“Watch out for broken glass,” he said.
They walked through the camp, stopping here and there to talk with other kids, all of them still excited from the day’s events, all of them eager to trade stories about what for them had been the most thrilling experience in their lives. Scarcely any of them mentioned the performers: the performers were only secondary to this event. Judd and Lissie sat with kids they didn’t know, and shared their pot, and warmed themselves by the fires of strangers made friends through a common bond.
They could not have fully explained the bond if they’d tried. It had something to do with being young and being here where they were able to express themselves without restraint. It wasn’t just being able to smoke pot in the open without fear of arrest or imprisonment, it wasn’t just seeing all these hundreds of thousands of other kids who looked the way they did, and dressed the way they did, and talked the way they did, all together in one place, stretching from horizon to horizon, some of them acres away from the stage where they could not have seen or even heard the performers clearly despite the amplifiers that had blared from eighty-foot-high scaffolds, it wasn’t any of that separately, but all of it together. They had got it together at last, they had come from everywhere to do this thing, to be this thing. They were the event, a conglomerate entity with a single voice. Us.
As they wandered back leisurely toward the slope upon which the tent was pitched, Judd said, “ ‘A little touch of Harry in the night.’ ” He saw the puzzled look on her face, and said, “Do you know it?”
“No,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
“Careful,” he said, and extended his hand to help her over a rock ledge. She took his hand. He did not release it when they were on firm ground again.
“Henry the Fifth,” he said. “The scene before the battle. When he’s walking through the camp, talking to the soldiers. He’s in disguise, you know... don’t you know Henry the Fifth?”
She shook her head. She was very much aware of his hand, the fingers gently clasped around her own. The glowing fires were behind them now, they climbed steadily toward where the tent was pitched.
“ ‘Now entertain conjecture of a time,’ ” Judd said, almost in a whisper, and it took her a moment to realize he was quoting, “ ‘When creeping murmur and the poring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe.’ Reminds me of this, I don’t know why.”
“Don’t stop,” she said.
“Well...”
“Please.”
“ ‘From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, the hum of either army stilly sounds, that the fix’d sentinels almost receive the secret whispers of each other’s watch. Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames’... well, that’s enough,” he said, and squeezed her hand.
“Armies?” she said, “This reminds you of armies?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“But... why?”
“I don’t know. It just seems like an army to me.”
“And the other army?”
“The other army?” He turned to her, and grinned, and again squeezed her hand. “Why, them, Lissie,” he said. “Them.”
When they got back to the tent, the others were asleep, the kerosene lamp was out. He prepared a place for her near where Rusty was sleeping, a blanket on the ground, another to cover her. They undressed silently in the darkness. She took off the B.U. sweatshirt and her jeans, but she left on her panties. He went to the sleeping bag, and she went to the blankets on the other side of the tent.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night,” she answered, and crawled between the blankets. She lay in the darkness, listening to the breathing, Suzie’s and Rusty’s, trying to isolate Judd’s. Her heart was pounding. She lay very still for what seemed like a long time.
“Lissie?” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“Are you asleep?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you come over here?”
“Well...”
“Well what?”
“Well... I don’t know.”
“Come on over.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Isn’t it cold over there, all alone under that blanket?”
“Well...”
“Isn’t it?”
“Well... I guess so.”
“Then come on over here.”
“Well...”
“Come on.”
“Well... just for a minute.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay, just for a minute.”
Wearing only her panties, pulling the blanket around her, she moved to his sleeping bag. He had already unzipped it; he opened the flap wide for her, and she crawled in beside him.
“So,” he whispered, “hello.”
“Hello,” she whispered.
They fell silent. Across the tent, she could hear Rusty’s gentle breathing and Suzie’s light snoring. She was suddenly trembling beside him.
“Still cold?” he whispered.
“Yes, I... guess so.”
“Here,” he said, and put his arms around her.
“Listen, don’t get any...”
“You’re very pretty,” he said.
“Sure.”
“You are.”
“Sure.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” she said. She was still trembling. She wished she could stop trembling. “How... how old are you?” she asked.
“Nineteen,” he said.
“I thought you were older... no, don’t do that,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Well...”
“Well what?”
“Well, why would you want to?”
“Want to?”
“I’m so... small,” she said.
“So?” he said.
“So...”
“Well...”
“Be still,” he said, and kissed her.
She thought for a moment, Hey, watch out, Liss, she thought, Oh, wow, as his tongue parted her lips, and moved into her mouth, caressing her own tongue, his hand gently kneading her breast, the nipple rising, she thought Hey! and pulled her mouth from his and said, “Hey, come on.”
“You said a minute.”
“Well...”
“It hasn’t been thirty seconds.”
“Well...”
“Be still,” he said again.
His lips touched hers, gently, but the hand kneading her breast was insistent.
“You have terrific nipples,” he said.
“Sure. Listen...”
“Yes?”
“We’d better cut this out.”
“Why?”
“Because... well, listen, let’s just cut it out, okay?”
“No,” he said.
“Judd...”
“Yes?”
“Listen... I...”
His hand moved from her breast. She felt it suddenly on her panties, between her legs, touching her there where no one had ever...
“Listen,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Cut it out, okay?”
“No.”
“Listen, take your hand away, okay?” she said, and reached for his wrist, and caught it and said, “Come on now.”
“No,” he said.
“Well, I’m not about to...” she started to say, and he shook her hand loose, and began lowering her panties over her belly, “Hey, listen,” she whispered, pulling them down over her nakedness, “Listen, Judd really, this,” and suddenly he moved in against her, and she felt his hardness and said, started to say, “Hey, come on...” but he took her hand in his own and brought it to him, brought it gently to him, and she said, “Judd, listen” and he opened her hand and then closed her fingers around him.