Middlesex

I was already jumping up. My blood rocketed. It shot up my spine and rang a bell in my head, and I charged Jerome in a blaze of fury. He was bigger than me but unprepared. I hit him in the face. He tried to move away but I crashed into him, my momentum knocking him to the floor. I climbed on his chest, pinning his arms with my legs. Finally Jerome stopped resisting. He lay on his back and tried to look amused.

“Any time you’re finished,” he said.

It was an exhilarating feeling to be on top of him. Chapter Eleven had pinned me all my life. This was the first time I’d done it to somebody else, especially a boy older than me. My long hair was falling into Jerome’s face. I swept it back and forth, tormenting him. Then I remembered something else my brother used to do.

“No,” Jerome cried. “Come on. Don’t!”

I let it fall. Like a raindrop. Like a tear. But neither of those things. The spit plopped right between Jerome’s eyes. And then the earth opened up beneath us. With a roar Jerome rose up, sending me backward. My supremacy had been brief. Now it was time to run.

I took off across the porch. I jumped down the steps and tore across the back lawn, barefoot. Jerome came after me in his Dracula getup. He stopped to fling off the coat and I increased the distance between us. Through the backyards of the neighboring houses I ran, ducking under pine branches. I dodged bushes and barbecues. The pine needles gave good traction under my feet. Finally I reached the open field beyond and fled into it. When I looked back Jerome was gaining on me.

Through the high, yellow grass along the bayshore we flew. I jumped over the historical marker, grazing my foot, then hopped in pain and continued on. Jerome cleared it without a hitch. On the other side of the field was the road that led back to the house. If I could get over the rise, I could double back without Jerome seeing me. The Object and I could barricade ourselves in our room. I reached the hill and started up. Jerome came after me, scowling, still gaining.

We were like runners in a frieze. In profile, with pumping thighs and knifing arms, we cut through the shin-whipping grass. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill Jerome seemed to be slowing down. He was waving his hand in defeat. He was waving it and shouting something I couldn’t hear . . .

The tractor had just made a turn onto the road. High in his seat, the farmer didn’t see me. I was looking back to check on Jerome. When I finally turned forward it was too late. Right in front of me was the tractor tire. I hit it dead on. In the terracotta dust I was spun upward into the air. At the apex of my arc I saw the raised plow blades behind, the corkscrewing metal covered with mud, and then the race was over.

I awoke later, in the backseat of a strange automobile. A rattletrap, with blankets covering the seats. A decal of a hooked, flapping trout was pasted to the rear window. The driver wore a red cap. The little space above the cap’s adjustable headband showed the buzzed hairline of his seamed neck.

My head felt soft, as if covered in gauze. I was wrapped in an old blanket, stiff and spoked with hay. I turned my head and looked up and saw a beautiful sight. I saw the Object’s face from below. My head was in her lap. My right cheek was flush against the warm upholstery of her tummy. She was still in her bikini top and cutoffs. Her knees were spread and her red hair fell over me, darkening things. I gazed up through this maroon or oxblood space and saw what I could of her, the dark band of her swimsuit top, her clavicles set forward. She was chewing one cuticle. It was going to bleed if she kept it up. “Hurry,” she was saying, from the other side of the falling hair. “Hurry up, Mr. Burt.”

It was the farmer who was driving. The farmer whose tractor I’d run into. I hoped he wasn’t listening. I didn’t want him to hurry. I wanted this ride to go on for as long as possible. The Object was stroking my head. She’d never done this in daylight before.

“I beat up your brother,” I said out of the blue.

With one hand the Object swept her hair away. The light knifed in.

“Callie! Are you okay?”

I smiled up at her. “I got him good.”

“Oh God,” she said. “I was so scared. I thought you were dead. You were just ly—ly”—her voice broke—“lying there in the road!”

The tears came on, tears of gratitude now, not anger like before. The Object sobbed. With awe I beheld the storm of emotion racking her. She dipped her head. She pressed her snuffling, wet face against mine and, for the first and last time, we kissed. We were hidden by the backseat, by the wall of hair, and who was the farmer to tell anyway? The Object’s anguished lips met mine, and there was a sweet taste and a taste of salt.

“I’m all snotty,” she said, lifting her face up again. She managed to laugh.