Shame (12 page)

Come November, I start to feel the life I lost, a life somewhere out there in the big world, trying to break out of my very bones.

I couldn't do it—sit around reading, or worse, thinking, until practice.

I got cleaned up and went on into town. For a moment, when I got to the Four Corners, I thought about going to McBee's, sitting with all the other bored farmers, listening to their tired jokes and laughing like I was in a good place.

I turned left instead, turned left again on 2nd Street, Gloria's street, and, heart pounding, parked in front of her house, the engine still idling, the heater blowing.

It was a beat-up frame house, covered with what I guessed was old green asbestos siding. After a bit, I saw a flicker of movement from the bedroom window—the shades drawn open for a moment, then falling back into place.

“All right,” I said. The movement didn't come again, but it seemed like a sign of some kind. Anyway, someone knew I was here, and if I just sat there, I'd look like an idiot, or worse—stalker Dad.

I turned the engine off.

I got out.

I walked to the front door.

I knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door. It echoed into the house.

And then I just stood there on the doorstep, the cold wind whipping around me, whispering up my sleeves.

I knocked again. I thought I heard movement. My heart still pounded.

Then the deadbolt was drawn, and the front door cracked open ever so slightly.

“He doesn't want to talk to you,” a sleepy voice said. “I'm sorry.”

“Hey, Gloria,” I said. She waved, yawned. “I'm sorry I woke you.”

She yawned again. “He doesn't want to talk to you,” she repeated. “I'm sorry too.”

And then the door closed and the bolt turned behind her and I was left standing on the doorstep, listening as steps receded into the house and disappeared.

I stood there for awhile longer, not hoping for a change of heart, but not knowing what to do next.

And at last I understood that what I had to do next was climb back in my truck to get warm.

I started the truck, turned the heater on high, and raised a forlorn wave even though I was pretty sure nobody was watching.

Then I put the truck in gear and drove away.

That night we entered negotiations with Lauren for her homecoming date. It reminded me of those World War I armistice talks in railroad cars, with Lauren wanting to be French marshal Foch and us to be the poor bewildered Germans making concession after concession. Unfortunately for her, she was riding our railroad.

I don't think it helped that we negotiated over cards, either, especially during a partners game of Spades, since our family takes cards seriously and responds angrily to distractions.

“Can I stay out 'til midnight?” was her opening volley. Her curfew was ten.

“Play,” B. W., to her left, said.

“No,” Michelle, her partner, said. “You may not.”

Lauren led with the ace of clubs and B. W. immediately trumped it with the two of spades.

“Uhn!” she protested, mouth open—she'd counted on taking that trick—and he shrugged.

“No clubs,” he said. “Sorry.”

He did not seem particularly sorry.

After we'd tossed out low clubs, B. W. gathered up the trick and laid down the ace of hearts. Michelle threw a six of hearts and I threw a two.

Lauren tapped her cards on the table. “Then can we ride to Pizza Hut with Martin's brother?” Martin Amos, Lauren's homecoming date, was okay—a junior high boyfriend is sure a lot less threatening than someone who shaves and listens to Nine Inch Nails—but Billy Amos, who had spent three days in basketball the year before as a sophomore, was not okay. That kid had a temper and a miniscule attention span, neither of which boded well for him as a driver.

“Play,” B. W. said.

“No,” Michelle said. “You may not.”

Lauren made a face and threw down the queen of hearts, and B. W. smiled and raked in another trick. He led next with the king of hearts, and Michelle and I again threw lesser hearts.

“Drop us off at the Pizza Hut then come back and get us?” Lauren looked up at us plaintively, her bottom lip tucked beneath her top one.

“Play, stupid,” B. W. said.

“Don't call me stupid.”

Michelle looked at me. I looked at her.

“Don't call your sister stupid,” I told B. W. “And you. Lauren. Yes. You don't budge from the restaurant before we get back, on peril of death.”

Lauren nodded at me, then laid down a three of spades on B. W.'s king of hearts and brushed B. W.'s waiting hands aside to collect the trick.

“Yeah, don't call your sister stupid, Bret Maverick,” Michelle said. “Did you think she played a queen last time because she didn't know better than to waste a face card when you already had it won, or because it was the only heart she had left?”

“I plead the fifth,” B. W. said, and Lauren punched him in the shoulder.

Lauren ended up beating us all, and we retired to the bedroom grumbling. Before we went to bed, Michelle said, “I had a long talk with Gloria when I stopped off at the convenience store today. She says she thinks Michael is starting to miss us.”

“Sure he does,” I said, around my toothbrush. He hadn't shown much sign of it that afternoon.

“What?” She poked her head around the corner into the bathroom, as if that would make me more intelligible. “Grape Nuts?”

I rolled my eyes, leaned over the sink, and spit. “Sure he does,” I said, enunciating each syllable carefully. “He's stricken with remorse. He can't wait to come home, hug us all, feed the calves, slop the hogs.”

“We don't have hogs,” she said. “Really. I mean Gloria would know, wouldn't she?”

Although Gloria was slowly growing on me, I still was a little unsettled by her Goth appearance. “I consider Gloria an authority in the fields of cult rituals and anorexia. Maybe personal hygiene, if you'd consider defining it by negation. When was the last time she washed her hair?”

“She's not that bad,” Michelle said, sliding a nightshirt on over her head, her voice momentarily muffled by flannel. I rinsed, dried my face, sat on the edge of the bed. “You should give her a chance. After all,” and she stood, watching closely as she delivered this last, “she's going to be the mother of your grandson.”

I blinked at her.

She quickly added, “Or granddaughter.”

I stood up, then sat back down again. “You mean, of course, that they're going to have a baby eventually, like, after marriage or some other meaningful ritual.”

No reply.

“Or do you mean that they are in the process of having a baby even as we speak?”

“You're mad,” she said, and she leaned over and took my hands in hers. “I told Gloria you might need a little time to get used to the idea.”

“I'm not mad,” I said. “I'm upset.” Which I think was a proper interpretation of what I was feeling. And anyway, why hadn't she told me, too? I mean, I was the one who woke her out of prenatal sleep. “What kind of a way is that to start a life together?”

Michelle dropped my hands and turned away from me. “Maybe they're happy about it. Maybe
he's
happy about it. Not everybody has to feel the same way you do. Or did.”

Ouch
. “Okay,” I said, and tried to pull her to me, but she would not be pulled. “I'm sorry. But what kind of future do they have? He works at Pizza Hut, she works at a convenience store, they live in a house that's falling down around their ears—”

“What kind of future did we have? We didn't have any prospects. My parents helped with my college and we saved and slaved to get me through. I think we've done all right for ourselves. And for our kids.”

“Yes,” I said. “Agreed. We have epitomized the American dream.” But at least now she let me make an armful of her, and so I pulled her to me. “Gloria is no Michelle Hooks, though. If she were, I'd feel a hundred percent better about it.”

“She's turned out better than the rest of those Glancys have. And anyway, she's our best chance to get Michael back.”

“We're never going to get Michael back,” I said as we both slid under the comforter. “I think the best we can hope for is some sort of relationship that isn't characterized by exchanges of gunfire.”

“I know,” she said. “But wouldn't it be great if he really were missing us? Wouldn't that be nice?”

“Wouldn't it be lovely to think so?” I muttered.

“
The Sun Also Rises
,” she said, correctly, nuzzling my neck, and then Michelle and I set aside our discussion of the merits and demerits of Gloria Glancy to speak the infinitely more interesting language of love.

The next morning I thought I would check in with Phillip, and after feeding and watering the calves I headed for town, coffee, and eventually, his place. The boys at McBee's were in high spirits because of the moisture we'd gotten over the weekend and the sunny skies awaiting us now. It's amazing how a change of weather can put a smile on a farmer's face. After two cups of thick black coffee with them, I climbed into the truck and drove north. At Phillip's, I opened the gap, drove through, closed it behind me, and bounced down the well-rutted track to the trailer.

“Phillip,” I called as I got out of the cab. No sense being shot as a trespasser when I came as a friend.

The door screeched open, and a tiny old lady shuffled out onto the top step. It was Ellen Smallfeet, Phillip's grandmother, an ancient woman who seemed to be grandmother or great-grandmother to most of the Southern Cheyenne in the state of Oklahoma. It was through her that Phillip and my neighbor Michael Graywolf were cousins, and I had known her since I was a baby—or known about her was maybe more accurate. Years ago she was reputed to be about a hundred and fifty and to have supernatural powers, but I had never seen her do anything more dramatic than scramble eggs for Michael and his family.

“Phillip is catching dinner,” she said. “Down at the pond. I was just going to walk down and catch some with him.”

And then I saw that she was carrying a rod and reel in her other hand. “Let me help you with that,” I said.

“You're that John Tilden lives next door to my Michael,” she said as I took the rod from her and gave her my other arm to hold onto as she stepped down slowly from step to step. “You married that teacher.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Used to be Michelle Hooks.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I remember now. Michael says you are a good neighbor.”

We followed a cow path into the cedars and I brushed a branch out of the way. “I didn't expect to see you out here,” I said.

“I come out sometimes,” she said. “Someone has to see Phillip eats, and he won't shoot at me. I'm his grandmother.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Where is this pond, anyway?”

“Right there.”

We took a few more steps in the direction of her finger, and then through the cedars I could see the flickering of sunlight on water. A few more steps and we were past the encircling screen of trees and next to a small circular pond fed by a creek at the north end and drained on the south. Phillip was sitting with his back against a tree, and I recognized his level of comfort; that, I thought, was what I must look like when I fished at my favorite place.

He raised his free hand in silent greeting—noise scares the fish away—and inclined his head to indicate that we should sit next to him. I helped Mrs. Smallfeet to a sitting position and expected to bait her hook, but she simply reached out a hand to Phillip's coffee can, took out a big juicy nightcrawler, and double-hooked it without a wasted motion.

“Howdy,” he said quietly. “Not much biting yet.”

“They'll come,” his grandmother said. “I've got the frying pan on the stove.”

And sure enough, within a few minutes Mrs. Smallfeet's float bobbed under, she set the hook with a sure movement of the rod, and she began reeling in a good-sized green sunfish.

“Nice little sunny,” Phillip said, nodding.

Ellen Smallfeet nodded back. Then, as she brought the fish to shore, she said, “Thank you for the gift of yourself, Little Brother. Your sacrifice will make us strong.”

“She always thanks the fish,” he told me. “Thanks trees, too, when we cut them down. It's more respectful, I guess.”

Mrs. Smallfeet was pulling the hook out and preparing to put the sunny onto a stringer.

“How does she know it's a little brother?” I asked.

“It is because I say so,” she said, without looking up at me. “That's why.”

After they had caught half a dozen sunnies, crappie, and bluegill, Ellen Smallfeet handed me her rod and got slowly and laboriously to her feet. “Enough to cook,” she said. “Come.”

We went up to the trailer, Mrs. Smallfeet going up the steps as slow as geological time, and Phillip held the door open as we filed in.

The inside was not what I'd expected, at least not from the broken-down fences, piles of trash, and junk cars outside. The little trailer was sparsely furnished but clean, the sort of spartan living quarters a prisoner might get used to. We sat at a Formica table in the kitchen while Ellen Smallfeet cleaned the fish, dipped them in cornmeal, and plopped them sizzling into the hot oil in her skillet.

“Can I help you, Mrs. Smallfeet?” I had asked when she took out a cleaning knife, but she didn't answer and Phillip inclined his head to seat me at the table.

Lunch was fried fish, white bread, and some pear honey one of the cousins had made. We drank cold well water from plastic cups commemorating the Watonga Cheese Festival. Watonga had a cheese factory that made huge wheels of cheddar; people came from all across the state to buy them and came every fall to attend the Cheese Festival, complete with the requisite Cheese Festival Queen.