NOVEMBER 2008

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The Touch
By Tai Dong Huai, Sep 30, 2008

I’m only thirteen, but I’ve been touching myself since before I can remember. It isn’t visions of boys, with their ridiculous, pimply faces, or of men with their thick necks and whiskery chins. It’s simply that every time I reach down there, I’m like a bird that has rediscovered flight.

But today, I almost stopped. It’s the beginning of July, and I’m out of school with little to do other than read, play my violin, and swing in the hammock out front. My best friend Hannah Welsh is at sleep-away camp in New Hampshire and even Caitlyn Maggio, who’s a teacher’s pet and a suck-up, isn’t answering her phone.

So I try next door. I’m desperate. Dylan Tull, two years younger and a boy, is a pretty safe bet. He isn’t what you’d call fun, but he does have a lot of stuff and generally I walk away from his house with some electronic something-or-other that he doesn’t want. When I knock on the door, his sister Donna answers. “He went with my mother to get blood drawn,” she tells me.

“Is he all right?” I ask.

“Define ‘all right,’” she says.

Donna is seventeen, a high school junior, and cool. She can even drive during daylight hours, as long as there’s a licensed driver sitting next to her.

“Tell him I came by,” I say.

As I turn to leave, Donna says, “You want to come in and do something?”

I’m surprised and stunned, but not so stupid as to pass up the chance. I’ll hang out with Donna for the day, then maybe the week, then the rest of the summer. I’ll send regrets to Hannah Welsh and explain that I’m moving with a new crowd now—a “cool” crowd—composed of older girls with neither curfews nor make-up restrictions.

“Let’s go down the basement,” Donna suggests with a sideward nod.

I’d been there before with Dylan, but the Tull basement seems different today. More mature. The wood paneling was richer, the indoor/outdoor carpeting more luxurious, the dropped ceiling more architecturally correct. While the basement of our house is used for storing old barbecues, rusting bikes, and plastic patio furniture, the Tulls sport exercise equipment, a plasma TV, and a fully-stocked bar. I sit on a red loveseat and Donna, despite the two matching chairs, flops down on the cushion right next to mine. She indicates the TV where an onscreen couple are shouting at one another.

“All My Children,” she says. “You watch it?”

“Once in a while,” I lie.

“I can’t stand that bitch,” Donna says, now indicating the television with an outstretched, bare foot. “But that guy can do me any time.”

“Me, too,” I say, not fully knowing what she’s talking about.

“You date yet?” she asks.

“Once in a while.” Another lie.

“Who?”

“You don’t know him. He lives in Seattle. Whenever his parents are in the area we get together and date.”

“What’s his name?” Donna asks.

God knows why, but I say, “Lancelot.”

I figure for sure I’m dead now, but Donna says, “Guys are my favorite subject of conversation.” We watch the soap opera a few minutes, then Donna stands up and walks to the TV.

“This sucks,” she says as she slaps the top of the set and it goes black.

“Where’s your remote?” I ask.

“If it was up your ass you’d know where it was,” she tells me. I’m starting to think this whole “cool” thing is one big mistake when she asks me if I want to play a game. “It’s called ‘Would You Rather,’” Donna says. I ask her how it goes, she plops down beside me again, and she says, “It goes like this.” She pauses—I’m guessing for effect—and then says, “Would you rather swallow a slug or somebody else’s snot?”

“Neither,” I tell her.

“You have to pick,” she says. “And you have to give a good reason why.”

“I guess the slug,” I say. “When you get down to it, how much different are they from escargot?” This time Donna’s playing defense. She has no idea what escargot is, but she’s not about to admit it in front of an eighth grader.

“Now you ask me,” she says.

“Would you rather,” I ask, “lick the cafeteria floor at the middle school, or never get a grade above D for the rest of your life?”

“That’s stupid,” she says.

“You have to answer,” I tell her.

“The whole floor?” she asks.

I take pity. “Just behind the serving line,” I say.

“Floor,” she answers.

“Because...?” I add.

“Because if I get one more D my sweet little tush is gonna be grounded indefinitely.”

To be honest, I’m getting a little bored with this; hanging with Donna isn’t quite what I pictured. “One more,” Donna says. “Would you rather lick a boy between the legs or a girl?”

“What?” I ask.

“Blow job or muff dive?” she asks.

“I don’t want to play this anymore,” I tell her. “It’s dumb.”

To my surprise, she says, “Yeah. It is kinda lame.” Then she says, “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure,” I say.

“Swear you won’t tell?” I swear. “Well,” Donna hesitates, “the other morning I saw your dad out walking Crystal. He was wearing cargo shorts and a black T-shirt and I know he’s like a hundred years old, but seeing him made my cookie throb.”

“Wow,” I say, rising from the loveseat. “I just remember. I have a violin lesson.”

“You want to hang out later?” she asks.

“Can’t,” I say. “I have a summer reading list. Fourteen books. Plus my dad will kill me if I don’t practice my Chinese.”

“What does he care?” she asks. “He’s Italian.” I’m not halfway up the stairs when I hear her say, “I don’t mind if you tell him what I said, but clean it up a little!”

When I walk into my own house, my adoptive dad—free from teaching college the entire summer—is in the kitchen cleaning the stove top with Soft Scrub. He has on blue, too-short shorts, an orange golf shirt, rubber gloves, and an apron that reads Grill Sergeant.

“Out gallivanting?” he asks.

I look at him and try to see what Donna saw, but all I see is a balding man with hairy legs and a slight paunch. A nice guy? Sure. Someone who can make a teenager’s “cookie throb”? I don’t think so.

“I was over with Donna,” I tell him.

He stops, looks over at me. “Donna Tull?” he asks. “Isn’t she kind of old?”

“Maybe,” I tell him. And then for some reason I say, “But she sure knows how to cook a chicken.”

That night in bed, I avoid the touch. But it’s humid, and I can’t sleep, so eventually my fingers find their way.

I put Donna, and every word she said, out of my mind. I think instead of a Chinese girl I read about. She’s about my age and lives in Deyang City where she works on an assembly line putting together “American” sneakers. I picture that she’s just gotten home, eaten some rice and a little tofu, turned off the lights, and lied down on her bamboo sleeping mat. Tonight it’s too hot for even the thinnest blanket. Still, fully exposed, she closes her eyes, reaches down, and touches herself.

She breathes in, holds it, breathes out, and dreams of being cool.