02 - Double Dutch jump rope
Story index at the bottom
By Calebtras
Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:13 am
Double Dutch jump rope
A couple of weeks into the school year a new student came into our sixth grade classroom. We all stared at her as Mrs. Steiner wrote down her name, gave her books, and led her to her seat. She was black.
Way back then my neighborhood was almost completely Irish Catholic. My mother only reluctantly admitted that Poles and Italians were Catholic, and forget about Puerto Ricans.
At lunch out on the playground I climbed up to the top of the bars. Yvonne, the new girl, stood by herself just watching all the kids on swings, playing kickball and hopscotch, running around and shrieking. She stood very erect and she was taller than the other girls. She had outgrown her dress and it hung above her knees--back then, if we had been a Catholic school instead of public she would have been sent home--making her long brown legs look even longer.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brendan Sullivan walking slowly toward her with his chest puffed out. I knew that pose. Brendan liked to come up behind me and kick my feet out from under me. Everyone knew that I was a quiet kid and didn't like to fight--my mother said I was going to be the priest in the family (I decidedly am not a priest.) Brendan would puff out his chest while I picked up my books, to let everyone know what he had accomplished.
The older boys on the yard stopped what they were doing to watch Brendan. He sauntered right in front of Yvonne and eyed her for a long time. She looked directly back at him. "Well," he said. "Look's like Mrs. Steiner went and got something for the sixth grade class--a pet monkey."
Yvonne took a quick step toward him. In a flash I saw Brendan double over then crumple to the ground gasping. Her punch was so fast I didn't really see it.
That was the moment I started to fall in love.
Yvonne was suspended for three days and when she came back no one messed with her. Some of the girls let her into their jump rope games, and one day she brought an extra long rope in and began teaching them Double Dutch. Whenever it was her turn I would watch. She would tell the girls turning the two ropes, "Faster," until they reached the speed she wanted and she would jump in, her long legs pounding like pistons, so fast her dress didn't have time to fall straight. She could turn 180 degrees, hop, cross her legs and make jump roping into a dance.
In a race in gym class Yvonne beat the boy who had been the fastest kid in the school since fourth grade. She was more developed than our Irish girls, and though no one talked about it you can bet the older boys noticed--her breasts stood at eye level of some of the shorter boys. One day she got in line to be chosen for the kickball game. None of the boys confronted her that girls, especially black girls, didn't play kickball, something of course she already knew. She was chosen last. When she was up, she kicked the ball over the swings, an automatic home run. Then she never played again. When Mrs. Steiner asked her a question in class she answered, almost always right, but never raised her hand. She was very polite and smiled at the girls who were nice to her but I never saw her laugh.
I was fascinated by her. I was much too shy to approach her when other kids were around. I was always watching for a chance to talk to her alone.
Then one Saturday morning when I was sitting on the stoop in front of our apartment building I saw Yvonne walking along the sidewalk carrying her long jump rope looped around her arm.
"Hi, Yvonne," I called.
"Oh, hi, Terry." She smiled. She was wearing shorts and a blue blouse and had her hair back in a rubber band. She was probably happy to see someone she knew; on our block even an adult might mutter something insulting when a black girl passed by.
"Hey, come with me," I said. "I want to show you something."
"I'm going to the park. To jump rope."
"It'll just be a little while."
"What is it?"
"It's sort of a surprise."
She looked me over. She didn't know me at all, but she knew my reputation--quiet, shy, harmless. "Just for a little while?"
"Yeah." I lead her into the building and up the stairs to the roof.
I spent a lot of time on the roof. New Yorkers do a lot of things on rooves--raise pigeons, shoot up drugs, make love. But I went up there to be alone and look down on the street. Our building was on the corner and was the tallest with the biggest roof. It had a low parapet around it and I called it my castle.
"Bend low and don't make any noise," I whispered. I led her to the parapet overlooking the shorter buildings all along the street. I knew that every warm Saturday morning a hippie girl sunbathed on the roof two buildings down, in a bikini with the top undone.
Sure enough, she was lying on a towel, her red-blond hair wafting in the breeze, bare except for her bikini bottom.
Yvonne giggled. "Lookit her. And you up here watchin'. I didn't expect that from you, Terry," she chided. "You ever see her titties?"
"Sometimes, when she props herself up to change the radio or rolls over on her back."
"Yeah? What color are her...you know." She made a circle in the air with her finger. She meant her areolas around the nipples.
"Pinkish."
"You lyin'."
"No, they're pink."
"I wanna see."
"Okay, wait for her to turn over."
"I can't be waitin' all day on this roof." She rose up on her knees and called out, "Hey, gir..."
I clapped one hand on her mouth and one arm around her waist and pulled. We both tumbled back with her on top of me. She was mmphing and laughing and struggling. I knew she was stronger than I was and I felt happy and excited that she didn't really fight to break away. And it was the first time I had ever heard her laugh. I held her tightly until she lay still.
"Promise not to yell?"
She mm hmmed and nodded. I took my hand off her mouth. "That was so rude."
She turned wide-eyed toward me and put her hand on her chest. "Girl lyin' nekkid on the roof and I'm being rude?"
She struggled to sit up. "Take your arm off me, boy."
I reluctantly pulled my arm back. I leaned back against the parapet and waved at the roof, at the tarpaper, the exhaust vents and tv antennas. "This is my castle." I was hoping she would stay with me and talk.
"Castle, huh. Pretty fancy crib. What you do here besides look at nekkid women?"
"Mostly I come to be alone."
She nodded, looking around the roof. "I'm alone too much," she said, almost to herself.
"Well, gotta go." She jumped up. I reached for her wrist, missed, and caught her jump rope.
"Can't you stay just for a little while?'
"Already saw what you wanted to show me." She pulled on her rope.
"I've been wanting to talk to you. For a long time." I gripped the rope with both hands.
"'Bout what?" She yanked on the rope, pulling me to my feet.
I felt this might be my only chance to talk alone with her and was practically in a tug of war with her. She took a quick step toward me so that I stumbled backward, then jerked the rope as hard as she could. She didn't expect me to hang on for dear life, and when I was propelled forward and into her, we both tumbled down, with me on top of her.
This time she didn't struggle. She just threw me a look of exaggerated patience that you might give to a child.
She had a smell that was different from anyone I knew. It was strange, but also very affecting. Her hair had come loose from the rubber band.
I touched her hair. She didn't flinch or complain, so I caressed it. It had a crinkly texture. "Your hair is so pretty."
She gave me an amazed laugh. "That nappy mess?"
"I really like it." I was very serious.
"Boy, what do you know about colored girls' hair?" she teased.
"It's a part of you. So I like ... I love it."
She stopped smiling. "This something like what you wanted to talk about?"
"Yes."
I yearned to kiss her, so I know she must have seen the intensity in my eyes.
"You don't know me," she said darkly.
"I know. But I want to know."
She sized me up for a moment, then decided. "Look, I gotta go. Let me up."
"Please stay with me. In my castle. As my ... princess."
She surprised me with a smile, a gentle smile. "When I was little my father used to call me 'princess.'"
"See--you are a princess. But in my castle you're my princess. We'll be protected up here."
She looked away. "You're going to protect me, Terry?" But she didn't say it mean, just a bit sad. I could see that she was finally taking me seriously. But she didn't know what to make of me.
The rope was lying in a tangle across her. I felt my chance to talk to her was draining away and I had to keep her from leaving or even thinking of leaving until she listened to me. "Let me tie you up." She might think I was crazy or wanted to hurt her, but I had to risk it or she would leave.
Her mouth dropped open. "You want to tie me up with my own jump rope?"
"You're so strong and fast and you can do whatever you want to do. So I have to be able to keep you here, in my castle, as my captive princess."
"Yeah, okay, and for how long?"
"Well ... forever?"
"Boy, I ain't stayin' with you on no roof forever."
"Just for a little while then?" I was negotiating and pleading.
She looked at me and I met her gaze. I was never a good talker; but my mother always said I had St. Francis' eyes. She read me and, I guess was intrigued enough she was willing to offer me a measure of trust.
"Okay. But you remember--just for a little while."
I couldn't get up. I was so close to her, my cheek near hers, my shoulder almost touching her breast, her intoxicating smell.
"Okay, you don't have to hold me down. And you don't have to tie me up."
"No, I do." I stood up, held out my hand and pulled her to her feet. She reached up to tuck her hair back into her rubber band, but I caught her hands.
"No leave it like that. Remember, you're my princess now--just for a little while."
Still holding her hand I walked behind her and crossed her wrists. She waited like that while I untangled the jump rope and found one end. I tied her wrists together then wrapped the rope up around her arms and tied it again below her shoulders.
She wriggled some, testing the ropes. I guess she felt confident that she could break loose if she had to because she gave me a look that was defiant but waiting to see, and she let me begin winding the rest of the long rope around her. With her shoulders pulled back her breasts stood out even more, and I wrapped the rope above them, between them, and below, and kept wrapping around her waist, her long legs, and I tied her ankles together.
I stepped back to look.
"You are one very strange white boy," she said. "Unless..." Her face darkened. "You tryin' pretend I'm your slave? That what this is about?" She started to fight against the rope.
"No!" I was stunned. How could she misunderstand?
Now she was struggling furiously.
I stepped forward, threw my arms around her, shut my eyes tight and kissed her.
She froze.
The thing is, Yvonne was a little taller than I was, so I had pressed my lips into the little indentation between her lower lip and her chin. But I was locked in place now and wouldn't move.
I don't know how long we stayed in this unlikely pose. Then slowly I felt the tension drain out of her. Then she slid her lips down to mine. They were so soft and round. I felt her tongue slip between our lips and moisten them. My eyes and mouth were locked shut. Her tongue probed gently against my teeth until I understood and opened my mouth and her tongue slid over mine. She sucked, gently and rhythmically, until I slid my tongue alongside hers and into her mouth. A sound escaped from deep in my throat, something between a sigh and a gasp so long held down.
I ran my fingers from her forehead, down her face, her long neck, her shoulders, down her arms, over the ropes wrapped around her wrists, and she gripped my hands tightly in hers.
We were twelve years old, and I know this sounds sexual, but that was only a small part of it. Now I can understand that Yvonne was tough or acted tough because she had to. And some of the girls were friendly toward her, but she didn't have any real friends. At school and in the neighborhood she was alone and always on guard, wary and alert. And me, I felt I had always been alone. So when we kissed I was pouring myself into her and she was pouring herself into me so that just for that circle in time we could be alone together.
At some point, still kissing, still with my eyes closed, I undid the knot at her wrists, the knot at her arms, and the rope fell to the ground. She put her arms around my waist and I laced my fingers behind her neck and we kissed lightly, again and again and again. Then she bent down and untied the knot at her ankles. She tucked her hair back into its rubber band. She coiled her jump rope up . I stepped toward her with my arms out to her, but she put her fingers lightly on my chest.
Now I was the one who felt uncertain.
She smiled, maybe sadly. "Remember? You said. 'Just for a little while.'"
"But..."
She quickly stopped me with a gentle kiss. Then, before I could say or do anything she turned and walked to the door.
I watched her go.
Then I went slowly to the parapet and looked down at the street. She came out of the entrance and walked down the sidewalk, with her proud straight gait, her rope looped over her arm. I thought I saw, perhaps imagined, a special little spring in her step.
As for me, I know how I felt. I was a different person from the boy who had woke up that morning.
TC
Calebtras
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Calebtras' stories
- 01 - Cops & Robbers (m/f)
- 02 - Double Dutch jump rope (m/f)
- 03 - Ragtie with Gerald and Kathleen (mf/mm, m/f)
- 04 - String tied at the zoo (mf/f)
Index of all stories in the "Archive for Everyone" section