Ham Bone

When Eddie moved to town, everything was different. Room had to be made. Eddie came from Georgia and was a juggernaut. He was as big and thick as my father and had smiling eyes that were a warning and a deception. Everything about Eddie seemed happy, but you knew right away that he wasn't. He smiled and smiled and then--Kaboom!--everything went haywire. Eddie was simply crazy.

One Saturday, I was hanging around the shopping center playing pinball and smoking cigarettes when Eddie showed up. Everybody said hi to him, but you could tell that people liked to keep their distance and by ones and twos they began to drift off so that by the time I was ready to leave, Eddie said he'd walk with me. It was one of those southern spring days that surprise you with its heat coming suddenly before you are ready for it, not the heat of summer but hot nonetheless, and as we walked, Eddie began to sweat. He was older than I and about a foot thicker. He was a good athlete by dint of his size and power, but he moved heavily with effort as we crossed the sandy field of sandspurs and weeds that had begun to fill the empty spaces. Walking with Eddie, you had to go at his pace, and every once in awhile he would just stop to tell you something, and you had to stop, too. He'd stand there and smile that big awful smile that was full of anger and tell you something weird about "back home" which sounded to me like some distant planet with different mores and customs that made little sense here. You could hear all those red clay hills in his thick, syrupy voice.

So we walked and stopped, walked and stopped, me going a different way home, somewhere between our different paths, hoping to part ways soon, when suddenly he stopped and said:

"Man, I wish I had me a big old watermelon right now. I'd core it and fuck it right here."

My knees rather buckled. I couldn't believe what he had just said. He went on to say they did it all the time back home in the summer. I couldn't get my mind around any of it. I was still ashamed that I had learned to masturbate, and here was this big brute of a boy with his criminal smile telling me he wanted to fuck a watermelon. I knew I could never tell anybody he said this, not even my closest friends. It was just too dangerous.

One night, I had gone to a party at a girl's house I knew from school. It was a warm night and all the kids were hanging around outside drinking punch that her mother had made in a big bowl, everyone excited and chatting with the usual teenage explosions of laughter over goofy things. There were kids in my grade and some kids a little older there, too, but things were going along fine until Eddie showed up. I had never seen Eddie in a social situation since we went to different schools, so it was a surprise to me to see him in a madras shirt tucked into a pair of khaki pants with a leather belt and matching shoes. I was standing with Jimmy T when Eddie saw me. As soon as Eddie showed up, Jimmy started getting nervous because there was something between him and a girl that Eddie liked. "Hey," Eddie said to me, but he was looking at Jimmy. "Listen, let's start a band." I didn't know what to say. I couldn't imagine that we liked the same kind of music. I couldn't imagine him being moved by music at all, really. "Well, I'd like to hear what you play. . . " but I didn't get to finish before Eddie snapped, "You think I have to try out to play with YOU?" I stammered out something incomprehensible, but Eddie had already turned his back to talk to somebody else.

I had to admire Jimmy for staying at the party, for I know I would have already slipped away into the night, but he just stayed and talked distractedly in that far away voice with a worried look on his face. He didn't have long to wait. Eddie was standing near with his back to Jimmy talking with a group of kids who laughed nervously at what Eddie was saying, but I noticed the distance they kept from him. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to get within an arm's reach. And then, in one of the slickest moves I had ever seen, Eddie just turned around and tossed his drink onto Jimmy's chest, still with that big, easy smile. Nothing ever worried Eddie. "Oh, man, I'm sorry," he said, staring Jimmy down with those maniac eyes.

"OK," Jimmy said, "lets get this over with." I couldn't believe it. Although Eddie and Jimmy were the same age, Eddie was a couple of inches taller and about twice as thick, his neck equal to one of Jimmy's legs. But Jimmy walked across the street to an empty lot with everyone in tow, lastly Eddie who was in no hurry at all. He walked across the street talking and smiling, stopping along the way as he always did. The fight itself was like an old fashioned duel, Jimmy standing and waiting for Eddie to approach. And when he did, Jimmy put up his hands in a classic boxing pose and Eddie raised his fists. Quickly, Jimmy threw a couple of jabs that missed by a foot and took a step back. Eddie, patient, just kept moving forward, smiling, never throwing a punch. There was nothing for Jimmy to do but jab again, and again, too scared to get nearly close enough to have a prayer. But somehow there in the dark lit by the spring stars and moonlight, Eddie moved his arm. It was just a jab and not all that quick, but when that hambone fist connected with Jimmy's jaw, you could hear the bone crack. Jimmy was taken off his feet by that punch and he flew through the air like he'd been hit by a car. He was down, his back flat against the sandy ground, his eyes rolled back in his head. And that was it, just the one punch. And then the the mother, the hostess of the party, was calling everyone back inside and people began to drift away. Eddie didn't say anything at all to anyone but the fellows he showed up with, and then they were gone into the night.

And that was Eddie, and that was Georgia for me forever, a land of ham boned brutes without sympathy or moral restrictions. Eventually, Eddie got into trouble and was gone. Years later, I heard that he found Jesus and became a minister. It was horrible to imagine.