Copyright 1980 by Stanley Wiater. All Rights Reserved.

...Contact Stanley Wiater

 

I only reveals this when boys the likes of you starts to gettin' ideas about girls the likes of me. I knows it's popular talk all 'bout that the bigger a girl becomes on certain areas of her tops and bottoms, the littler our brains become, but that ain't always truth, though sometimes I must declare some of us like to act such that it is. Which is why I carry this small leather pouch in my lady's bag whenever I'm not too sure about the gentlemanly 'tentions of my present company.

A good luck charm, you say? You could say that, if you was one to go and believe in luck. I just believes in knowin' what there is to knows, and when the time comes, how to rightly use what you knows. No sir, what's in this here pouch used to belong to the Toucher.

Now, you never heared of him, and I don't think any of the menfolk 'round here knew him--least not by what we called him, as just...the Toucher. I was a sight lesser of age then, though my kin would say I was always more than pleasant to rest eyes upon. And I wasn't underdeveloped under the top of my head back then, neither! I won't deny I'm still developin' in some of them other places, from the way I keep pushin' through my clothes before I wears 'em out.

Anyways, when I was a little one, 'bout eleven, twelve years, I was still a mite older than my girl friends, and I don't mean just by calendar reckonin'. Even then, I was interested in more than dolls, dressin' up frilly, and seeing how many wrapped sweets I could make disappear in a sittin'. Don't you laugh, but I actually desired to learn about other things when I was small, and truly 'joyed sittin' near the elders and listenin' to them tell grown-up talk about grown-up matters. I figure they never gave me no mind, sittin' so close to ear-shot--they probably figured I didn't understand most of the adult talk they was speakin'.

Well, some I truly didn't--like 'scussin' whether to bring in that 'lectricity stuff on wires--but some I did. The few books and magazines I came across in the attics and sittin' rooms helped me a little, but not always much. And what I was learnin' then in school wouldn't help a blind coalminer stumble. But like I says, I did like to listen; I 'joyed tryin' to puzzle out them mysterious things we little ones wasn't even supposed to be interested in. Or to ever maybe understand them right off and then refigure just among ourselves if they meant anything to us.

Anyhows, it was late one summer that the Toucher came into our lives.

That wasn't his real name--course not! If I tells you his Christian name, you'd mayhaps have heard of it, it bein' the same as some of his relations that still live 'bouts the next range. He was a real person, mark for certain he was, and he had come to this town to visit with these relatives of his.

He was the quiet type, as you might've figured. He didn't have to do nothin' while he was here, on accounts of he was just s'posed to be visitin', and none of us knew where he had comes from or what he did while he was back there.

Mayhaps he'd had to come here 'cause of things that'd gone on before in his home town. He didn't look like no coal digger's son, for certain. But naturally, the grown-ups never told us a thing, one way or the other. And most of us just thought he was another new grown-up, kinda nice lookin', kind of quiet, like I says.

It was only after Mary Louise Jennings got hurt by him that we started to call him by that name.

I suppose "hurt" is not 'xactly the true and proper word, not seein' she was cut up or shot or run over or anything like that kinda hurt. But she came arunnin' to me near twilight that muggy August day, with her eyes real red and puffy from crying out all her tears, and it was a long, long time before she was able to cry afters. Truth was, she'd been too afraid to go to her folks after it happened, and seein' how her and t'other girls kinda looked to me as understandin' things they didn't, she drew out for me the whole re'curance of the sorry events.

I told her then what I figured had happened to her, and calmed her into not worryin'; that certain things had been left untouched so she wouldn't have to go to Doc Fitchatt or to the pastor 'bout anything unless she really wanted to. She was fair to mortified if she should tell her folks 'bout what this man had done to her, but I warned her that the man--the Toucher--would just go and plain deny the sorry event, and then might be fit to call Mary Louise a sassy, bald-faced liar. And worse things than that. I told her just to keep it to us girls, and hope real real hard that such a sad and sorry 'curance would not re'cur again.

But you know that, 'cept for some finicky weather, things don't change all that much during the long and dry summer days up here along the holler. And I guess neither do the nights.

Well, things stayed quiet for a few weeks afters, and we had good times about; swimmin', campin', goin' to the Friday night dances. But you know too, sometimes people don't always choose the chaperones too smartly: the Toucher happened to be one of 'em that was overseeing the dance held at the school. Me, I was home with a poison sumac rash I should've had the fair sense not to obtain in the first place, but anyhows I myself was not there to cause any kinda rukus.

Like the Toucher was.

Leaving out the sad and grimy details, it then so happened that Debra Ann Marples was chasin' fireflies out back. So he went to chasin' her when nobody was near about. And caught her.

'Siderin' the indecent condition her lacy Sunday best dress was in when she shows it to me the followin', I knew then that the Toucher had pleased his hands and fingers a whole lot. His mouth too, Debra Ann said, who to this day can't let anyone kiss her there without first wantin' to upchuck.

Debra Ann told me she had fibbed a big raccon'd come startled her, and she'd fallen down and spoilt her dress that way, and her folks believed this after whupping her good still for ruinin' her best clothing. Yet she knowed her family would be severely taken in hurt and 'barrassment if they had refigured the truth, and also 'cause the grown-ups liked the Toucher so much who didn't know what he was really like, that they just mightn't not believe the plain and clear truth either. She believed me, though, after I whispered 'bout Mary Louise; how she was also okay deep inside, and there was nothin' on the outside which would show she had ever been touched like that. Again, it had to be our terrible secret...no fool grown-ups allowed.

Now of course I was gettin' worried meanwhiles. Havin' this kind of bad knowledge fillin' my head and not havin' anyone to let off some of the pressures I was gettin' put on me. By then I knews what the Toucher was doin' wasn't nothin' right or natural, but I didn't know how I could tell anyone--anyone who could put a halt on his touching any more of us, that is. And never mind believing our words against his. But he was hurtin' my friends--that was clear for certain--and I didn't like it at all.

Him neither.

So we began to play together more and more often, in the manner that we didn't go 'round by ourselves alone as much like we used to've done. We never knew when the Toucher would be 'round, seein' as he didn't have no job or missus or anything that tied him to bein' someplace for sure at any particular time.

He could walk 'round anywheres, be out at all hours, and was still always grown-up 'spectable, bein' as we also never saw him at Miss Olivia's sportin' house, or near any of the gin mills and miner's saloons. While we was at the age when most folks still looked at us as little dolls, and not as girls slowly but surely blossomin' into young women. So we didn't have to act overly 'sponsible and timidtame either, and could wanders 'bout pretty much where we pleased without anyone worryin' where we was or if we was out alone.

So, when Abigal Carathews was out pickin' wild flowers for her momma's birthday, it was one of those times when she was by her lonesome. And when the Toucher just happened to've been trailin' her for awhiles, all the way from main road out to the fields on Old Man Carter's property.

He had her out there in the tall grass for several hours. At least that is how long Abigal said it seemed like when I went to visit at her house after not seein' her outside for a fair number of days. She had told her folks she'd gotten ahold of a summer sickness, and since school was out anyways, they hadn't been too upset 'bout her milingerin' in bed in case she was just makin' it up out of whole cloth, her bein' overnight unhealthy and all.

None of us'd had what they nowadays call a "hygenic education" then, and Abigal, she was plenty ascared of what'd happened--but not as ascared as she would've been if she'd understood what the Toucher probably was truly after, but only found relief instead with us young'uns. As I says, the readin' I sneaked on my own, and the big ears I'd grow whenever grown-ups thought they was alone, taught me more 'bout such personal and intimate things than anybody I'd ever talked to or ever had explained to me.

Personal things 'bout girls and boys, so don't think for a silvery moon minute I am unawares why you asked me to walk out all this way, just 'cause the band's takin' a breather!

Well, we was all gettin' pretty bad frights by now, and it was decided to let every girl we knew in on what'd really happened to Abigal and the others, so that they could be on their guard 'gainst the Toucher from now on. They all didn't understand right off what it even was they had to be 'fraid of. A couple of 'em thought the man was right fair lookin' and kinda nice, and truly didn't know what they was s'posed to be ascared of if they ever found themselves 'lone with him.

Trouble there was, I didn't knows 'nough about regular menfolk to explain what they was like, never you mind a man who wasn't anywheres "regular" in his womanly desires!

Those who'd been touched now took to carryin' knives and razor shaving handles hawked from kitchen drawers and their daddies' dressing tables. Most of the other girls in town did too, seein' how four of us was awares of what was goin' on, and we all couldn't be capable of making up such a vulgar and terrible tale if some parts of it was not near to true. And we had to tell 'em the Toucher never went back to the same girl twice, so it wasn't those who had been touched who had to worry, but those who hadn't....

That whole summer, our kinfolk never noticed no changes in any of us, but that's the way it is with grown-ups, who just 'bout 'nore your livin' existence...'til you do somethin' they don't wish to see or hear tell about! But we was afraid, we purely was. And we carried sharp things in our lady's bags, and in our pants and dress pockets; things that could hurt back if someone came too close with their touchin'. And we didn't play much out of doors any time, though we had several weeks of playing out of doors weather still owed to us.

My daddy'd been working on the porch of our house durin' that same time--this was before he got sent overseas to fight-- and he'd sent me into town to pick up a carton of newfangled roofin' nails he'd ordered. I could've took my bike, but one of the tires was newly flat, and I hadn't gotten around to fixin' it even though I knew how. So when my daddy sent me on the errand, my own two sore feet was the main source of 'portation gettin' there.

Our town has not growed all that much since these events took place, so you don't have to strain your brain too far to imagine how quiet things can get when its too hot for anyone but a young miss to be doin' business downtown when everyone else is inside drinkin' cold beer or catchin' an extra twenty winks. I remembers it seemed more like a Sunday mornin' than a Saturday afternoon, is how still and quiet and peaceful was everything.

Anyways, the Toucher must've been watchin' afore I entered the hardware store, and knowed I would then cut through the back alleyway as a shorter route back to main road and home. 'Cause he's standin' there--"big as life" like they says in them magazines--his shy smile and rattlesnake hands ready for me just as I reached the deserted lot behind the store.

I'd never seen him so close up afore, and at first look he weren't nothin' scary to look at. Truth to tell, you look a little like him yourself in this moonlight. But anyways, I knew this man truly, and I was 'memberin' what he'd done to my friends, so I wasn't goin' to be fooled or sweet-talked into lettin' him get me on the ground so's he could do whatever he wanted to my untouched person.

But I had the carton of long nails, which was heavy, but not that heavy, sittin' inside the paper bag. I don't recollect what told me to do this, but when the Toucher started to bend down and reach me for me with those long fingery hands, I swung that bag of sharp-tailed nails as fierce as I could 'gainst his face.

He went down to the dirt, hard, without utterin' a word. I wasn't sure if I'd knocked him proper or just stunned him like, so afore he could get to his feet again I swung that bag of nails a few more times 'gainst the back of his skull just to make for sure. The carton inside had broken open by now, and with the bare nails stickin' out all wet and drippy stained, the bag felt lighter somehows by the time I was done.

So that was the last and final 'casion the Toucher ever bothered any of us, and bein' it was some summers back, you prob'bly had yet to move here to knows 'bout the big hush-hush scandal, and 'bout all the questions that went unanswered. Unanswered for the grown-ups, that is, who never suspected any of us when it was finally over.

Suspect of what, you still want to know?

You see, we each got somethin' to remember the Toucher by, me and those I got together quick and gathered in that deserted back lot while he was still breathin'. We didn't bury him alive, if that's what you're thinkin'. None of us're like that, and you're more the fool to think such a evil thought if you do. But like I says, we all got things from him to 'member what he had done to us, before he was finally put away by the grown-ups.

Which is why I carry this pouch when I foresee my beaus might try something a few beats too fast for my maiden heart.

Take a look inside. Don't be skittish--tain't nothin' you never seen before!

This is one of the things he touched us with that dark, long ago summer. You see now? He ain't goin' to be touchin' any girls anywhere with what we let him retain. I got the biggest part 'cause of my bein' the only one who knew what counted the most. I forgets if all the others have kept theirs, but last time I gossiped with Mary Louise, she still had his left thumb. And Debra Ann his tongue....

 

THE END

 

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