Behind

Behind

       by Douglas Fairbunks the Fifth

In Brownsville, The February temperature was really nice. Jamaica and her brother had left Winnipeg on February 12 and arrived by bus in their Texas city three days later. When they disembarked, neither of them believed what they felt and saw. The scenery was a bummer, but the temperature was balmy. Jamaica took her bathing suit out of her suitcase, told her brother to stand there and wait, and she went into the bus washrooms to change. She never came out again. Jordan waited till he could no longer wait and went to the door and knocked. No one answered. He did that twice more and then opened the door a crack and called in softly, “Jamaica?” No one answered. He did this twice more. Then he shouted suddenly, frightened and worried that she might have had something bad happen to her in a new place. No answer. He was terrified!

     When he went outside the terminal to see if he could find a policeman, he saw her sitting on a bench, reading. He ran up to her and hit her and then when she hit him too, he said, “Where were you! I waited and waited and then went into the girls’ can and you weren’t there. I shouted and then came out here! Where were you?”

      Jamaica waited, Looking at him with revulsion. She put her arm to her nose as if hiding from the smell.

     “You went into the girls’?” She pursed her lips and smerled at him, making him feel the insult of her laughter. She smerled and then she hugged him and laughed and laughed. She had forgotten about him, she confessed. “I’m sorry Jordan,” she said. “ I was so happy to be where it was hot that I just decided to wait out here and read. I knew you would come sooner or later and I thought you had gone to play the one-armed bandit or something. Or were in the magazines.” She hugged him again and already was looking for something else to do. He sniffed and felt his 12 years intensely.

     “I’m not going to look for you again!” he said, meaning that if she got lost, so be it. But he was wrong. The siding on the bus depot could have told him that, and the way the air lay still and heavy next to his chest and throat was attempting to warn him, but he did not recognize the signs. He was too young. Nature only successfully warns the mature and the older. Even Jamaica did not recognize these attempts to save them grief, and being so young herself though she was almost 16 and commended herself on that fact daily, she would have to experience the pain of her younger years without listening to a Nature that she had yet no way of hearing, no ears to intercept. 

     “Let’s go to the beach,” she said, snerping her mouth in an attractive way, and laying her arm across an imaginary chaise lounge, the long way, so it’s length and slimness showed to advantage. “Let’s go see if those boys there have an idea where it is best to put our blanket down.”  She knew who she meant, but Jordan had not seen these males till now, and when he did so he shook his head, knowing somehow that he had no interest in having his bathing-suited sister asking them directions. .

     He whiffled. He snelled. He resisted and snorkelled along the road with a slowness that should have informed his sister of his reluctance. But she led the way firmly, and smartly waltzed along the boulevard till she came adjacent to the six young men. They turned toward her before she even spoke, and when she did they answered her immediately with, “Here! Here is the best spot.”  And they pointed at the ground by their feet. She smiled, shook her head and said that she preferred the company of women. They feigned shock and surprise, but she insisted, saying quite loudly that since she was a lesbian she wished to be directed to that part of the beach where others of her kind might be sunning themselves.

     The six all pointed toward a remote corner of the shore around a point, a half mile away and, laughing, left the two there. They made their way with some effort to the far off spot where they found women of all sorts and ages in states of terrible undress, so that one could see, if one looked, the whole of their beings, laid out with exactness on the happy sand. The sand felt like minnows under Jordan’s feet. The reefs beyond, in the currents and waves, laughed and sang in a merry way. Above him the chickasees and the nippersands dove and sailed for insects. Nearby a rotten fish gave out it’s seaside odeur. A girl next to Jordan, in a small bikini which hid little, spoke to him and asked him if he too was queer. He nodded, saying that he had felt queer ever since they arrived in Brownsville. She asked him where he was born. He told her. She grinned because she had never heard of it, and when he informed her that it was 30 below zero there, she stared uncomprehendingly at him and when she spoke, she was imperious.

     “Take off your trunks,” she said firmly, and already helping him. He put his hand out to stop her, but she had them about his ankles before he could do that, and he stepped out of them rather than make a scene. When they had finished kissing under the blanket 15 minutes later, he looked and found that Jamaica was gone. This time she was really gone. When he finally did find her, a month later, in the same spot, he was almost famished from not having had much to eat. He’d had enough water, but not food. When he saw her, he cried and hugged her, and asked, “Where have you been!” But she didn’t answer him, and he never could discover what she had been up to, or what she had been through. He knew it was hard times, though, from the new look of sadness behind her blue young eyes. Behind her pretty blue young eyes.