it was the state fair during our youth, before i had even kissed her face or written a love letter. it was the state fair and the 4-h club was there. debra the younger stood holding her rope watching while precious was rubbed, while precious was judged and there was hope. while the other goats were 'baa' about precious held her head high in silence. she was a true professional. the goat never bucked or stepped away as the judges rubbed her belly evaluated the texture of her coat. debra would suck her teeth when thinking of precious, her precious and those devil goat eyes.
'it was precious the winner,' she had said.
through the pictures we were regaled. there was the great smile of the child champion. there was the ribbon being placed, the patch sewn the general crowd smiling and standing behind her as she knelt beside the animal.
now i wonder if precious is gone. burned to fade by the disease.
there is the picture of the blue mustang. the first car, the picture of her leaning against the hood in her summer dress great joy alighting her face.
debra spoke of the freedom of the drive. the freedom of the great open road the travel to big cities miles away for exploration. the night wanderings through the city when all the other girls had their boyfriends and make out lane before we had held hands or exchanged glances. she was an athlete, she was a farmer, she was always at work with her animals and she was always alone.
'boys were not that interested in me, i was a late bloomer,' she would say.
this would cause me guilt. that i never saw until everyone else had seen. that long before we found each other we had known each other in the hallways of school. i think of that school, of it's antiseptic smells. i think of the linoleum and florescent lights and loud buzzing moon faced clocks. i think of the chalk boards never completely clean, of the ghosts of past classes that had gone before and won their trophies.
in those pictures, the lonely girl and i wonder her atop the squeak wood bleachers. she is nervous about the boys seeing her eat, judging her size or worse yet not noticing her at all. i wonder if she laughs too loud with her friends or acts clumsy and bumps into boys while walking to and from her seat. i can see her, like all of us in our teens, hungry for attention and admiration ready to connect get hot blooded and explore just what is going on in our bodies.
i was always on the teams. was always playing the games, being watched unable to laugh to loud or get clumsy. i hoped that she had come and watched for me. that she had always known or felt and believed it could come true. i had hoped that she dreamed through the thick blanket of summer night heat that we were going to be together. these were the hopes of the married man who always wants to believe that his wife had only dreamed of him. in our youth we are tinder ready to be set afire by anything, by anyone. each body could set us to inferno with dreams of skin and breath and a future together we as yet fail to truly understand.
the album, all it's past visions captured. debra the singer, debra the track star and debra the student leader all black and white documented here. pages of smiling, pages of triumph, pages of hope and enthusiasms. we never photograph the bad days. we never record the times alone in our room weeping over broken heart or shame.
as i flip through her childhood, her teenage years and college days i am chilled. i wonder how far the disease has eaten, how many of the pages have faded how many memories are gone. i will not ask, i will push it away out of mind. each page lost gets closer to our pages. each page lost gets us closer to our first encounter, or first words, kiss and other intimacies. i will not think of such things as i place the album away in a safe place and head out to the deck. she is there we will sit, we will hold hands and in our silence i hope she is not disturbed by the sound of my recorder.
No comments:
Post a Comment