For information on SINGLES, click here!

This blog is a repository for excerpts from my novels:

* You Don't Think She Is, my completed first novel (and sequentially the first one featuring these characters), which I am currently submitting to agents and editors;

* A second, in-the-works novel, which consists of pieces of my Goddard MFA thesis, Sad Sweet Dreamer, but revised to include stuff like, oh, for instance, plot;

*A third, also-in-the-works novel, working title Rae, which brings these same characters into the present day.

I hope you enjoy what you read. If you are a READER and you like it, tell a friend about it... pass the link along.

Better yet, tell a publisher or editor or agent about it! Who knows?

And if you're an editor or a publisher or agent and you want to read more... maxshenkwrites@aol.com

Thanks for visiting!

Max Harrick Shenk
9 July 2007

SINGLES by Max Harrick Shenk

My friend Shawn Kerivan said once that he thinks of his short story collection (Name The Boy) as being "an album." This made me think: if the collection constitutes an "album," then the individual stories must be singles, right?

As a longtime record collector, and a writer who's always looking for a way to get his work out to readers, it seemed like the logical way to get my stories out to people while I worked to get my novel published was to "release singles:" print mini-chapbooks of individual stories and put them out in places where people read (cafes, libraries, book shops, etc).

Thus: SINGLES. They look like a 45 (sort of) but read like a story. Each one is a short story or an excerpt from one of my longer works. Each one comes in an authentic vintage 45-rpm sleeve. (Whoopee.) Just enough reading to get you through a cup of coffee and whet your appetite for... the album!

Five different SINGLES are available right now: two bucks each (postage included) or $8.00 for all five.

FLIP!
12-year-old Scott Perry can't deal with the shock of long hair that keeps falling into his eyes, and Brian Pressley can't deal with the fact that Scott has his eyes on his best friend Margo LeDoux.

ANYTIME YOU WANT
A father tries to answer his toddler's questions about death and dying.

STUPID SISSY SLOW-PITCH SOFTBALL
A 13-year-old girl isn't allowed to play little league baseball, but refuses to play "stupid sissy softball," either... until...

MY FIRST, MY LAST, MY ONLY CIGARETTE
Two junior high girls find a pack of Virginia Slims in the bathroom at a basketball game. If they try one, will they get hooked for life?

SIX FIFTY SEVEN
A boy wants to get his best friend a copy of the Beach Boys' ENDLESS SUMMER for her birthday... problem is, it costs $6.35, and he's only got $5.57.

MORE SINGLES COMING SOON!

TO ORDER in the USA:
* By mail: send $2.00 for each SINGLE you wish to order (or $8.00 for all five) to Max Shenk; 1375 Lower Road; Plainfield, VT; 05667
* Online: same price as above, but send your payment via Paypal to maxshenk@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your mailing address.
* Outside the USA: please email me for info.

Given that this is the US Mail we're dealing with, please allow 2 weeks for delivery.

Chapter one of my novel You Don't Think She Is

August 28, 1968 was a perfect Gettysburg summer day in every way but one. Hazy, bright, with dew clinging to the grass blades... wide green lawns sparkling in the low morning sun... the air cool enough to wear a windbreaker, but once the sun got above the housetops, the dew would burn off and it'd be hot, humid.

Perfect, like I said, in every way but one...

"I HATE stupid school," I moaned to my best friend Margo as we pedaled down the block toward the first day of third grade. "I wish we were riding out to our fort instead of to SCHOOL!"

"Hey," Margo said, "at least we can ride together."

Yeah, I thought. Together.

Misery loves company.

Margo brushed her blonde hair back over her shoulders. It trailed her, a golden flag in the light wind. "Won't it be neat," she said, "when we're all grown up and we don't have to go to stupid school anymore?" She smiled and glanced at me. "Then we can just go out to our fort anytime we want," and I was about to reply, but without taking a breath, her hand still wrapped around the handlebar, she pointed with her left index finger. "What's goin' on up there?" she said.

I saw them too: two blocks away, a mirage on the distant corner. Five kids in a close little group, standing at the entrance to Buford Circle. "Steve Kelly and them," I said. "They take the bus."

"The bus?" Margo said. "How come they take the bus?" Tsk! "Their dad, probably."

Their dad exactly: the bus took the five Kelly kids (Tom IV, Kathy, Christy, Steve and John) to St. Francis Xavier Elementary. Senator Tom Kelly wanted his kids to attend Catholic school ("I'd like them to be grounded, Katie"), but Katie Kelly, loathe at even a whiff of elitism, wanted her babies to go to public school ("Just because you're a senator doesn't mean we became royalty"), so the interfaith compromise was: Catholic elementary school; then public school from seventh grade on.

Of course, Margo knew the Kellys, but since it was her first morning commute in her new neighborhood, she'd never seen them standing out there in the morning all dressed up: Steve and Tom and John in black slacks and white buttoned-down-collar shirts; Kathy and Christy in crisp white blouses and green-and-black tartan skirts.

I had, though, and as we approached them, I felt myself tensing up a little. The rays seemed to get stronger the closer we got: four houses, three, two... Margo was eying Christy, and Christy was eying Margo back from behind her brothers, next to her big sister. She whispered something to Kathy and, as we got within first down distance, our eyes met and she looked down. I looked down too, at the pavement moving under the front tire of my bike-- why did I feel like I had to look down?-- but Margo looked right at Steve. "You guys look like you're goin' to church," she called out as we passed, and as Steve said "Catholic school," Christy tsked and rolled her eyes. "I'll pray for you, Margo!" she snipped, and Kathy gave her a light shove.

"Yeesh... what's with her?" Margo said as we pedaled away, and then, as the little yellow XAVIER SCHOOL minibus passed us by to pick them up, she laughed a single HA! "At least we don't have to ride to school on the retard bus," and I laughed, and for the time being, anyway, my allegiances were clear.

* * *

Margo LeDoux and I were best friends from the moment we met. I came into Miss Peterson's classroom on the first day of second grade and there she was, already sitting in her seat, right across from me, and as I sat down at my desk, our eyes met and that was it: I felt not only like I knew her already, but like we'd been best friends somewhere, some time before, and we'd agreed to meet again someday, only we'd forgotten about it... and now, there she was. There we were.

With Christy Kelly and me, though, it was a little different. There was some attraction there, but I didn’t know if it was friendship, exactly. I didn’t know what it was, but it made me feel... funny. Nervous, giddy. A good funny, but itchy in a physical way that made no sense to me at age 5, 6, 7.

Like... before Margo moved into the house behind ours, when Christy's brother Steve and I were best friends, I’d go over to the Kellys’ house to see if he wanted to Do Anything, and Christy would answer the door, barefoot, and she’d smile and blush before she brushed back her auburn hair and yelled “STEVIE? BRIAN!” up the stairs, and I’d catch myself staring at her bare feet... exotic... like she was the first barefooted girl I’d ever seen. Or... we’d be getting together guys (no girls) for a baseball game, and she’d be there on the Kellys’ back porch with her Mom or Kathy, in her white and yellow daisy blouse and yellow shorts, watching us pitch and catch, and I’d think “Is she watching me?” Or... Dad and Danny and I would go out to the swim club, and as we were leaving, Christy and Kathy would be coming in. “It’s Brian Pressley!” Kathy would shout. “Hiiiiii, Briiiiiian!” she’d sing. But Christy was a little more reserved. “Hi, Brian,” she’d whisper as we passed each other in the breezeway, her in her green nylon tank suit, towel draped around her neck, yellow flip-flops on her feet, and her suit creeping up her hiney so that every few steps she had to reach back and pull it down.

And then I felt like I was blushing and, like all those other times, I felt jittery, nervous, charged physically. Breathy, like someone had scared me, with butterflies in my stomach, and a little light and dizzy behind the eyes, too.

All that together made me feel like there was something happening that Christy understood and that she wanted me to be a part of.

I didn’t have time for any of that, though. Christy was a girl, first of all, and any contact beyond “Hi” would have been an explicit infraction of unwritten, inviolable "no fraternization" rules. (Even "Hi" could have gotten me convicted if the wrong person heard it.)

The thing is, though, with Margo, I didn't care about inviolable no-fraternization rules. She was my best friend. I felt like it had already been decided for us. That gave us a comfort level I've never felt with anyone else before or since. I always knew where I stood with Margo. Christy (and other girls) somehow seemed to be hiding something, or making some joke I wasn't privy to, but when Margo said “Hi” I didn’t find myself wondering what she was really saying.

I liked Margo, and I trusted her. I didn’t know if I liked Christy.

I something’d Christy, but I had no idea what that “something” was.

Yet.

* * *

“It’s not fair,” I heard Christy whimpering from inside the Kelly’s kitchen one hazy early-June 1969 morning that Steve and Margo and I were tossing the football in the Kelly’s big backyard. We were waiting for Steve’s big brother Tommy (Tom IV) to get dressed so we could play touch (honest, Mom) football. Margo and Steve were down toward the trees at the foot of the yard, so they were oblivious to the scene inside the house, but I was maybe ten grown-up steps from the kitchen window, and while I wasn’t really trying to hear, it was hard not to listen: Christy talking and crying, and Katie Kelly’s gentle voice and shhhh-ing, trying to calm her daughter down:

“How come... SHE... gets to play with the boys... and not me?”

“Stevie said it’s a football game, Rebecca Christine. Do you want to play football?”

“Well, she’s playing!”

“Brian’s her best friend, sweetie.”

“How...” SNIFFFFFFF! of blowing nose. “How come he’s best friends with HER??”

“Well, they are neighbors, sweetie--”

--OUCH!!!

“IN-complete!” Margo yelled. Her perfectly-thrown spiral nailed me, the point of the ball drilling into the round of my right shoulder. I slapped my left hand to my shoulder as the ball bounced on the grass in front of me once, twice, then rolled to a stop. Margo got an Oopsy! look on her face. “Sorry, Bri,” she said as I came to my senses and retrieved the ball. She took a breath and stuck her hands in her back pockets, leaning back at the waist, her long blonde hair falling in a golden banner behind her. “Looks like this Colts defense has Brian Pressley totally rattled, Chuck!”

Colts defense. Yeah, that’s it.

As I dropped back a couple steps like Sonny Jurgensen (or maybe Jim Ninowski), I could still hear Christy sniffling from the kitchen window. “Steve,” I said as I launched a wobbler to him, “you think Christy might wanna play?”

Steve huffed a single dismissive laugh. “Chris isn’t into football,” he said, scooping up my pass, and by the time he passed the ball to Margo, the tears and the soothing talk behind me had moved to another room, drowned out by the Ron Drake Clambake on the kitchen radio.

* * *

Interesting Coincidences About Margo and Christy:

* Christy was a natural brunette who wanted blonde hair, and Margo was a natural blonde who wanted brown hair.

* Margo was a natural ballplayer who didn't think she could swim, and Christy was a talented swimmer who didn't think she could play ball.

* Christy's dad's name was Thomas J. Kelly; Margo's dad's name was Thomas J. LeDoux.

* Christy was born a little before midnight on June 18, 1960; Margo was born a little after midnight on June 19, 1960.

* Christy had a secretary named Lincoln; Margo had a secretary named Kennedy.

And, biggest coincidence:

* They both liked me.

* * *

On Memorial Day 1969 (the last weekend before the end of third grade), after the parade, Margo and I decided that it was time to go check our fort in the honeysuckle hedgerow that separated our neighborhood from the farmer’s cornfields. We hadn’t been back there in nearly seven months, so there was a lot of work to do-- fresh hanging vines to be cleared from the tunnel leading back into the main room, and then leaves, branches, twigs -- BEER CANS!-- littering the floor. We went right to work, and even though it wasn't even June yet, it felt like mid-summer --HOT-- so off came our shirts... not just MY shirt, but Margo’s, too. No biggie; at age nine, she looked the same up top as me.

What was the big deal? It was just Margo.

As usual, about 80 minutes after we got out there, Margo announced “I have to hit the head,” and as usual, she mimicked punching herself in her temple as she got up and stepped back into the brush. I kept working as I heard her rustling around finding a spot, then the barely audible sound of her pulling down her shorts, and then the quick WHOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH! of her peeing... and, finally, her customary “fffffLLLLLUUUUSSSSSHHHHHH!!” sound effect before she pushed her way back through the thick vines to the main room of our fort and we continued working.

I don’t know why I asked her what I asked her next... we’d gone through this same scene many times the summer before... but I’d always sort of wondered... and every time Margo hit the head I wondered again... and that morning, for some reason, I felt extra curious... so...

“Margo?”

“Yeah, Bri?”

“How do girls pee?”

“Pfff! What do you mean, 'how do girls pee?' We just pee, Bri.”

“No, no, but I... I mean... you sit down, right?”

Now she was smirking. “Yeah...?”

“Well, why... I mean, where...” I took a breath. “Does it come out of your butt?”

Margo was laughing hard. “Pee doesn’t come out of my butt!”

I was laughing too. “Stop it!” I said, and after a few seconds we both calmed down. “Where does it come out then?”

“Between my legs. You wanna see?”

And before I could think to say “Yes,” Margo was calmly pulling down her shorts and underwear to mid-thigh, showing me her Parts. Just a hairless crack between her legs. I looked without staring.

“So, what,” I said, “that’s an opening?”

“Yeah, Bri. That’s where it comes out.” She pulled up her shorts. “That’s where you do it to make babies, too.”

I was amazed. “Really?”

Tsk! “Yeah, Bri. Don’t your Mom and Dad tell you anything? I mean, that’s where the baby comes out. How did you think it got in there?” I was looking at her like an idiot, and she was explaining it all like it should have been covered in pre‑school. “When you want to make a baby, the guy puts his thing in there, and he fertilizes her egg, and that’s how a baby’s made.”

The guy puts his thing in there, and he fertilizes her egg?! I had no idea what that last part meant, but the first part sort of gave me an idea. I laughed a laugh that was a third embarrassed, a third amazed, and a third... well, it wasn’t “horny” at age nine, but it was something.

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah,” Margo said, and then she chuckled “Yeah!”

I laughed. “Whoa-ho!”

“Yeah... anyway, Bri.”

And we went back to work on cleaning our fort.

And that was how the biggest mystery of human existence was first and at once both revealed and intimated to me. On the one hand, nothing unusual or exceptional, no biggie... I mean, it was just Margo... but at the same time, as I said that day... Whoa-ho!

* * *

Good thing we'd gone back there to clean house: three weeks later, Margo and her family took off for their vacation (on Lake Opinicon, in Canada)... which meant I was stuck at home for two weeks of summer without her. "You'll live," Dad said when I asked him what I'd DO till she got back. And as Chekhov (Ensign, not Anton) said once, "Yes. I'll live. But I won't enjoy it."

What to do... what to do... two days of moping around wondering what to do before I remembered something Margo'd mentioned a couple times before she left. "You know what'd be neat, Bri? Is if we had a treehouse! I mean, we don't NEED one, but still..."

So... Margo was in Canada... but Steve Kelly was still around... and Steve's dad used to be a carpenter... they had all sorts of scrap wood in their garage... and Steve had a healthy respect ("Crush. It was a crush, Bri.") for Margo...

Funny how these things just seem to come together on their own.

* * *

I sort of wondered if I'd see Christy, and sure enough, when I biked over to Steve’s house first thing on Wednesday and threw my beat-up yellow Ross down in the lawn, she was waiting at their front door, dressed in an oversized grey PROPERTY OF WASHINGTON SENATORS t‑shirt, blue shorts and red Keds, no socks.

“Hi, Brian,” she said from behind the screen door as I stepped up onto the porch, and then she looked past me. “Where’s Margo?”

“Canada,” I said. “She’s on vacation.”

“Canada,” Christy repeated, and she turned to the stairway‑‑ “STEVIE? BRIAN!” -- before turning back to me. “He’ll be right down, Brian,” she said, and she looked down and smiled before she turned to go back down the hall.

Light, barely discernable, but nonetheless distinct Flutter as I turned to sit on the Kellys’ porch bench.

* * *

It was early in the morning but the Kelly’s garage was already almost too hot to breathe in. I’d grabbed a pocketful of nails and Dad’s hammer and saw, which I’d stuck in a grocery bag in the saddle basket of my bike, so all we needed was lumber. We took about five two-by-fours each, which we carried on our bikes the seven blocks to our fort, the ungainly armloads balanced in our arms, us teetering as we pedaled like highwire cyclists. The 2x4s worked fine as framing or (cut and nailed into the tree trunk) as ladder rungs, but before we even got two rungs nailed in, we could both see what we’d need next: a floor.

So that afternoon we were back in Steve’s stuffy garage, digging in the Congressional Scrap Pile.

“You think this’ll work?” Steve asked as he pulled out a jagged floppy sheet of woodgrained wall paneling.

I shook my head No. “Too thin,” I said.

“Yeah... I guess,” Steve said, and he pushed the piece back into the stack. I could see edges of sheetrock and paneling, but nothing that looked like plywood--

“What you guys doin’?”

I looked toward the girl’s voice at the screen door into the house. It was Christy. She smiled and looked at me. “Hi, Brian,” she said.

“Hey, Christy.” (Flutter.)

Christy looked at Steve as I looked away. “What are you guys doin’?” she repeated.

“Lookin’ for somethin’,” Steve said, trying his best to get her to shut the door.

It didn’t work. “Well, doyyyeeee... but what?” Christy said, pushing the screendoor open. There she was, same outfit as before, but this time barefoot, her toenails painted Granny Smith green, with little white and yellow daisies on the big toenails.

Steve tsked his Go Back Inside And Find Your Skipper And Ken tsk. “Something for our fort, all right? God...”

“Well, you don’t have to be ignorant, you little brat,” Christy snapped back, and that was the first time I realized: Christy was Steve’s big sister.

She pushed in between us. “Maybe I can help...”

Steve was now flipping through the scrap pile more frantically than before. “Maybe I can help,” he repeated in a mocking nasal whine, and that was the first time I also realized: Steve kind of bugged me.

Meanwhile, Christy was so close that our sweaty arms were brushing against each other, and I looked down at her feet, at her painted toenails, and, God, I don’t know what possessed me, but...

“I like your toes.”

Steve looked at me like I’d said I WORSHIP LUCIFER!! but his sister just looked down, the light blush returning to her cheeks. “Thanks, Brian,” she whispered. “Kath did it for me.”

Flutter again.

I could still feel Steve’s shocked energy beaming in pulses toward me, so I quickly pulled back from Christy and sputtered “We need plywood for a floor.”

“Well...” Christy brushed her long auburn hair back and turned to look up and behind me. “...since someone finally asked...” and she pointed to the rafters, where, laid out like patchwork on the crossbeams, there were as many sheets of plywood as we could want, in practically any size we might need. All we needed was a ladder, which Steve grabbed from the wall, and in less than 15 minutes we’d pulled down a 2x3 foot rectangle and a 4x4 foot square.

Christy stood and watched us, and for a little bit I thought that she might be riding along with us, but after a few minutes her big sister Kathy stuck her head out the door. Kathy looked like a cross between a slightly older Christy and a slightly younger Katie. “Reh-behhhh-caaahhhh...” she sang in a half-mocking, half-joking voice, and Christy looked down, annoyed but smiling. “You wanna go to the poooool?”

Christy's eyes darted my way for just a flash, then locked in on her sister. “You wanna go now?”

Kathy raised her eyebrows. “Well... soon,” she said, and she glanced at me, smiling, before looking back at Christy. “How come?”

Christy bit her lip, silent for a heartbeat. “Just a sec,” she said, and she opened the door and stepped into the house so she and Kathy could work out a plan.

Steve looked at me like a mouse who’d seen the cat coming.

“We better go now,” he said.

* * *

As for the plywood... Steve and I thought we’d each carry a piece ("I'll take this one!"), but we couldn’t get on our bikes with it. Then we tried balancing the big sheets on the backs of our bikes; that was manageable for about five pedals, which got us almost to the end of their driveway. The problem wasn't just the size of the sheets; it was Steve looking back over his shoulder for Sisters In Pursuit.

"Maybe we should just walk and carry them," I said.

"No, this is faster," Steve said.

I was about to ask him what the big hurry was when I looked back at the garage and saw what the big hurry was: Kathy, with Christy at her heels; both of them in swimsuits, towels draped around their necks. Kathy shook her head in Boy Pity as she got on her bike. “Guys...”

Steve tsked. “What?”

“Why don’t you each take, for instance, an end and carry them between you?” Kathy asked, like it was a rhetorical question.

“They’re too heavy,” Steve said.

Kathy tsked. “Make two trips, dodo,” and Christy giggled.

Five minutes later, as Kathy and Christy pedaled off to the pool, Steve and I were biking the other way down the block, each of us holding an end of the 4x4 (“Let’s do the big one first, Steve”) sheet of plywood.

We wrestled the plywood into our fort --it didn’t fit down the tunnel; we had to slide it through the fence on the outside, which was risky: the corn was barely high enough to give us cover, and we didn’t want the farmer (He Shoots Salt Pellets From His BB Gun At Kids From His Tractor) to spot us-- then leaned the two big boards against the tree and worked on the support frame the rest of that afternoon... then more after dinner... then first thing the next day (right after breakfast, before eight o’clock; earlier than school, even), we were back again, hard at work. The time flew, and even though I didn’t have a watch, the light and the burned-off dew and my stomach were all telling me it was getting later, and just as I was about to ask Steve if he knew what time it was, I heard Christy’s voice from down at the dead end.

“Stevie? Stevie!” A pause, and then as Steve muttered “Shit,” she added “I know you’re back there... I can see your bike. Brian?”

I was about to answer, but Steve looked at me with a She was going to find us anyway expression, and then sighed and yelled “What do you want, Chris?”

“Mom has lunch!” Christy yelled. “Come on!” I could hear her rustling through the tall grass, and I caught her eye right as she looked up at us on our platform. (Flutter.)

She looked at Steve quick, brushing her bangs back. “You guys working on your treehouse?” she said.

“‘You guys working on your treehouse?’” Steve mocked in a nasal whine, and then he chuckled “No... we’re building a cave. What do you want, anyway?”

Christy sighed hard. “I said... Mom has lunch,” and she looked at me. “She said you can come, too, Brian... she’ll call your Mom.”

All right! Katie Kelly's picnic lunches were even better than her Drive-In Movie Nights. I could taste the ham salad.

I looked at Steve like I had to clear it with him, but he didn’t respond.

“Thanks,” I said.

Steve looked at Christy.

Sigh. “O.K., Chris,” he said.

Christy just stood there.

Sigh. “We’re coming,” Steve said.

Christy didn’t budge.

A third sigh. “We’re not coming down until you leave!”

Christy crossed her arms. “Well, what if I just stand here and let you starve?”

“‘What if I just stand here and let you starve?’” Steve repeated, and God, maybe I just couldn’t stand to hear another segment of Sibling Rivalry With Steve-N-Christy, but I let my hammer fall to the ground below the treehouse and said “I’m coming,” and I grabbed the limb, swung down and dropped to the dirt, my legs folding under my butt as I hit the earth. As I got up and dusted my knees off, Steve climbed down and looked at his sister.

“We’re coming, Chris, O.K.?” Tsk-sigh. “God...”

But Christy had already stepped up to the fence and was looking in at our fort. "Wowzer," she said. "It has rooms" and as Steve hit the ground behind me, Christy looked me in the eye, and, again, I don't know what possessed me... maybe it was that her eyes were greener than the leaves around us and the cornstalks behind us, and she was speaking soft and sweet like the smell of the honeysuckle, and smiling... but what she said next, and my response, changed both of our lives forever:

"Can I have a room, Brian?"

I didn't hesitate. "Yeah, sure."

Christy jumped once, a happy hop. "Thank you!" she said. "I'll work on it this afternoon," and she turned and went back to her bike.

Steve, meanwhile, was in such shock that he'd missed his open window of Brotherly Veto. "Brian, what... what do you mean, she can have a room?"

"Margo comes back here," I said weakly.

Steve tsked. "Yeah," he said, crawling through the rails of the fence, "but that's Margo." Loud sigh, one that echoed off the distant houses. "Thanks," he said. "Thanks a lot," and he followed his sister through the brush to his bike.

* * *

The first thing Christy did that afternoon was pull on a pair of garden gloves and hollow out a new room, separated from the main room of the fort by a thick curtain of honeysuckle and briars. Margo and I had never gone back that far ("Do you wanna get pricked, Bri? I don't wanna get pricked.") but by suppertime that night, Christy had cleared out a room, and the next morning, she was out there before Steve and me, radio on, laying down pieces of scrap carpet on the cool dirt.

We worked all day Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was our off-day, so Steve and I decided we’d meet there first thing Monday morning. I was primed to finish the supports and lift that big piece of plywood up into the branches so we had a floor, but when I got to the cornfield, there was no Steve... just Christy.

“Stevie’s at the dentist’s,” she said.

I checked out her work --she was decorating her room with shag carpet fragments, candles, a transistor radio... even a picture (from Tiger Beat) of Paul McCartney, hung on a thorn. It looked pretty cool, although I wasn’t sure what Margo’d think of it. But then, I figured once Margo got back, Christy’d be gone and so would her improvements...

...but Margo wasn’t going to be back for another six days.

Steve was back that afternoon, and the two of us worked on the treehouse while Christy stayed down below, doing whatever she was doing while she listened to the radio. She was like a bird in the brush-- from up in the treehouse, I'd catch a flash of her plumage here, a snippet of her song there --and as the week wore on, I found myself getting more and more curious. I wanted to know how she was doing, how her decorating was going... if she liked the Beach Boys (Margo and I did)... or if she maybe needed a boy (besides her little brother) to help her with anything...

...and was she was curious about me?

And every so often I’d feel like the observed was observing me, curious herself.

* * *

Thursday morning, three days before Margo got back, I pedaled out to our fort, and when I threw my bike down in the tall grass at the entrance to the tunnel, once again there was just one bike leaning against the fence: Christy’s banana-seat red Schwinn. “Where’s Steve?” I asked when I crawled back into our fort, and she barely looked up.

“Dentist, again. He had a cavity Monday and he’s gettin’ drilled.” I shuddered a little at the thought of the shot and the drill and the smell of the burning tooth as Christy continued her report. “He might come back out after lunch, though.”

We set to work, radio playing. Christy was back in her room, and I was at ground level sawing 2x4s to use as ladder rungs... and maybe it was just that Steve wasn’t there to act as a buffer, but I felt a weird sort of tension in the air that morning. I didn’t know what it was, but when Christy excused herself to vanish even further back into the briars to “use the little girls’ room” (she said), I figured, O.K., she’s just going back to pee, and I kept right on working as the radio played.

When I saw you I knew that I was gonna love you

And everyday I thought of how I'm gonna love you

Now you're here next to me

And ecstasy is a reality...

O.K.... verse... chorus... second verse, different from the first... what was taking Christy so long? I could hear a little bit of rustling around, but I didn’t hear that telltale WHHOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSHHHHH... I mean, from being with Margo, I’d learned that it took girls LESS time to pee than it did boys, and I couldn’t figure out why it was taking Christy so long to--

“Brian?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever see a girl naked?”

Perfectly natural question. I thought of Margo dropping her drawers out there a couple weeks before ("You wanna see?"), but somehow that didn't seem like it counted.

I lined the saw blade up with the cut I wanted to make. "Sort of," I said, "but not all the way."

“Well... do you want to all the way?”

I almost dropped the saw.

"How come?" I said, straightening up, sort of fearing the answer, but at the same time feeling all those past flutters and looks and giggles and blushes and curiosities coalescing in the hot July air.

“Why do you think, Brian?”

O.K. Either she’s found one of Davy Morone’s old copies of ADAM back there, or...

I felt blood rushing to both my face and my groin; my heart felt like it couldn’t keep up. Precious oxygen, meanwhile, was being diverted from my brain, of course. (This is how it works, ladies.)

“Well,” I said, “I... you know...” Take a breath. I felt like the words were pumping into my mouth straight from my heart, from the breathy center of my chest, and I just spat them out as they formed on my lips. "Yeah. Yeah. Come out.”

Soft rustle in the brush... then (alongside What are you two doing back there?) the last phrase I really wanted to hear at that particular moment:

“You get naked first.”

Shit.

My shoulders dropped. “You come out and I will,” I said.

“No. When you get naked I’ll come out.”

“No way!” I said.

No response.

Was she calling my bluff?

Meanwhile, the radio played:

Workin' on a groovy thing, baby

Workin' on a groovy thing

Workin' on a groovy thing, baby

Let's not rush it

We'll take it slowwwww...

I took a breath. It didn't slow my pulse.

“Christy?”

A giggle. “What, Brian?”

What, Brian indeed. There I was, begging and bargaining for something I hadn't even known I wanted until Christy brought it up.

I've been in big trouble ever since.

I sighed. “Come out...”

"No." Her voice was insistent. “You get naked and I will.”

I could feel myself starting to crumble.

Was it worth it? Probably.

Just one thing, though...

“How do I know you will?” I said.

A tsk. “God, Brian... I already am.”

I gasped lightly.

She already is?!

I squinted back into the thick growth to see if I could catch a peek just in case she changed her mind.

No luck; she was hidden behind the thickest leaves and vines.

I ran my shaking, sweaty fingers back along the elastic waistband of my shorts, like my hands had to think about this.

O.K.... Steve’s at the dentist's... so that’s cool.

And Margo’s in Canada.

Does anybody else know about these forts?

I went through the list of neighborhood kids and brothers. My little brother Danny was supposed to be at the playground with John, Christy's little(r) brother.

That "supposed to be" worried me. On the one hand, what if Danny and John showed up while Christy and I were in the buff?

On the other hand:

God, Brian, I already am.

Well, that was a simple choice.

I tried to look out of the fort at the neighborhood beyond the vines. Tried, but I couldn’t see a thing. So... if I couldn’t see out, that meant they couldn’t see in. Right? And the other way, beyond the fence, it was just rows and rows of eye-high corn, and then the thick swale that marked the path of the little stream that met up with Rock Creek closer to town.

O.K. Unless there were some really, really, really lost reenactors out there in the brush, we were safe.

All of this thinking took about three seconds, while Christy waited back in the brush. "Brian?"

I tugged my shirt out of my shorts. “I’m taking my shirt off,” I said, and I pulled my t-shirt over my head and hung it on the sharp end of a branch next to my shoulder.

“I can see,” Christy said.

She could?

That wasn’t fair!

Fair or not, I barely paused. I hooked the waistband of my shorts and my underwear with my thumbs --here goes-- and I slid them together down my legs. The warm summer air on my bare skin felt strangely cool, and I felt the goosepimples erupting in the fabric’s wake as my shorts fell down over my knees and onto my feet.

“O.K.,” I said. “Come out.”

“O.K.,” Christy said, and as I stood there, shivering slightly (it was 90 degrees out and I was shivering!), I heard the vines and leaves rustling down the tunnel, then saw a flash of bare skin, and then Christy stepped out into the main room of our fort.

Workin' on a groovy thing, baby!

Workin' on a groovy thing

She stood in the honeysuckle and briar arch to her room, a few steps away, shivering like me. I realized that just a few steps away from that very spot, five weeks before, I'd seen Margo, but that was different. Christy didn’t have her shorts down; she had them off. Shorts off, shirt off, undies off, sneakers off... I mean, naked.

Whoa-ho!

I had a boner like no boner I’d ever popped before --standing straight out, my eleventh finger-- and of course Christy was staring right at it, just like I was staring right at that little hairless crack in her crotch. “God... take a picture, Brian,” she tittered, even though she was staring too, and as I blushed even redder, I said, “You too,” and she turned an even deeper red.

That didn’t stop her, though. “Turn around and let me see your hiney,” she commanded, giggling.

“You didn’t say ‘Simon says!’” I tittered back.

“Simon says ‘Let me see your hiney, Bri,’” Christy said, and as I did a full 360, she giggled more. “Looks just like mine,” she said.

“Now Simon says ‘you turn around and let me see yours,’” I said, and Christy put her arms straight out to her sides and spun in place. “I see your hine-y, all white and shine-y,” I sang, and it was, but I couldn’t tell if it looked just like mine, because, really, I’d never seen mine.

So... I saw Christy naked, front and back... and she saw me naked, front and back... and as she completed her turn, she lowered her arms, and... we... just... stood there.

It was a little overwhelming. I didn’t know what to do next. I knew what I wanted to do next (TOUCH!) but I was afraid to do it, not unless Christy did it first, and I wasn’t really sure I wanted that...

But, God, what did I want?

Seven, eight years down the road, figuring out what I wanted to do once Christy and I got naked would be as simple as first grade math. But that day, I was, like, O.K. Well?

It was something that had to be done, and I was glad we were doing it. But was that all you did? Strip and spin?

What next?

I bet Margo’d know what to do next.

No sooner did that thought cross my mind than Christy said “Hey, Brian...”

“Hey what?”

“Bet you can’t... CATCH ME!”

Before I could respond, Christy jumped the fence and BOLTED out of the fort and into the cornfield, and I took right off after her. We ran barefoot down the rows between the cornstalks, the dewy, slightly tacky leaves brushing against and catching on our bare skin. Christy was wrong: I caught her, but only because when I got a few steps away, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and I ran right into her, boner first-- ouch! As soon as I ran into her, I backed off and took a breath, and I heard exactly why she’d stopped.

A tractor. Coming.

“Come on!” I yelled, and I turned and jogged back toward our clothes. I figured Christy was just a step or two behind me the whole way, but when I made it almost all the way back to our fort, I said “You think he sees us?” and I got no response, so I turned and there she was: forty-some yards back, squatting frozen where we’d stopped, crying, trying to hide behind the stalks of corn.

She’s doomed, I thought.

“Christy! Come on!” I yelled, but she couldn’t hear me. The tractor was getting too close to her...

...but as I stood at the opening to our fort, I could see that we were safe the whole time. The farmer was just making hay-- mowing the swales of grass between his patches of corn ‑‑and since Christy and I had been frolicking 20 rows back, we were totally safe. Christy couldn’t see that, though: all she knew was that there was a tractor bearing down on her, and she must have figured that the farmer was coming for her, his BB gun loaded with salt pellets.

I went back in the briar to get Christy's clothes (they were in a pile in the middle of her room; I could have just stepped back into her room during our negotiations and seen all I'd wanted, but it never occurred to me) then snagged my shorts and ran back down the cornrow, hunched low, as the tractor got closer and closer. “Come on!” I yelled when I reached her, and I even tried to grab her arm and pull, but Christy was squatting there paralyzed, trembling, so I squatted down next to her and put my arm around her (naked!), as the tractor came closer and closer and closer...

...and as it passed a dozen rows away, I felt hot water seeping between my toes...

...WHHOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHH...

...and I looked down and traced the muddy trickle back through the dirt...

I jumped up. “EWWWW!”

Christy gasped as she jumped, and then she started laughing.

“Oh, my God, Brian..." She put her hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh. "I’m sorry... sorry...”

“God! Gross! Ew!”

Christy got so scared as the farmer passed us that she peed, and it trickled under my bare foot.

Not what I had in mind.

Before I even pulled my shorts on, I stepped onto the nearest dry dirt and wiped my foot off hard, scratching like a hen while Christy pulled on her clothes, trying not to laugh.

“Really, Brian, I’m sorry...”

I pulled on my shorts. No shirt... I’d left it hanging on the limb in our fort. “It’s all right, Christy,” I said, even though it really wasn’t, and I started barefoot back down the rows of corn, Christy a half step behind me, apologizing the whole way.

“I just... I got scared, you know? I didn’t mean to, Brian...”

“I know,” I said.

We got to the fence and I ducked between the rails so I could get my shirt and sneakers, and Christy followed me in.

“I’m just... I’m so sorry...” she said, still tittering a little as she went back into her room to retrieve her Keds. She took a breath. “But you were sweet to run back and get me...”

Sweet.

Great.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“No, really... you were..." She reached out to touch my bare arm --"I’m sorry...”-- but I was stepping away. "Sorry," she repeated, a little more sheepish this time.

I pulled my shirt and shoes on, and as I did, I could hear music from the other part of the fort: faint, tinny...

Get back

Get back

Get back to where you once belonged

“The radio!” Christy yelled. “Can you get it? It’s Kath’s...”

I sighed as I stepped back into her room and scanned for the radio. Follow the music, and... there it was, leaning against the fencepost: a portable GE with a metal grille speaker and a leather cover, with a red labelmaker tag on the side: MKK.

I turned it off and pushed in the telescoping silver antenna as I glanced at the work Christy’d done: shag carpet fragments on the bare ground, each one about a foot square, laid out in a patchwork.

Hmmm... should I tell her about field mice?

I crouched back down and stepped into the main room of the fort, where Christy was waiting, fully clothed and shoed. I handed the radio to her --“Thanks, Brian,” she whispered-- and we slipped through the fence and trudged back through the tall grass to our bikes, Christy silent the whole time.

I could tell she felt bad, and I didn’t really want that... but... God... ewwwww.

I can’t stress that enough: God... ewwwwww.

“Brian,” Christy finally said as we reached our bikes, “you’re not mad, are you?”

“No,” I said.

Not mad. More... grossed out. But how could I say that?

Well... simple: as I’d learned with Margo, just say it.

“It was kinda gross, though,” I said.

I guess I figured that Christy’d do what Margo would do: laugh at herself, laugh at it... I mean, she’d been laughing before.

Instead... she started crying.

Now I’d done it.

“Christy...” I said.

“I’m sorry, Brian... I didn’t mean to...”

“I know...”

“I just... I got scared,” she sobbed, and then she looked right at me. “You hate me!”

“Christy, I don’t hate you--”

“--You do... you do...” she whimpered. “You think I’m gross...”

“No I don’t!”

“You do too,” Christy moaned. “You said...”

I felt stuck and confused. Had I said she was gross? I thought I said it was gross.

I started to answer, but Christy was on a roll, sobbing and sniffling. “You better not tell that stupid Margo LeDoux,” she said.

Well, now I was mad.

“Margo’s not stupid!” I said.

“I know, I know,” Christy said as she got on her bike. “She’s not stupid... she’s your best friend. Your best friend!” She kicked down on her pedals, crying and moaning as she started to pedal off.

I hopped on my bike so I could follow. “Christy!” I shouted after her. “I don’t hate you... Christy!” but by the time I started pedaling, she was already in the street, and by the time I hit the street, she was around the corner, speeding down the block as she cried. No way would I catch her. I slowed down as I approached the first driveway and then pulled over to the curb and stood, watching as Christy made the turn toward Buford Circle and home.

“You better not tell that stupid Margo LeDoux.”

Trust me, Christy... no one will ever hear about what happened in that cornfield.

Unless...

Christy had three brothers, one of them older.

What if she told?

Gulp.

As I rode my bike back home so I could disinfect my foot (the garden hose should do the trick, right?), I got more and more scared. Christy had brothers, but worse, her Dad was in Congress.

What if she told him?

FBI PROBING PRESSLEY

IN CORNFIELD INCIDENT

"I didn't mean to," says Senator's daughter

Christy didn’t say anything, to John or Steve or Tom IV or (for that matter) Tom III, but by the end of the weekend, when Margo got home on Sunday night, I was a wreck from three days of waiting for the phone to ring and the aftermath: Mom or Dad (or Mom and Dad) calling up to my room.

Brian? We need to talk to you...

It never happened, though, and first thing Monday morning, Margo and I were right back in our summer groove, biking down to our fort after breakfast. She had to have been able to tell that I was preoccupied, but she didn’t say anything... she was too busy talking about the lake and her Grandma and her vacation. But I sort of knew what was coming...

“So, what’d you do while I was gone?” she asked me as we let our bikes fall in the tall grass near the entrance to our Fort Complex, and maybe it was just me, but I felt like she was asking me because she knew there was a specific answer that I didn’t really want to give her.

Whatever it was, the sole of my right foot suddenly felt really itchy.

“Not much,” I said. “Just... played with Steve and those guys, you know?”

“Played with Steve, huh?” Margo pulled off her shirt and stuck it in the waistband of her shorts, like a flag football flag, then got down on her knees, pushed aside the veil of vines hiding the entrance to our fort, and crawled ahead of me into the shady cool tunnel. “Did Christy come along?”

Uh-oh...

“A couple times,” I said. Bright red, but Margo couldn’t see me, and I don’t know if she heard me or not, because she was already into the main room of our fort, crawling forward...

...which meant it wouldn’t be long until she saw...

“What’s this?” she shrieked from down the tunnel ahead of me.

I crawled out of the tunnel and stood up, brushing off my knees and then pulling off my shirt.

“What’s what?” I said, like I didn’t know.

“All this... rug and stuff,” Margo yelled from the brush ahead of me. “Pictures. God. You don’t put pictures up in a fort...” She huffed. “Candles. Paul McCartney. God.” She crawled back out into the main room of the fort and stood up, brushing back her long hair. “Christy,” she muttered, shaking her head, and she looked at me. “Do you like it?”

Do I like it? Do I like it? Do I like it?

“Ahhh... it’s all right...” I said.

“'All right,'” Margo repeated. “You don’t put pictures and rugs in a fort! Stupid stinky smelly Christy Kelly...” she spat with a smile on her face, and even though I knew she was being funny, I also knew a part of her meant it. “Well... she can have that room, I guess... I like this one better anyway. No prickers.” She hung her shirt on the same sharp limb that I’d hung mine on when Christy and I stripped for each other, and as she did, she finally spotted The Platform. “OH MY GOD!” she shrieked. “Brian! It’s a treehouse!”

“Yeah,” I said.

“WOW!” she yipped, and she hugged me hard, our bare sweaty chests pressing together, and as quick as she squeezed me, she pulled away, amazed. “Wow,” she repeated, swiping her long hair out of her eyes and then looking up at the platform like it’d appeared courtesy of Blackstone. “You mean you built this?”

I nodded. “Me and Steve.”

“Pff! Steve!” Margo repeated. “He bugs me, too,” she said, and I laughed, and she laughed in response. “He does.” She brushed her hair back. “Always... staring at me. Take a picture. You know?” She looked me in the eye. “Girls don’t like that, Bri. Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t,” I said.

Silence.

Funny; just as Margo told me not to stare, for just a moment, as she stood there shirtless, hands on her hips, inspecting my work, she looked less like my Best Friend In The World Margo and more like Christy... which is to say, less like My Buddy Margo With Her Shirt Off and more like a half-naked girl.

For a second I felt like I wanted to see the other half, as in the whole thing... and then I felt like she could tell what I was thinking, and I had to look down. If she could tell, though, she didn’t say anything; she just exhaled hard.

“God,” she said, “you’re the best. I mean... I can’t believe you did this.”

“Well, Steve helped...”

“Steve helped,” Margo repeated, looking at me, “but I bet you did it.”

I thought back to the last two weeks. She was right.

I nodded my head.

“Thought so,” Margo said. She ignored the ladder rungs, instead grabbing the branch above her head and swinging her legs up so she could walk up the stump of the tree, forcing the words out as she climbed. “I just... hope... he won’t... think he can come out here... hangin’ around... staring... just because he helped you with this.” She pulled herself onto the platform from the side and looked down at me. “You think he will?”

“No,” I said. “Kit Bullard's back from camp, so he's over there.”

“Kit,” Margo repeated as I started up the ladder. (I built it; might as well use it). “Those two are liable to come out here together,” and she sang “Kit and Stevie, sittin’ in a tree... k-i-s-s-i-n-g...” I laughed. “So...” Margo said, “what did Christy do while she was back here, anyway?”

Uhhhhhh...

“Ohhhh... just... stayed... down here, mainly,” I said. Margo reached down to help me the rest of the way up. “Sat back in her room and played the radio.”

“Played the radio,” Margo repeated.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

I climbed up and sat down next to Margo, my legs dangling over the edge. The breeze was light and cool, and the view was fantastic: behind us, we could see the rows of corn and the jagged tree line of the streambank, and, beyond that, the WGET towers. Margo bounced on her butt a couple times. “This is so solid,” she said. “You do good work, Brian. I mean, look...” and she bounced again. “It barely moves.” She patted my bare leg.

“Thanks, Bri.”

I put my hand on hers. “You’re welcome.”

Silence as we sat there. Margo leaned over slightly, and spat down between her legs; we watched it fall and splat in the dry dusty dirt. “So...” she said, putting her arms behind her and leaning back, “she just came back here and cleared out a room in the pricker weeds so she could listen to music?”

I looked down at the bird-poop shaped spit splat in the dust.

“Well,” I said, “she... read some, too... I think.”

“Read.” Margo wasn’t buying it, I could tell. “So...” she said, in a knowing but inquisitive tone of voice that I’d become quite familiar with once we reached high school, “you two didn’t play Doctor?”

I laughed. “We didn’t play Doctor,” I tittered nervously.

Margo was eying me sideways, and then leaned over and spat again. “Well,” she said at last, “I’ve seen her stare, too. God. She’s almost as bad as her brother. What is that? The Kelly stare. Kathy doesn’t stare. Her Mom doesn’t stare. I don’t know about Senator Tom or Tommy. The baby can’t fix a gaze.” She sighed, and then sat forward and put her hands to her mouth to filter her voice. “Apollo 11 to Houston, over.”

I put my hands to my mouth: “Rrrrrroger, Houston, we copy, over...”

And for the next couple hours, as we pretended that our treehouse was the lunar module and I was Buzz Aldrin taking us down to the lunar surface, and we took turns going down the ladder onto the surface of the moon, I had more than a sneaking suspicion that my co-pilot, Marguerite Francoise Neil Armstrong LeDoux, was on to me. But she never said another word about it.

* * *

On the way home from our fort before dinner, Margo and I passed Christy and Kathy riding their bikes out to the pool. We saw them coming for a good block, and when they got close, Kathy sang out “Marrrrrrrgohhhhh... Briiiiiiiiannnnnn...” and Margo said “Hey Kath... hey Christy.” And I said “Hi. Hi Christy,” and I looked at Christy, but she just looked down, sad, scared almost, as she passed us.

“See, Bri?” Margo said as we pedaled home. “Never says Hi. What’s with her, anyway?”

I just kept riding, eyes straight ahead. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”

Copyright c 2006, 2008 Max Harrick Shenk