Reading with Rasta: Prophet’s Debt by Robert Creekmore
More than one hundred folded pieces of notebook paper line the bottom of the desk drawer in my small bedroom. Each holds poetry that was written for me by my best friend, Tiffany Bullock. The calendar posted over the desk has a giant red circle around today’s date: Thursday, August twelfth, nineteen-ninety-three. Encompassed by that red circle are the words, “Perseid Meteor Shower!” It peaks tonight.
Tiffany isn’t just my best friend, she is my only friend. My name is Naomi Pace. At fourteen, I’m already five-foot-ten. This fact is something my classmates will not let me forget. They’re also not too keen on me being what my mom calls a “Tom Boy.” I cut my blond hair as short as my mother will allow, which is roughly chin length. I have no interest in wearing makeup or dresses. I like wearing oversized overalls. They let me hide my body from the world.
What I am interested in is nature. I spend a lot of time after school and on the weekends, catching any critter that moves and will fit in my half-gallon Mason jar. Usually, Tiffany is somewhere nearby while I turn over rocks, or run a net through Stoney Creek. I think I want to be a biologist.
Tiffany says she wants to be a writer. And that she does in earnest. I have received an average of one poem a day for the last six months. Even when she follows me into the woods, Tiffany has a book, notepad, and pen. She’s even gotten pretty good at drawing some of the creatures that fall prey to my curiosity. These temporary prisoners are eventually set free, back to whatever life they were leading before their harrowing abduction.
We live in a small town named Rocky Mount. Despite the name, there are no mountains to be found. Rather, it’s nestled in the northern Coastal Plains of North Carolina. Essentially, we live in a swamp, which suits me fine. I’m still looking for my first alligator.
Tiffany and I have few places of refuge. One of them is the old Braswell Library downtown. It smells of old paper and ink. If I had synesthesia, I’d pair the olfactory sensation to intrigue and rare knowledge. Tiffany dedicates her time to literary fiction, and I to whatever biology texts I rummage up. I spend countless hours looking through scientific illustrations, attempting to identify my most recent hostage from the animal kingdom. The head librarian said she doesn’t care as long as the jar stays closed.
Tiffany sleeps over most weekends. I assume it’s to escape her mother for a while. Her mom isn’t a bad person, but she’s a lousy parent.
This summer, though, she has slept over almost every night. During the day, she walks the half-mile trek through our neighborhood to check in with her mom. Tiffany doesn’t know her father. He abandoned his family directly after she was born. Perhaps that’s lucky? My father isn’t someone I’d choose to spend time around if I had the choice.
I’m an only child. Tiffany has an older sister named Lesley. Lesley is sixteen and just purchased her first car: a white, four-door, nineteen eighty-six Toyota Corolla. Tiffany is at home right now making sure Lesley will come through and give us a ride to the City Lake later tonight, which is where we intend to view the meteor shower. We wanted to go further out of town, but Lesley only agreed to take us to the lake because she’s going the same way. The City Lake is circled by a small road. It’s one end of a strip teenagers cruise. The other end is a shopping center about two miles away. They drive in loops for hours, rarely doing more than just looking at each other. Luckily, there’s a small, dimly lit island on the lake that is accessible by a bridge and is mostly well- maintained grass.
I hear the backdoor open. Tiffany doesn’t knock or use a key.
The door isn’t locked anyway. I can tell it’s her by the light footsteps. My father’s resound of heavy boots, and my mom’s shoes almost always make a clicking sound on the parquet kitchen floor. Tiffany is only about five-two and usually wears a pair of black Chuck Taylors, thus the slight footfall. But if we’re talking about looks, the most striking thing about Tiffany is her bright red hair and pale freckled skin. Her eyes are a light blue. Mine are green.
“What did she say?” I ask.
“She wasn’t nice about it, but yeah, she’ll pick us up at eight.”
“At least we don’t have to be stuck with her in the car for long.”
Tiffany looks at her feet, as though she feels embarrassed about how her sister yells and berates her. I don’t make mention of it now because it would make Tiff upset. Instead, I deflect to a pleasant idea.
“How about we go to the creek?”
“Okay,” Tiffany says softly.
Stoney Creek is only about half a block from my house and through a neighbor’s yard.
Tiffany and I have a usual spot. It’s an outcrop of large rocks leftover from a long-ago eroded mountain range. She always sits on the big one, closest to shore, while I traipse out, tiptoeing over the smaller boulders with a fishing pole.
I fish the next three hours away using a light spin caster baited with a white beetle spin. I catch eleven bream and two largemouth bass. I examine each closely, lower them gently into the water to allow their gills to aerate, then release them. Tiffany reads quietly. I can tell whatever Lesley said to her was being digested by her mind, in the way chewed up glass is by intestines.
Around seven-thirty, Tiffany looks up from her book and says, “We need to get back to the house, Lesley will be here in thirty minutes.”
Her tone is still sad.
“I’d like to slap your sister sometimes,” I say.
“Don’t.”
“If she talks to you like that in front of me, I will.”
“Lesley never does. She’s afraid of you, I think.”
“She should be,” I respond angrily.
I’ve known Tiff since the first grade. She’s always been smaller, and I’ve always been protective.
Lesley somehow blames Tiffany for their father’s disappearance. Tiffany, in her typical fashion, doesn’t talk about it. But I can almost see the shards of self-hatred piercing out of her skull.
We put together a backpack with two blankets, a canteen of water, a bag of chips, a star map, and a flashlight.
We hear a horn honk outside.
A flash of anguish goes across Tiffany’s face.
“Yep. That’s her,” she says.
I sling the backpack over my left shoulder as we make our way to the backdoor. I don’t bother to lock it.
I sit in the front passenger seat because I’m the tallest, and Tiffany sits behind Lesley so she can have the legroom not taken up by her equally short sister. Without a word, Lesley backs quickly down the short gravel driveway. She cranks the radio up. It’s Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. The volume makes it impossible to talk, which is the point. My house is right off of Sunset Road, the cruising drag. The neighborhood is mostly made up of small brick ranch houses with yards shaded by dense pines. It takes less than ten minutes to get to the lake. As our destination comes into view, Why Go by Pearl Jam blasts forth at an unbearable volume. Lesley turns onto the drive encircling the lake. She stops in the road, directly across from the bridge, and we get out.
“At least she gave us a ride,” I say, as the music from Lesley’s car fades into the distance.
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for her.”
“She hates me, that’s all. I don’t even understand why,” Tiffany says.
“It’s like Lesley hates the idea of you because she doesn’t truly know you. I do.”
Tiffany goes quiet again. I see a tear slowly trickle across her freckled cheek.
“Has she hit you?” I ask.
“Not in a couple of years. Mostly, she ignores me. I suppose I should be satisfied with that.”
Tiff feigns a heart-wrenching smile.
I know not to push the subject further. Though, I wish she’d talk about it more instead of keeping the pain locked away in her heart.
We walk across the short arched bridge to the round manmade island. It’s made of treated wood and has white handrails. There’s a white gazebo off to the left and, luckily, not another soul. Hopefully, it will remain our private island tonight. Most of the older teenagers are two hundred yards away in a dimly lit parking lot showing off their large pickups and IROC Cameros. They don’t even realize how special tonight is, astronomically.
I plop my bag down near the edge of the island, furthest from the bridge. I pull out one blanket and lay it on the ground. I sit on the blanket and pull out the other blanket. Tiff sits on my right. We unfurl the second blanket and lay it atop ourselves. The ground is soft, the air still, and the sky clear. Perfect. The only hitch is the light emanating from distant parking lots.
As we lay there, I ask, “How many stars do you think there are?”
“There are as many or as few as you wish.”
“How?”
“The universe is infinite. It’s up to your discretion how you want to handle such a staggering concept. The manner in which you perceive it won’t change its unknowable nature.”
We go quiet as the first white streaks burn through our atmosphere. We watch as they come in in all directions. The larger ones burn green.
“The green color is due to the copper content,” Tiff tells me.
I already knew, but I don’t tell her.
“Do you think each one of those stars has a planet with life?” Tiff asks.
“I don’t know.”
She turns her head toward me and says, “Of course there’s life beyond Earth.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Existence is so big. It can’t just be us.”
I lie quiet in thought for a moment before replying, “It doesn’t matter. We are so small.”
“That’s how you choose to see it, Naomi. Just because I love you doesn’t mean we always have to agree.”
“But if there’s not an ultimate answer, what’s the point?”
“This,” Tiff replies while slipping her trembling left hand into my right. She hesitates. I reach my free hand over and gently pull her face toward mine. As our lips touched, I am transported, no longer aware of anything but her.
I kissed a neighbor boy the summer before. He was sweet, but it felt odd and fake. Later that year, when my mind turned to kissing him, I felt repulsed. As I gave thought to how much physical affection would be expected of me by boys, I became terrified. I don’t want their physical advances. I would never be in love with a boy, nor do I want to try. Tiffany and I often express our love. I always assumed I loved her as my best friend, but now there is a new, exciting dimension that I never expected. I am in love, and it has manifested itself into a physical desire I was previously unaware existed.
We continue to hold hands and kiss. We wrap our arms around each other and pull ourselves as closely as physics will allow. I want to disintegrate together, combine our atoms, drift into oblivion, and experience the infinite joy of our togetherness.
We stay intertwined longer than either of us realize.
“Tiffany!” I hear a shriek across the placid water.
It is Lesley.
“What are you, some kind of lesbos!?”
I can feel Tiff ’s hands begin to shake, but not like before. This time it is pure terror. We both pop up and whip our heads and torsos around simultaneously to see her no more than five yards behind us.
Lesley looks like a portrait of her mother if it were painted by an unaccomplished artist. Both are short, have blond hair, blue eyes. Lesley has bangs cut into her blond hair that she felt the need to poof up with hairspray and a blow dryer.
Despite how ridiculous she looks, her sudden materialization creates a slow, heavy feeling in my bowels. My brain, charged up on adrenaline, makes everything appear slower. To me, she is no different than encountering a large bear at the same distance. My frontal lobe then tells me a story in pictures of what will happen. It involves my father, Amos Pace, who is a giant of a man: six-foot-four, with broad shoulders, brown hair, brown eyes, a thick furrowed brow, and rough meaty hands. I’ve felt the low thud of either of those hands across my face and body more than I can remember.
Next, comes to mind my mother, who is a secretary for our church, First Baptist. I can see the lines coming out on her forehead when she confronts me. She’s not much shorter than me, so I notice them when she’s angry because they’re at eye level. She has dirty blond hair and green eyes. She usually dresses conservatively, but sharply. The church is her life. If it got out that her daughter went around town kissing other girls, she’d be ruined. This would be handled discreetly and internally. She isn’t much for striking me but never gets in the way of my father when he does.
Lesley starts walking toward us, fast and with intent. She doesn’t speak, just breathes heavily, frowning, with her nose pointed upward. She almost looks like someone who has smelt something putrid.
“Get up right now!” she screams while grabbing Tiffany by her left arm. As her arm is pulled out from under her, Tiffany’s face slams into the ground. Lesley begins to drag Tiffany facedown, toward the bridge.
Tiffany screams, “You’re hurting me!” in response.
Hearing her scream in pain ignites something primal inside me. It is the instinct to protect one’s mate at all costs. I hop to my feet and grab ahold of Lesley’s left wrist with both hands. Lesley looks up at me in disbelief. Before she can yell at me, I twist as hard as I can. Lesley grunts from pain but won’t let go. I keep my left hand on her wrist and slide right underneath Lesley’s elbow and extend her arm straight. Lesley stops pulling due to the pain caused as I turn her wrist one way and elbow the other. As she looks up, her eyes meet mine. I see the doubt she has in her physical abilities take hold as she realizes just how much larger than her I am, despite my younger age.
“If you don’t let her go, I will break your arm,” I growl in her face. She immediately releases Tiffany’s left wrist, leaving her face down in the grass. Tiff looks up just in time to see me break Lesley’s arm anyway.