What Is Sex Like?

Henry

Accord'n to the book, there were four phases of human sex. The first was called Excitement.  If you want to read it, I put all four phases at the end of this story.
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Henry had claimed Sarah's question.  He had also claimed the big rock - the one with a hole carved in it big enough to crawl through.   None of us,  cept Marshall, were big enough to wrestle him off the thing, and Marshall didn't want to be chief, so Henry was Chief...least till someone knocked him off.   Will kept take'n runs at him but, so far, Henry had rope-a-doped  him into roundhouse'n himself flat on the ground every time.

As Chief, he laid down the law. Sarah would get a thesaurus out of the church library.  I was told to smuggle out a dictionary, and Ronnie showed us what an app was when he loaded up a medical terms glossary.

Of course, the hub of the Sarah's question adventure was undeniably Henry's contribution: The Book and a frisky collection of nudie mags.

This was fit'n cause everybody knew that the one who claimed the question was bound to search till the answer was found. Henry would need all the help he could collect.

The even'n that Sarah had quietly sent her question out over the creek water, Henry had pondered the subject.  Sex scared him.  He figured his body was probably grow'n in the normal way, but he didn't really know.  Frank had always been there to punch him in the arm and tell him he was jerk... cept... when Frank did that, it always sounded to Henry like an I love you .... like a don't sweat the small stuff....like a your not alone.

Henry's parents used to laugh and tell people that they had given birth to Henry's daddy... and in a way, they had.

Money was god in the Martin home.  Both Rob and Anita Martin started run'n after the dollars the second their alarm went off... and didn't stop till exhaustion took over.
Bob Martin ran a pick-your-own operation.   As the reputation of his crops grew, so did his customers.  Each year, Bob Martin packed up his success in a manilla folder, went to the bank, and borrowed a little more... and a little more.

Anita had discovered Avon in high school.  She had become a universally feared tidal wave of smelly lotions, lipsticks, veneers, and polish that rolled cross a three county region in a perpetual high tide of power sales and deliveries.  When Frank was born, Anita took him with her.  For his first year, Frank's bed was the floor of her truck cab - till Bob's mama found out and swooped into the situation with a joyful vengeance.

After bout 4 years, Anita found herself pregnant again.  Bob took out another loan.  Anita took on a fourth county.  And Bob's mama discovered pinochle.

A neighbor girl earned some of Bob's mama's pinochle profits by agree'n to check in on Frank and Henry and, after that, the two boys just kinda grew up by themselves.

There was always a lot of plates spin'n on sticks in that family;   but, as sideways as it sounds, it worked.  The Martin family showed up for church, they didn't bother their neighbors, and Bob's mama was such a hit at the senior center pinochle games that the boys had a parade of new grampas who always came to visit.... with presents.

Then, on Valentines Day 1999, Frank climbed up into a bus and went to boot camp.  He was deployed before he could even get home to show Henry what a spitshine was.  At the last crash'n minute, Bob found out what airport Frank's battalion was at, and the whole family raced down to Raleigh to say goodbye. Anita and Bob's mama cried up a storm, and Bob stood silent, watch'n with scared eyes, as Frank showed Henry how to run criss-cross and hide behind pillars.  Then - fore you know it - a big voice boomed out from the wall and told Frank, and his battalion, to get ready to leave. Anita hugged him so hard that he had to push her off.  Bob just stood silent and shook Frank's hand "Do right." he whispered.  Frank whispered back that he wanted his Daddy to talk to his girl, Tina.  Bob nodded.

Frank turned and hug-punched Henry.  Smile'n down at his brother's red eyes, Frank said, "Remember, Chief, don't sweat the small stuff... see ya."

They didn't see him again till he was sent home.

A plate teetered.

Frank's girl came by to visit pretty often, at first.  As the months passed, they saw less and less of her till, finally, one night Anita asked Bob if he recalled her last visit, and he let out as to how the girl  wouldn't be back.   Turns out, Frank's girl had a short attention span.  She had moved in with a fella who had asthma and a sickly mama with nice, fat disability checks come'n in once a month.

This next part is so awful... I'm gonna tell it pretty quick.

When Frank got over to Afghanistan, they taught him how to use a flame thrower to clear a path for the soldiers ahead of him.  Now, noone has ever actually said this,  but I think he burnt up every thing... every body... that was in the way of the rest of his soldiers.

Then, somethin happened cause, out of the blue, Frank showed up stand'n in the front parlor.  Bob's mom bout had an attack when she came out and saw him stand'n there!  She told her hair lady that Frank bout sent her to Jesus right then... with her bare feet on and no lipstick!

Frank stood real still and silent as he endured her screech'n hugs and let himself be pulled into the kitchen and set down.  He stared at the pie and coffee, that Bob's mom had put in front of him, and waited while she started to call everybody  and their dog  to tell em the news.  Nobody really seemed to notice that Frank was still and quiet.  All the neighbors and family came and hugged up on him. They hugged each other and Anita cried... she could barely stop herself from touch'n Frank while she dabbed her eyes and shared her happiness... and the chance to show off Avon's Seasonal Special (no-streak-no-clump mascara) to her customers.

But nobody... nobody but Henry... noticed Frank's deep quiet.   After a few attempts to talk with him, Henry just sat cross the table and watched his brother stare at pie.

A plate fell... another teetered.

Two days after Frank returned, he asked after his girl.  It was  at dinner, on a Saturday.  Still with half a day of light left, Bob was try'n to eat as quickly as he could... he had new fence to lay fore the bank could make him give back the unburied posts. Anita was do'n her books longside her dinner plate, and Henry was still keep'n an eye on Frank.

The silence was broken by a whisper... "I'll need the truck, I'm gonna go see Tina."

Bob's mama took in air real fast at the sound of his voice.  The family looked at each other as she laid her hand down beside Frank's uneaten sandwich.

Lean'n in close, Bob's mama said "Boy... you just cain't do that... she's moved on in with one of the Miller boys and his mama.  You'd best just forget bout that little no'count, right now."

Now here's the awful part.  I guess somethin just went all haywire in Frank's head right then.  Cause, that night, Frank took the keys and, after he busted out a window of the hardware store, he went over to the Miller's place.

No one will ever really know what happened cause no one lived to tell the tale.   A neighbor heard a low rumble and,  look'n out her window,  saw the plume of smoke and orange flame, shoot'n up into the starless night sky.

The next morn'n, the sheriff counted four bodies...burnt to cinders.  Amongst the ashes of one of em, was a roughed up purple heart.

Plates fell.

There was no funeral.

A shadow covered the Martin house.   It was as if all the demons in the Dismal decided to play shark. They circled that poor family and laid it low.

That next Spring, the strawberry crop failed and the bank came knock'n.   Anita's only comfort came from tears and vodka and curse'n God.... all day... all night.  Bob's mom couldn't take it and left for Orlando. She told people there that she didn't  have family. 

So then, it was just sticks.  The plates had all fallen down into little piles of shard.

By the Sumner of 2002, Henry had moved into Frank's bed, and took most of his suppers at Lily Mae's house.