BLUSH by Ellen Hagan

     We ate brown beans and cornbread, all leftover from the night before.  It was early morning, clouds covering the sky, a heavy blanket, and we sat watching TV and kissing, the sound whirring, breaking the silence, and the sound of our mouths pulling in and then apart, the slow tense of an upper lip, his teeth slight around my tongue.  He smelled of sweat, morning sheets, Crest, some type of mint in his mouth.  It was middle July and the room was so hot I couldn’t get the sweat from off my neck, so he kept licking that space, all the fans blowing hell loose in his house.  There was one that hit my lower back and one that hit my right shoulder, hot breeze on me.  I’d never been so hot in my life, and never not cared so much.  We lost the whole morning that way, moving from one kiss to another, all arms and all long torsos, ribs so loose in our skin, heat lightning and cream clouds outside, and one fat black fly breaking the space above my face, while swatting, squeezing the back of his thigh.  All our clothes were on, but just kept getting pulled to the side, or lowered, but they were on, and so was the TV, still, whirring.  We’d gone from cartoons, to early morning talk shows and now there was court TV; the way the time could be kept by the mindless clutter on the set.  Every once in a while, we’d stop, watch and laugh at some red-neck or some backwoods type.  Azel would say, “Yo, your people are fucked up.”

     “Shut-up, those are not my people,” I’d shoot back.  We’d kiss again, trying to eat up the afternoon.

      “You hungry?” his mouth breaking the space where lips were. 

     “Yeah, yeah, I am.”  I’d been at Azel’s since 9am, when Deirdra pulled out the drive and his dad peeled out to the factory.  I pulled down the street, parked in the cul de sac, so’s no one would see me and rat us out and finally, had been let in the side door.  Darryl was at his Gran’s house, so it was just us, near every weekday morning that July.  I’d wake up earlier than usual, eat cereal with my mom, wait till she went in the yard, then lie and tell her I was going to the pool, or shopping or just off writing.  I hadn’t gotten a job because I was all prepped to do work- study as soon as college started.  And I’d show up, clean as the whole day stretched, acres before us.  He’d be just creaking outta bed, but sometimes still in bed, and I’d creep into his room, curl into his sleeping self and when he’d wake up, the only woman he’d expect to find, was me.  That July there was no one else, no second lover he could claim in the hallways, just me, just those full days and no one else at all.  We never once made love in that month, couldn’t get past the kissing part, all tongues, all wet mouths.  We couldn’t get past it, so there was no sex.  This was still mid-July, we were elbows into each other, crooked covers and all, it was hot, but we’d manage to knock the quilt off the back of the couch, sweat all over like a fine glisten on both our faces.

     “Let’s eat.  I’m hungry,” Azel says again.

     “Yes,” as I plant a heavy kiss on his mouth.  He gets up, shuts the TV off and immediately switches the radio on, some slow r & b station that I know his dad and Deirdra have been jammin’ out to. 

     “Come on woman,” he says, and so I do a slow crawl up from the couch.  I don’t tell Azel that this is eating into our kissing time.  He already knows.  He’s already at the fridge, checking the blinds too, out the side door, to make sure no-one’s coming home early, or coming home sick, making sure Darryl didn’t forget a toy.

     “What do you got in there?” I want to know.

     “Just step back please.  Quit bein’ nosy.  I got the goods.”  I start to laugh, because it doesn’t feel like I am about to leave for college soon.  It feels fresh and new all of a sudden, like we’re on a long vacation, or a long trip, out to somewhere.  One long trip.  And on my way home, he says to come back.  Each time.  

     “Come back,” he says, his soft lean in the door, the stereo on in the back, some country song that his dad’s been listening to, a half bottle of bourbon on the counter.  We are a Kentucky summer, just the two of us, his arms marking space in the frame.  I stand on the steps in front of him, dead tilted.

     “I don’t wanna leave.”  The heat of summer has arrived fast and deep.  We’re both sweating, the sky rising, dough above.  The fattest sun I’ve ever seen sits heavy above us and every fan is blowing hell loose in Azel’s house. 

__________

     “This place is beautiful,” Azel says.  “Why is this the first time you’re taking me here?” he wants to know.

     “I never knew you wanted to come out here.  You’re out here now,” I say again, linking my fingers through his. 

     “Let’s go swimming,” he says.

     “What?”

     “Swimming.  Let’s go.  You know how to swim don’t you?”

     “Hell no.”

     “Why?”

     “You know how dirty that water is?”

     “Oh, ok, sorry Mrs. Mattingly.  I thought I was out with your cool daughter, but uh, I was wrong.  I picked your paranoid ass up instead.”   

     “What?”

     “Nah, nah, I just you know thought I was here with your mom and all.”

     “Fuck you,” I say, a smile spreading its way across my mouth.  “’Fuck you,” I say again, and put him in a head- lock.  He swirls me around. 

     “Lets go swimming,” he says, putting my whole face in his hands.  I look down below through one of the slats in the bridge.  I can see the creek bed, all the rocks, all the moss and stones. 

     “Are you sure?” I wanna know.

     “It ain’t deep,” he says, licking my bottom lip. 

     “I know.”

     “So?”

     “So…ok, ok, let’s go.”  I start to take off my shirt.

     “Ah, we going skinny dippin’?”

     “Hell yeah,” I say.

     “You don’t do nothing half-ass do you?”

     “Nope.”  We strip off all our clothes, making a whole Hansel and Gretel path down to the creek.  We slide down the rocks, him thin as rails, me too, but a little bit softer.  He gets down first and puts one toe in the water to test it out. 

     “Shit,” he howls, laughing.

     “Told you!”

     “Damn!”

     “Well you can’t be a sissy now!    You gotta get in!”

     “Here, lemme help you first,” he says.

     “Uh-uh, hell no.  I know your tricks, now go!”  He puts both feet in and then squats so he’s just barely sitting in the water.  I can’t stop looking at him, the way we are both so naked makes me giggle, the fact that we are near waste deep in the creek bed on this country road that no-one ever drives down, the fact that we are so comfortable without any clothes on, together makes me feel like smiling.  So I do.  I look at him and smile.

     “I’m happy,” he says, out of nowhere.  “This makes me happy,” he says, and then, “You make me happy.”  He says it all without looking at me, says it all while trying to adjust to the cold of the water.  “Don’t start crying,” he says.

     I laugh instead and he snakes his neck back to look at me, and laugh too.  The day wears on like we’ve got nothing to do, no mothers or step-mothers worrying our names all over town, no empty I’m sorry, just us and the creek bed, flat, and one baby crawdad that won’t stop pinching Azel’s foot, the wind whipping through the leaves, making it all somehow sacred.  It’s late July and we’re in love or maybe now just on our way to it, or out of it.  We can’t tell but we don’t really want to.  He touches my toes and my calves, touches my fingers and the insides of the palms of my hands.  He runs his tree-limb fingers through my hair, takes my scalp in the tips.  He kisses my forearms and the insides of my elbows.   It’s a long afternoon with is voice in my ear and my tongue on his cheek, just resting, just tasting, taking bits of him for me.  It’s a whole strawberry pie I think. 

“You’re like this whole day that never ends,” I say and really mean it.  He is.  I want to tell him he is my everything.  Of course he is not, but oh, he is, and that is the hard part.

__________

     We sit on his bed, our legs touching at the knees, him at one end, me at the other.  His head is way back on the bed-post.  I’m sitting up, tracing my name on his calf over and over.  His step-mom is visiting her sister in Georgia for the weekend.  Darryl is watching cartoons in the family room.  We can hear the whirr of the television set.  Mr. Johnson is cooking shrimp and grits in the kitchen.  We can smell the onion being thrown in the skillet.  It’s summer and I am old, old enough to leave for college in six weeks.  We’ve got exactly 12 days until I leave for the beach, where my mother says I will be sure to stay out of trouble.  What she really means is that I will stay far away from Azel.  The sooner she can get me out the better.  We all know this; everyone involved knows this.  So we’ve got 12 days to exchange tongues in, 12 days to touch hands in and legs in, which to me, is not enough. 

     “If I had it to do over again,” Azel starts, his eyes still closed, his hair braided on one side, out like a shock of wool on the other, “I’d have studied harder, I guess.”  I don’t say anything, just trace the word love on his kneecap.  “I mean,” he says, “I woulda done some other shit, so’s I wouldn’t have to do this shit.  I’d’ve studied or gone to fucking tutoring or I’da played ball better, written better rhymes, I don’t…I’da done shit different.”  The phone rings and Azel jumps a mile to reach for it, stumbles over the post and takes the cordless out of the room, quick. 

     “Hello,” he answers.  I can hear him in the bedroom.  “Yeah, hey, what’s up?  Nah, no, naw, not now.  I’ll check you later.  Yeah,” he says and I can almost feel his smile, lips spreading to reveal that same tongue that is supposed to be gliding over mine.  I can see every afternoon of his spent without me when I am gone.  I can see months and months spent, him on the bed without me, him outside on the front stoop without me, all those hours spent without me.  I sit up in his bed and put both legs on the floor so that I can tell I am still breathing and moving.  “I’ll see you then,” he finishes.  I don’t say anything.

     “What?” he wants to know when he walks back in the room and sees me sitting up on the bed.  “What?”

     “Would you have done anything different with me?” 

     “Oh.”  He stands in the middle of his room.  My legs are like the roots of trees in the pale green carpet.  “Everything,” he says.  “I woulda done everything different with you.”

__________

     “I guess I’ll leave now,” I say, watermelon icee still on my lips, the stain on my tongue and probably my teeth.

     “Yeah, it’s getting’ late.  You all packed?” 

     “Much as I can be.”

     “Is it hot there?”

     “Not as hot as here.  Not as hot as here I say again,” not sure why.  “Not as humid really.  Not quite as humid.”  We both stand there, neither of us knowing what to say or how it is we want to say it.  It’s like we both sigh at the same time, breathe in. 

     “I’ve never been to the ocean,” Azel says.

     “Ah, well it’s amazing, I mean like this huge fucking…I stop.  “It’s not really that big of a deal actually.” 

     “No I get it.  The ocean is the shit.  I wanna go someday.  I mean-

     “I’ll take you,” I say, a little too quickly.

     “Yeah.  Sure.”  The street lights flick on, like they know it’s really time for us to be saying good-night or good-bye.  Darryl rides by on his brand new two wheel electric blue bicycle that he got for turning six.  He rode it like it was the biggest accomplishment he’d ever made.  “Hey!” he calls out, waving wildly, almost losing his balance.  “Look at me.”  We both do and Azel starts to laugh. 

     “You look good Darryl.  You’re ridin’ well.”

     “Thanks,” he calls back, his focus now on the bike instead of us.  “Watch this A-dair,” he calls again and takes both legs off the bike in a split.   “See!”

     “You’re amazing Darryl.” 

     “Thanks,” he says again, smiling broadly at me, riding off down the street, his body getting lost in the dusk.

     “He is gonna miss you something fierce,” Azel says, shaking his head.

     “Just Darryl?”

     “Huh?”

     “I mean just Darryl’s gonna miss me?”  He looks me all over, smiles, opens his mouth for me to feed him a bite of watermelon icee.  I do and he lets the cool melt on his tongue for a second before he grabs my shoulders and licks the whole length of my cheek in one stroke of tongue.  Then he licks my lips, as slow as anyone ever has.  At that moment I am not sure I’ll ever feel so fresh, so new and open, with sticky wet candy coating on my face, a deep smile, wide, 10,000 fireflies out flying, staring at who I am sure is the boy I will never stop being in love with.

     “Don’t wash that cheek,” he says.

     “Never.  I’ll never wash it.”

     “Good.  That’s how much I’ll miss you.”  

            __________

     Her face under the covers, the smooth glide of her skin after a day, sweat and stink of her even.  He rinses the soft of her mouth from his.  This he misses.  The way she talked.  The way he slid her neck into his hands.  He washes her fingers from around his waist, cleans her in strokes, washcloth against skin.  The roughness is alarming, but understandable.  Undesirable.  It wasn’t difficult, so he missed her, lemon custard and banana ice cream.  When he saw her the first time he didn’t think of rain pouring or naked in the creek, didn’t see licking the insides of her wrists, and so much.  He went ahead and washed those too, poured water down between, let it drip as he lathered, said good-bye, or fuck you, whichever came out his mouth first.  He didn’t know he’d spend so many days with her on his mind.  If he had known, he would have stopped before.  He lets the water run over his scalp, between his braids, between the spaces she had kissed, on the floor, under his sheets, on the front stoop, in the classroom, where the hair had been pulled, the taut of his skin there.  Rewind he thinks.  He would like the first time he kissed her, back.  He would like the sun to be out, his mind to be back on her, the dogs asleep and cups of Kool-Aid back, orange flavor of July.  No one to yell, no one to stop them, only kissing like the first time. 

__________

Adair,                                                                                                            

     Have you forgotten me?  That’s what I wanted to write you.  Have you forgotten me?  Then I got your letters.  I noticed the handwriting straight away.  Wanted to call you up, but you didn’t put your number in the letter.  So I am writing this to tell you.  I have not forgotten you.  Still, I remember the smell from the back of your neck, in the park, in the car.  I remember the smell of your stomach after a day spent together.  These are things I remember about you.  Yes, still, often.  I remember.

     I drove out to the old barn we used to go to.  It ain’t a barn anymore.  I thought you should know.  The sides and the front and the back been knocked clear through, so it’s this old worthless skeleton of somethin’ that used to look like a barn, but ain’t anymore.  And on top of it’s a plaque that reads, “Home, Sweetheart, Home.”  I thought that was the dumbest shit I’d ever seen.  Knew you’da thought it was stupid too.  I drove out there about a month ago I guess.  Brought a case of beer with me just in case I felt like usin’ the hammer I’d brought with me, to break somethin’.  I wanted to real bad.  Wanted to break somethin’ out there.  It made me think about that afternoon in the creek bed.  It made me think about you.  Over and over.  And then I remembered a poem you’d sent me.  It was right after that summer, after you’d left and never come back.  You’d left it in my mailbox what I wasn’t home.  No address or nothin’ till this last letter.  This is what you wrote.  I copied it down and now I’m sendin’ it back to you.

 

 

my old lover

the muscles of your back blister in the shallow of my palm/ fingerprints/the smell of coconut oil that used to hold the thick plaits of your hair/ you put that smell back into my mouth and it’s getting to be like I can’t even breathe anymore

I am remembering your touch/ and maybe you cry / or one tear wells up round the ring of your eye and I cry/ or we just sit and you let me fall in love with you/ and you don’t go away/ and you don’t force me to go away/ and your smell stays on my skin even after I am rubbed raw

I still know it deep inside me/ I remember country roads like this one/ remember the dips/ the crunch of sound as night moved into late/ late night/ country roads remind me of your tongue/ long and perfect and on me

and I want to tell you I feel like my body might rip open/ that my stomach might bust up if no-one touches me/ tell you I put my hands on myself so much that if I died the DA would know I killed myself cuz there’d be no other fingerprints anywhere near my body

I miss your mouth like I miss the cracking sounds of tree limbs near the river/ I miss the insides of your skinny wrists like I miss the sound of 11 PM on a Saturday night in the deep/ deep south/ face out the window/ stoned/ I miss your fingers like I miss the length of I-75/ I miss you like home

that’s how you come to me at night/ that’s why when I dream of you I wake up wet and choking/ why you’ve got your hands wrapped so tight round my throat that even if I wanted to call out your name/ or YES/ or NO/ you wouldn’t let me/ I wouldn’t try/ and it’s why I still can’t write about you/ why you are so crammed in round me that I can’t move to get away/ I want to see you the way I get thrilled by a full moon/ the way I long to fall in love again/ for real this time/ that’s how I know you’re deep inside me still/ embedded in me still

I want to uproot you now/ want my underwear back/ my writings/ my fingerprints/ I want them for me now/ so please/ please/ give them back

 

     I never knew what the fuck to do after you wrote that.  I felt lost as you did.   I didn’t know where to send shit, but I kept the poem.  I kept all your poems, but now I’m doin’ like you say, and sendin’ ‘em back.  I guess I got no use for ‘em no way.  Ain’t got the underwear, but hell, I figure you don’t really probably need them anyway.  So here they are.  All of ‘em. 

     I wanted to write and say this.  I know you never thought I loved you, but I did.  More than I could ever admit.  Still, this letter is hard as hell to write.  I don’t know what you’re doin’ no more, but I hope it’s good.  I hope you’re good.  Take care of these poems.  They got pieces of both of us in ‘em.  And I’m sendin’ you a couple of my drawings.  They’re new.  Just so you can see I ain’t stopped.  Hope you ain’t either. 

 

And Adair, I miss you like home too, and I ain’t never left.

Azel  

 

 

 

 

 

Ellen Hagan is a writer, actress and educator.  Her
poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and can
be seen in Failbetter, La Petite Zine, nervygirl,
Monologues for Women by Women, Check the Rhyme and
upcoming in: Submerged: Tales from the Basin, PLUCK,
and America! What’s My Name?  Her performance work has
been produced by Spokenworks for the ROAR Theatre
Festival, and the New York International Fringe
Festival.  She recently performed for season 5 of
Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam and is
currently touring with a two- woman show, Becoming
Woman, which has been funded by the KY Foundation for
Women and the KY Governor’s School for the Arts.
Ellen holds an MFA in fiction from The New School
University, and recently finished her first
full-length novel entitled BLUSH, which won the Next
Great Writers Competition at the Carnegie Center of
Lexington, Kentucky.