Delbert Ferry Miner of the Body of Christ

This is literary fiction and not part of my family stories. It contains crude language.

Early in my freshman year at Carroll High School, I was sitting in the breezeway during lunch with my empty tray next to me when Ryan Gomez walked up with two other freshman football players. I pulled a snickers bar from my backpack and opened it—it was soft and starting to melt in the humid Corpus Christi air. Ryan looked down at me and said, “Eating alone, Del?”

I said, “Waiting for someone.”

“Who?” he said.

“A friend,” I said.

“A chick?”

“Angela.”

“Barrera?”

“Yes.”

“No way.”

“What?”

“I just always figured you for gay.” His two friends chuckled.

“She’s a friend,” I said.

Ryan glanced at each buddy. I didn’t know them. They came from other middle schools. Ryan and I were from the same neighborhood, elementary school, and middle school.

“Del, I gotta know something. Do you think your name made you like you are? Or did your parents give it to you cuz they knew right away what you were?”

I just looked at him. We used to play soccer in the street when we were kids, but we didn’t hang out much in middle school. He played football and I sang in the choir and took art.

“It’s my dad’s name and his dad’s name and his dad’s name,” I said at last.

“It’s basically like being named Dumb Ass Faggot Fudgepacker. Why would your parents do that to you?”

“Funny,” I said.

“No, seriously,” said Ryan.

“Fuck off, Ryan,” a voice from behind me said. It was Angela. She dropped her backpack next to mine.

Ryan laughed. “Ahn-hel-uh.” He said it the Spanish way. “Help him out, chica. Make him a man and get the gay outta him.”

“I said fuck off,” said Angela.

Ryan laughed again, but he and his buddies moved on. Angela sat down next to me and patted my knee. She had full, round cheeks, creamy milk chocolate skin, brown eyes, and a wide nose. Some people would say she was overweight—she had wide hips and shoulders. But she was athletic and played basketball and volleyball.

“Ese cabron,” she said.

“He’s okay,” I said.

“If he talks like that to you again, I will act like I am going to fuck him and then cut his balls off. He’s so dumb he would fall for it.”

“Don’t do that,” I said. “He doesn’t know better.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ma always told me to be nice to him,” I said. “His father beats the shit out of him, and people think his father killed his mother. She’s not around.”

Angela took my hands. “And this is why you are Ponyboy.”

***

Delbert Ferry Miner. Delbert used to be a popular and common name. Then, in the 1960s, Delbert came to mean dumb or stupid. People would say, “Don’t be such a Delbert.” Kind of like how people used to be named Dick but now Dick means dick and no one goes by Dick anymore. My dad hated the name because of that, but when I was born, he and Ma looked at me and said, “He’s a Delbert.” I guess I don’t know how to answer Ryan’s question. But I am fine with my name. People also call me Del and Bert. I’m fine with that too.

***

Even that early in the year, I had become the butt of jokes for at least a week. It was my own fault. We had to fill out a health and wellness survey the first week of class. The top of the form started with Name, Age, Race, Sex. I was in science class. We sat at tables with two people per table. Misty Maynor shared my table. She glanced at my paper and started giggling. Mr. Rosario asked her what was so funny, so she said, “It’s Delbert’s form. For sex, he put ‘have had none.’”

The whole class laughed. From the back, Ruben Saenz yelled, “Yo, there ain’t nothing more Delbert than that.”

I like that memory of Misty. It makes me laugh. I wasn’t mad at her. She wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. All the dudes were into her and she was into them. Senior year, Jose Guerrero got her pregnant. She died during a botched back alley abortion.

***

Angela found out about the sex thing cuz when we were at our lockers changing classes, Ruben went by and yelled, “Maybe Angela can help you with that one blank on your form, Delbert.”

“What is he talking about?” she said.

I told her. She got pissed but I wasn’t.

“Aren’t you mad?” she said. “That’s gonna go all over school.”

“It was funny,” I said. “How could I be so dumb? I guess cuz it was about health and wellness.”

That’s when she named me Ponyboy. She said, “You are like the kid in The Outsiders: Ponyboy. Please stay golden.”

We had read the book and watched the movie in seventh grade. “Does that make you Cherry?”

She grimaced. “If you ever call me that, Ruben and all his bros will tell you to pop your cherry.”

I laughed. “I won’t call you that.”

But she always called me Ponyboy in moments like this ever after.

***

The way Kenny Thomas and I became friends was this. He moved in from Calallen when we were sophomores. I saw him in the lunch line one day. He was in a motorized wheelchair just going through the line like everyone else. His legs were small and bent, his left arm was also bent, and his left hand was curled and useless. I went up to him and said, “Hey, I’m Delbert.”

His head was a little big for his body. He had wavy brown hair. “Wait your turn, you dumb ass fuck,” he said.

“I thought you might need help with your tray or something,” I said.

“Here’s how you could help me,” he said. “When you get your tray, you hand it to me, turn around, and stand still so I can shove it up your ass. But hold still cuz my left hand don’t work and I can only use my right. How’s that?”

“One condition,” I said.

He looked surprised.

“You have to peel the banana, and the banana has to go first.”

He stared at me for several long moments, blue eyes unblinking. Then he started laughing and said, “Get in line with me, dipshit.”

“Nah,” I said. “You have to milk this crip thing. We’re going to the front.”

And we did, and we ate lunch together every day during sophomore year. Most of junior year too, except for when his health got worse and he was out of school for a couple months. He used to say to me, “You’re just using me to cut the line, you cheating ass motherfucker.”

And I said back to him, “You’re just using me to look like you have friends, you crippled, foul-mouthed piece of shit.” And he would laugh and laugh.

We played Call of Duty and Madden together online late at night. He had this special adaptive controller. I don’t think I ever went to his house. “My mom’s a bitch,” he told me. I don’t think she really was. I think there was stuff he didn’t want me to see.

When he came back at the start of senior year, he had a tube running to his nose and an oxygen tank he wheeled around with him. He hung out with the manager girls of the football team, the ones who do the water bottles and bring out the tees and the bags of footballs.

“I didn’t know you like Carroll Tiger football so much,” I said to him once when he was on his way out to the field.

“I’m mostly in to Jessica Bates,” he said.

“The blonde girl?” I said.

“She has big tits. I was hoping to get a pity fuck out of her before I die, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

That’s how he told me he was going to die. Two weeks later he was gone from school again. Two more weeks after that he was dead.

***

Angela was in to stars and meteor showers. She had a telescope in her bedroom and could tell me all about constellations. She liked to meet up with me at the ditch that separated our neighborhoods. We used to do that since we were kids. Angela always snuck out. My parents knew where I was going and always told me it was fine. In late July before our junior year, Angela told me we had to go to the beach together to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower.

She planned it for a Sunday night cuz we both worked Friday and Saturday nights at Shoney’s. She picked me up around 8:30 pm, and we drove out to South Padre Island. I thought we might stop at Bob Hall Pier, but she drove a Tacoma with four-wheel-drive, and she took us to Big Shell. After driving on the sand a while, she stopped the truck, and we got out. She spread out a blanket and we lay down next to each other. The surf was roaring; it was a new moon, and the star canopy was better than any night I had seen.

For a while, we just lay there, and she would point and say, “Did you see that one?”

“Yes,” I would say, even if I hadn’t. But I saw plenty of shooting stars, so it was good.

We had been there maybe an hour and I was feeling sleepy when Angela suddenly said in my ear, “Ponyboy, are you gay?”

It woke me up a little. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

She rested her head on my shoulder. “Most people know by now.”

“I guess I don’t,” I said.

“Have you been with anyone yet?”

“No,” I said. “Have you?”

“No,” she said.

I stared at the sky hoping to see more meteors, hoping I could point them out to her. She wasn’t looking, though.

“Would you like me to be your first?” she said finally.

She slid her hand under my shirt and rubbed my stomach. “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need to do that right now.”

Now she rubbed my chest. “I understand.” I saw a meteor shoot across the sky, wanted to point it out to her, but knew she wouldn’t see it in time.

“Would you be willing to be my first?” she said at last.

I was glad she was on my right side. She might have heard my heart thudding out of my chest. “I thought you were dating Ruben now. That would be cheating.”

She nuzzled her nose against my cheek. “No, it wouldn’t,” she said. “It wouldn’t make us boyfriend and girlfriend or anything. It would just be our first time with someone who is safe. With my best friend.”

The stars are endless, countless. It is impossible to know what will shoot and when, what will spark brilliantly, what will flame out. I have known Angela since before my memories started.

She moved her hand out from under my shirt. “I’m sorry, Ponyboy.” She sat up and looked down at me. “You must always stay golden.” She kissed me on the forehead, and we went back to watching shooting stars.

Angela and Ruben were together, then broke up, then got back together, then broke up. Then she got pregnant with his baby a little after graduation. They got married. He went to work for the electric company. They had a second kid. I would see them now and again. They had me over for Thanksgiving sometimes.

Then Ruben got sent to Huntsville for fifteen years. RICO stuff. Angela divorced him and moved back to her childhood home. Her boys are cute and look like her.

***

Delbert is a German name. It means noble, glorious, and bright. I don’t care if you make fun of it. I know what it means and who I am.

***

One Friday night in my senior year, I went to the football game by myself. I saw Angela and Ruben. They told me to sit with them, and I did. Misty Mainor was in the NJROTC with Jose. They did the color guard that night for the national anthem and marched side by side, with Misty holding the nation’s flag and Jose holding the Texas flag.

During the game, I saw Kenny in his wheelchair down on the sideline. Whenever there was a timeout, Jessica would grab water bottles, hand him one, and they would go to the huddle. Dudes actually squatted down for Kenny so he could spray water in their mouths.

Ryan was our running back. He went for 173 yards and two touchdowns, as we beat local rival Ray High School 28-7. It was a good night.

I didn’t know it would be the last game Kenny went to or that he would be dead in a few weeks. I didn’t know Misty was already six weeks pregnant and she would be dead in another month. I didn’t know that Ruben hit Angela regularly. Everyone seemed okay.

I didn’t expect at all what happened later that night. I was in bed around 1 am when someone started ringing our doorbell. Dad went to the door, and I heard some muffled talking, then Dad hollered, “Delbert! For you!”

I got up, walked to the front door rubbing sleep from my eyes, and saw Dad turn around and head back to bed. “Don’t stay up too late,” he muttered.

I pulled the door open wider, looked out, and squinted against the porch light. For a moment, I didn’t see him. He was just beyond the reach of the light.

“Del?”

Now I could see the figure. “Ryan?”

He stepped to the edge of the light. “Something happened at my house.”

“Uh, okay.”

He moved closer, and now I could see that his white muscle shirt, face, and bare shoulders had been sprayed with blood.

“I couldn’t think of no other place to go.”

“What happened, dude?” I said. “You need me to call the cops?”

He shook his head. “Not that.” He nodded to the right with his head. “You got a hose out back I could wash up with? Maybe an extra shirt I could put on?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. “I will meet you back there.”

I went inside and grabbed an old t shirt and a pair of shorts from my bureau, then got a spare towel from the bathroom. I moved quickly through the house, turned on the back porch light, and went out. Ryan stood in the middle of our wraparound driveway swaying back and forth as though the sea breeze were moving him. I set the clothes on our porch table and moved quickly to the spigot around the side of the house.

“Thanks, bro,” he said, as I turned the hose on and handed it to him. He peeled off his shirt and shorts, set them in the grass, and sprayed them off. Then he stepped into the grass and sprayed himself off thoroughly. As he was finishing, I grabbed the towel and clothes and gave them to him. He dried off, then wrapped the towel around his waist, reached under and dropped his underwear, pulled my shorts on, and put my shirt on.

He glanced down at the shirt. “SpongeBob. My cousins might kick my ass.”

“Cousins?”

“From Robstown. They’re on their way to pick me up here.”

“Oh,” I said.

We grabbed some plastic lawn furniture and sat out in the night’s humidity and warmth. We talked about times when we were kids and teachers we had. He told me he could name three girls who were hot for me and all I had to do was ask. I didn’t ask.

After an hour, we heard a car pull up out front. “That’s my ride,” said Ryan.

He strode over to me and gave me a bro hug and pat on the back. “You’re a good dude, Del. I probably shouldn’t have fucked around with you, but that’s all it was. Just fucking around.”

“All good, man,” I said. “No offense taken.”

He grabbed his wet clothes and headed off into the night.

Two days later, the neighborhood filled up with cops and crime scene vans. Someone had emptied a whole clip into Ryan’s father. They said on the news that Ryan might have been kidnapped. I never saw him again and never got my old clothes back. The rumor was that his cousins got him to Mexico to stay with family there.

The police never stopped by to ask if we knew anything and I never called to tell them.

***

Recently, Angela invited me to a cookout on a Sunday evening at the local park with her and the boys. Of course, I went. I walked to the park around six pm as the sun was easing in the western sky. I met Angela at her car and helped her lug over the tamales, elote, beans, and rice she had made. We spread them out on a table at a gazebo. Arturo and Carlos, ten and eight, grabbed water guns and began chasing each other around the playground.

“Would you like to sit on the swings?” Angela said.

“Sure,” I said.

We walked over to the swings and sat by each other where we moved back and forth, a light sea breeze cooling our sweat. Arturo had gotten the high ground of the slide and blasted Carlos wherever he went.

“They are so much like you,” I said.

“Some,” she said. “But also like their father. Which scares me a little.”

“I can see that.”

We rocked in silence for a couple of minutes, and then Angela, gazing at the horizon beyond the flat parkland, said, “You remember that night on the beach?”

“Watching the meteor shower? Sure,” I said.

“I think my whole life would have been different if you had said yes.” She said it softly and without looking at me.

“Are you mad at me?” I said.

“No, no,” she said. “I was dumb and what I did was unfair. Deep inside, I knew I was going a wrong direction and I couldn’t stop myself so I was hoping you would stop me. But that wasn’t right to make it your problem.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I was never mad.”

“You never are, Ponyboy,” she said. The wind gusted and she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I am going to be unfair again, and if you say no, I hope we can still keep on as we are.”

“Okay,” I said.

“My boys need a dad. Their grandfather is dying. Their dad is in prison and is not a good guy anyway.”

“Okay,” I said.

She looked at me. “Someone who lives with them. Who is committed to them. To us.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Do you understand what I am saying?” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “You want me to marry you and adopt the boys.”

“So what do you think?”

“I said okay.”

She stared at me. “Do you want to think about it? Anything you want to ask me?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Do you know what you are getting into?”

I shrugged. “With kids? Not really. With you? Sure.”

“So that’s it? We just get married?”

“Yep,” I said.

“When?”

I thought for a moment. “My lunch break tomorrow? I could take it at 1 pm so we don’t catch the county clerks on their lunch break.”

“You want to get married tomorrow?”

“You’re the one who asked. The boys need a dad. You need someone. I waited for you a long time. We’re done seeing other people, right?”

She laughed and took my hand. “It’s settled then.” We rocked back and forth in rhythm now. “You know, I’m still young enough to have another kid or two.”

“Something to consider,” I said.

“What would you name our baby?” she said.

“Delbert,” I said.

“And if it’s a girl?”

“Delberta,” I said.

“Of course, Ponyboy,” she said, and we laughed.