The Cardboard Box
David pressed his head against the screen in the upstairs window, and looked into Laura's backyard where Laura and Kenny played in a big Zenith TV box. They rocked back and forth and yelled: "Rock--ky Riv--ver Rock--ky Riv--ver." They fell over laughing, and Kenny rolled on top of her. They appeared to be struggling, rolling first one way and then the other, but still laughing. Then Kenny pulled the box over them, and David couldn't tell if they were laughing anymore.
He ran outside and crawled into the bushes along the fence between the yards. The box moved from side to side, and the unfolded box-tops scratched against the grass. David grasped the chain link and pulled himself closer. Laura called out, "Hey," and laughed. David stood up and was caught in the branches. He twisted and yanked and fell back into the grass in his own yard. He scrambled around the garage and ran into his house.
David's mother took him by the hand into the bathroom and washed the scratches. "What were you doing?" she asked. She rinsed the cloth and wiped his face and arms again. She sprayed with Bactine.
"I don't know what to do," David said.
"You could play with your GI Joes," she said.
"No."
"You want to go in the park? You can play in the sandbox. I need to be in the garden a while."
She held his hand as they went outside, but David pulled away and ran ahead of her. He paused at the gate to peer into Laura's yard: the box was overturned. Then he went to the sandbox and sat on the wooden sill. His mother waved from the yard.
It was before noon and the park was empty except for swimming lessons at the pool, and a fat man in green who drove a red Yazoo back and forth across the other end of the park.
David marched slowly through the sand along the frame. He sat in one corner and threw stones and clots of sand at the other corner. He built a small castle and bombed it from attitudes surrounding the sandbox: the painted barrels, the monkey bars, the winged seals by the fountain.
He stared at their two yards: Laura's yard was surrounded by squat, dark, tightly swirled bushes and a chain link fence. A tall maple tree stood in his yard; rising above the interposing bushes, above the plum trees, the apple tree, and all the other maples. A squirrel leapt from it to the apple tree below. The wind lifted the maple's branches and eased them down again, then suddenly gusted, and the leaves chattered so loudly that David thought they were on fire.
Kenny came out of Laura's yard standing on his bike pedals to push through the grass. He jumped off and let the bike crash on its own beside the sandbox.
"You wanna' go to the creek?" Kenny asked.
"My mother don't let me," David said.
Kenny threw a stone at him, and then laid flat the castle with his foot. "Let's have a war," he said. "Build a wall in that corner and I'll build one."
"No," David said. "You'll win."
"It'll be fun." Kenny began digging a hole in his corner and piling the sand before it. David realized he would be pelted anyway, so he went to his corner and started digging.
Before David was ready, he was struck in the small of the back. He scrambled behind his wall, and stones hit steadily around him. He glanced up once and was splashed in the face with sand, so he hugged his legs and began to cry.
When Kenny was out of stones he walked over to David's side. "I won," he said. David remained curled up in a ball. "You okay?"
David's mother came through the gate and walked quickly to the sand box. "What's the matter?" she cried. She sat on the sill and rubbed his back until he looked up.
"I got sand in my eyes."
She grasped his head and inspected his eyes. "Let's go in," she said. "We'll wash it out."
"No," he said. "I want to stay."
"What were you doing?" she asked. She looked at Kenny, who stared back innocently.
"Throwing stones," David sobbed.
She looked at his eyes once more. "Okay, but no more stone throwing." She stood for a moment looking down, imposing a silence upon them, and then went back to the yard.
"Cry baby," Kenny said. He lobbed stones at the far corner.
"Shut up," David said.
For a while there was only the sound of the stones falling in the sand. David was thinking about how Kenny had been with Laura in the cardboard box.
Kenny sat next to him in the hole. He stared at David and then looked all around the park. "Let me see your dick," he said.
"What's that?"
"This," Kenny said. He tapped David's crotch.
"No." David pushed Kenny's hands away.
"I'll show you mine." Kenny opened his pants and pulled it out. He waggled it between thumb and finger. "You want to touch it?"
David stared. It was like his own, yet seemed different by the way Kenny handled it.
"This is what you make babies with," Kenny said.
"How?"
"You stick it in a girl," he said.
"How do you know?"
"Daniel told me."
David looked around the park.
"No one can see."
"I don't want to."
"I showed you mine."
David started to stand up, but Kenny grabbed his arm. He motioned to the sidewalk, where a woman was walking a little boy to the pool. The boy wore a swimsuit and had a towel draped over his shoulders. Kenny waggled his penis at them. The woman and boy walked along without taking notice. The two boys laughed.
David opened his pants and stretched his out as far as it would go.
Kenny thrust his hips and poked David's penis with his own.
David yelled and rolled away. He put up his pants and stared at Kenny. "I don't want to make a baby," he said. He began to cry.
"You can't have a baby," Kenny said. "Only girls can."
David ran into his yard, past the maple tree, past his mother in the garden, past the garage, and into the house. He watched through the window as his mother stepped out of the garden. She threw the shovel and work gloves on the grass and brushed off her jeans. When she came inside David ran upstairs and sat against the wall.
"Are you alright?" she called.
"Yes."
She went up the stairs and knelt beside him. "How are your eyes?"
"They don't hurt."
She patted his head and left him.
David leaned against the screen and watched Kenny ride his bike through Laura's yard past the cardboard box and on into the street. He watched Laura's window for the light, or some movement, but there was none. He stayed in his room the rest of the afternoon, checking on the yard and window every few minutes.
David imagined climbing up the maple tree, carrying Laura across his shoulder, to a height that Kenny would not dare climb. He would keep Laura there always, and live with her in a cardboard box.
When his father came home, David asked if he could climb the maple tree.
"Oh I suppose," his father said.
The backyards were noisier now than during the day. There were several lawn mowers running, and the beagles next door yelped and bayed as Mr. Keenan cleaned their pen. David held his nose as he passed the garage where the dog smells were thickest.
He was lifted first to his father's shoulder, and then boosted up so that he could step directly onto the lowest limb.
"Be careful," his father said. "Not too high."
David climbed until he was as high as the sun, which was creeping down beyond the park. There were many small bodies splashing in the pool, all of them yelling so that David heard a jumbled mix of words. The breeze jostled the leaves. The dog smells were gone now; instead, he smelled the drying grass laid out in rows across the park, the chlorine of the pool, and the asphalt parking lot. The lot was full of cars; beyond it, a continuous stream of cars rolled along Memphis Avenue, reflecting orange glimpses of the sun.
"Are you alright?" his father asked.
"I can see the road."
Laura came walking from the pool. Her hair was wet and slicked against her head. Her towel covered her shoulders, and draped down to her knees. She was barefoot. She stopped at the fountain for a drink, and then came across the grass towards the yards.
"Hello Laura," David's father said.
"Hi." She smiled, and then trotted through the yard.
David was overwhelmed with confusion; he had wanted to call out to her. He continued to stare after she was beyond the garage.
"Come down David."
David clutched at the tree, unwilling to climb down, yet unsure of what else to do.
"Now what do you see?" his father asked.
"Nothing."
"How long you gonna' stay up there?"
David asked during dinner if he could walk to the corner and get an empty television box from the rear of the Zenith store. "To play in it," he explained.
"I don't want a dirty old box laying around," his mother said.
"They ain't dirty," David said.
"I suppose it's alright," his father decided.
He ate quickly, but when he stepped outside it began to rain. The drops smacked down on the porch awning as if someone was beating a pot with a wooden spoon. A black cloud swept in from the north, and flashes of lightning could be seen.
"You'd better not go," his father said.
"I'll hurry."
"No, stay here."
David sat on the front steps. Soon the sidewalk turned brown with the rain. A deep rumble was heard. The falling rain became a downpour, and water gathered in the low points in the street.
"It'll be soaked before we're there," his father said. "We'll get one next week, maybe." He bent down, and, grabbing the boy under the shoulders, lifted him inside and out of the rain.
Iowa City, 1988