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{counting} gale acuff When Miss Hooker's not looking I slip back into the Sunday School classroom to ask her if she'll be my girlfriend even though she's plenty old, maybe 25, to my 9 but I'm in love so I don't care because love is bigger than ciphering or take-aways or multiplication or division and numbers aren't that real anyway, not like people are, or they're real in a different way, like Jesus or God or the Holy Ghost. I'm not too sure because I'm still a kid, in the third grade and I've got about nine more years to go before I graduate and know it all --they'll give me a paper that will prove it, a sheepskin, it's called, and I'll wear a robe and a funny hat with a swinging string and I'll march up the aisle and then climb steps and walk on stage and wait my turn and take it from the principal, I guess, or the President of the United States at the time, and all this to music, and my father and mother and maybe my dog will be sitting in the audience, in folding chairs, and applauding and crying, well maybe Mother but maybe Father, too, if he's drunk, and my dog might arf arf and maybe I'll wave. And somewhere out there is Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher, who will be--but I failed arithmetic in second grade--34, and she'll be waiting for me to shake my father's hand and to be kissed by Mother and my dog can shake hands, too, but he's not much of a kisser, and Miss Hooker and I will find each other in the crowd, and another good word for crowd is throng, I learned that in school last week but I'm sorry to say not much more, and she'll say, Congratulations, Gale, which will sound like I love you to me, and I'll say, Thank you, Miss Hooker, because though I'll know her first name by then I won't know whether I should use it or not but she'll take my hand and I'll look right in her eyes to see what I wish her mouth would say as if the words were boiling to the top like beans and I hope they come together as If you ask me to marry you now I'll do it. But when we're alone in class and she says, Why, Gale, there you are again, I thought you'd left with the other children, what can I do for you? I don't know what to say except, Can I erase the board for you and then clap the erasers and stack the hymnals back on your desk and close the window and walk you to your car? Those aren't the words of love I meant to say but I'm nervous, what with her red hair and green eyes and the mole on her nose and those freckles--if I connected the dots then we'd be there until next Sunday but that's love, which is better than education or a story from the Bible, saving, of course, David and Goliath, and that Lazarus, come forth!--maybe not better but almost as good. Miss Hooker says, Why, that's very kind of you, so I clean up and walk her to her car, and open her door and look away as she settles in so I don't see her legs and any more of what I'm not supposed to know but that's not her fault, and when she's in I slam it and take a chance, like guessing the answer in arithmetic, I love you, but her window was rolled up, I forgot, so she rolls it down and asks, What was that you said, and God comes to me and gives me courage so I repeat, I love you, Miss Hooker, and keep my eyes on her eyes when they're not on her freckles or both lips and she says Why, I love you, too, you sweet boy, see you next week, and I stand clear as she drives off and I don't move until she's out of sight and what's left is dust and heat and exhaust. I don't know how to top it next week so I might ask her to marry me then and if she says no then in another week I'll ask her if she can wait at least 'til I'm old enough and not marry any other man, not that I'm one now but I'm counting. If she says no again I'll just pray like Hell every night she'll be mine one day. Or maybe she's mine already and this is as far as love goes but I don't think so. We still have to multiply. |
