Clouds Don't Lie - by cynthia m. geer

I was eight years old the spring of 1968, when my neighbor disappeared for the afternoon. I was disinclined to call her my friend. She was usually a last resort to fall back on. If the neighborhood lie stagnant I would engage her to squander the time. I would entertain myself by asking her if her name was short for Marcel or Marcella. Expectedly she would respond with a partial tantrum, “no!” I would explain to her that no one has a name that isn’t short for a more protracted one. She would retort with a stomping of her foot. “That wasn’t nithe!” and accuse me of making things up just to upset her. When she would get upset she would regress to a toddler age and talk in a contrived baby voice that included an intentional lisp. Marcy’s traits exasperated me. There was something about her that invited my mischievous sense of humor to surface. The freedom of choice in a child’s mind can be dangerous especially to others.
The day I remember most vividly was a sunny day in mid July. I was lying on my front lawn focused on the white fluffy clouds gracefully changing. The deep blue backdrop pulsed the white clouds closer to me. I heard the slapping of Marcy’s patent leather shoes running on the asphalt. She stood over me blocking the view of a dissipating cloud that resembled a turtle with a rabbit’s head. She asked me what I was doing. I told her I was relaxing. She asked me if I wanted to come over to her house and play Barbie’s. I told her I had more interesting things to do. Her attire could have landed her on the Swiss Miss Instant Cocoa label. She even had braids to complete the illustration. She asked me what interesting things might I be doing. I told her that I had planned to fry ants on the cement with a magnifying glass. She asked if she could help and I responded by telling her she could by not getting in the way.
I had on my usual denims with reinforced knees and my Charles Schultz sweatshirt. It had a sketch of Snoopy and Linus sitting behind a rickety booth with a sign above their heads, “psychiatric help 5 cents.” I had no idea what the word psychiatric meant. But wearing this sweatshirt with this large word imprinted on it made me feel especially smart. The white rubber toes of my blue Ked’s sneakers were stained green from the many hours of playing outside. The sense of freedom I felt being outside was exhilarating. As I was standing up from my comfortable spot on the lawn a grey truck pulled up to the curb. It was an old truck. It had no sharp points. It rumbled loud and had a sound that sounded as if it was struggling to stay running. The driver of the truck turned off the rumbling and leaned over to the passenger side and rolled down the window. He was a fat older man. He had a look about him that was dirty. A look that conveyed a sour odor. When he finished rolling the window down he greeted us. He told Marcy how pretty she was and commented that I looked like a boy. I had a pixie haircut and I am sure that was what confused him. Marcy proceeded to skip over to his truck with no trepidation whatsoever. I raised my voice a little and told her to come on, that we needed to get our supplies together to kill the ants. She ignored me and continued towards the man in the truck. When she arrived to the truck I saw the man reach out and stroke one of her braids. He said something to her. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Marcy then turned around and looked at me and hollered that she would be back soon, that she was going for a ride. The man opened the passenger door from inside and Marcy climbed up into the old truck. As they pulled away she turned to me and waved. I felt an impending danger for her. My heart pounded to where I could feel it in my ears. I ran to the garage and grabbed my bicycle. I rode as fast as I could trying to catch them. It was no use, they were too far ahead. I turned around and rode back to my house. I dismounted my bike as it was still moving and let it glide onto the lawn where it came to a resting place. I ran into the house to find my mother. I yelled for her. I found her in the laundry room folding clothes. I told her that Marcy had gotten into an old truck with a fat, stinky stranger. She looked at me with that look that says, “what in the world are you talking about?” I told her that we needed to call the police. As she snapped the towel in the air and folded it in half, she reminded me of the story of the little girl who cried wolf. The phone rang at that moment. I followed her to the kitchen. It was her friend Martha calling. I knew that this was going to be a long conversation. When the two of them talk on the phone, it is usually a long, sit down at the table and have a cup of coffee conversation. Sure enough, she stretched the phone cord across the kitchen counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. I ducked under the phone cord and ran across the street to Marcy’s house. I rang the doorbell and waited. No answer. I could hear the faint sound of the television. I opened the screen door and knocked fairly hard. Finally, through the sheer curtains I could see a figure coming. It was Marcy’s uncle who lived with them. His name was Darrell. It was difficult to put an age on him. I knew he was old enough to drink. He frequently had a can of Olympia beer in his hand. Darrell’s left arm was unfinished. It stopped half way up his forearm. There at the end were five little bumps as if fingers tried to grow but couldn’t. When he wasn’t looking I would stare deeply at the minute little bumps. They had hardly visible nails on each stub. I would often wonder if he might be one of those guys that came home from that far away place where young men crawled through the jungle on heir stomachs in clothes that matched the trees. On rainy days I would occasionally join Marcy in her garage and we would roller skate. She had the white boot roller skates with bright red pom pom’s attached to the laces. Her skates rolled over the pavement smoothly with out a sound. My skates had a key that you turned to tighten the metal clasps that fit around your shoes. My skates vibrated when they rolled making my lips tickle and my brain rattle. Darrel would sit there in his lawn chair and watch us. He had a box situated next to his chair where he had his ashtray and would place his can of beer, cigarettes and lighter. He would just sit there watching us. His cigarette smoke would curl up and out of the dried sputum cracks in the corner of his mouth. I had never seen him dressed in anything but his grey sweatpants and his black satin jacket that had a red embroidered dragon on the back. Above the dragon it read, “The year of the dragon.” He wore it unzipped with a flimsy white ribbed tank underneath. He wore tan sued slippers. They made a scuffing sound when he walked. My mother didn’t approve of me spending time over at Marcy’s house. She knew something wasn’t right. But she would never tell me what that something was.
When Darrell answered the door he asked me what I wanted. He seemed irritated. He said that Marcy wasn’t home. I told him that I already knew that. I explained that I saw her get into a stranger’s truck. Darrell squinted one side of his face and told me to go play. He started to shut the door and I asked him if Marcy’s mother was home. She said that she was at the store. He shut the door. I went back to my yard and sat on the lawn waiting for Marcy’s return. An hour must have passed and still no sign of her. My mother came out and told me to get into the car and go to town with her. As we were driving a long I kept my eyes open for the old truck. My mother reached down and turned the radio on. “Goodbye Michelle it’s hard to die” was singing on the radio. I asked my mother what the song was about.