One Windy Day Chapter Two

Chapter One was an exercise in setting up a story and the main characters. There had to be tension, content the readers could care about, and recognizable detail without describing known people. The situation, an older boy hitting on a younger girl, was right there in the school. As soon as the high school was moved into the elementary school building, the little corner where the lockers were grouped became a passion pit.

This is not a problem unique to reservations. In the few months I taught at a nearby white school, the hallway makeouts -- though forbidden -- were fierce. The most intense couple did their face-gnawing about ten feet away from the girl’s father, a teacher, who did not break up the encounters. When I tried to, the young man threatened me.

In the old days this problem would never arise in this public way because no young woman was ever alone. Boys went off in age and gender cohorts to learn their skills in a pack, but girls went from being toddlers to helpers to young women in the context of their families, mostly the female members. There was plenty of work to do. Beyond that, women of any age were never to be alone with a man, especially out of sight. Granted, there were romantic rendezvous, but they would have to happen away from the camp -- when getting water for instance -- and probably with the collusion of other women who were supposed to be present. A woman who ignored these practices was soon in trouble unless the situation moved forward into marriage.

Today’s girls in unhappy families, especially those who have spent many hours in front of the television watching soap opera, grant the privilege that ought to belong to their parents (teaching self-respect, boundaries, attachment) over to young men. The burden is too much for a male teenager and too easy to brush aside for men in their twenties. They desert. They abuse. The girls are so surprised.

Modern girls have to learn that if an older male comes into their home when they are there alone -- no matter how innocent it seems -- they must not remain there. They must leave immediately for a place where there are other people. But emotionally, this is too much of a demand for a young woman who is dazzled by a hero, or maybe reassured because the male is a relative. Never opening the door in the first place is a good solution, but rural Montana is not a place where people lock doors. If the young man were to do damage in the house, even if only stealing beer, the girl would be faulted for not guarding the home -- as though things were more important than the girl.

The kids said these opinions, which were obviously mine, were over-dramatic and showed I had a bad opinion of them. They said, “You make sex sound so dirty! But it’s the most wonderful thing there is!” What would you have said to them?

But this wasn’t supposed to be an occasion for beating up on young men, so the second chapter had to make Che a little clearer -- why did he act as he did? Why should we care about him? This is the task in Chapter Two.

Chapter II
CHE'S STORY

Slamming the trailer door behind him, Che hunched his shoulders and leaned forward to head into the wind. Might as well go home, he thought. The trailer was on the edge of the little town. The lights were just now beginning to come on in houses and with a flicker and sputter the streetlights flashed on, though they weren't much brighter than the last remnants of daylight. The sky was spread with a sunset, but Che paid no attention.

For a moment he paused on the sidewalk and looked around before he went up the staircase that lead into the second story of the building where he lived. It was almost as though he might think he was being followed by spies. No one was around. At one time there had been a grocery store on the first floor of the building, but now it was gone and the windows were boarded up. Sometimes derelicts broke in, but all the boards were up now.

The door to his apartment was unlocked, as always. He never knew who was going to be inside: uncles, little brothers, his mother... And there was his mother, slumped at the chrome dinette table with the peeled and stained top. No lights were on, so he could see her only because she was near the window. His brothers must with their grandmother.

"Where you been?" she demanded. Her voice slurred a little.

"Can't we even afford lights?" He snapped on a lamp with a bent shade. "Or did you spend it all on booze?"

"Don't get smart with me or I'll...." her voice trailed off. Her hand was wrapped around a glass of something. She seemed to forget that she had been talking and she went back to staring out the window, even though with the lamp on it was impossible to see anything.

Che reached past her and pulled down the shade. "And don't sit there like that so people can see you from outside, either!" She snorted and put her head down on her arms, but she kept her grip on the glass.

Walking heavy-footed, as though he weighed twice as much and was twice as tall, Che went down the narrow hall to his own room. Well, it was his own room if no cousins or little brothers or uncles had decided to come stay with them for a while. Sometimes there were even boyfriends if she got mad enough to throw them out of her room and they were too drunk to go home. He was relieved that no one was in the room, though it was a mess. The bed was in knots and discarded clothes mixed with old shoes and junk on the floor. He flipped on his radio, but not a lamp. The streetlight just outside his window made it possible to see.

He wanted to think about Heather. She was just a little kid. She liked him. But it was almost a relief that her mother came along when she did. He'd really been ... well, he was going to try to go all the way, but he wasn't really that sure about what came next. He saw the bit about kissing her collar-bone on television, but then the scene cut to something else and he never did find out the next move. But that stuff about kissing really worked! She must have liked it really well. He'd kept expecting her to object, but she never did. Maybe she wasn't as nice a girl as he'd thought. She was always a goody-goody in school, but maybe she'd had some experience somewhere, like over the summer or something. Still, she was pretty young.

He would never have dared to try anything with a girl his own age. They were too sharp, knew too much, would put him down for sure. They'd have taken that beer right out of his hand-- maybe hit him over the head with it! Hey, that was pretty cool-- how he just took that beer out right over her arm! And then she even drank out of it, after fussing about her mother! Her mouth right onto the bottle top where his had been. Hah! She didn't know what she wanted. She wanted HIM!!

Well, he hoped so. It would be nice to have a girl to follow him around and jump to do what he said. It would show that he mattered, that it didn't count that he was always flunking in school, that the nice kids in his own class didn't invite him to their parties. Probably if he had a girl-friend like Heather, he would be invited. Maybe.

Uneven footsteps came down the hall. She bumped into the wall before she opened his door. "Che?"

"WHAT!! Why can't you leave me alone?"

"Well, excuuuuse me! Never mind what I wanted. I'm just your mother. I don't count for nuthin'." She slammed the door and he heard her go in her own bedroom and begin digging around. Hell, I s'pose she's gonna go stagger around town and make a fool of herself.

Sure enough, he heard her go back on down the hall-- high heels whacking on the linoleum now-- pause for her coat, which was always flung onto the end of the sofa, and then the noise of the front door flinging open. He couldn't hear it close, though he listened in spite of himself. There was a pause, then one foot on the stair, then the other... He could picture her hanging onto the bannister and concentrating to keep from dropping her purse. Another step.

Then a sudden sliding, rolling, tumbling sound. There was no cry, but he couldn't help reacting. "Stupid bitch," he said under his breath and dashed out the open apartment door to the top of the stairs. She was sprawled at the bottom, like a thrown doll. But as he watched, she slowly--very slowly-- gathered herself up and hauled herself onto her feet, clinging to the wall of the building. "Are you.." he started to ask, but she was already lurching off into the evening. Too drunk to hurt. Probably wouldn't be back. Might not be back for a week if the cops picked her up. "Stupid bitch, " he said again, and slammed the apartment door.

He HATED her, hated her with all his might for not being a proper mother who would have had supper ready and asked him about his day and-- well, he wasn't too sure just what it was that proper mothers did, but she ought to do it. She hadn't been a real mother to him since he could remember as a little guy. Sometimes he doubted that she really WAS his mother. She was worthless. He got so angry at her that sometimes he even hit her, though she usually couldn't feel it.

He turned back to the apartment with revulsion. Now that she was gone he could at least put the television on. The evening news began to blare. He went to the refrigerator to look for something to eat, but there was nothing there. Never was. Pushing things around on the stinking kitchenette shelves, he found a can of pork and beans, opened it and began to eat beans out of the can, cold. They weren't too bad that way.

The news was all that was on. He hated the news. He couldn't care less about current events. What did it have to do with him? People on the news were always worrying about something. Why worry? There's nothing you can ever do about anything anyway. Stuff just happens and you go along and then one day.... one day.... well, you just die or get killed or something and nobody cares anyway. There's lots more where that came from. Wherever that is.

There was a scratching at the door. His dog. He let her in. No dog food. He pulled a potato chip bag out from under an old sweatshirt and emptied out some of his pork and beans for her. She gulped them down. She was always hungry. When he slumped back on the sofa, she jumped up beside him and licked his face. He smiled. She was about the only good thing in his life. He wondered briefly if Heather liked dogs. Didn't matter. She'd better like whatever he liked or he wouldn't be her boyfriend anymore. He smiled again. He had this kid wrapped around his finger. He could make her do anything. He'd get her to go all the way-- to do IT-- then she'd belong to him and she'd have to do what he said.

Slumped there with the dog sleeping across his lap and the light from the television set reflecting off his face, Che went to sleep. He dreamt about how Heather felt underneath him on her bed, so little and still and soft. His head was thrown back on the sofa back and his mouth was open. He didn't hear his uncle come in quietly, tip-toe back to Che's room, and settle into Che's bed for the night. Che didn't find out he was there until he woke up after the television programming had ended and he tried to go to bed. Instead he ended up sleeping in his clothes on the sofa. It wasn't the first time.

But he couldn't go back to sleep. The dog got tired of his tossing and turning and wanted to go outside, so he opened the door for her. His stomach hurt. And he sort of hurt lower down, too. Maybe it was from ... He'd heard the boy friends complain when his mother threw them out of her room. Pretty soon he began to get angry at Heather, as though she'd thrown him out of her trailer. After all, it was her mother who did and that was about the same thing. And he wasn't doing anything she didn't want. It was really Heather's fault.

Towards morning when it was cold, even in the apartment, he couldn't stand the loneliness any longer. He got up and put on his jacket, then stirred around in the junk of the front room until he found a warm hat. There were no gloves or mittens, he knew. There never were. He just used his pockets.

Out on the street no one was moving around. A car passed the intersection up a few blocks. A stoplight was turning on and off all by itself at the crossing with the highway that ran through town. He turned out along the highway towards the trailer where Heather lived. It wasn't a very long walk. His dog came along behind him.

Of course the trailer was dark. He didn't really expect it be light. There were some old chunks of concrete a little bit up the hill from the trailer spaces. He sat on one with one hand in his pocket and the other on his dog's head. She whined and licked his wrist. Overhead there were a million, trillion, jillion stars. He sat there and thought of Heather and her little plush teddy bear-- yes, he HAD noticed it when he pushed her down-- and petted his dog. Pretty soon tears ran down his cheeks, quietly, hopelessly, and without him even quite knowing it was happening.