Machine Dreams

harsh:
Don’t you try telling me how to speak.
Then silence but for the water running as she rinsed dishes, and the announcer’s voice continued. Billy had thrown his leg over Danner’s as they lay on the rug; he turned to her and silently mouthed,
Jigaboo.
It was a word that had made them laugh when they were younger, but Danner turned away now contemptuously. The police were the bad ones; they were the ones with the dogs. No one spoke of it in social studies class at the junior high. They were supposed to discuss current events every Thursday when the
Scholastic Readers
were handed out; once the front of the six-page paper was a big murky photo of the marchers. Further on was a photo of President Kennedy in the new Rose Garden, and the teacher discussed the history of the White House.
Hurrah for the red, white, and blue
were the real words of the familiar “Stars and Stripes Forever” march, but the kids at school sang a parody about mothers and ducks. Bored at school, Danner had sung the words to herself, a silent rhythm in her mind, but she thought the word
fuck
instead of
duck.
Fuck was the word written all over basement walls of the old school; it was scrawled even on the big round pipes that were too hot to touch. Scrawled with crayon that melted and left a bright wax thickness, then a pale stain after the janitor scraped the texture off. There were ghostly fucks every few feet along the round steaming pipes; an angry, clinched word, wild. A while ago Danner had mentioned the graffiti to her mother, but Jean wouldn’t say the word even to comment.
It’s just as bad to curse about sexual matters as to take the Lord’s name in vain.
Danner didn’t talk about fucking to Billy, but surely he already knew.
    The noise of the band moved off and Danner wished she were at home; the Boy Scouts were marching past and she was embarrassed to see them. Her embarrassment, an anxious sadness, confused her. The Scouts were some of the same boys from school, their crew cuts covered by the khaki caps, and the backs of their necks nearly shaved. Their thin necks looked shy and vulnerable; they did nothing but walk, shuffling a little, the sound barely audible. It wasn’t easy to walk through the entire parade in the heat; only boys thirteen and up were allowed. Billy wouldn’t march with the Scouts until next year, but Danner wished he’dquit before the event took place. Why couldn’t he just lose interest? The little cloth merit badges looked like women’s jewelry on the sashes they wore across their chests; the yellow scarves seemed feminine too, caught at the throat with metal clasps. She’d seen Billy’s up close—it was an eagle like those on Army uniforms or military seals. Painted to look like gold or brass but only iron underneath, dull gray where the wing was scratched. Danner stepped back from the curb and wished them all out of sight as the two leaders, men dressed in drab green and wearing berets, shifted the banner they carried. Of course the men carried it; adults would have felt silly walking along empty-handed. The boys, perhaps fifty of them, were all too warm in their long-sleeved dark shirts. The two Negro boys in the fourth row were wearing Keds instead of leather Buster Browns with laces, but their socks were dark. Danner knew Scouts had to have special black nylon socks with elastic garters; the garters had pleased Jean because they were old-fashioned.
Billy, you will so wear them; they’re part of the uniform and I paid good money for them.
Danner stared at her own feet so as not to look; her white sandals were grass-stained and knicked where she’d scuffed them. “Left, Left, Left right left” came the soft voices of the Scouts, meant to be so soft no one could hear.
    Danner wiped her face with her hands. She wanted to sit in the shade but the best part of the parade was coming; she looked down the route and saw the first of the Queen’s Court floats, vast, shuddering as it moved forward. The biggest floats were constructed over the tractors that pulled them, tractor and driver and hitch hidden in a frame of wood and chicken wire. They were hay wagons decorated in barns, the frames completely covered with crepe paper and thousands of Kleenex roses, colors arranged to make patterns or spell words: MONONGAHELA POWER, ALLEGHENY BELL. But the Queen’s Court floats were always purely white, surging constant and slow through the long parade. Hidden teenage boys watched from inside through