’t but they’re lying. Tell me you like it, Clara.”

I squirmed out of his grasp and backed away from him. “I don’t like it. I hate it when you touch me. If you ever do it again, you’re going to regret it. Get out of here.”

“I’ll touch you anytime I want – anywhere I want – and there ain’t a damn thing you can do to stop me. If you tell anyone…” He got up and walked over to the blanket where Laika was sleeping. He picked her up and held her by her feet, dangling her over the fire. I ran across the room and took Laika into my arms. “It would be a shame if anything bad happened to your baby sister.”

He laughed and strolled calmly out of the room, leaving me holding my terrified baby sister.