I shrugged. “I don’t know. There are things I want to do, but just can’t.” I wasn’t talking exclusively about music. I didn’t elaborate or try to explain, but I knew she understood. Even that early on, we could communicate that way.
“I could show you some things,” she said. “I mean, if you want.”
Angela slid the guitar onto my lap. As the wooden curves brushed over my thighs, I imagined her fingers trailing across the denim. She took my left hand, raised it to the guitar neck and shaped my fingers into some new chord. Angela strummed as she explained the construction, only I couldn’t concentrate. For the first time in months, I wanted something more than the music. I took her hand and held it away from the strings. She let me claim the fingers, so I sat holding them while she ignored my awkward grip.
When she didn’t speak, I knew I’d misinterpreted the moment. Excitement caused me to grope for something more than a simple act of kindness. I let go of her hand, and might have fled into the rain, but my legs wouldn’t let me stand.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.”
Even after all these years, I can still feel the desire to burrow under the pitcher’s mound in shame. Sink into the nearest river and let the minnows devour my eyes. I felt too embarrassed to breathe.
“I play in my father’s shop after school some days,” she said. “He’s got a little studio down in the basement. Why don’t you join me?”
I didn’t believe it was a real offer. Just something to dull the sting of rejection.
“Do you drive?” Angela asked. “I could pick you up.”
“No,” I told her. The last thing I wanted was someone to see where we lived.
My father’s truck rumbled in the distance, tires sloshing through fresh puddles. In that moment, I preferred the coming beating to another second beside her.
“I have to go,” I said. “Thanks for showing me some things.”
“You don’t have to take off,” Angela said. But I’d already started out of the dugout. Angela called after me, but her words were lost in the rain. The Reverend didn’t say anything as I climbed in the truck. On the drive home, I kept remembering the warmth of Angela’s hand. The feeling of her calloused fingertips rubbed raw from the guitar strings. Something we shared. That day, it felt like the only characteristic still linking me to humanity.
* * *
• • •
In the weeks that followed, The Reverend’s policy on tithes began to change. He balked at any paltry sum, tossed coins from the offering plate and demanded folding cash at the end of each service. I always waited outside until the congregation required me to strum a few hymns. Afterward, they’d kick me back out until prayers concluded, but I no longer needed to spy. My father’s preaching echoed through the thin wooden walls like Gabriel’s trumpet. If the message could previously be considered one of Hellfire and brimstone, the newer version was apocalyptic. All sermons reduced to speeches where The Reverend frothed and screamed about sin in the camp. He repeated the same commands, told the congregation the best way to save themselves was to abandon all worldly possessions. He became a backwoods version of the televangelists I occasionally heard on the radio. Prophesizing exclusively on how the Lord needed cash.
None of this newfound wealth went to repairs. The roof still leaked and the dirt floor transformed to mud every rainy night. My father hoarded the cash in a wooden cigar box under his bed. I didn’t know how much he managed to squirrel away until later, but I’d lie awake at night imagining how far I could get with the money. In these proposed escapes, I’d cross the creek to the blacktop and pay someone to haul me to the nearest town. From there, I’d hitchhike to a city. Lexington, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York.
It was a pipe dream, but it felt good pretending I could make it alone. I knew a man like me would never even cross the state line. Some redneck would see the cash, bash me in the head and leave my body in a ditch. Fantasizing I had the same chance as others helped me survive the routine of church service, practice and sleep.
Angela returned just as I began to forget about her. She drove up to the camper in her father’s F-150, a vehicle that rode too low to risk crossing the creek, but she braved it anyway. The Reverend was away somewhere with Lady Crawford, but I stayed in the camper and peered out the window as Angela paced in the yard. I didn’t want to be seen after botching our last encounter. Hope felt too dangerous at that age.
Angela didn’t leave. She just leaned against the hood, lit a cigarette and folded her arms across her chest. She’d removed her leather jacket despite the chill, and I could see her forearms covered in freckles as if her whole body had been dusted with cinnamon.
“I can wait all day,” she called and slid up onto the hood. Her shoes dangled in front of the grille as she flicked ash.
I took the guitar from under the bed and stepped out to meet her. Every inch of my body hummed until I felt like the most malformed features were trying to capture her eyes. Every man or woman I’ve ever met allows themselves a moment to take in my flaws. Angela had that same human inclination, but there was a different tone to her observation, more curiosity than disgust. She saw me in a way I never hoped anyone, much less a woman, would.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Everyone knows where you live, Hollis.” It was a stupid question. In those days, it was a rite of passage for young men to cross the creek and dare each other to walk near the church.
“Let’s go for a ride,” she said.
“I have to be here when my father gets back,” I lied. The Reverend was too enamored with Lady Crawford and his hoarded money to notice my absence. I was just trying to sabotage things. I’d spent weeks telling myself I didn’t want her because it seemed impossible to have her.
She picked me up nearly every day to compose music in the basement of her father’s shop. Just fragments at first. Everything from distorted rock riffs to acoustic pieces that sounded like prayers and played in my head long after I returned home. I hummed them alone at night, sneaked out of bed to practice the chords outside among the crickets and owl calls. The music wasn’t a secret, but I understood it was just for us. No one ever listened, and we never discussed the notion of additional players or an audience. Sometimes I wondered if Angela felt embarrassed to be seen with me. If I were like other boys, would she have encouraged public performances? I struggled with that uncertainty, went back and forth between thinking she just wanted us to be ready, or that I only served as a distraction until someone better came along. Slowly, the music changed me. My stoicism melted away, and I realized all the songs were admissions that I loved her.
Things might have continued this way forever, but The Reverend was sitting outside one evening when Angela dropped me off. My father looked naked in his shirtsleeves, his body lying across the camper’s stoop like a man who just completed some incalculable burden. Each breath swelled his belly until his shirt tented and remained aloft even as he exhaled. When I reached him, I smelled the sour mash seeping from his pores.