Scarecrow Fort

I’m alone in the waiting room. Then Old Lady comes in, sits next me. Rhinestone flower pinned to her knitted sweater twinkles yellow-pink under fluorescent lights. It would look darling on the bamboo-color turtleneck I am wearing.

Old Lady coughs and coughs. Each eye a little slit in her wrinkled face. She begins talking about all sorts of things – the rain, the mice in her in kitchen pantry, how there was nothing good to read anymore. Suddenly she slides to the edge of her metal chair and leans into me and asks, When was your first cigarette?

You mean my very, very first?

Yes, how did all this happen?

I hesitate and pull my winter coat tighter about my shoulders. I say, It was 1972, shortly after my eleventh birthday. On the way home from school, me and Debbie Campari stopped at the 7- Eleven to get a Pepsi. Jimmy Hill was there, leaning against the store siding, talking with Amy Fong and Matt Nelson. Debbie giggled. She was the only person in the entire world who knew of my crush on Jimmy.

When I came out of the store Jimmy said, Hi Susan. His breath was red licorice. His eyes were chestnuts. His hair was a mess of dry straw.

I said, Hi.

Debbie giggled.

Jimmy pushed heavy hands through tangled hair. He said, We’re going to Scarecrow Fort. You want to come along?

I stood with the Pepsi bottle cold in my hand, pretending to give real consideration to the offer. The idea of going to Scarecrow Fort was silly. Popular kids went there. Me and Debbie were bookworms.

Debbie squinted at me. I knew what she was thinking: I didn’t have to get home; Widow Sears (the woman from our church caring for me while my parents were vacationing in Florida) would think nothing of me being late.

I said, I can’t. I’ve got to get home.

Jimmy said, That’s too bad.

Then Debbie, Debbie, Debbie - Debbie said, I’ll go. Can I go? Sure, you can.

They turned toward the sidewalk and walked away – Debbie looking over her shoulder, grinning at me. Then an inescapable truth struck me. If ever I was going to take liberties, it had to be now, while my parents were away.

I ran down the sloping parking lot and locked arms at the elbow with the girl I’d known since kindergarten. We giggled and when a school bus passed by we unlocked our arms and waved to the unfortunate kids who had no choice but to go home. Seeing those kids trapped behind the little square windows made me thank God my parents were on vacation.

The afternoon air: warm and heavy with the mellow scent of apricot blossoms from the surrounding orchards. As we walked, I felt older, like a lazy teenager. And when Amy Fong began to hum I became so happy that I almost wept.

We lolled in front of a Shell filling station. Jimmy went into the garage where his older brother worked as a mechanic. They talked. Then Jimmy’s brother went over to an old Pontiac and Jimmy went over to the cigarette machine next to the office door. He dropped a few coins into the slot, pulled a lever, reached his over-sized hand into the metal tray, withdrew a pack of Marlboros. I took a deep breath. I was going to Scarecrow Fort! We walked past Freddy’s Market, a corner grocery – people going in, coming out, smiling at us, never suspecting the mischief in our hearts. We walked through a neighborhood with no sidewalk, no streetlights, lined with red oaks. Jimmy picked up a rock and threw it at a big old tabby sunning himself next to a tomato garden.

At the end of the street, where the neighborhood stopped, was a vacant lot overgrown with blackberry bushes. Jimmy led us to the center of the lot, to the largest thicket of all. He pointed to a tunnel cut into this thicket.

We crawled and crawled, scraping our knees, scuffing our shoes, coming at last to a hollowed out area: eight-feet square, littered with a million crushed cigarette butts, shaded from the golden sunshine by vines with five leaf clusters and small white flowers. And there in the center of the clearing was Mrs. Fisher’s old Halloween scarecrow – ragged, missing for three years. Hurrah, Scarecrow Fort!

Jimmy ripped the cellophane from the pack, threw it on the ground, lit a cigarette. And then, using the end of his cigarette, he lit a cigarette for each of us. I put the cigarette between nervous lips. Smoke curled up, killed the air in my nose, watered my eyes. Amy Fong gestured to me, told me I was doing it wrong, told me I had to inhale everything into my lungs. I coughed for five minutes.

Everyone laughed – seems Jimmy was the only one that ever inhaled.

We sat on the ground, bare feet pushed into warm dirt, surrounded by cigarette butts and cellophane and ants, talking about the movies, smoking cigarettes like they do on television. At the end of it all, Jimmy was prepared for cigarette breath, surprising us with a red licorice rope pulled from his jacket pocket. That’s why everyone trusted Jimmy – because of his foresight.

That night I trembled like a scared criminal – my head was wrong, my heart was black, my soul was that of an old crow. But in my sleep angels purged me of my sin. By morning, I felt good enough to sneak three cigarettes from the purse of Widow Sears without her ever knowing.

Old Lady coughs and coughs. She leans into the faded cushion of her chair and says, That’s quite an account of things, Susan. Would you like to hear about my first time?

The receptionist calls my name.

I’m sorry, I say, maybe you can tell me on another visit. As I move across the waiting room, I look over my left shoulder at Old Lady. We smile to one another. Then I stifle a cough with the back of my hand and enter a hallway dim with fluorescent lighting.