Authors: Chris Crutcher
“Wow,” Montana says. “The
Berkeley Barb.”
“That’s right, little girl. You have arrived at the heart of journalistic subterfuge.” Mari leans against the table
and coughs. “We had some fun. And we took care of a lot of people, including me. Max Scherr, who created the
Barb
, conscripted street kids to sell it. Flower children, we called ourselves.” She smiles. “We
did
wear flowers in our hair, but a more accurate moniker might have been weed children.”
No sweat figuring where Trey Chase gets his cool.
“We’d come in with something of value to use as collateral for some papers on the day it came out. If Max thought it was valuable enough that we’d come back for it, he’d give us a bundle to sell on the street. We’d return and buy our stuff back and there’d be enough left over for a new bundle to sell for food. I
loved
that paper. I started doing research for them and a little bit of editing. Finally he put me on staff.”
“How did he pay to get it published? I mean, to print it up and all?”
“Sex ads,” Mari says, shaking her head. “You should have read some of
those.
It was actually a pretty powerful newspaper at its peak. Max wasn’t bound by the same constraints as, say, the
San Francisco Chronicle.
Once he printed a piece claiming dried banana skins contained bananadine, which would create an opium high if you smoked it. Totally made-up bullshit, but it found its way into the mainstream press, which caused a run on bananas
in local supermarkets. There was actually an article in the
New York Times
on psychedelic substances, including banana skins. The Food and Drug Administration did an exhaustive study on them before declaring what Max knew all along. No psychedelics in banana skins.” Mari is misty-eyed. “Those were the days.”
“And I can’t get an article published about gay marriage or assisted suicide. Just had the stops put on a really good article on medical marijuana.”
Mari shoots a knowing glance at Trey. “No wonder my grandson doesn’t like school. You’re not going to sleep with him, are you?”
Montana blanches but recovers quickly. “I don’t even know if I’ll have coffee with him again.”
“I hear that. He can be
such
a little prick. I’m afraid he has some of his mother’s appetites, and about the same good sense for indulging them.” She shakes her head. “I love him like no other, but somewhere between his hippie grandmother and his poly-addictive mother, neither of whom had a brain in her head when it came to mate selection, any sexual good sense that might have existed was lost.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Trey smiles and shakes his head. “Grandma, you’re making it hard to work my magic.”
“That’s my intention,” his grandmother says. “I have opened the front door to face a tearful, jilted football-player-loving bimbo for the last time, if I have anything to say about it.” She glances at Montana. “That’s not you, dear. You seem different. But my grandson is a one-trick pony, and he uses that one trick on
all
the girls. Did it hurt when they pierced your cheek?”
“Not as much as you might think, and actually that’s technically my upper lip. It’s called a Marilyn,” Montana says.
“A Marilyn.”
“Yeah, it’s in the same place Marilyn Monroe had her beauty mark. You’ve heard of Marilyn Monroe, right?”
Mari smiles. “Yes, dear. Marilyn Monroe and I share much of the same time in history.”
“Oh, right. Anyway, the tongue was the tough one for me. Whoo. If I’d known it could ruin my teeth, I’d have never had it done. Plus I couldn’t get used to it. I just wore it long enough to piss off my dad.”
“How’d that work?”
Montana brightens. “Like a charm.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mari says. “Why don’t you come out to the back porch with me?”
Montana rises, as does Trey. “You stay here, Trey. We’re talking business.”
Trey sits back down. “Your wish is my command.”
“Don’t forget that,” his grandmother says.
On the porch Mari reaches into her purse to extract a doobie. Montana’s eyes widen. “If you want an up-close and personal interview for your article on medical marijuana, I’m your girl.”
Montana lets it register. “Are you…”
“Dying of cancer? Mmm-hmm.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry, honey, I’m fine with it. I’ve been resigned for a while. Trey turns eighteen in a month. I got him from where his mother blew him off to here. He still needs some work, obviously, but I swear, it’s work for a younger girl.” She nods toward Montana. “He’s not really as bad as I let on, if you keep him on a short leash. In fact he has a lot more manners when he’s on that leash. Remember that.”
She lights the joint, inhales, and closes her eyes. “If those bastards had any idea the relief…” She takes another toke. “What arrogance. What…I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to get you involved in my radical left-wing politics.”
“No, no, this is great stuff. I could stay out here with you all night.”
“The best days of my life were my days on the
Barb
,” Mari says. “Showing the world what free speech was about. Actually I thought we cleared the road for you, but here we are, forty years later, afraid to hear the truth.”
“So much for evolution,” Montana says. “I guess things don’t get better, they just swing back and forth.”
“Know what you should do?”
“What?”
“You should write the hell out of that article. I’ll interview for it. Submit it every week. What kind of balls does your teacher have?”
Montana laughs. No wonder Trey Chase talks the way he talks. “Dr. Conroy? Big. Way big.”
“Would she fight for you?”
“She offered to take it to the school board. Course that’s just taking it to my dad.”
“You don’t have to win to win,” Mari says. “Just keep putting it in front of them. The truth rises.”
“I like that,” Montana says.
“Tell you what, you get your teacher to take that article to the school board, and I’ll be there; make the case for
content.
”
“But if you’re sick…”
“If I’m sick, that would make my appearance all
the better,” Mari says. “You don’t mind taking on your father?”
Montana laughs. “That makes
me
feel all better.”
“Your grandmother’s pretty sick, huh?” Montana and Trey stand beside her car in front of Trey’s house.
“Yeah, pretty sick.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” he says. “She doesn’t deserve this. It is an ugly way to go.”
“Anything I can do?”
“You could go to bed with me.” He smiles and raises his eyebrows.
“Anything else?”
“One thing at a time.”
Montana smiles and pecks him on the cheek. “We’ll see.” She slides into the driver’s side of her car, clicks her seat belt, and squeezes his hand through the open window.
When Montana opens the door three minutes before her curfew, she spots Tara’s suitcase sitting near the wall to the right. Her mother sits at the kitchen table, head in hands. Her father is nowhere to be seen.
Her mother doesn’t look up as Montana enters the
kitchen. “I can’t do it, Montana. She has to go back.”
“What happened?”
“She doesn’t want to be here. Whatever I tell her not to do is what she does. Her promises don’t last a day. She’s into everything. Nothing is private. It’s like she has to know
everything
that’s going on. The more I try to be her mother, the more she fights me.”
“So you’re giving her away?”
“I called the social worker, said I needed to take Tara back to the therapist. I guess I sounded more upset than I thought. Your father heard me from the other room, snatched the phone out of my hand, and told the social worker to come get her.”
“But she’s still here, right? They didn’t come.”
“She’s in her room.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s in our room.”
“Mom, you’re
not
going to give her up.”
“I have no choice. I tried to back out, and your father said he wouldn’t hear another word about it. That was it. I picked up the phone to call the social worker”—her voice cracks—“he raised his hand to—”
“To what? That bastard.”
“I don’t think he would have. It’s been a long time.”
“Then tell him too bad,” says Montana. “Why does he get the last word? He didn’t want her in the first place. You were the one who brought her here.”
“There’s nothing I can do, Montana. He won’t budge.”
Under her breath, Montana says, “He’ll budge if you make it worth it.”
“I hope I didn’t hear what I think I heard.”
Don’t turn it back on
me.
“How does he always get his way?”
“Your father is the breadwinner, dear. He’s the reason we have all this.”
“So what if he died?”
“He’s not going to die.”
“You’re probably right. No such luck,” Montana says. “But he could. What if he did?”
“Don’t be foolish. There’s insurance, and I would get a job. We’d get by.”
“That’s my point. He works out in the world and you work here, and you work just as hard as he does. Shit, taking care of
me
is a full-time job. What if you told him Tara was staying and if he didn’t like it
he
could go?”
Her mother hasn’t, and wouldn’t,
consider
that.
“I’m sorry, Montana. They’re picking her up tomorrow.”
Montana stands. “I hate you.” She whirls and walks out of the room.
“Hey, little sis.” Montana stands in the doorway to Tara’s dark room.
“They’re givin’ me away,” Tara says.
Montana moves in, sits on the side of the bed. “What did you do?”
“Nothin’.”
“Was nothin’ poop related?”
“Maybe. Prob’ly.”
“Tara, why do you keep doing that?”
Tara buries her face in the pillow and starts to cry. “I get
mad,
” she says.
“I know, but when
I
get mad, I scream and call names and kick things,” Montana says. “I don’t crap in secret places. Remember, we talked about this.” She wants Tara to say it.
“They won’t let me take care of nothin’,” she says. “Greg messed up our family. He always got mad and didn’t want to be waked up. You know what always happened with him? He didn’t know the rule about no hitting. He should have to sit on the bed when he hurts me. He’d be there a long time. I wish I could have a great dad, like a new dad. He’d be nice to me. He wouldn’t
fight with my mom and me. He’d love us. Greg hit me and put me in the room. He locked Norman in the closet. Norman is better off with Grandma because she knows how to not hit him. It was hard for my mom and Greg. They would fight and then I’d have to be the boss and try to stop them. My mom would put methamphetamine in her or dope an’ beer an’ I’d take care of her. I think about her all the time. Where is she? Who’s takin’ care of her? I get scared nobody’s takin’ care of her. So I get mad an’ then I’m poopin’ someplace.”
Tara isn’t even poopin’ on the Wests. She’s poopin’ on people she hasn’t seen in months. She’s doing what Montana did all those years ago, and still sometimes does; aching for that mom, that
first
mom; the one none of us sheds completely. She scoops Tara up; holds her to her chest.
Tara sobs. “They’re givin’ me away.”
Montana holds and rocks her. No, by God, they are not givin’ you away. If they give you away, they’re givin’ me away. She lets Tara cry herself to sleep before tiptoeing out and back to the kitchen.
“I won’t let you do it, Mom.”
“Montana, it is
done.
I don’t want to hear another word. Your father—”
“Fuck my father,” she says, and her mother stands and slaps her face.
“And fuck
you!”
she screams. “If she goes, I go!” And even louder. “YOU HEAR ME, DADDY? IF SHE GOES, I GO! You guys don’t even know what’s wrong with her!”
The quick, heavy pounding of Maxwell West’s shoes on the stairs is followed by his appearance in the kitchen doorway, the vein in his forehead pulsating. “What’s going on down here? What is the matter with you? Did I hear you say what I think you said?”
Montana stands defiant. “You heard what you heard. What makes you God? At home you take in a little girl, and when the going gets tough, you dump her. I can’t get published in my own school newspaper because the big almighty president of the school board who happens to be my dad will back up the gutless idiots who run that place. Well, that’s fine. I’ll write stupid articles about the football team and the prom and what horrible pressure is put on us by college entrance testing. You can be the fucking power-freak-monger out in the world all you want. Out there it just makes people hate you. But you throw a kid away and you’re breaking something that doesn’t get fixed. You know I’m right, and you don’t care. But if you get rid of Tara, I go with her!”
Maxwell’s voice goes soft and dangerous. “You listen to me, young lady. You may talk like that in front of your friends, but I will
not
have you talking like that in my house.”
Montana’s eyes narrow, and she grits her teeth. “You’re about to ruin a little girl’s life and all you care about is me saying fuck?” She turns to her mother. “You know what Tara said to me? She said she needs you to make her mad. So she can
be
mad. She needs you to let her feel the way she feels instead of trying to control her. Nobody has any control around here, and you know why? Because
he
has it all. I had to turn into a bitch to survive, and tell you what, Mom, you better do the same. You better stand up to him or you’re going to shrivel up and die.”
“Montana…”
“You know I’m right.”
“You want to know why Tara’s going back?” Maxwell asks. “Because I swore I would
never again
go through what I went through with you. Do you know how close we came to giving you up?”
“I know how close you are right now,” Montana says. “I’ll be eighteen in three weeks. If I come home from school tomorrow and Tara isn’t here, I’m
gone.
And I will spend the rest of my time in this stinking
town getting even with you. I promise I will.”