You can’t practice piano forever. Sometimes you have to pee.

Tammy sat on the toilet looking out the window. At the rear of the second-floor apartment, the window allowed a good view of the alley. Angled across the way, Mrs. Fletcher’s black and white cat sprawled on its belly in a thin strip of sunlight. Afternoon was turning to late afternoon, but the mid-summer sun, still high, came down hard on Daddy’s beans and squash and melons.

Tammy finished her pee and sighed and wiped and looked down at her just-coming-in puff of pubic fleece, fine and blond and barely there. Tentatively, she pushed her middle finger into the fold. Maybe this time I’ll be brave enough, she thought. Her friend Marissa had told her that it was like standing up on fallen-asleep feet, only more concentrated and all-at-once ... suddenly inside-out and everywhere. “You mean like a shock,” Tammy had asked. “Yeah, only smoother,” Marissa had answered. “But where do I ... touch?” Tammy wanted to know. “Wherever it feels good,” Marissa said, “Inside, out, top, bottom ... The important thing is to keep doing it ... until it happens.”

So far this summer Tammy had always stopped short. She’d found plenty of feel-good places. Sometimes she wished there were just one right spot. So she’d know she had it. The bump was getting hard. That was the best, right above, or below, or just to the side, with pressure and wiggling and ... A word popped into her mind: wibble-wobble. It made her laugh, and she lost her concentration.

The cat had its eye on a robin. Hop hop hop, went the robin. The cat waited. Tammy slipped her forefinger into the crease as she watched the cat. She wasn’t sure if she wanted the cat to catch the bird. One bite and that bird’ be dead. Tammy didn’t know if she could watch. She moved her finger faster, firmer. I could cry out, she thought; I could warn the bird. But somehow Tammy knew she wouldn’t be able to make a sound. Hop hop, went the robin. Two steps closer to the cat.

Tammy put her other hand on her breast. Left hand on right breast feeling the flesh through the cotton shirt, the pad of her thumb on top, pressing down, the little finger curled up, touching the puffed nipple flesh from below. Tammy wasn’t aware she was doing this. Her breasts were small, barely enough to bulge her red and white striped tee. Meanwhile the tip of her right forefinger tickled her tiny pee place.

And then a little lower, into the slim damp hole, and then up, up to the tiny knot of clit. Tammy shivered and looked down, and started moving her girl-thin thighs apart, together, apart, together...

The building shook. Oh God, Tammy thought. The sunny screech sheared airward, as if the hugest hawk had taken the lamb, the bunny, and the baby, leaving only a few short shivers, a long silver shadow, and the ground’s thrumming murmur.

But the ground wasn’t there. Where am I? Tammy wondered. A grayness, dirty as fog, but firmer, blocked the view, all but the uppermost. Pale blue there. A hot high sky. Tammy reached out the open window and touched the warm metal. She leaned out. The side of a truck. A big one. Only inches from the building. “Ho,” she said.

Down and to her left was the cab roof, dull and red, and in the cab’s window a boy was looking up at her. He had thin arms and a thin face and his skin was as shiny and black as she had ever seen, black and shiny as her patent leather pumps which she wore only for recitals. The boy had woolly black hair, not too long, with a curly tuft sticking up right in front. “Ho,” she said.

The boy was grinning foolishly. “I’m stuck,” he said.

“I can see that,” Tammy said. “This alley’s not made for trucks. Not of that size, anyway. What are you doing here?”

“Trying to get to the ‘spressway?” the boy said, a narrow crack to his voice. He shrugged, and from the top Tammy noticed his thin shoulders.

“This isn’t the way to the expressway,” Tammy said. “Why’d you turn in here?”

“Out there on the street, I saw this sign saying no trucks,” the boy said. “So I turned quick onto the next street. Only there the sign be saying one way ... the other way. So I steered in here. Got stuck.”

“I see,” Tammy said. “Why don’t you just back out?”

“I ain’t too good with reverse,” the boy said. “I tend to jerk.”

“Ah,” Tammy said. “Did you steal that truck? You seem kind of little to be driving something that big.”

“Oh no,” the boy said. “I ain’t stealed it. It’s my uncle’s. He’s supposed to make the trip to Omaha. But he got a bad fever. I’ve drove it before with him. Lots. We figured I could do it alone ok.”

“Well, first you’d better get unstuck,” Tammy said. “Can’t you just creep forward?”

“It screeches god-awful,” the boy said. “I’m afraid I’ll rip down the building.”

“Actually you’re clear on this side,” Tammy told him. “You’re touching the bricks, but it don’t look like you’re snagged. Can you see the other side in your mirror?”

“No ma’am,” the boy said. “The mirror’s all bent. I can’t open the door up on neither side.”

“Well, just a second,” Tammy said, “I bet if I climbed up on the windowsill I could get up on your roof and check things out.” Tammy was about to hoist herself up when she remembered her shorts and panties were still around her ankles. “Oops,” she said.

“What?” said the boy.

“Nothing,” Tammy answered, pulling up her clothes. “I’m going to climb up. Don’t go anywheres.” The truck was less than a foot from the bathroom window, and Tammy wasn’t worried about falling. From the windowsill she eased herself up, gripped the roof of the truck, and then swung her leg over the top. In a moment she was on the roof. Hot.

“God it’s blistering up here,” she said. “Ow ow ow.” She pulled down her shorts and stood on them. There was nothing else to do. The truck top was a desert of dust. Bet no one’s ever been up here before, Tammy thought. She surveyed the expanse of truck roof. “I see what the problem is,” Tammy reported a moment later. “You’ve caught Mrs. Fletcher’s cactus box.” Tammy wasn’t sure if the boy could hear her. Cautiously, using her shorts as a moveable mat, she shuffled her way across the roof. The cactus box was in bad shape. Tammy squatted over it to inspect the damage. The plants themselves were jumbled about in their clay pots, upended, nearly rootless. The box was badly skewed, resting on the roof, pinned to Mrs. Fletcher’s window ledge by a single nail through a flimsy strip of weathered canvas strapping. Tammy yanked. The fabric began to give. Suddenly the nail popped. Easy as pie, Tammy said to herself. She set the debris on the roof and peered over the far edge. Snug, but nothing touching. Tammy was about to begin working her way back across the truck when she noticed something. Lettering faint but legible. Fingered in the dust were the words:

Milton Cumbee is a pussyboy!

Tammy mopped her way back to the driver’s side. “I think you’re free now,” she called down. “Can you just pull ahead, slowly?”

“If I jerk you’ll go flying,” the boy said. “Maybe you’d better...”

“I’ll be all right,” Tammy said. “I’ve had gymnastics. I’ll just go to the middle and squat real low.”

The truck lurched forward. Even expecting it, Tammy couldn’t withstand the jolt. She found herself sitting on the hot metal. “Eeeee,” she squealed, feeling the shrill heat against her bottom. Quickly she stood, leaning into the truck’s slow motion, pinching the fabric of her panties, and tugging it away from her bottom, as if that would ease the pain. For a moment Tammy considered jumping over the side, a fifteen foot drop, maybe twenty. “Stop,” she yelled. “Stop the truck.”

Jolted a second time, Tammy quickly recovered into a crouch. “Ok, I’m coming down,” she said. But now the truck, well away from the walls, idled where the alley had opened up. “What am I going to do?” she called to the driver. He seemed puzzled by the problem. Leaving her dirtied shorts on the trailer roof, Tammy hopped onto the cab roof, her bare feet thumping the dull metal. Not a degree cooler. Without consciously deciding it, Tammy tromped across the roof, rolled onto her belly, and slipped her feet over the side. “Catch me,” she yelled, and she felt the boy’s hands on her legs, and then her hips, and then her back, as she slithered through the cab window and onto his lap.

“Yow,” she said, “It’s so hot up there. Don’t you ever dust? I swear I’m near branded.”

She got out of the boy’s arms and sat on the seat beside him.

“Well,” she said, “What are we waiting for? Put her in gear and let’s go.” She blew on her palms.

“Go?” he said.

“You’ll never get to Omaha if I don’t show you where the spressway is. Out the alley and turn right.”

They were thundering down the Interstate. Tammy had never ridden up so high. She was just beginning to get used to the rolling rhythms, the steady bounce, the crazy consistent hum of the hot leather seat. It was relaxing. More than relaxing, actually. Tammy felt a pleasant tingle. The slow seep of excitement. Every now and then the boy would look over at her. How could he help but notice the tight points of her nipples?

“You sure you’re old enough to drive this thing?”

“I’m old enough. Been sixteen for more ‘n a month.”

“Sixteen,” Tammy said. “Why I’m almost sixteen. You can’t get a truck license at sixteen.”

“Truck license?” the boy said.

“What if you get pulled over?”

“Pulled over?”

“You know, by the cops.”

“Why’d they want to pull me over for?”

“Ho!” Tammy exclaimed. “And what about the weigh stations?”

“What about ‘em?”

“Ok, have it your way. Just drive.”

“What you think I’m doing?”

“It worries me when you take your eyes off the road.”

Tammy watched the scenery for a while. It was flat.

“In case you’re wondering,” Tammy said, “I don’t always go around without any pants.”

“How come?” the boy said.

“How come what?” Tammy said.

“How come you’re not wearing any pants?”

“I left them on the top of your silly truck,” Tammy said. “With Mrs. Fletcher’s wrecked cactus. They’re probably baked to death right now.”

“Why’d you leave them up there?”

“I’d’ve burnt my feet,” Tammy said. “Anyway the pants are ruined. Caked with dirt and grime.”

“Huh?” said the boy.

“Nothing,” said Tammy.

“I’m sorry about your pants,” the boy said.

“That’s ok,” Tammy said.

“If I had any extra I’d give ‘em to you.”

“It’s cooler this way,” Tammy said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“I don’t mind,” the boy said, “Cept what happens when you have to go out?”

“Good point,” Tammy said. She stretched, letting the truck’s rattle roll through her body. The sun was low now, hot and hard, and when she squinted, frazzles of red fire winked and sizzled against her eyes.

In Iowa she reached for the radio.

“It’s broke,” the boy said.

“Broke,” Tammy exclaimed. “How can you go driving in the country without tunes?”

“Well, I can,” the boy said. “I don’t like music.”

“How can you not like music?”

“I don’t know ... I just don’t. It’s just a waste of time. It gets in the way of your thoughts.”

“It doesn’t get in the way of MY thoughts.”

“I meant my thoughts.”

“I know. What kind of thoughts?”

The boy was silent for a while. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean I can’t tell you. I have them, but I can’t tell you about them.”

“Why, are they secret?” Tammy asked. “Are they sex thoughts?”

“More ‘n that,” the boy said.

“More than sex thoughts. Ho, what could be more than sex thoughts?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “Truth, beauty, the way the world should be.”

“Ho,” Tammy said. “Sounds like sex thoughts to me. Actually, you know what it sounds like?”

“What?” the boy asked.

“Music!”

The boy laughed.

“You sure this radio’s broke? You sure you just don’t want me to turn it on because I might hear about you on the news. ‘Authorities are still on the lookout for Milton Cumbee. The 16 year old black youth is wanted for murder, rape, and driving a truck without a license. The boy was last seen kidnapping the beautiful and talented young Tammy Jondelle from her southside apartment where she’s lived all of her fifteen years in sweet and perfect peace, tranquillity, and innocence. If you spot Milton Cumbee, watch out, he’s dangerous, he has thoughts, and he don’t like music.”

“Hey,” Milton said, “How come you know my name?”

“It was on the radio.”

“It was?”

“Yeah, just now.”

Milton was quiet for a time.

“Are you having your thoughts?” Tammy asked.

“I didn’t ask you to come along, you know.”

“I know,” Tammy said. “Thank you for the ride.”

A couple of miles down the road Milton said, “I’d tell you my thoughts. I’d tell you, but I’m just not a very good talker. About stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?” Tammy said.

“Personal stuff,” Milton said.

“Then what are you good at?” Tammy asked.

Milton didn’t say anything.

“I’m good at just about everything,” Tammy said. “It true, I’m not just bragging. I’m good at getting good grades. I’m good at tennis and ping pong and swimming and gymnastics. I’m good at music. And I have good parents and a good home, and good friends. Let’s face it, plain and simple I’m a damn good girl. What are you good at?”

Milton didn’t say anything.

“Ok, let’s do this the other way around. What are you bad at? You’re bad at backing up, we know that. What else?”

“If you’re so good at everything and all, what are you doing here with me?”

Tammy thought for a moment. “That’s a good question,” she said. “Hey, Milton, we’ve found something you’re good at: asking questions! Ask me another one.”

“Aren’t you going to answer the first one?”

“Another good question. And a fair one. Let’s see ... I was locked out of my house with hardly any clothing on. I’ve always wanted to go to Omaha. I’ve always wanted to ride in a big truck. I’ve always wanted to talk to a black person. I’ve ... I don’t know. The real answer is I don’t know.”

“You never talked to a black person before?”

“Not really talked.”

“There aren’t none in your school?”

“Nope, not a one. No boys, either, for what that’s worth. Course, I’ve seen black people before. All over the place. But never anyone as black as you.”

The setting sun roared through the window. Milton adjusted the visor.

“Don’t you have any shades?” Tammy asked.

“Shades?” Milton said.

“You know, sunglasses. I thought all black dudes had sunglasses?”

“Nope,” Milton said. “They don’t. And anyways I can see just fine.”

“With your eyes squinted like that?”

“Yup, just fine. I’ve got the feel of the road.”

“Just so you don’t run into anything.”