Ten Years Upstream
Stuart’s Ellie
More than anything else, what Ellie most remembered from the night she surrendered to Stuart for the first time was the smell of mud and beer vomit, and the sound of the Southern-Pacific filling in the gaps between revving tractor engines. All familiar scents and sensations, every tractor pull the same: tooth-rattling racket, sickening clouds of exhaust, flying mud clots observed with open-mouthed expectation by breathless males captivated by noise and horsepower. The tractors themselves would never pull a cultivator or combine. Rob and Brett had once tossed Ellie into the manure lagoon after they caught her sitting in the saddle of their ‘47 John Deere Model M, restored and adored for the Classic Combined division. They claimed she’d scuffed the opalescent green paint.
Fortunately for Ellie, most of the meets featured more than just tractors dragging a variable weight sled across a field. Food stalls and vendor booths inevitably sprang up between the bleachers and the parking area, sometimes a plywood platform where one of a half dozen local country bands might perform—assuming they could be heard over the din. When the family piled out of the pickup at each event, Ellie would immediately flee the frenzy of sound and churned turf, get a funnel cake or ice cream and occupy herself with the displays of quilts, hand-thrown pottery and Klamath tribal baskets. At the larger competitions, held a couple times a year at Little Liver Dragway and as thick with Westbank townies as country folk, Luellen might make an appearance. But most of the meets were small, less carnival than church picnic with a diesel ambience.
The Victory Chapel Harvest Power Pull came round each September. Fund raiser, Rally Day kick-off for Sunday School, chance for gear heads to show off for the first time after the long summer lay off. The event was held in the field adjacent to the church. Luellen refused to come to Victory Chapel events, which left Ellie on her own to roam among the coagulating scents of fried dough and grilled sausage. Myra followed—mother’s orders—but half a step behind and sullen.
Ellie ignored her as they moved from booth to booth. She looked at myrtle wood puzzle boxes, leather-bound journals, beeswax candles, glass bead earrings their mother would never let them wear.
Before long, Myra folded her arms across her chest. “I want to go watch the pull.”
“Mom said I’m not supposed to leave you alone.”
“This is church, Lizzie. We’re not alone.”
“A tractor pull is not church.”
“Everyone from church is here. We parked in the church parking lot.”
Ellie looked up at the darkening sky. The first stars were just appearing. The shadows beyond the tents and bleachers would be deep enough to hide whatever Myra had in mind. “You just want to go get felt up by your boyfriend.”
“You’re disgusting. I’m telling Mom.”
“Go ahead. I’ll tell her how you gave Trent a pair of your dirty underwear.”
Ellie smiled as Myra disappeared into the crowd gathered at the entrance to the beer tent. A while later, she saw a cluster of red sparks under the dark eaves at the back of the church and knew that’s where Myra had ended up, smoking with a clot of middle school friends, Trent Adams among them. Within a year, Myra would have her accident—that’s what everyone called it, the accident. As if dragging a razor across your inner thighs because your boyfriend dumped you the day after he popped your cherry was mere mishap.
Ellie could tell by the sound of the engines out in the field that the Amateur class was done, the Classic Modified finishing up. Super Modified would be next—big, souped-up machines that could haul the sixty-thousand-pound sled the distance. For these tractors, it wasn’t a question of how far, but how fast. For Ellie, it was only a question of how loud. A lot of the stalls were starting to shut down as folks headed for the bleachers. The Supers always drew the big crowd. Ellie headed in the opposite direction.
She made her way past the last line of stalls and into the darkness beyond the event lights. Fall had started to assert itself, and the evening was cool but not uncomfortable. As she moved further from the action, the grinding sound of the engines grew less obtrusive. Ellie could hear the crickets between pulls. She threw her head back. The lights behind her washed out all but the brightest stars, so she continued down the sloping church lawn toward the road. She liked the sensation of the turf springing back against the bottom of her shoes with each step.
A dozen paces ahead, a figure materialized out of the dark shrubs between the lawn and the parking lot, joined quickly by a second. Ellie stopped.
“Well, if it isn’t Lizzie Kern.”
She recognized the voice. Quentin Quinn, a senior, two years older than Ellie. Older brother of the idiot whose finger Ellie had bitten off. He held a plastic cup in one hand. She knew the boy with him as well. Nate Lewis, also from school. Nate didn’t say anything. Waiting to see what Quentin would do, maybe.
“What do you want?”
“Like you don’t know.” He pointed his middle finger across the cup’s mouth at her. “You fucked up my brother.”
Ellie suppressed a sigh. “That was a long time ago.” She should have gone to watch the Supers.
“Fuck a long time ago, you stupid cow.”
Nate smacked Quentin on the shoulder. “You crack me up, man.”
Quentin grinned. Backlight from the bleachers gleamed on his long, densely packed teeth, a row of sugar corn kernels. He raised his cup, a mock toast, then tossed off its contents in a gulp and threw the cup at her feet. She caught a whiff of beer, likely filched from the beer tent.
“What do you got to say for yourself, psycho?” She’d wandered too far away from the crowd. Too far to run. The church was closer, thirty paces to her left. Probably locked; the windows were all dark. She was alone with Quentin and his stooge beneath the stars. She might yell, but who would hear over the roar of the tractors in the field? Myra and her boyfriend smoking under the eaves at the back of the church? They’d just laugh, if they even noticed.
A band tightened across her stomach. Fear? Anger? She wasn’t sure. Part of her wondered what Quentin and Nate would do if she showed them a little bit of the crazy she’d displayed the day she bit George’s finger off. But they were bigger, older, stronger. Drunk. She drew a breath. She wasn’t sure she had enough crazy in her for two.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Talk don’t grow his finger back.”
Ellie knew George Quinn now treated the missing digit as a badge of honor, waving his middle stub at opportune moments in a play for sympathy or to elicit squeals from girls on the bus. People called him Hilarious George. He even came to the house with Brett from time to time, usually when Ellie wasn’t there. Quentin wasn’t here for his brother. She took a step back and started to turn, but he lunged forward and grabbed her forearm.
“Not so fast, psycho.”
“Let go of me.”
“Maybe I want a bite of something first.” She could hear the beer in his humorless laugh. She tried to wriggle free, but Quentin only tightened his grip.
“We all know what George wanted, don’t we, psycho?”
All that pudding ...
“Please, stop—”
His free hand hooked under her armpit, pulled her back toward him. His breath smelled like half-digested bread. Off in the darkness, Nate slapped his hands together and huffed, a breathy singsong of anticipation. The sound filled her with a sudden terror, as if she’d only in that moment come to understand what they intended to do to her. Quentin thrust his forearm up under her chin, forcing her teeth together. His free hand slapped across her chest, kneaded her breasts like he was softening up a ball of clay. In the distance, Ellie heard the urgent shriek of a Super blasting across the field, followed by the cheers of spectators. “Nate, help me hold her down, man.”
“How about you let her go instead, asshole?”
Not Nate’s voice. Ellie twisted. Stuart Spaneker strode down the lawn out of the darkness. The bleacher lights were at his back so she couldn’t see his face. But his posture and stature were familiar, as was his shaggy head, even in silhouette. She’d spent much of spring and all of summer avoiding him after the note in health class.
“Fuck off, Spaneker. No one invited you to the party.”
“I don’t think that’s the way you want to go with this, Quinn.”
Quentin released his grip on Ellie and turned to Stuart, arms cocked at his sides. She swayed but kept to her feet, moved a step away. Her legs felt wobbly and uncertain. She wanted to run, but Stuart’s appearance seemed to act as some kind of anchor. As he faced off against Quentin, her fear drained out of her, replaced by a strange wonder at his actions. He’d come out of nowhere.
“You may think you’re hot shit, pipsqueak, but we’re not afraid of you. Fucking sophomore.”
“Leave her alone.”
“This ain’t none of your damn business.”
Stuart moved between Ellie and the boys. “I’m making it my business.”
“Just because your father thinks he—”
Stuart reached up and grabbed Quentin by each ear, yanked him straight down. “My father ain’t here, is he? It’s you and me.” Quentin started hollering, at least for as long as it took for him to hit the ground. Ellie moved away from the writhing figures as Stuart jammed Quentin’s face into the damp turf, then dropped one knee into the center of his back below the juncture of his neck and shoulders. Stuart lifted his head, stared down Quentin’s boy. Nate faced him for only a moment, then fled, stumbling and nearly tripping over himself before vanishing into the bushes at the edge of the lawn.
Quentin sputtered, unable to lift his face out of the mud and grass. “You motherfucker!”
“There’s no need for that kind of language.” Stuart had a grin on his face now. Ellie had heard him use that kind of language in the hallways at school.
Quentin managed to get his hand beneath him, but was unable to gain any leverage. Stuart was anything but a large specimen, but he used his weight to advantage. Quentin rocked and kicked his legs without effect.
“Do you know what she did to my brother?”
“He got off easy, you ask me.” Stuart pressed down with his knee. “Now, you gonna apologize and play nice? Because if you don’t, this is the best thing gonna happen to you between now and when you wake up in a body cast.”
“Get the hell off of me!”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Quentin struggled, but succeeded only in grinding his face more deeply into the turf. At last he gave up. For a long moment, he didn’t move. His breath bubbled through the wet grass. Then he went slack. “Whatever. You’re welcome to the crazy bitch.”
Stuart drove his fist into Quentin’s cheek with a sound like a hammer hitting raw meat. “I’m welcome to what, dickweed?”
“Fine, fine! I’m sorry!”
Stuart stood up. Quentin scrambled to his feet, jeans and letter jacket caked with mud. A smear of gluey puke glazed his chin. He looked around blankly, seemed surprised Nate was gone. “Christ.” He staggered off into the darkness.
Stuart turned to her. “You okay?”
Ellie could feel her heartbeat in her throat. “Why did you do that?” Her image of Stuart had never included chivalry.
“I didn’t think he ought to be treating you that way.”
“Maybe he should have written me a note first.”
Stuart didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “I know I seem like a retard to you most of the time.” He turned his head and his eyes gleamed in the light from the bleachers. “I shouldn’t have given you that note.” His expression was contrite, but she caught the hint of a wayward smile. “I like you is all.”
She didn’t know what to say. She wrapped her arms across her chest, listened as faint voices filtered down from the beer tent and beyond. An instant later the sound of a tractor dragging its skid downfield drowned them out. She felt cold, confused. Ellie didn’t like Stuart. But she didn’t like anyone. Luellen was her friend, but aside from her, who else was there? Myra was a weight around her neck, and her brothers were both jerks. Her mother was a tyrant, her father kind in his way but too busy most of the time to notice what went on around him. Everyone else she kept at arm’s length or further, a distance she preferred. But as she stood there, staring back at Stuart Spaneker, thinking about his defense of her, somewhere inside she realized it felt good to have someone on her side for a change.
She took his hand and let him lead her away from the church grounds. Soon, they left behind the lights and noise of the tractor pull. They walked along the dark road back to her house, Stuart gabbing about nothing the whole way. Miles, they walked. She was quiet, letting him natter on, but she felt comfortable and strangely safe. At the house, on her porch, Stuart squeezed her hand and hesitated, and with only the slightest roll of her eyes she presented him her cheek and let him kiss it.
Soon after, her family arrived home. At first her mother was angry. “We had no idea where you were. Your sister was frantic.” Myra looked at her, bored. Ellie smelled Tic Tacs and Marlboro Lights.
“Stuart walked me home. I should have told you.” She didn’t mention Quentin Quinn.
“Stuart Spaneker?” Her mother’s voice hiked up with a note of surprised, yet obvious pleasure.
“Yes.”
“Ah.”
Inevitability bound up in a single syllable, if only she could have recognized it. But it was years before she came to understand that was the night she became someone new, not only in her own eyes, but in the eyes of everyone else. She’d made a deal, bought security and an ephemeral sense of belonging in exchange for a piece of who she was. Stuart’s Ellie.