Playing With Matches

  “Sure.” Melody’s mother was quite attractive, a middle-aged woman who’d taken good care of herself and was still slender and firm. I wondered if maybe Melody would have been that pretty had she not had her accident. Then I felt guilty for thinking it. Why did I always obsess about Melody’s disfigurement? I didn’t find Samantha attractive at all, but I didn’t constantly worry that people thought we were an item.

  Melody’s mother smiled. “I’ll be right back. Have you met Melody’s brother? Tony!” she called into the kitchen. “Come in here and keep Leon company.”

  Now, obviously, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was meet Melody’s brother, and I knew the feeling was probably mutual. When Tony emerged from the kitchen, I was sure.

  Tony was about thirteen years old, spiky-haired and unkempt, with the typical junior high chip on his shoulder. He scowled at me, grunted a hello, and positioned himself in front of a video game system. The customary awkward silence fell.

  I felt I should try to start a conversation. “So, Tony…,” I began.

  “Yeah?”

  “You go to Zummer Junior High?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nice.” Tony never looked up from the screen. I drummed my fingers. Where the hell was Melody’s father?

  I heard him come in the back door a few seconds later. “Leon,” he said as he entered the living room and grabbed my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” His grip was crushing.

  Mrs. Hennon returned from the kitchen with a glass of soda. As I took a sip, they stood there, grinning at me. Obviously I was the first guy to come pick up their daughter. Melody’s first date.

  This would have been a bad time to mention I found their daughter horribly unattractive.

  Okay, maybe not horribly, but this was still not a date.

  Melody’s parents kept smiling at me. I kept taking nervous gulps of my soda in an effort to cover the lack of conversation. If this had been a sitcom, I could have accidentally said something grossly inappropriate or sat on the family Chihuahua or something. Anything to cut this tension!

  “Ready to go, Leon?” Melody had appeared from down the hall. She was wearing a blouse and a skirt; apparently, this was a dressier occasion than I had prepared for.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Hennon,” I managed to squeak as I hustled her out the door.

  “Be back by eleven,” cautioned her father, the familiar distrust already edging into his voice.

  It was not nearly late enough for the campus of the University of Missouri–St. Louis to be deserted. Students still walked the quad, laughing, shouting, holding hands. I looked forward to the not-too-distant future, when I’d join them as a freshman.

  We’d just sat through a semiamateur production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I didn’t get a lot of it and kept having to whisper “What’s that guy doing?” to Melody. There was a funny bit about a guy with a donkey head, though, and some of the actresses wore very low-cut dresses, so the production wasn’t a complete wash. Melody seemed to enjoy herself.

  I’d wanted to hurry out to my car right after the curtain call. (Actually, I’d wanted to leave much earlier, until Melody explained it was only the intermission.) Melody asked if we could go for a walk. I didn’t like what that implied, but it was her birthday, and we didn’t have to be back until late.

  We didn’t say much as we wandered past darkened classroom buildings, noisy dorms, and silent parks. It was a warm spring night, the first time in months that you could go for a walk and not be miserably cold. When we reached the quad, Melody stopped.

  “Leon, thanks for a great birthday.”

  I wasn’t sure why she was thanking me; we had paid for our own tickets.

  “Sit down, Melody. I’ll give you your present.”

  “Oh, Leon, you didn’t have to get me anything!” She sounded so grateful I wondered if I should have gotten her something better. Or nothing at all.

  We sat on a concrete bench and I pulled the unwrapped DVD from my inner jacket pocket.

  “The Twilight Zone? I love this!” She scanned the list of episodes on the back of the case.

  “Well, I had a feeling.” More like a random, shot-in-the-dark guess.

  “Thank you. This is the best birthday ever.”

  “C’mon…”

  “I’m serious. This is the first time I’ve ever done anything on my birthday, except have dinner with my family.”

  This suddenly felt very dateish. Out to the theater, a long walk, a special gift…If I’d been out here with any other girl, I’d have been plotting how to put my arm around her. It would be a long time before I’d do anything alone again with Melody. It was safer that way.

  “So you ready to get back, Melody?”

  “In a minute.” She stood there staring at The Twilight Zone: Season One, which I’d gotten out of the half-price bin. If you only looked at her eyes, you’d think she was holding a diamond bracelet. A single tear trickled over her shortened nose.

  “Hey, none of that.”

  She wiped her eye on her sleeve. “I’m sorry. This is all new for me.”

  “What is?” I gritted my teeth. Buttercup was right. Melody was going to say “Having a boyfriend,” and I’d be forced to marry her rather than tell her that I could never find her attractive.

  “Having a friend, Leon. I know you do stuff like this all the time, but it means a lot to me that you’d have lunch with me and take me out on my birthday. No one’s ever done that.”

  I thought about blowing the comment off. Just telling her it was time to go back. But she needed to talk. Plus I was touched. Without much effort, I’d given her a special birthday, which made me feel kind of special.

  “Melody, can I ask you a question?”

  She turned and straddled the bench and looked at me directly. “You want to know about my face?”

  “What face?” I blurted, in an effort to be tactful. Melody grinned at me and I decided to be frank. “Okay. Yes. What happened?”

  There was a building light directly behind her, casting her in shadows. All I could really make out was the colorful bandana around her head, and her white teeth as she smiled.

  “No one’s ever had the guts to ask me about that.”

  Maybe no one had ever been that rude before. “I just—”

  “No, I don’t mind; it’s a good question. Actually, I wish people could be more up-front about it. I’d rather just have someone ask than stare at me.”

  What could I say? That people didn’t stare? That her scars were hardly noticeable? I couldn’t lie to her.

  Melody turned her head and stared into the darkness. In profile, I could see how oddly short her nose was; there was nothing beyond the bone.

  “When I was four years old, a kerosene lantern exploded in my face. I don’t remember it happening. But I do remember two years of surgery and hospital stays and skin grafts and being in pain and never understanding why.”

  I straddled the bench so I wouldn’t have to twist to look at her. She was staring down again, and I noticed a small damp pool forming on the concrete between us. I hated that she was crying. Not because it made me uncomfortable, but because my friend was hurting. I wanted to make things right. And of course, there was nothing I could do but listen.

  “I didn’t start public school until I was eight. I’d seen schools on TV, read about them in books. But my grafts were healing and the doctors thought I’d get infected. All I wanted to do was go to school with other kids. And at the start of third grade, I got my wish. I thought I’d finally have friends. I thought I’d finally be normal.”

  Melody took several deep breaths, like someone desperately trying not to vomit. She then continued as if each word caused her physical pain.

  “That first day of school…I never suspected. I never knew that it wasn’t my health problems that made me a freak. I never thought…”

  The puddle between us grew. Impulsively, I took Melody’s hand. Her flesh was hot and sweaty, and she squee
zed hard. I placed my other hand on top of hers. I couldn’t make the hurt go away. I couldn’t erase the painful memories, no more than I could erase my own. But I could let her know, by grasping her hand, that I was there for her. That she could unload on me if it would make her feel better.

  “I hated my parents so much, Leon. They never warned me. They never warned me. I went into that school thinking it was the greatest day of my life. By first recess I knew I’d never belong.” Racking sobs interrupted her story.

  “I begged Mom and Dad not to send me back. But they did. And it was the same the next day. And in fourth grade. And fifth. And tenth.”

  A long-suppressed rage began to boil in my gut. What kind of asshole would make fun of a girl like Melody? What kind of jerk wouldn’t see how wonderful she was? And if they didn’t like her, why didn’t they just leave her alone? Who would do that?

  The same kind of people who made fun of me, that’s who. And…me. I was no saint; I’d hurt her too. I wondered if she remembered.

  Melody looked up at me. The reflections from her tears made her face glow. “You’re my only friend, Leon. Besides my brother, you’re the only guy who doesn’t think I’m disgusting.”

  “Melody, nobody—”

  Her head shot up, and I could hear an angry intake of breath. “Don’t say it, Leon!” she hissed, cutting off whatever empty denials I was about to make.

  “What?”

  “I know what you’re going to say!” She pulled her hand away. “You’re going to say—”

  There was only one thing I could say. “On mules we find two legs behind, and two we find before!” I sang, remembering the old Cub Scout song. “We stand behind before we find what the two behind be for! When we’re behind the two—”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t know I was going to say that, did you?”

  Melody plunged her face into her hands and laughed. “God, Leon, I guess no one ever knows what you’re going to say.” She took a tissue out of her purse and blew her nose. “I didn’t mean to spill my guts like that. The Twilight Zone kind of brought things back.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know the episode where the pretty woman is in that place where everyone has pig faces and they think she’s the ugly one? That she’d never belong? I could relate.”

  “Me too.”

  She gave a half laugh, half cough. “You don’t know what it’s like, Leon.”

  Melody’s self-pity was wearing thin. Just a little. She wasn’t the only one who knew what it was like to be alone. To have people make fun of you for no reason. Maybe her experiences had been worse, but she wasn’t the queen of pain.

  “Everyone feels like they don’t belong sometimes, Melody.” Maybe I sounded just slightly bitter.

  “You?” She wiped her eyes and looked at me with a disturbing intensity. “When did you ever feel like you didn’t belong?”

  “A long time ago.” I wasn’t going to talk about it.

  “Leon, what do you mean?”

  I was about to shout, about to tell her to mind her own business, but I paused. No matter how bad things had been for me, they’d been worse for her. It was like bitching about a hangnail to a guy with no hands. Maybe it would be good for me to talk about this.

  I swiveled on the bench until I was no longer facing her. With a deep breath, I began to relate my most painful memory.

  “When I was…eleven? Sixth grade, yeah, eleven…I walked to school. Every day. Alone. I felt like hot shit after taking the bus to elementary school.

  “Anyway, it must have been like November. It was cold, I remember. I was walking home, and this guy comes up and gets right in my face.”

  Dylan Shelton. Even though I saw his good-looking mug every day at school, he was still a seventh grader in my mind’s eye. Acne-covered, bucktoothed, and much, much bigger than me.

  “So he starts yelling at me, and calls me a butt pirate. I didn’t even know what that meant. There were all these kids around, watching us and laughing. And I just wanted to go home. Then he shoved me and I thought, ‘Hey, I’m in real trouble here!’ And there were houses everywhere, but no grown-ups, of course.” My words couldn’t stop; the pent-up memories spewed forth.

  “I told him to let me go, and he just laughed and said he was going to kick my ass. Some of the kids started laughing again, and this one guy yells, ‘Kick him in the nuts!’ Some kid I’d never even talked to is trying to get me beat up!”

  Something hot burned in my eyes. I clenched my butt cheeks, curled my toes, dug my nails into my palms. I would not cry. Not here in public. Not in front of Melody.

  “I tried to run, but he socked me in the gut. Took the wind right out of me. And he hit me again. I started crying. And the more I cried, the more he hit me, and the more the other kids laughed. There must have been like ten of them, and they were all egging him on. All I wanted to do was go home. He just would not stop pounding me, and I hadn’t done anything!” It occurred to me that that had been the last time I had ever cried. Until now. I wasn’t sobbing, but tears were flowing.

  Melody was still on the bench with me, but she stayed silent.

  “So I’m laying on the sidewalk with a bloody nose, and everyone just bustin’ a gut. Then he spit on me. Right in my face. Let me tell you, the audience just roared. So he spits on me again. And then some of the other kids start spitting. And then they left.”

  I wiped my eyes. “I never told anyone. I went home, cleaned up, cried some more, and that was that. Only that wasn’t that. Because for the past five years, I’ve had to see that guy in the hall every day. Hell, I have Spanish class with him fifth hour. And every year I see the people who laughed at me when I was hurt five, six years ago, and I hate them. I wonder if they even remember.”

  I faced Melody. She’d been crying again. How had this happened? One minute we were going for a walk, and suddenly I was spilling my most secret thoughts. My most painful memories.

  Just like Melody had.

  “Leon,” she said, with the ghost of a smile, “I guess we both know how cruel and stupid people can be. But for what it’s worth, I think you’re amazing. You’re smart and funny and handso—nice, and maybe both of us need to remember that we shouldn’t give a damn about what anyone else thinks!”

  I remembered my secret fantasies about meeting a girl who would say more or less what Melody had just said. Someone who’d think I was neat. And she was the one girl in school who I could never date. Figured.

  It was time to stop this seriousness. Guys didn’t discuss their feelings. We didn’t talk about what’s inside us. We bottle it up, bite back the tears, and end up climbing clock towers with rifles. I attempted to change the subject.

  “Melody? A bunch of us are going out to the lock and dam tomorrow. If you’d like to join us.”

  She sniffled loudly. Sharing time was over. “What do you do out there?”

  “Wish we had something better to do.”

  She smiled. “My parents wanted to give me my presents tomorrow. But I’ll see if I can get out of it. You ready to go?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wasn’t sure who started the hug, but we didn’t stop for quite some time. We just held each other there in the dark. It was nice having someone to hold. She trusted me with her secrets; I trusted her with mine. I was glad she was my friend.

  Though a small part of me was tempted to reach down and grab that great butt of hers.

  13

  DAMN DAM

  Lincoln County Flood Control Dam #54, on a tributary of the mighty Missouri. Built in 1940, a WPA project. It basically amounted to a concrete embankment that spanned the narrow Cuivre River. A cynic would call it a stream. A small access road led across, with a gate in front that was easily circumvented.

  We’d hang out there when all else failed, usually about once a month. We’d build a campfire out of driftwood. The boys would smoke convenience store cigars. Jimmy and Johnny, and sometimes Rob, would have a few beers. Samantha wou
ld wax poetic. The twins would rage about their enemies, plotting gory revenge for imagined crimes. Rob would rant about the dreadful trends in society, from international geopolitical dealings to the price of a gallon of gas. I’d fantasize about a future in which I was rich, successful, and about a foot taller.

  The twins’ van had recently broken down again and Samantha’s family car was elsewhere. As the only one with a currently functioning automobile, I was chauffeur for the night. It had been a quiet evening. Rob skimmed stones; Jimmy and Johnny split a six-pack; and Samantha made s’mores.

  “They discovered a new moon of Jupiter this week,” said Samantha, stirring the fire.

  “Hum,” muttered Rob. “Kinda makes you think.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, nothing. It was just a mindless reply to the Jupiter thing.”

  “Oh.” More silence.

  “Leon, I was wondering…,” began Jimmy.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you secretly a Colombian drug lord?”

  “No.” A pause. “Any particular reason you ask?”

  “You keep looking over your shoulder, down the road. You’d think you were expecting to be shot.”

  “No….” I glanced down the empty country road that led to the dam. “It’s nothing.” I had given Melody detailed instructions on how to find the gate. She had said she’d try to be here by eight, and it was a quarter past nine.

  There was a grinding noise as a vehicle turned off the main road. Bright headlights began to flood the area.

  Jimmy and Johnny quickly tossed their half-finished beers into the water. We had always laughed at the NO TRESPASSING signs, but there was still the chance the cops would show up one day to run us off.

  It wasn’t a police cruiser. It was an old four-wheel drive pickup, which, judging from the mud that coated it, had been driven through the Mekong Delta.

  “Cool your jets, guys. It’s Melody.”

  She pulled to a stop behind my car and made her way cautiously toward the fire. Squinting into the dark, she called out, “Hello?”