We clutched for her breasts. “Leave me,” she murmured, but we did not leave her, grabbed her breasts in rage instead, “Leave me, please,” she mumbled, but we did not leave her, swept our hands in fury over her body, “Something,” she said, “please,” and together we stripped her naked. We pulled her pants down over her belly, “Please,” she moaned, and her thighs, “Something,” she whimpered, and her legs, “Something, something,” she begged, and Sandy slapped her again, and she cowered on the sticky rubber poncho, shivering as we stood over her breathing harshly, our bodies covered with sweat, the forest silent and dead around us, Rhoda naked, her pants bunched stupidly around her ankles, naked, there was nothing we could not see. We reached for her pants together, pulled them over her feet, hurled them into the bushes. She tried to twist away, tried to turn her body, raise her knees to hide herself, but we shoved her flat to the poncho again, and David said, “Hold her,” and we held her. She seemed dead. She lay on the poncho with her eyes closed and her mouth tight, and I thought She’s dead, we’ve killed her.
He was taking off his trunks.
“Spread her,” Sandy said.
She gave a final futile twist as we forced her legs apart, trying to turn over on the poncho and away from him as he walked to her, and stood above her, and suddenly crouched, poised.
We did it to her.
He did it to her first, and then I did.
I was last.
As we walked out of the forest, Sandy said, “Is she dressed yet?”
“Who?” David asked.
“Whatshername.”
I turned to look over my shoulder.
She was standing by the round black rock, whimpering. She stooped crookedly to pull up her pants, and then hunched her shoulders and dressed herself that way, whimpering and hunched, flinching at every crackling forest sound. She looked up only once, as she fastened the top of her suit, and her eyes accidentally met mine, and then, quickly, she ducked her head, and sidled away through the stunted bushes, her head turned away from us, moved from us silhouetted against the black trees in gnarled silhouette, the dead distorted trees, not hurrying, moving with a slow broken crooked gait.
I watched her go.
“She’s leaving,” I said.
“Good,” Sandy said.
“Do you think she’ll tell?” David said.
“Not a chance,” Sandy said, and smiled. “She’s too scared.”
“Why, that’s right, she is,” David said.
“Too scared of everything,” I said.
We grinned. We all looked at each other and grinned. Then we began laughing. We must have laughed for about three or four minutes, our arms wrapped around each other, just standing in a tight closed circle, unable to stop laughing, laughing until the tears ran down our cheeks.
The weather turned bright and clear that last week in August.
We took my father’s boat out every day, sailing to Violet’s island, listening to QXR or ABC, the three of us happily lounging on deck and soaking up sunshine, going in for a swim whenever we felt like it. We saw Rhoda again maybe once or twice before the summer ended, but then only casually at Mr. Porter’s or down on the dock, playing with the younger kids near the pilings. We always said hello to her, and she always answered shyly, her eyes turned away, “Hello,” her metal bands catching sunlight for just an instant before she ducked her head.
The Greensward season ended officially on Labor Day, but most of the summer people left the island on the Saturday or Sunday before. In fact, they had to run four additional ferries that Sunday to accommodate the heavy traffic. Our families caught the nine o’clock boat out, trotting down to the dock with the rest of the islanders, all of us looking like gypsies, carrying belongings wrapped in blankets, bulging suitcases, bird cages, bicycles — it was a regular exodus scene. The two fags, Stuart and Frankie, came running onto the dock at the very last minute, carrying Violet’s valises. Out of breath, wearing pendant earrings and white makeup, smelling of pumpkin, she allowed Stuart to help her aboard, and then stood on deck with both of them and waved tearfully at the island as the ferry horn sounded twice in warning.
A sharp wind was rising off the bay.
The ferry eased away from the dock, there was the clanging of bells, the engines were reversed, the boat slipped out into the water, away from the island. Violet stood on the port bow with her arms around her boys, whispering.
On the starboard bow, David, Sandy, and I huddled together against the wind.
We talked softly as the boat moved further and further away from the island. The wind was very sharp by the time we reached the center of the bay. Sandy put her arms around us, and we grinned and embraced her, but the wind was very cutting, it sliced through our clothes, it raged across the deck and finally drove Violet and the two boys inside to sit with the others.
We stayed on deck, huddled together.
It almost seemed as if winter had already come.