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IGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRAR

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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

UNDER THE SHELTER OF VOICES

presented by
Melissa Jean Seitz

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

M. A. degree in English

Major professor

Date October 31, 1996

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MSU to An Afflrmotlvo Adlai/Equal Opportunity Institution
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Under The Shelter of Voices
A Collection of Short Stories and Conversations

By

Melissa Jean Seitz

A MASTER'S THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

Master of Arts
Creative Writing

Department of English

1996

ABSTRACT

UNDER THE SHELTER OF VOICES
A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND CONVERSATIONS

BY

MELISSA JEAN SEITZ

My grandmother and my mother always told stories. These stories
were told to make sense of the world. As I grew older, I began creating
stories of my own to live by, and they seemed to become remarkable once
filtered through the net of narrative.

Other voices soon became entangled in this net of narratives as other
story tellers, such as Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf, and Grace Paley led me
into the use of other techniques to weave fantasy lives into narrative. How to
tell stories, how to lure the reader into a world of promised possibilities, and
how to unfold a sentence which might create an interesting question to

explore became the framework for Under The Shelter of Voices.

Copyright by
Melissa Jean Seitz
1996

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This collection of stories and conversations were guided by Dr.
William S. Penn. He challenged me to find the ”real” story which sometimes

proved to be the hardest story to write. Thank you for the inspiration.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WAITING FOR VERTIGO ............................................................. 1
CONVERSATION ........................................................................... 8
FLAMINGOS .................................................................................... 9
CONVERSATION ........................................................................... 26
CONVERSATION ........................................................................... 27
DRIVING THROUGH NEW MEXICO ........................................ 28
CONVERSATION .......................................................................... 104
CONVERSATION .......................................................................... 105

WAITING FOR VERTIGO

Annie watched them carefully. The ladies of the St.
John's Lutheran Church were taking over her kitchen. She
had not invited them, and as she watched them in their
cheerful dresses, looking like a bouquet of flowers, she
felt sick to her stomach.

They brought in steaming casserole dishes, plates of
brownies, jello salad, and loaves of bread. The women
worked quietly. They did not know Annie, so it was
difficult for them to make small talk. She was not one of
them.

Hank was Lutheran. He and Annie had been married in a
Lutheran church some ten years ago. Annie was supposed to
have taken classes to become a Lutheran, but she hadn’t
gotten around to it. She had even promised the minister,
“Yes, I will take the classes.” Even as she had said it,
she knew that she would find a way to avoid it.

Annie had been surrounded by religion growing up.
Strict Presbyterians. But she never saw church as anything
more than an excuse for the women to dress up on Sunday.
She had always been indifferent. Cold. But now, she was
beyond that. Her daughter was dead, and Annie watched the

ladies of the church with distaste.

2
A light tap on the door, and another church lady

entered wearing purple and smiling. This was something the
woman was happy doing; Annie could see it in her face. She
knew she should leave the kitchen and go into the living
room with the rest of the family, but she felt compelled to
sit and watch these strangers take over her kitchen. Annie
sat on a chair, cross-legged, in a long black dress and flat
black shoes. She could have passed for a dancer or an
artist.

She still had the excess weight she had gained while
she was pregnant. The soft rolls of fat around her stomach
felt good to her. She loved being pregnant. Her body was
built for it. When she was pregnant with Joe, she had grown
huge and with her short stature, she had always looked as if
she would tip over at any moment. When she was pregnant
with Estee, she had been more careful with her weight and
had only gained thirty pounds instead of fifty.

Annie sat up in her chair. A church lady had spoken to
her. Annie tried to smile, to give some sort of intelligent
response. Her hollow eyes followed the woman's movement.
She stopped in front of Annie and patted her hand.

“I prayed for all three of my children to be healthy.
You need to pray, dear.”

Annie smiled at her, a very dark smile, and said, ”Get

the hell out of my house.”

3
The woman jumped back as if she'd been bitten. She

hurried over to the other women and said it was time for
them to leave. Each one of them stared at Annie on the way
out. She could feel their disapproval. She hoped that she
never saw any of them again. She ran back to her bedroom
and threw herself on her bed. The room began to spin around
her, and she welcomed it. She invited it. She did not want
to think or feel.

Hank bent down over Annie and grabbed her hand lightly.

“What happened?”

“Too much. Too much.” She wanted to tell him that she
was being blamed already because she hadn't prayed. They
had both been searching for answers, but it was always
there, blame insinuating itself into the unanswerable
questions. Their doctors didn't know. “One of those
things we can't explain yet." Or “It may be related to
taking vitamins early in the pregnancy.” They said that to
them with dead calm. A seriousness she wanted to erase from
their faces. “No-you-can't-mean-me,” she said to herself.

Hank led Annie to the car. Joe had chosen not to go to
the funeral and had gone to a neighbor's house. Annie had
felt it was only fair that Joe be allowed to choose. Their
lives had been beyond nightmarish for over a month. Ever
since the ultrasound and the hushed voices of doctors and

technicians. The words of her doctor: “Your baby has a

4
genetic birth defect.” Then, loosely hearing him say,

“Incompatible with life.” She felt herself leave her body
and go somewhere far above his desk and his artifacts from
Africa. She felt her stomach with her hands. It was round
and perfect. The baby was covered by her flesh. She
wondered why the doctor was being so cruel.

“Are you positive?” she had asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

80, Annie, Hank, and Joe had walked around in some kind
of painless fog for a month. The doctors felt that she
should complete her pregnancy and not force anything. Annie
felt dead. She wanted it to be over. She was pregnant, and
the baby was hers.

In the hospital, Estee lived for four days. Annie
could not hold her. She knew if she held her she would
never be able to give her up. Annie watched as the nurses
held her baby, rocked her, sang to her. Annie always stood
silently in the corner.

When her milk came in, she stood in the shower, feeling
the life-blood in her breasts, screaming at the pain of the
milk leaving her body, dripping from her nipples into the
shower drain.

Now, as her father drove them to the cemetery, Annie
shut everything off again. She looked at Hank. He seemed

numb. No one spoke. The cars holding her relatives

5
followed close behind. They had only wanted a small

service. Annie's best friend and her husband came, but
other than relatives, no one else came.

The graveside services went quickly. Annie could not
hear a single word the minister said. She was somewhere
above it all again, floating as she stared down at the tiny
white coffin. When the minister finished, Annie buried her
head into her father's chest.

One of the men from the funeral home walked Annie
toward the car. He spoke quietly to her, and Annie felt
safe in the fact that she could have a conversation with
this man.

When they returned to the house, she asked her father
to please get Joe. She wanted to see him, to hold him, to
look at him. She didn't remember praying when she was
pregnant with Joe, and he was perfect.

Annie waited in the kitchen for Joe to return. She
watched her mother, mother-in-law, and her husband's Aunt
Barbara pace around the small kitchen, trying not to bump
into each other, but needing to be close to one another.
Annie wanted to tell a joke to make these women smile. They
were not like the church ladies. They loved her whether she

had prayed or not.

6
Her father walked in with Joe, and she ran to give him

a hug. She wished that she could change things for him too.
He was only six. Too young for pain.

His kindergarten teacher had been wonderful. Annie had
to call her at home to break the news, and Mrs. Kruger had
talked to Joe's class afterwards, and they had drawn
pictures for him and brought him plants. For a month, they
waited while the baby grew inside of Annie. Waited, knowing
that they were waiting for death. Annie had tried not to
count the days.

Annie and Joe went into the living room while everyone
else ate. Hank came out and joined them on the couch.
Sesame Street was on television so they sat and watched
silently as Bert and Ernie sang a song about a rubber duck.
Annie thought that if the three of them could sit there
forever, that they might be able to find some peace. Some
force of reentry into the world.

Lately, when she was alone, she had sought solace in
the hallway. Feeling the cool drywall beneath the palms of
her hands made her sane. The hallway was fairly small, and
Annie kept it dark. She had never hung pictures of her
family on the wall like so many other people did.

She would sit in the hall and count the hours while Joe

was at school and Hank was at work. She called Hank every

7
hour just to hear the sound of his voice. Friends called to

check up on her with a frequency that began to frighten her.
“I’m fine. I'm fine,” she always said. What did they
expect her to say? She was breathing. And waiting for

vertigo.

Conversation

“She's crazy.”

“Her daughter died. How do you expect her to act?”
“It’s been a month. She won't even leave her house.”
“You're so critical.”

“How do you figure?”

“I was back to normal a week after my father died.”
“They say it's different with children.”

“I still say she’s crazy.”

“You always hated her, didn’t you?”

Flamingos

As I shove the flamingos into the spongy dirt, my black
high heels sink deeper into the lawn, eventually throwing me
off balance. Sprawled in the muddy grass, surrounded by
forty pink flamingos, I curse myself for behaving badly
during my interview with Mrs. Starch-Butt. My son Joe,
playing basketball in the driveway, eyes me nervously.

“Mom," he asks, “what's wrong?”

“Nothing.” I survey the lawn. The flamingos offer
their usual stare.

“Why are you wearing that dress?” he asks. Lately,
he's been critiquing everything I wear. Dresses make him
edgy.

“I had an interview today.”

“Oh,” he says, and returns to bouncing his basketball.
He pauses, then shoots. “Any luck?”

“No.” Standing up, I check out the damage to my dress
and curse myself. Another trip to the cleaners. Why can't
I keep anything clean?

I try to move forward, but my shoes are stuck in the
mud. Carefully, I slip my feet out and march between the
flamingos towards the house.

My husband Hank pulls into the driveway causing Joe to

temporarily suspend his game. He gives his father the “I'm

10
annoyed” stare which he has been perfecting for the past

fourteen years. .As I step into the house, the phone rings.

“Shit,” I say to the dog as I step over him. He growls
at me to let me know that I've disturbed his nap. My muddy
pantyhose-covered feet stain the white linoleum.

“Hello,” I say, answering the phone while pulling off
my pantyhose.

“Honey,” my mother says quietly. I freeze. I've heard
this tone before. “Your father had a heart attack. Meet me
at the hospital.”

“What?” I hear her, but I cannot understand. She
repeats what she's said and mentions something about yard
work. Hank walks in, realizes I’m upset, and stands next to
me.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Hanging up the
phone, I explain to Hank what has happened. “He was doing
chores. Outside.” Leaning against the wall, I start
sliding to the floor. Hank pulls me up.

“Get ready. I'll tell Joe.” Hank squeezes my hand and
goes outside. Unable to move, I watch the two of them talk.
Joe is as tall as Hank now, their features similar, their
stance symmetrical. .As they start walking towards the
house, I run to the bedroom, yanking my interview dress up

and over my_head. Throwing on sweatpants and a sweatshirt,

II
I grab my tennis shoes and socks while running towards the

living room.

“You'd better take an overnight bag,” Hank suggests.

“Right.” Running back into the bedroom, I pack a few
things while feeling as if I am in slow motion and high gear
at the same time.

We climb into the truck, and Hank peels out of the
driveway. It is a forty-five minute drive to the hospital.
Since I feel like I should show Hank and Joe how strong I
am, I start babbling which doesn’t fool them for a minute.
Joe is in the backseat, and he leans forward and starts
rubbing my shoulder.

“It will be okay, Mom,” he says.

I wonder if I should tell Joe that my grandfather died
when I was fourteen, and I’m scared. My grandfather made
wooden toys for me when I was young. My favorite was a
rocking horse painted green and silver. After he died, I
would sneak into his workshop and run my hands over the
tools he once used. My grandmother refused to sell his
tools despite the pleas of my uncles.

My father doesn’t make things for Joe. He takes him
places and teaches him the names of ships traveling on the
Great Lakes. I can picture the two of them standing on the
shore of Lake Superior, pointing to a passing freighter in

the distance.

12
“I just can't believe it.

him earlier.”

He was fine when I talked to

“It's okay, Mom.” Joe continues to hold onto my

shoulder.
Hank drives wildly,
passing cars with inches to spare.

arrive in one piece.

twenty miles over the speed limit,

I wonder if we will

We pull into the Gratiot County Hospital parking lot,

and I hop out before Hank can stop the truck.

Running into the emergency room,

father?”

“His name?”
Name? I run through a list of
which one he’s used. It’s possible

given name. “Will Story?” I ask.

“Room five.”

Mr. Story. Dad. Grandfather.

was nineteen). Willie.

of the thick cigars he used to smoke).

door to room five,
waves at me. My mother looks as if
out.

“What’s going on?”

The nurse is calm.

Tall Story.

expecting the worst,

I move towards my father,

I shout, “Where is my

his nicknames, wondering

that he's using his

Curly. (Bald since he

Stogie Story. (Because
Pushing open the

I smile as my father

she is ready to pass

carefully

avoiding the machines he is hooked up to.

13
“My heart went crazy.” He launches into a full report

about the wires and monitors. When did he have time to
learn all of this? He looks fine. Not like he did last
year when he had cancer surgery and was in the hospital for
ten days.

“What are we waiting for?”

“They’re watching me. The doctor is supposed to show
up sometime. I've been here long enough.”

“Now, Will,” my mother says as she squeezes his hand.

A child screams in the room next to us which causes my
mother to cringe. I bite my tongue. Screamers have always
made us nervous and thankfully, Joe never developed this
habit. He liked banging things to get my attention, but now
he swears to get his point across. I keep threatening to
wash his mouth out with soap, but haven't figured out how
I'm going to hold down someone so much bigger than I am.

“Is it okay if Hank and Joe come in?” I ask my father.

“Sure. I'm fine. Send them in.” I believe him.

I leave the room to find them and walk by an elderly
man on a bed in the hall. He is bleeding from his forehead,
and no one is around him. The child screams again, and I

race to the bathroom.

***

l4
Hank and Joe visit with my father for awhile and come

out of his room smiling.

“Grandpa’s fine,” Joe says.

“I think so,” I answer, and head back into the room. I
notice that we are all wearing sweatpants which I find
terribly funny. My father laughs when I point out my
discovery, and my mother shakes her head.

The doctor comes in, and he barely speaks English.
Since my father is extremely hard of hearing, I become an
interpreter for the Mexican doctor's flavored English and my
fatherfs faulty ears. My mother still sits in the same
chair, shaking her head.

The doctor informs us that my father will have to spend
the night, perhaps two, while they run tests on him. Dr.
Torrez suggests that my father has had a heart arrhythmia
instead of a heart attack. Beating too fast. Crazy.

I decide that I will stay all night with my mother
while Hank and Joe head back home. Someone gave her a ride
to the hospital, so Hank and Joe will have to drop us off.
My mother and father have seldom been apart at night in
forty-five years of marriage. During his hospital stay last
year, my mother stayed with us. She didn’t like it one bit.

We wait as my father is checked into a room in the main

part of the hospital. \He is already telling stories to the

15
nurses, and they surround his bed, laughing as they poke

him, and prepare him for the night.

Mother and I kiss him goodnight and leave the hospital
with Hank and Joe. At my parents' house, my father’s car
looks eerie under the streetlight, as if someone were hiding
inside.

My mother and I are exhausted, but sleep will not come
easily. I settle in on the couch in the upstairs TV room,
and stare at the streetlight outside. I wonder if my father
can sleep with all of the wires attached to his chest. I
hope he has socks on his feet to keep them warm. My mother
sighs in her bedroom. I wonder if Hank and Joe will have
trouble sleeping.

Hank says he can't sleep when I'm not in bed with him.
When we sleep, we wrap our legs and arms together like some
awkward octopus. I snuggle deeper under the quilt my mother
has given me and smell the cool sweetness of her perfume. I
fall asleep counting flamingos.

Morning comes early at my parents' house. They live in
town where everything jumps to life. Where I live, there is
dead quiet until the school bus roars by at seven a.m. Not
here where everything.clangs and screeches.

Mother and I shower and dress quickly. I call Joe

before he leaves for school, and I tell him that I’ll drive

16
back to town to pick him up. I need to pick up a few things

from my house, but mostly I just want to see Joe.

At the hospital, mother and I find my father in his
room, surrounded by nurses. 'They are all under his spell.
I can’t believe that this is the same man who scared me to
death last night.

He’s already complaining that they should let him go
home. “I’m fine,” he shouts, and all of the nurses agree,
but tell him that he has to wait.

Another doctor arrives to examine my father, and I am
relieved that they understand each other perfectly. The
doctor makes us leave the room while he speaks to my father..

Mother and I go downstairs to the Coffee shop and find
a quiet table. I buy us both a cup of tea, and we sit by a
window overlooking a grassy area dotted with flowers.

“Honey, I am worried about you,” she says.

“Worried about me?”

“You look so tired.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” I say, as I stir my
tea with a straw. “Let me change that. I couldn't sleep
last night.”

“I had trouble sleeping too,” she says. She smiles at
me. “How did your job interview go?”

“Oh, not very well. Do you think they'll let Dad go

home today?” I spill some tea on the table.

17
“I doubt it. He’ll probably drive them crazy until

they do let him go home.”

“I'm going to run home around one and pick Joe up at
school after two. I'll bring him back with me so he can see
Dad.” 1

“He doesn't have to come.” She folds a napkin into a
perfect square.

“He'll want to.”

“He's such a good kid.”

“I know. How did I luck out?”

We laugh as we head back to my father's room. The
doctor is gone, but three nurses are doing various things
for him, and he has a big grin on his face. My mother
shakes her head, and laughs.‘

“I have to go home later to pick up Joe,” I tell my
father.

“Say, bring me the papers will you?”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, my clothes so I can leave,” he says. This
brings a laugh out of the nurses, and they all make a fuss
over him again.

Heading home in my parents’ car, I decide to listen to
my father's radio station, so I won’t mess up anything.
It's some news channel that I have never listened to before.

I'll have to remember to move the seat back again. Was it

18
just yesterday that I was worried about my failed job

interview? I feel so confused. My father is in the
hospital again. I'm trying to find a job. Joe is fourteen.
He'll be driving soon. How can it be? .At least Joe still
looks the same. Just bigger. Much bigger.

He was born with great cheeks. People used to pinch
them until I learned how to be hostile. If I saw a cheek—
pincher eyeing him, I'd say things like, “Joe, don’t spit up
your peas again" or “Joe, you smell like dogshit,” and
usually the cheek-pincher would look for another victim. I
never mention Joe’s cheeks to him now because he hates them.
Too round. Like marshmallows. He's right. They’re exactly
like mine. My father says that Joe and I act alike since
we're both so stubborn.

Motherhood. I have learned to be flexible. One
minute, I'm changing a diaper, and the next minute, cleaning
pee off of the ceiling. There were several years when Joe
was young that I swear I never got out of the bathroom.

Now, I'm learning to be flexible in other ways. Like
keeping my mouth shut when he’s having a bad day. Or when
my parents need me at a moment's notice.

I quit my job after Joe was born and let him take over
the house. He began by destroying the furniture. At first,
he used blocks. Bang-bang-bang. Then, he moved on to

Matchbox cars. Bang-bang-bang. Eventually, he moved on to

l9
riding'his big wheel on the wooden floors in our hallway and

living room, and learned to do peelies on the kitchen tile.
The bangs turned into thuds, crashes, and squeals. My
parents said that Joe inherited his hammering obsession from
me.

When Joe started school, I worked a few part-time jobs,
nothing secretarial though. I'd had my fill of answering
phones and being polite to total strangers. I worked at the
library at Joe’s school where one of my main jobs was to
wipe snot and brown spots off of the books returned. I had
the flu fifteen times that year. It got to the point that
when I saw some cute little girl waltzing into the library
with her arms full of books and a nose dripping like a
rainspout that I'd excuse myself and run to the bathroom and
wash my hands.

I decided to go to college around my thirteenth bout
with the flu. Thought maybe I was more suited to grownup
germs. I started out slow, history and math, and did pretty
well. My history teacher had a habit of smacking his nose
when he made a point, and he reminded me of my psychology
teacher in high school. Mr. Munch had a handlebar mustache
he couldn‘t keep his hands off of. Joe said that his
teacher that year, Mrs. Smothers, had spiders in her hair,
but I think it was just a bad dye job. We fell into the

habit of comparing our teachers from then on.

20

***

Turning east onto M-ZO, I head for Joe's school.
Nothing's changed, but somehow things feel different. He
walks out of school, carefully ignoring a girl who is
determined to get his attention. She gives up, and he
smiles.

“Hi,” he says as he climbs in the car. “How's
Grandpa?”

“Better. We’ll go see him after we stop by the house.
How was your day?”

“Boring. My history teacher speaks in a monotone,” he
says. “He puts me to sleep.”

“Sorry. Anything good happen?”

“I found out he's retiring next year.”

“Oh. ,Too late for you. Anything else?”

“My gym teacher gave me a copy of our article,” he says
in an amazed voice. His hockey team won the state
championship, and the paper had a large write-up.

“Your gym teacher? That was nice of her.”

“She’s okay.”

“How does it feel to be a state champ anyway?”

“Fine. Good.” Joe smiles at me. I swear he's been
grinning since the day he was born.

After the twelve minute ride to our house, I pull into

the driveway. My flamingoes are head-to-butt, just as I

21
left them. They look angry. Like Mrs. Starchébutt looked.

My father wouldn't be happy if he saw my birds like this.
He thinks they should be scattered around the yard. Not
bunched up or in a circle. The tops of my high heels are
barely visible.

I get out of the car, pulling the flamingos out of the
lawn, one by one, and think about taking some to my father's
house. I throw a couple into the trunk and line the rest of
them up and down the driveway, several feet apart. They
look decorative this way. Joe watches in amazement, but
doesn't say a word.

Inside the house, I pack clothes into a bag and grab
some paperwork I need to take care of. Joe manages to eat
two yogurts, three rolls, and drink a glass of milk while
standing up at the counter. He's probably having another
growth spurt. Hearing a car in the driveway, I look
outside, and watch Hank pull in.

“What’s Dad doing home?” doe asks, always suspicious.

“Beats me.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask when he walks in.

“Nothing. JUst thought I’d go back with you to see
your dad.”

“Great.”

“How is he doing?”

“Better. The nurses are taking very good care Of him.”

22
“As usual.” We laugh.

“I’m going to change,” Hank says.

“I’m going to shoot hoops,” Joe yells on his way out
the door.

I follow Hank into the bedroom and watch him change.
Silently, I admire the back of his legs as his pants fall to
the floor. He has runner's legs. Firm. Hairy except for
around the knees.

“By the way, how did the interview go?” Hank is
standing in front of me now in his underwear, so I pull him
onto the-bed. We fit together easily.

“Terrible. Mrs. Starch in personnel actually looked
down her nose at me.”

“Mrs. Starch?”

“Starch, Stark. What's the difference?” Hank and I
start wrestling until we fall off the bed onto the floor. I
know that he’s trying to get me in a good mood, and I'm
willing to let him.

“What went wrong?” he asks as he pins me to the floor.
He still has the wrestling moves he had in high school, so I
know that I'm stuck until I tell him what went wrong.

“I think I wore the wrong dress,” I say.

“The wrong dress? What's that got to do with it?” He

looks‘puzzled.

23
“I'm kidding. Something about me sure rubbed old

Starch-breath the wrong way.”

“What did she say?” Hank asks as he starts kissing me
lightly on my forehead.

“She wanted to know why I had such a large block of
down time on my resume.”

“Down time?”

“Yes, that's what she called it. 1982—1989.”

“You were at home with Joe.”

“Down time. Mother time is down time according to
Starch-butt. Do we have to talk about this now?” My skin
feels a bit sweaty, and I have this urge to rip off my
clothes. Rip them to shreds. Take the scissors to them.

“No, we can talk later. Is Joe still outside?” Hank
smoothes my hair over the carpet. I wonder when I vacuumed
last. He starts tracing the outline of my breasts with his
finger.

“I think so.”

“Maybe we should shut the door.”

“Maybe.”

“Jeez. What are you doing?” We both jump at the sound
of Joe's voice. He is standing by the end of the bed with a
disgusted look on his face. There's that look again. His

cheeks are bright red. Hank and I untangle ourselves and

24
hop up. I try not to look guilty, but Joe won’t look at me

anyway.

“Talking. Talking,” Hank tells Joe as he steers him
out of the room. “What are you doing?”

Joe seems embarrassed now, as if he could read my mind.

“Are we leaving soon?” he asks.

“Sure. We’ll be right out,” I say. Joe walks out
shaking his head.

“Tell me what Stark said,” Hank says after Joe is out
of the room.

“No experience. According to Mrs. Starch of the
Roverland Public School system, I am a body without a brain.
Simple. I said that I was interested in freelance work, and
she wrinkled up her nose, and informed me that they have a
communications director who also happens to have a degree in
education.”

“What's that got to do with you?” Hank asks as he rubs
my feet. I swear he is always trying to distract me.

“I have no idea. I told her that I had no interest in
being a communications director. I write. I want to write
about Roverland. Kids. School. Do publications.”

‘“What did she say?”

“She pointed at my resume and asked me if the
information was correct. Then she said, ‘So, you've been

going to college for the past six years, and prior to that

25
you stayed home with the child?’ She called Joe ‘the

child.’ She was so dramatic about it that I almost cracked
up.”1

“What's she got against kids?” Hank asks.

“I don't know. Her son’s a field goal kicker for some
college football team out west.”

“Is he any good?”

“I guess so. Anyway, she said I didn't fulfill the
criteria.”

“Forget her. You'll find something else.”

“I suppose we had better go. I'd better stay with Mom
again tonight. Do you mind if Joe rides with me?”

“No. I'll follow you.”

As we begin the long drive back to see my father, Joe
by my side, Hank following right behind us, I wonder if I
should plant a few flamingos in my father’s yard. Six would

do it. Ten would be too many.

Conversation

“Are you happy?”

“Occasionally.”

“I know what you mean. Some days I feel like I’m on
top of the world. Other days I feel like shit.”

“I wanted to smash into the back of a truck the other
day.”

“God, are you depressed?”

“No, just pissed off.”

“About what?”

“Well, that's the scary part. I’m just pissed off.”

“I know what you mean.”

26

Conversation

“How does it feel to be forty years old?”
“Like I wish I was twenty.”
“You look like you're about thirty.”

“What do you want?”

27

Driving Through New Mexico

LIMBO

Most of the time, I am not breathing. Air surrounds me
here, but I cannot breathe. Below me, the Arkansas River
flows eastward, always fluid, always changing. Cottonwood
trees and tumbleweeds border the riverbed. The river, like
a cowboy's idle bullwhip, stumbles through the monotonous
wheat fields. Away from the riverbed, the land barely
rises, and instead slips quietly into a treeless land where
the ghosts of buffaloes dine nightly upon the bones of the
dead. When I was a child, this bit of land where the
earthen dike dovetails with the dam was enough for me. I
will miss this place.

Breathing has never come easy for me. Before I came to
the river, I lived in a state of namelessness. I was not
alone, but no one taught me how to breathe. For two months,
the women at the home guarded me and whispered near my face,
but they would not teach me how to breathe. They could not

call me by my name because I did not have one.

28

Mother’s Voice

I loved telling the story of my daughter's adoption
when she was young. Having her in my life was like suddenly
turning a light on in a darkened room. A single bulb
burning bright in the center of four walls. Her room
appeared too small before we brought her home, but once I
placed her into her crib, the walls seemed to disappear, and
the window screen became transparent. I could see the
possibilities for this child stretched out across the open
fields.

Her adoption story began with the agency which examined
my husband and me. They searched for anything which might
interfere with the proper raising of a child. We were
grilled and inspected about our religious beliefs, our
economic assets, and our morality. Eventually we passed all
of their tests, paid a fee, and were declared acceptable
adoptive parents. Finally, we would be bringing a baby home
to the small farmhouse at the end of the dirt road.

The car trip from Wichita to Dodge City lasted three
hours. My husband drove while I held my daughter on my lap.
I didn't have a driver’s license back then anyway, but as my
daughter grew up, I realized that I would have to learn to

drive. My husband taught me how to drive by making me go

29

30
back and forth down the mile—long dirt road in our pea green

Plymouth station wagon. It was not a pleasant time.

When I thought that she was old enough, I tried to
explain what adoption meant to my daughter, but she said it
seemed vague, detached from her somehow. We used to pull
out photo albums and look through the pictures of her as if
that might help identify who she was. It bothered her that
there were no pictures of her in the hospital when she was
born. Her friends photo albums all had pictures marked
newborn. She told me that it made her a little crazy to
think that no pictures of her existed for the first two
months of her life.

“What about those two months?” she would ask.

Yes, I thought, what about those two months. I had no
answer. All I knew was that her birth parents lived
somewhere around Wichita, and that they had placed her for
adoption because they were too young to care for a baby.
This was the agency’s story about the birth parents: the
man had big feet and musical talent, and the woman was short
and had wanted to name my daughter Connie. I had other
ideas and named her after her Grandmother Starbuck.

She was quite young when she realized that not knowing
is almost as difficult as knowing. She told me often that
her story seemed like a fairytale to her. She said that she

dreamt often, sometimes while sleeping, of herself as a

30
back and forth down the mile—long dirt road in our pea green

Plymouth station wagon. It was not a pleasant time.

When I thought that she was old enough, I tried to
explain what adoption meant to my daughter, but she said it
seemed vague, detached from her somehow. We used to pull
out photo albums and look through the pictures of her as if
that might help identify who she was. It bothered her that
there were no pictures of her in the hospital when she was
born. Her friends photo albums all had pictures marked
newborn. She told me that it made her a little crazy to
think that no pictures of her existed for the first two
months of her life.

“What about those two months?” she would ask.

Yes, I thought, what about those two months. I had no
answer. All I knew was that her birth parents lived
somewhere around Wichita, and that they had placed her for
adoption because they were too young to care for a baby.
This was the agency's story about the birth parents: the
man had big feet and musical talent, and the woman was short
and had wanted to name my daughter Connie. I had other
ideas and named her after her Grandmother Starbuck.

She was quite young when she realized that not knowing
is almost as difficult as knowing. She told me often that
her story seemed like a fairytale to her. She said that she

dreamt often, sometimes while sleeping, of herself as a

31
young child whisked into a treeless land by something large

and circular. The wind would howl and push her towards the
edge of a grassy cliff.

“But just before I am about to fall, I realize that I
am safe. That I can float to the land below.”

She began believing in dreams when she was very young,
but it would not be enough for her. In grade school, she
discovered the power of words, and I learned that holding on
to something you’ve fought for is not always possible. Her
adoption story shifted from a slow and peaceful hum of a
story to a contorted piece of news. Like barb wire.

Her classmates in Miss Pike’s class taunted her one
day: .My.mom says you’re adopted. You don’t have a mom.
You’re stupid. But she didn’t let them get to her. She
called the loudest one, Johnny, a son of a bitch. When she
told me about it later, I understood why. She had heard her
father use this term when he was angry one day, so she
supposed that it was a word that anyone could use. She said
it felt good saying it. I really couldn't argue with her on
that point. 1

Miss Pike spanked her with a wooden paddle in front of
the class. I imagined the voluptuous Miss Pike, hair the
color of rattlesnake skin, eyes shaded with a purple-blue
that no other woman in Dodge City would be caught dead in,

slamming the thick wooden paddle across the backside of my

32
daughter. I wondered how Miss Pike would feel with a cattle

prod poking her in the ribs.

I was furious when I found out and marched down to the
school for an explanation. Miss Pike seemed unconcerned
that the other children had provoked my daughter’s response.
Miss Pike, in her too-tight skirt and low-cut blouse, told
me that she simply could not tolerate bad language. I told
her if she ever laid a hand on my daughter again that I
would make the rest of her teaching life miserable. The
rest of the year was uneventful.

I did not believe in harming children when they
misbehaved. It was the way my mother taught me. Work was
the punishment my brother, sister, and I received when we
did things we shouldn’t. Plus, my mother warned me
constantly that God was always watching. I taught that to
my daughter. I swear that sometimes she would look over her
shoulder to see if it was true. My house was usually
spotless since my daughter had a penchant for locating
trouble and sometimes inventing it.

She loved bringing animals into the house. Baby pigs,
dogs, chicks. I had one rule: no cats. The cats had to
stay in the barn. She loved cattle and horses, but never
tried to bring them into the house. Her horse, Willie, was
a mean horse, and when she rode him, she always wore this

determined look on her face, never a face of fear.

33
The neighbor boys taught her how to milk their dairy

cows. Anything the four neighbor boys did, she tried to do
it better. Faster. Longer. They scared me to death, but
she followed them around like the baby pigs followed her
around.

Our neighbors to the east of us, (we had none to the
west), had a house even smaller than ours, and it was packed
tight with six children. Sarah and Rex had more children
than cattle. Their oldest girl baby-sat for my daughter on
the rare occasions when her father.and I went out to the
Lamplighter for fried chicken and dancing to a live band.
The four boys made up the bulk of the family, and a baby
girl was born a few years after the last boy.

Sarah was like a sister to me. Her husband, a regular
on Sunday mornings at the First Christian Church at the end
of the dirt road, beat his children with a strap for just
about any infraction. I felt that I was always watching
Sarah, waiting to see if she needed me, but she never asked
for help. My daughter asked me once if God was watching the
neighbors or if he was too busy watching her.

She dressed like the neighbor boys, acted like them,
and talked like them. She learned to swear and swagger like
a bull rider before she turned ten. When I found out that

she jumped off of the neighbor's garage at the urging of the

33
The neighbor boys taught her how to milk their dairy

cows. Anything the four neighbor boys did, she tried to do
it better. Faster. Longer. They scared me to death, but
she followed them around like the baby pigs followed her
around.

Our neighbors to the east of us, (we had none to the
west), had a house even smaller than ours, and it was packed
tight with six children. Sarah and Rex had more children
than cattle. Their oldest girl baby-sat for my daughter on
the rare occasions when her father and I went out to the
Lamplighter for fried chicken and dancing to a live band.
The four boys made up the bulk of the family, and a baby
girl was born a few years after the last boy.

Sarah was like a sister to me. Her husband, a regular
on Sunday mornings at the First Christian Church at the end
of the dirt road, beat his children with a strap for just
about any infraction. I felt that I was always watching
Sarah, waiting to see if she needed me, but she never asked
for help. My daughter asked me once if God was watching the
neighbors or if he was too busy watching her.

She dressed like the neighbor boys, acted like them,
and talked like them. She learned to swear and swagger like
a bull rider before she turned ten. When I found out that

she jumped off of the neighbor’s garage at the urging of the

34
four boys, I begged her to start acting like a young lady.

I bought her another dress, but she refused to wear it.

“Can’t climb fences in1a dress,” she'd say as she ran
through the house, clutching a pig, dogs following at her
heels.

I was forty-seven years old, and my daughter was ten in
June of 1965 when the John Martin Dam in Colorado overflowed
its banks and spawned a wall of water down the path of the
Arkansas River towards the Great Plains of Kansas. The
culmination of snow melt and heavy spring rains in the
mountains meant disaster for the flatlands of Kansas. The
riverbanks could not contain what the John Martin Dam could
not control. We had little time to pack our belongings and
remove our livestock off of our property.

I loved my house at that minute more than anything in
the world. How could I decide what to pack? What could I
live without? Would the walls hold back the water? Would
the water be deep? If only I had an upstairs where I might
carry everything to.

I ran through the house, throwing things in bags, and
piling things on top of furniture. My daughter helped me by
running things out to our car and bringing me glasses of
iced tea. I had an incredible thirst. When I told her
that it was time for her to pack her things, she stood in

her room, wondering what to choose.

35
Her room, more like a hallway, a place to pass through

on the way to somewhere else, had three doors; one led to
our bedroom, one led from the kitchen into her room, and
finally, a door to the bathroom. In order to go to the
bathroom, it was necessary to pass through her room. Inside
the bathroom, another door led to the storage room where her
clothes were strung along a pole stretched the length of the
room. She once told me about a girl in town who had a
closet the length of her room, and that this girl had
ribbons to match all of the dresses. “What a waste,” my
daughter said. I didn’t know if she met the dresses or the
ribbons.

“We have to hurry, dear,” I said.

“I can’t decide what to pack.” She sounded angry.
Suddenly, she ran outside, then called me to come. She
stood next to her purple Stingray bicycle and her dog,
Stinker. “I've decided.”

I said, “That's nice, but how about packing some
clothes?" I felt like laughing and crying at the same time.
She ran back into the house and threw a bunch of T-
shirts, shorts, and jeans into an old brown suitcase. I

packed two of her dresses in my bag.

After we finished packing and prepared to drive to my
motherfs house, we took turns kissing her father good-bye

and pulled away from the house.

36
“I can’t breathe, Mom,” she said, and I knew-what she

meant. I saw my husband fade behind a cloud of dust. A
tumbleweed blew past us towards the irrigation ditch, and I

started quietly repeating to myself maybe it won’t be too
bad.

The River

The Arkansas River rises in the Colorado Rockies and
then unfurls through the lowlands of Kansas, Oklahoma, and
Arkansas. Earthen dikes along the river trick the eye into
believing that the land ripples gently, one wheat field
after another, one farm house after another, while cascades
of pastures fluctuating as the cattle move and sway, break
the repetitious colors of brown and gold. Through this
lens, I search for the river. I know it is just beyond what
I cannot see. I know that it is there, that it breathes,
that it strips away while it feeds.

The dike prevented me from watching the river from my
bedroom window, but even though I could not see the river
with my eyes, I knew it was there, like the thunder that
rolls across the fields just before a storm. The river
pulled me towards it like the moon shifts the tides,
tempting me, teasing me, while I waited for it to reveal

itself to me.

37

Father’s Voice

We raised our daughter in the last house on a dead—end
road. People called it the dirt road because it was never
officially named. The road was a mile-long and straighter
than the dull edge of a knife. It began at the First
Christian Church down by a small bridge over the irrigation
ditch and ended at our house. Eight houses were in-between.

Behind these houses were fields which rose at their
northern-most point into dikes. To the naked eye, it looked
as if fields and a slight strand of cottonwood trees stood
between the spectator and Fort Dodge. The river was not
visible from our house.

The river flowed slightly north and west of our land, a
mere two minutes by foot down a dirt path, but then
gradually veered further north and east. Down by the
church, it was a distant mile away. The builders of the
church did not rely on distance to save them from the river
though. They built the small white building on top of a six
feet high concrete block foundation in the event that God
couldn’t protect it from any overflow.

South of the dirt road were an irrigation ditch and
acres and acres of corn fields. The irrigation ditch, the
baby of Harry Riley’s dam, sliced through the countryside

for several miles feeding wheat fields and corn fields along

38

39
the way. Farmers depended upon this water, and Harry never

let them down.

Down by the church, where the dirt road connected with
the paved road, was the grade school my daughter attended
through eighth grade. It was a long brick building with a
football field out back. There never seemed to be enough
boys for a football team, but they kept the field prepared
in the event that enough strong farm boys were allowed to do
anything after school besides chores.

We passed the church and the school on our way to town
every single day. There were no alternative routes, no back
alleys. Seeing that church every day sort of kept me in
check even though I avoided going to it unless somebody was
getting married or buried. My daughter sang there one
Sunday when she was about twelve, so I went for that. Wore
my brown suit. She was trying to be a singer then, so she’d
sing wherever they'd have her.

My daughter learned to read the road the way farmers
figure out clouds when they are looking for rain. Instead
of looking upward, and either praying for rain or cursing
the cloudless blue—white sky, she watched the road for cars.
She could predict who was driving down the road long before
she could make out the car or truck. She could tell by
their dust. Cheaters, as she called those people who fished

illegally, always drove real slow down the road as if they

40
could sneak up on our driveway. Regulars hit the corner by

the church and accelerated until they reached their own
driveway. Dust clouds were common on our road. You learned
to breathe it, smell it, and taste it.

The mailman’s truck was the easiest vehicle to figure
out. Stop and go. Stop and go. Nick Jackson told my
daughter she was the best cuStomer he had after she got into
the pen-pal business. She had almost thirty of them,
including a young man from Nigeria. Every summer after
church camp, she always had a new batch of boys writing to
her. Not long letters. I could tell by the thin envelopes.
The girls she wrote to sent back bulging letters.

One boy she met at camp when she was fourteen, wrote
her a few letters, and then showed up in our driveway one
day in an old white hearse. He was sixteen and drove all
the way from Pratt. I remember watching her walk barefoot
down the sidewalk towards this boy who had a grin like a
snake, hair hanging over one eye, and wondering if I should
warn her about him. He moved towards her like he was going
to inhale her when he got close enough. I thought I saw her
disappear for a minute. My wife warned me to get my face
off of the door.

On summer nights when my daughter got a bit older, she
liked to sit on the fence rail at the corner of the field

and peer down the dirt road with her hands cupped over her

41
eyes like they were binoculars. She began waiting for him.

Dean. .A boy in a dark red Chevy with an oversized engine.
He had the same walk as the boy from Pratt, but not the same
smile. Dean didn’t smile. His face was expressionless, but
his hands moved over her as if he were tracing lines on a
road map. I’d watch her walk down the sidewalk, arm-in-arm
with Dean. He would lead her to the driver's side and help
her climb in. Once inside, she would carefully straddle the
stick shift so that she could be next to him. I hated the
car. I hated him. He made me nervous.

Sundays were good days.1 Family days. Everyone on our
road had company for Sunday dinner. My wife’s mother and
father Came out every Sunday after services.at the First
Presbyterian Church in town. My daughter never tried to
sing there. Said the minister's son was always trying to
get her into some alcove or trick her into going to the
janitor's room in the basement. She said he had fish hands,
and she was tired of slapping them away.

After her grandfather died, her grandmother continued
coming out on Sundays until she died at the age of ninety-
two. But by then, my daughter had moved on, so it was just
the three of us sitting at a table with too much food and
too many ghosts. 1

Sunday was the only day I could be home all day. My

wife and I owned a restaurant at McKinley-Winters Livestock

42
Incorporated. On sale days, Wednesdays, Fridays, and

Saturdays, we worked from early morning until late at night.
Loren, who_lived next door to the church, helped around the
farm on days the rest of us were tied up at the restaurant.

My daughter could go anywhere in the sale barn. The
offices were across the hall from the restaurant, and a
western clothing store and a party room were upstairs. The
sale arena made up the bulk of the building.

The Branding Iron, the western clothing store, chose
her as their model when she was three years old, and her
picture was on the front page of the Globe. She wore an
outfit that had Tomboy embroidered on the jeans. The black
and white picture of her sitting at the horseshoe-shaped
counter in my restaurant, with that crooked smile on her
face as she posed for the camera, seems a bit faded now, but
the memory is sharp and full.

I made her stay away from the cattle pens on sale days
because of all of the semi-trucks unloading cattle. She
would go upstairs to the party room across from the Branding
Iron, stand in front of a window, and watch the cattle run
out of the trucks into the long chutes which led to the
holding pens. “Mean men, mean trucks,” she told me once,
insisting that the wheels of the semis were filled with

blood.

43
Her favorite spot in the building was in the

auctioneer’s booth where she had a perfect View of the
cattle coming through the arena and of all the cattlemen
waiting to bid. She loved the cadence of the auctioneer's
voice as he sang Out the prices. She liked to go into the
booth when no one was around and pretend that she was the
auctioneer, but she could never speak fast enough. But this
too began to bore her, and after the flood in June of 1965,
she never set foot in the auctioneer’s booth again. Not
after she heard that dead cows had floated right past our

house. Just wasn’t the same.

Fugue

There was a path from my driveway to the dam. As a
child, I walked it barefoot, careful to avoid sticker
patches and rattlesnakes. Tumbleweeds strolled aimlessly
past me gathering at the irrigation ditch until a strong
westerly wind would force them out and whip them towards
defenseless corn and wheat fields.

My dog Stinker, a Cocker Spaniel who climbed the wooden
gates and fences on our farm, always followed me
expectantly, hoping for an adventure worthy of a dog who
preferred going over fences rather than under.

And we would follow the path until we reached the spot
on the highest part of the dam which stood level with the
tops of the irrigation ditch gates. Two steps to the east
of the gates was the iron ladder which had been built into
the concrete dam so that the dam keeper could climb down to
the river. Once reaching the bottom of the ladder, the dam
keeper could walk across the cement slab spanning the width
of the river and raise or lower the small wooden gates to
coincide with the demand for water in the irrigation ditch.
The slab and the four foot drop below it created a poor
man’s waterfall. It was a perfect spot for watching.

There were days when the Kansas wind subsided long
enough for me to hear the sound of my own breathing. It was

during these moments that I began to understand the pitfalls

44

of motionlessness.

45

Harry Riley’s Voice

I was paid to watch the river. Every morning and every
night. Opening gates. Closing gates. Making sure that all
of the farmers had water for their fields. If I needed a
lot of water running through the irrigation ditch, I had to
open up the twenty-foot high irrigation gates, and then
climb down the iron ladder into the river. Then, by pulling
up all of the gates running along the concrete slab, one by
one, the river would slowly begin its surge to the south.

I hated it when I had to block off the entire river,
because that's when the kids would show up and run across
the slab into the trails leading to Fort Dodge. It’s not
that they ever touched my gates; it’s just that I was afraid
that if one of those kids ever dropped into the river or
fell down and cracked their head open, I’d have a dead body
on my conscience. And it was always girls down there
wanting to cross over into Fort Dodge. My daughter was one
of them.

It was a hell of a river until the flood of 1965 came
through and wrecked my life. I still felt the need for it.
Like blood running through my veins, I guess. Even after
the flood ripped my house off of its foundation and left it
broken in a flood-made riverbed a halfea-mile downstream, I

still needed to work the river. The irony of the thing was

47
that my house ended up like some old bone in a graveyard

while the family’s house closest to the dam and the river
just stood there. Didn't budge.

'Well, it was easy to see why. When the dam broke, the
main current went to the south. Turned just like it was
filling up the irrigation ditch. I guess I trained the
water well.

1 We tried to hold off the river. Tried to keep it in
its banks. About twenty men, farmers, ranchers, all of the
men with houses on the dirt road, tried to make the dam hold
the river off. And we would have too, if we hadn’t been
scared off the dam the night the flood rolled into town. We
worked for about ten hours straight trying to shore up the
dam and the dike. Some city men had driven to Garden City,
about fifty miles west of town, to get a first hand look at
what was coming our way. They put a call through to us
right.away and ordered us to get the men to higher ground
immediately because the wall of water was like nothing they
had ever seen before. “Too dangerous,” they said.

We had set up a camp over on a hill about a mile from
the dam, and so we headed there to listen for the river to
roll in. As we sat outside of our tents and campers that
night, sipping a little black jack, and filling ourselves
with fried chicken from the Lamplighter, everyone grew

silent as we began to notice the sound of a river exploding.

48
We couldn’t see it, but we could hear it, and it scared us

all to death. No one slept that night for fear the river
would continue to climb, maddeningly, searching for us, as
we clung to the safety of a small grass covered hill south

of the Arkansas River.

Finding Harry’s House

It stood in the riverbed about three miles east of our
house. The flood had wedged Harry Riley's house in the
riverbed north of his land. It wasn’t the natural riverbed
either, but one carved out by an overgrown river. This
stretch of sand rippled and smelled. Dying cottonwood trees
were scattered around like pick-up-sticks. Tires and wads
of barbed wire sat among clumps of tumbleweeds and clods of
dirt. A small pink shirt hung from a downed tree branch.
It looked like Harry’s daughter’s shirt.

Toby and I had been forbidden to go to Harry’s house,
but since both of our mothers and fathers worked all day and
usually into the night, we had no one to report to on most
summer days. Sometimes, Toby's oldest sister Sally was
supposed to keep an eye on us, but her idea of watching us
consisted of staying away from her and her boyfriend. They
spent most of their time in her bedroom listening to
records. Sally ended up pregnant when she was seventeen,
and Toby and I weren’t surprised.

The day that we found Harry’s house was beautiful. At
ten o’clock in the morning, the temperature climbing past
eighty degrees, not a cloud in the unforgiving sky, we
crawled into Harry’s house. It was slanted at a forty-five

degree angle, and reminded me of a fun house I had gone

49

so.
through at the Kansas State Fair the year before. The only

difference was that this house was silent. The floorboards
creaked as we made our way through the kitchen. We could
hear ourselves breathing.

We made our way into the living room where toys covered
with mud clung to the corners. A fat brown chair lay on its
side against a wall. I thought it must have been Harry’s
chair. It was exactly like my father's chair except that
Harry’s was covered with mud.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. Toby agreed. We went
outside and crawled on top of a downed tree after checking
it for snakes.

“Must have been scary,” Toby said.

“What if he'd been in it?” I asked.

“Dead. He'd be dead.”

“Wish I hadn't had to go to my grandmother’s house,” I
said. Toby nodded in agreement. She'd been stuck at her
grandmother's house, too.

My father had sent my mother and I to my grandparents'
house north of town by the Country Club. We had to stay
there for two weeks. I got to swim in a neighbor's pool and
had it all to myself. I rode my bike all over that part of
town on paved roads with no holes in them. But those were

the only good things about staying there.

51
When my mother and I were finally allowed to return

home, we were relieved to find that our house had survived
the onslaught of water, but everything that had been stored
in our garage and storage were gone. In our haste to pack,
we had left a trunk filled with pictures of my father's
family, and Willie's saddle and bridle behind. The river
had claimed them.

When the river had burst through the dam and the dike,
the water which bled off of the main current had gone south
of our house. Since our house had been built up high on
concrete blocks, and my father had sandbagged around the
perimeter of the house, we did not get any water in our
house. Our neighbors, one-hundred yards to the east,
received three feet of water in their house.

Our fields were brown and flat and full of sand and
quicksand. I was not allowed to play outside until my
father felt that the rattlesnakes were mostly gone, and a
spot of quicksand in our front yard had been cleaned up.
But what I remember most about being outside after the flood
was the quietness and the lack of color. It was like
looking at the black and white photographs in our picture
book, everything colorless, everything frozen in time. I

cannot remember hearing birds for many months.

_ 52
“Dead,” I said to Toby as we stared at the odd pile of

wood which used to be Harry's house. “He would have been

dead.”

Learning to Drive

My father didn’t care much about farming after the
flood, so he left the pens empty and decided to teach me how
to drive. The pickup, a red and white ford, three-speed on
the column, had an AM radio and an oversized ashtray. I
liked to drive the truck down the road between our fields
and our livestock pens, pretending that I was in charge,
tipping my cowboy hat at no one and nothing. After some
time passed, my father bought a few head of cattle and
plunked them down in the middle of what used to be a small
wheat field. I liked it better when the pens were empty.
Then, it was just empty against empty. A handful of cattle
set against a wall of barren pens looked strange. He never
let Willie come back home either. So, I kept on driving,
barely able to see through the steering wheel.

I liked riding home from the restaurant with my father
because sometimes he stopped at the Trail Street Tavern and
drank a few beers. The music from the jukebox mixed
smoothly with the laughter of the working men and the
giggles of women who Toby said were witches. She’d seen one
of them sneaking up the stairs in back of the building one
night pulling Dee Potter's dad along by his Champion Bull
Rider belt buckle. Toby said that these women cast spells

on men. I always kept an eye on the door to make sure my

53

54 .
father was safe from any magic that might be happening

inside.

One night, while waiting in the truck, keeping my eyes
focused on the door, I accidentally knocked the truck out of
gear. It rolled several feet backwards due to a slight
incline in the dirt parking lot. I was glad that my father
had not parked on a hill, but Dodge City has few hills, so
any slight variation in elevation is usually missed.

But one bill in town was famous to outsiders. Boot
Hill was where men were buried with their boots on. This
variation in the overall rise and fall of the town mattered
mostly to tourists who were eager to amuse themselves with
bones and dirt. Once, my friends and I ventured upon the
grounds of the re-built historical part of the town and
watched a re-enactment of a gunfight, but it didn't mean
much to us. We'd seen glimpses of it all of our lives as we
passed by on Wyatt Earp Boulevard.

Fourteenth Street intersects with Wyatt Earp Boulevard
not far from Boot Hill. This street starts out north of
town and slopes downward towards South Dodge. It does not
rely on the dead in order to achieve its place in the
history of the city. Just south of Wyatt Earp Boulevard are
railroad tracks and beyond that lies the Fourteenth Street

Bridge which was built for a much wider river than the

55
Arkansas. During the flood of 1965, the bridge looked as if

it were spanning water worthy of its concrete and steel.

It is at this point that the town begins to shrink upon
itself, spreading like arthritic hands outward into pockets
of houses and businesses, leaving the substantial part of
town behind. When the flood came, it swallowed up the south
end of town, filled houses with mud, severed farmers crops
from the fields, drained families life savings, and prompted
the people on the north side of town to drop a few extra
dollars into the overflowing baskets at the First
Presbyterian Church. The Catholics and the Baptists came in
a close second and third. The First Christian Church down
at the end of the dirt road was closed two months for
repair. 1

‘The summer I turned fourteen and was old enough to
obtain my restricted license, my father said that it was
time for me to attend Mr. Black's Driving School. Bud Black
was a smooth-looking man, cigarettes hadn’t ruined his face
yet, and his crew-cut gave him the appearance of a military
man. Mr. Black taught ninth grade economics during the
school year, and through pure, bad luck, I ended up in his
economics class in the fall. He gave me an A—plus in
driver's education, and a C—minus in economics. While I

could parallel park flawlessly and make perfect three—point

56
turns, I failed to understand the intricacies of supply and

demand.

At the age of fourteen, restricted license in hand, I
graduated from the fields by my house to streets and bridges
of the town. There were three bridges connecting the north
side of town to the south. By using alternate routes and
randomly choosing which bridge to cross to move between home
and school, or home and work, or home and my grandmother’s,
I was not hindered by the smallness of my place on the river
behind my house. From these bridges, I could watch the
river before it flowed past my house and catch a glimpse of
it after it had safely passed.

The Fourteenth Street bridge was farthest from my home
on the west side of town. A bit nearer to my home, and the
main route we used to go anywhere, was the Second Street
bridge. Our connection to the lifeblood of the city. The
Coronado Bridge, a few miles east of my house, was the
closest but yet the most dangerous to my eyes because of the
men who spent their days fishing and drinking beer there.

My father told me that it was a place where men spent their
time dreaming, but I never saw them with their eyes closed.
As I lumbered across the bridge in my mother’s Pontiac, I
would glance their way, but I didn't dare stop. Instead,
the lights from the radio, the hum of the car’s engine, the

air seemingly chasing me through open windows, made me drive

57
on. I wondered if they knew why a dirty stream of water was

capable of splitting a city and stealing a man's house.

Tennis Shoes and Blood

I became a thief in 1968 when I stole Sandy Pierson's
new tennis shoes. Lifted them right out of the girls’
locker room, still in the box. Still white. Still
virginal. This girl who wore candy-striped dresses and
curled ribbons in her hair had decided that I acted more
like a boy than a girl. .Along with this declaration, made
before a group of girls who had been my friends through the
first thirteen years of my life, she claimed that I
shouldn't be allowed to watch The.MOVIE. But I was way
ahead of her because I had never intended to watch The
MOVIE .

The movie, “A Young Girl's Guide to Becoming a Woman,”
was required viewing for all seventh and eighth grade girls
at the Wilroads Gardens Grade School. For one hour, around
twenty girls, the combined total of seventh and eighth
graders, were shuttled into a classroom, blinds pulled, and
voices silenced. When Toby's sister forewarned us that it
would be the worst hour of our lives, I came up with a plan
to get out of watching it. Toby refused to try it even
though it worked for me for both years. I figured that I
didn’t need to watch a movie about menstruation because I

had already learned everything I needed to know from Toby’s

58

59

sister and her endless stash of True Romance magazines. I
was not afraid of sex because I couldn't care less about it.

In 1967, prior to the theft of Sandy's shoes, my mother
gave me a book about sex. These facts of life as they were
called seemed to me like something a person ought to know
1naturally without having to watch a black and white film or
reading a book. Inborn. Unlike rules (like making us watch
a movie) which were man-made and were likely to be
challenged and broken.

To placate my mother, I read the book secretly, careful
not to read it when my father was home, fearing that if he
found me reading it that some connection between it and sex
would be made. Toby's sister's magazines spelled out all
too plainly what happened to young girls when they were
confronted with sex: disaster. I wanted to avoid that at
all costs.

'In a way, I was jealous of Sandy in her brightly—
colored dresses and her Mary Janes. When go-go boots became
popular, she got a white pair of those. For gym class, she
wore perfectly white tennis shoes. Sandy was rich, and new
tennis shoes meant nothing to her. To me, it seemed as if
she got a new pair as soon as the old ones became dirty, and
believe me, there was a lot of dirt flying around the

school.

60
Even though they were rich, Sandy's parents preferred

country living because they loved horses. They owned ten of
them and kept them in specially built pens. But Sandy
didn't care about horses because she wanted to live in town
where her true friends lived. She knew she had been born to
live in town. Belonged at the regular junior high. Not at
some country school where first graders and eighth graders
shared the same bathrooms. So, bored, Sandy tried to run
the seventh and eighth grade social circle by promising free
rides on her horses for those girls and boys who allowed her
to call the shots.

For some reason, probably because I never went to her
house to ride her horses, and because I didn’t join the
phone group who called each other up every night to decide
what dress to wear to school the next day (I was into a
pair of pink pedal-pushers at the time), Sandy decided that
I should be cut off from the other girls. When she
suggested that I shouldn’t be allowed to watch the movie, I
decided that she was right even though I didn't tell her
that.

I I couldn't think of a single reason to sit in a
classroom crowded with girls when I could be in a classroom
filled with seventh and eighth grade boys watching a movie
about the invention of the automobile. After all, boys

didn't need to learn about sex} they needed to learn about

61
cars. Girls needed to learn about sex, take home economics

in ninth grade (as I would later find out), survive high
school without becoming pregnant, and then, get married and
have babies. It was really a movie about timing. Timing
was everything.

So, that first year, I forgot to take the note home to
my mother and failed to obtain written permission to watch
the movie. No note; no movie. I lied to the school
secretary and told her that my mother didn’t want me to see
it, so in with the boys I went.

The first year Sandy Pierson thought it was hilarious
and that justice had prevailed. The second year, after I
once again lost the note, she came up to me after the movie
as I walked out of Mr. Stevens room laughing with several
boys and said, “You planned this all along didn't you?” I
smiled and kept on walking. That's why I stole her shoes
and dumped them in the river. For taking two years to

figure out something so simple.

The Blues

They came out of nowhere. Like a roll of thunder
rumbling in ominous crescendos, I could feel the blues wash
over me like a cool spring rain. But I could not see them.
I searched the sky, hungry for their source, but nothing was
revealed to me until that clear April day when I saw
lightning out of the corner of my eyes. Like heat
lightning. Suddenly, I could see what could not be seen.
Bolts of silver. Streaks of white heat. Driving became
more complicated.

The lightning became more frequent as the blues hid
just below the surface, slightly out of reach, dark and
oxygen-rich. I met Dean and began driving with my eyes
closed. The summer passed by slowly as the heat of Kansas

robbed the sky of rain.

62

Dean’s Voice

I threw her against the lockers at high school one
afternoon after seeing her talking to some six—foot-four
football goon. Rumor had it that he wanted to ask her out.
A rich boy after my girl. He was destined to be a doctor or
something, and I didn't see how she figured in his plans.
So, I pinned her against the locker until she promised me
that she would never speak to him again. I used to be a
wrestler, so I could play tough. Walk that walk. When she
walked away from me that day, after I promised her that I
would never hurt her again, she acted like it didn’t mean
anything at all.

I watched her forever it seemed before we finally
exchanged words. I had heard of her and how she liked to
write poetry, and I wanted her to write for me. She was
sixteen, and I was seventeen.

One night at a party down on Sunflower Street, she
walked up to me slowly, her eyes half closed, her body
swaying to the music. She danced in front of me,
expectantly, waiting for me to speak, but I had never been
good with words. I could not think of anything to say to
make her stay close to me, but it didn’t matter.

“Can't you talk?” she asked.

“When I want to,” I answered.

63

“I think you want to.”

She was right. I wanted to. She asked me to take her
home after her friend Toby left.

“Isn't Toby coming back?”

“No. I told her that I thought I had a ride home.”

“What if you didn't?” I asked, amazed at her nerve.

“I can walk.”

“Don't you live way out in the country?” I asked,
stupidly realizing that I had just revealed that I knew
something about her.

“It's only about five miles from here.”

“It's dark out.”

“So? It isn't that hard to find.” She started to walk
off, and I realized right then, that I’d better start
thinking straight. Start talking right. I took her home
that night down a dark road to nowhere it seemed. Past the
Sandpit, dimly lit houses, a youth home for boys lit up
carefully as if the lights could contain them somehow, the
desiccating plant where the smell of dead animals made us
hold our noses until we passed, then more houses.

“How can you stand this drive every day?” I asked.

“Well now, I don't have much choice, do I?”

I didn't say much after that for fear of saying the
wrong thing. When I dropped her off at her house at the end

of a long, dirt road, I realized as I watched her walk up

65
the sidewalk to her house that I never wanted her to walk

anywhere without me again.

It was hot that summer, and we drove around in my 1966
Chevy exploring country roads, finding all of the hiding
spots out at the lake, and she began writing poetry for me.
When school started, I convinced her to do my English
homework, and for the first time in my life, I got an A in
something involving words. When she typed my papers on her
mother’s big, black typewriter, I used to sit across the
table from her and watch. She was fast.

I’m not sure when the trouble started between us. She
said I was getting too involved with drugs. Marijuana.
Hash. Acid. Speed. One high after another. I felt myself
slipping a bit. Started looking at the down side of things
while she wanted to see the good things. She didn't
understand that my addiction to her was much worse than
anything I was feeding my body.

One night when I was at Richard’s trailer and not
expecting to see her, she walked in right when I had the
needle poised against my arm. She pushed Toby back outside
and slammed the trailer door without saying anything. A few
hours later, she and Toby showed up with a half-empty bottle
of Boonesfarm wine and never mentioned what had went on

earlier.

66
One night soon after that, she snuck out of her

grandmother’s house, walked two miles in the dark using
streetlights to guide her and shadows to hide her from the
Cops, and lightly knocked on my window until I woke up. She
had been staying with her grandmother she said so that she
could get a feel for living in town again. Like she had for
awhile when she was ten. Something about a flood.

“I've got a poem for you,” she whispered. I could see
her fairly well because of the streetlight at the corner of
my street.

“You are crazy,” I answered as I opened up the screen
and grabbed the small piece of paper.

“See you tomorrow,” she said as she ran from my house.
I read the poem in the dark. I didn't sleep the rest of the
night. She was that good with words.

Things went smooth again for awhile. Bought her a few
eight tracks; James Taylor, Carole King. Stuffed animals.
Had her sit with me while I worked at my dad's Kwik Shop.
Then one day, on the way to the Dairy Queen, she said
something that angered me, I can’t remember what it was now,
and I pulled over, parked along the curb next to Doc
Gleason’s house, and forced her against the passenger door.
Held her there. Yelling at her. Somethingjust came over
me, and I wanted to hurt her. Make her feel what I felt.

Whatever the hell it was.

Night Moves

“If I had a gun, I would kill you,” he said as he
choked me, hands locked in a stranglehold around my neck.
Holding me against the side of his car, the weight of his
body crushed me, warmed me. The same body he had used for
the purpose of loving me seemed larger now, the arms
stronger. His legs pressed into mine. Blue jeans rubbing
against blue jeans. I could not breathe. Could not

negotiate this passion.

67

Tailspin

Toby and I, bored with what the city had to offer,
began roaming the perimeter of the town for the purpose of
watching the skies. Dark purple clouds, threaded with dark
blues and grays, brought the possibility of danger with
them. Excitement. Passion. The monotonous cover of blue
which usually blanketed the sky on hot Kansas days seemed to
be lulling us into a kind of walking numbness. At nineteen,
chasing tornadoes was the only way of confronting the
emptiness, the colorlessness, and the unforgiving miles and
miles of treeless plains. Each of us were looking for that
one thing that would allow us to breathe again.

My father had warned us to stay near the river when we
chased tornadoes since he believed that they would not cross
a river. I understood his concern with our safety, but I
could not make him understand the feeling of intoxication,
of floating, that I felt while watching a wall cloud breathe
life into the sky. I knew that with the slightest rotation
of a funnel cloud, that the breath could be sucked out of me
and the Kansas dirt the last thing I saw.

Toby and I refused to be confined to the curves of the
Arkansas River. We believed that we were like the river,
and that we were safe from a tornado's path. We talked of

how we wanted to be close enough to one to feel the wind, to

68

69
watch it as it sucked up the Kansas dirt, but nothing more.

Night after night, we watched the sky, tempting the clouds
to spin.

On cloudless nights, we divided our time between Fred’s
Tavern and the Horseshoe Bar. We played foosball and
loosely flirted with men who spent their time farming by day
and drinking by night.’ Cloudless skies constrained us to a
game of skill instead of a game of chance. We did not like
losing because we believed that it was dangerous.

So, Toby and I began to coast through the nights. It
was as if we were wounded somehow, walking around with masks
on, laughing too much, drinking too much. I never asked her
how she made it through her nights, but my nights were
filled with dread. I felt as if I were being squeezed by
imagined hands made of sorrow and pain. Hands welcoming the
dead. I missed Dean, but I could not understand why.

I began writing poetry, but it was not filled with rage
or anger. Not filled with politics or the aftermath of the
Vietnam War. Not filled with stories of girls who once had
brothers. Not of headbands and burning bras. Not of Roe
versus Wade or Nixon’s bullshit. I could not look past the
land at the end of the long dirt path so I wrote of a river
that flowed past my house willing to take a man's house, but
unable to take me to a place where I could find passion. I

could not rest. I could not sleep.

70
One night at the Horseshoe Bar, Toby and I played

endless games of foosball against two men we had known for
some time. They were killing time, too. Toby and Randy
began playing distractedly, their eyes becoming more intent
on each other than the game. When they decided to leave,
Randy's friend and I decided to ride around for awhile. I
considered going home, but thought that if I spent a few
hours with Jared that I could avoid going home to the
stillness of my room. 1

We stepped outside into the night air, and the coolness
of the bar was replaced by instant sweat. I could feel the
change in the weather without looking towards the sky. We
climbed into Jared’s MG, and he drove south, and then east.
I asked no questions because I preferred silence.

At eighty miles an hour on Highway 56, Jared drove
directly into a wall cloud. This was not the way Toby and I
played the game. We were not foolish enough or brave enough
to look for the tail of a wall cloud. The car seemed to
rise above the ground with every gust of wind. As the
lightning highlighted the sky, we watched the wall cloud as
it bloomed and faded into view. Purple and blue clouds
filled the sky punctured by fissures of blinding light.

“Don't worry, we'll make it,” he yelled above the wind
as he laughed and sipped from his Budweiser, casually, as if

he were sitting on his front porch. The lightning was no

71
longer in the corner of my eye, but instead had come alive

in front of me. I felt as if it were striking me in the
face, punishing me. The pulse of the evening air hammered
at the small white car.

I could not speak, but strangely felt my breathing
become regular, normal. I wondered if I would ever see my
room again, so I made a quick deal with God, hoping that he
might be listening. In one split second, the life span of a
lightning bolt, I realized the dangerousness of being a
passenger in a car where the driver did not care if the last
thing he saw before dying was Kansas dirt exploding in his
lungs. He had gone beyond the thrill of the chase.

A.few years later, Jared committed suicide by shooting
himself in the head. Breathing had become difficult for him
somewhere along the line, and he could no longer find the
passion to live. His friends said that he was depressed
because a girl named Nancy had walked out on him. I thought
about that night in his car, and I realized that his passion
had taken him to far. He had gone over the edge alone.

After his funeral, I sought shelter under the voices of
the cottonwood trees which filtered the Kansas wind above
the Arkansas River. I wondered why breathing was so close
to dying.

Toby and I were losing interest in chasing tornadoes,

but we decided to give it one more try. We headed north of

72
town, far from the river, about a mile west of the feed

yards. The skies became violent as they shifted into an
dangerous shade of purple. Sirens blended with the
onslaught of wind and rain, but we could not see the funnel
cloud from where we sat like two spiders waiting for their
prey. We had failed again, so Toby drove me to my parents'
house. They were slightly drunk and laughing over the way
the_tornado had tricked them. It had bounced through the
fields behind our house, cutting a path parallel to the
river, but it had not crossed the river. My mother said, “I
couldn't close the bedroom window,” as if that were all that

mattered.

Toby’s Voice

“Remember Harry Riley?” I said as we sat on her parents
front porch. She looked at me carefully, and I felt guilty
for what I was about to say.

“What about him?”

“Well, remember that day we went into his house after
the flood?” She nodded. “We decided that Harry would have
been dead if he had stayed in his house during the flood.”
She sipped noisily on her beer.

“What's your point?” she asked.

“I’m moving to California. In two weeks.”

Dead silence.

“Did you hear me?” For as long as I had known her, she
had pretended not to hear things she did not want to hear.

“I heard you. Wow. California. So? Should I be
impressed?”

“No. You should come with me. Before you drown in
your own house.”

“I'm perfectly fine.”

“Since when? You haven't been anything for quite a
while. Just like me.”

“I like it like that. Floating. It’s easier that
way.”

“Dead. You'll be dead before you know it."

73

Paper Ghosts

Toby took off down the road much like Harry Riley would
have in years past. They both had a flair for stirring up
dust. I went in the house and grabbed two beers before
heading back to the porch. The night sky turned pink, then
purple, and eventually slipped into a shade somewhere
between blue and black. The wind picked up and a cluster of
tumbleweeds inched across the road towards the ditch.

My father came out on the porch and sat down beside me.
I offered him a beer, but he said he wasn’t thirsty.

“Remember when we had the fence around the yard?” I
asked him.

“Sure,” he answered.

“You used to tell me that there were paper ghosts in
the fence when I used to get scared.”

“Right.”

“How did you come up with that?” I asked.

He cleared his throat and grabbed the beer after all.
“When you were about eight or nine, I can't remember, your
horse got loose during a thunderstorm. He ran off. For
hours after the storm had passed, you kept staring at the
fence, pointing at some spot, telling me that Willie was out

there waiting to get back into his pen. I never saw him,

74

75
but I still went outside to look for him. There was never

any sign of him.”

“Where was he?” I asked.

“I don't know. Down by the river. Over at Norton’s.
Who knows? Since I didn’t have an explanation, I told you
that you must be seeing paper ghosts. I thought that maybe
you had seen paper blowing around in the storm and were
imagining Willie when it was paper or trash caught in the
fence.”

“Did it work?”

“Well, you fell asleep calling Willie’s name, and your
mother and I decided to give up looking for him for the rest
of the night. In the morning, Willie was standing by the
fence in the very spot you had pointed at. I guess you knew
somehow.”

“How?”

“I could never figure that out.”

Neither one of us could think of anything to say for a
while. We watched as the moon filtered through the fields
and lawn, and the night sky shifted everything visible into
shadows. My mother softly called to us, so I went inside
and assured her that everything was fine.

“We’re just talking,” I said as I grabbed two more

beers from the refrigerator.

76
I shut the screen door quietly on the way out, handed

my father a beer, and reminded him of when we used to sleep
out on the front porch.

“I don't think my back could handle it now. Why? Are
you thinking of sleeping outside?”

“No, but I'm glad we used to do that.” He patted me on
the hand, and once again, we both fell silent.

When I was younger, on clear, hot summer nights, my
father and I would take the cushions from our divan to make
a bed for him, the pad from the bench in the back room to
make a bed for me, and the two of us would sleep on the
front porch. Most nights, the sky, free from city lights,
would loom above us like a sequined mass of marrow.
Occasionally, a small airplane stalked the nighttime sky
allowing us to dream that we were on the plane heading
somewhere south of Albuquerque.

On other nights, the air hung so thick upon our faces
that we could barely breathe. We would watch as heat
lightning snaked its way around the sky like a pinball
machine without sound. My mother always slept inside,
preferring damp sheets over sweaty cushions. She'd say,
goodnight, sleep tight, and I'd answer, I won’t let the bed
bugs-bite.

For several nights after Toby warned me that she was

leaving, I watched the sunset from my front porch,

77
smothering myself in the fading light. Night after night,

the sky blew red and purple wisps of dirt clouds above the
treetops, and I imagined the sun slipping into the ocean
instead of dusting the tops of cottonwood trees. I could
hear myself breathing, but I knew that Toby was right. If I

didn't leave my house soon, I'd be dead before I knew it.

White Lines

Toby moved to California, and I worked so many hours
and parties at the Country Club that my boss, a petite
French woman named Lucy, asked me what was wrong. I told
her I needed the money and that seemed to satisfy her. I
knew that she was nervous about losing more of her staff
since the previous female bartender ran off with the head
chef. One night, they loaded up their cars with her two
kids and his favorite pots and pans and headed to an unknown
city in Oklahoma. Everyone at work thought it was terribly
romantic and told stories of what we would do if that kind
of passion were to come our way.

After work, around midnight or one a.m. depending on
the crowd, I would drive around the mostly deserted streets
in town to unwind before making the long drive home. I
liked the emptiness of the town, the neon lights in windows,
and the stoplights blinking red or yellow. It was on one
of these nightly trips that I ended up talking to Dean
again. I climbed into his car.

“How have you been?” I asked, even though I knew
because I had heard all of the stories about him. Who he
was dating. How he'd cleaned up his act. I felt like I
knew more about him than he did.

“I’ve been okay.”

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79
“So, what do you want?” I asked, since he had been the

one to indicate the desire for conversation. This was the
first time he had wanted to talk to me in some time, and I
was relieved to find that I felt emotionless. I loved him,
and I hated him at the same time.

“Did you ever cheat on me when we were together?” he
asked. I wasn't sure I had heard him right.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I heard you, but I don't know what you mean.”

“You know. Did you ever see other guys when we were
together?”

“Jesus Christ,” I answered. “How can you ask such an
asinine question?”

“I wanted to know,” he said.

»“What difference does it make now?”

“I just need to know.”

I opened the car door and climbed out.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “Don’t go.”

“Did you ever know me at all?” I said as I slammed the
door. I drove home as fast as I could. I realized that
loving someone did not mean the same as breathing the same
air. Toby was right; I was almost dead.

I drove down the dirt road, raising a cloud of dust

high enough to choke the dead. I quickly parked my car and

80
hurried into the darkened house. My dog Charlie greeted me

at the-door, happy that his wait was over. I grabbed the
photograph albums out of the closet in the laundry room and
began looking through them. Flesh and bones. Long hair,
short hair, tomboy clothes, Easter dresses, prom dates,
riding Willie, pictures of myself with every dog I had ever
owned, pictures of me with the family. But even with all of
these pictures of my body traveling through time, none of
them showed me beyond flesh and bones. I had been certain
that there would be blood upon the pictures. I thought that
I would find traces of lightning in the corners of my eyes.

Dead. I'd be dead before I knew it.

Mother’s Voice

I knew she'd be leaving us one day, but I thought that
she would be married first. For a few years, I had hoped
that she would marry a boy from here. Have some babies.

But she never seemed to find a groove like some of her
friends did. Quite a few girls married about a minute after
high school ended, but she avoided that. I think that her
relationship with Dean confused her somehow. I’m not sure
she knew what she was looking for. She never told me what
happened between them. I didn't ask.

The morning she left was beautiful. Cloudless. Not
too hot. She promised her grandmother and I that she would
write to us all the time. Her father warned her not to
speak to strangers for about the hundredth time. For the
first time in her life, she drove away slowly, the dirt road

barely shedding dust.

81

Driving Through New Mexico

Somewhere around.Albuquerque, I started breathing
again. I had been to New Mexico several times before, but
never this far west. My father used to take my mother and I
to the horse races in Raton when I was younger, but I never
imagined myself beyond that point.

With the windows rolled down and my hair swirling like
August dust devils, I drove towards the west. There were
many places that I wanted to stop, but I felt that I should
get to California before I changed my mind.

Two days after beginning my journey, I finally arrived
at Toby's driveway. Too little sleep and too much caffeine
had left me feeling strung out, hyper. I stood in front of
the duplex, a few blocks off of Highway One, and told myself
welcome to Hermosa Beach. I knocked on the door.

Toby turned out to be different or maybe it was me.

Her sister had married and moved out, so it was convenient
that I had arrived to help split the rent. We went our
separate ways during the day, but sometimes at night, we
found time to play foosball at one of the local bars. But
Toby was busy juggling several boyfriends at the time, and
she seemed to be edgy. Off of her game a bit.

Around Christmas time, I flew home to visit my parents.

When I returned to California, the apartment was empty

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83
because Toby had decided to get married. I wondered how she

had moved from dating several men to the decision to get
married. How had I missed the sign? I didn’t have time to
worry about it. I had to find a roommate.

‘Luckily, Paige and Evie needed a new roommate. Another
woman who lived with them was moving out to get married. I
wondered if there was some sort of boom going on. Marriages
seemed to be popping up all over, and I wasn't even dating.

The three of us fell into a steady routine of work and
play, but tension surrounded us constantly, like a never-
ending game of tug of war. We gained ground on some days
and fell flat on our faces on other days. There were days
when we felt as if we could have anything we wanted, but
more often than not, on those days when we could barely feel
the skin covering our veins and our bones, we'd realize that
we had a long way to go before we could say that we were
where we wanted to be in our lives.

Our apartment seemed to reflect our lives. The living
room furniture consisted of a television set and pillows,
and in the kitchen, we had an old round table with matching
chairs that Evie’s mother had given her. Our stove and
refrigerator did not work, so we picked up take-out food
every night. My bedroom had a bed and a dresser. Paige
and Evie shared the larger bedroom, and they each had a bed

and a dresser. The ironing board was kept in their room.

84
On weekend mornings, we ate breakfast at Joe’s in

Redondo Beach, a place where cheap food and good—looking
guys helped us start our day. If we had a bit of extra
cash, we’d pig out on beef stroganoff omelets at the
Surfboarder in Hermosa Beach. After breakfast, we’d head to
the beach for the day. We wanted an apartment near the
beach, but the rent for a one-bedroom apartment was four
times what we paid for our place.

Although the ocean was very different from my river, I
found that the sea breeze, the voices of strangers hovering
nearby, and the constant sound of the waves created a sense
of peacefulness in me. I thought of the dirt road and the
Arkansas River less and less. Sometimes, when our
conversations at the beach faded away after we exhausted
ideas and plans, we would slip into a void, a place of false
dreaming where we were surrounded by voices while clinging
to the sand. My breathing became fluid.

1 Our routine continued until marred by Paige's old
boyfriend. Ted started following her everywhere, calling
her at odd hours, and disrupting our lives. She began to be
afraid to be alone, and Evie and I learned to watch and
wait. He showed up outside our apartment building first
thing in the morning, so that he could follow her to work.
Paige filed complaints with the police, but they said they

could not do anything unless Ted physically harmed her.

85
Evidently, mental harm was allowed. We began devising ways

to get her out of the house without being seen.

Our neighbor Louie, whose dream in life was to be on
The Gong Show, started sneaking her out of our neighborhood
in his frog-green Volkswagen and taking her to a friend's
house where she had started keeping her car. Still, nothing
deterred Ted from stalking her.

One Saturday morning, the front door of our apartment
was open as we prepared to leave for the beach. I stood in
the bathroom combing my hair and at hearing a noise, I
turned and saw Ted standing ten feet away from me on the
other side of the screen door.

I walked toward the door as if I were happy to see him,
greeted him, and slammed the wooden door in his face. I
quickly slid the bolt on and yelled at Paige to call the
police. Ted started yelling, animal—like, while Paige
called the police. Evie grabbed a broom, and I armed myself
with the mop. Suddenly, Ted smashed through our front
window with a metal chair borrowed from the front of Louie’s
apartment. He started pulling out pieces of glass until he
could squeeze his large frame inSide. Since we did not have
a back door to escape through, we froze as he lunged toward
Paige.

He threw her to the floor and punched her in the

stomach. Evie and I jumped on top of him and were trying to

86
pull him off when the police arrived. I watched as Ted was
taken away in handcuffs and wondered why the connection

between love and anger was so fragile. I promised myself

that I would always remember to breathe on my own.

Paul’s Voice

She walked into Sam’s apartment without knocking.

“Where's Sam?” she asked.

“Out.”

“Who are you?”

“Paul.”

“That’s nice. When will Sam be back?”

“Later, I guess.”

“Do you know anything about converters for radios?”

“Know anything?”

“Yeah. Like how to get them out.” Her friend hadn’t
said a word.

“Maybe.” I got up slowly and straightened my hat.

I think she was impressed that I was able to remove the
converter out of Paige's car so quickly. I’d always been
good with my hands, and it paid off. They thanked me, and
said they would come back when Sam was home.

Sam came back shortly after they left, and I asked him
about her.

“She's cute, I guess. I think she’s got a boyfriend
somewhere.”

“Somewhere?”

“I guess so. She doesn't go out with anyone here.

Doesn't talk about anyone.”

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88
So, that’s how it is I thought. Well, I didn’t think

it would hurt to try to get to know her. I had a whole week
to work on her before I had to return to Michigan. She
wasn't easy to get to know. It seemed as if she were
pulling me close and pushing me away at the same time. I
couldn't figure her Out. She was hot and cold. I wondered
what I was letting myself in for.

She went to the airport with me to tell me good-bye. I
had planned all of these things I wanted to say to her, but
a man and a woman began fighting over a baby right next to
the boarding ramp, so my words were left unsaid. The woman
begged the man not to take her baby away from her, and the
man kept pushing the woman away. She ripped his clothes,
pulled at the baby, screamed, begged, and the man continued
walking away from her. Security showed up, and took the
crying woman away. We could only watch, and then it was
time for me to go.

I missed her from the moment the plane took off. A few
months later, after plenty of phone calls and letters, I
asked her to move to Michigan. I couldn’t believe what I
heard myself say.

“Why should I move there?” she asked.

“To be with me.”

“I’ll think about it.”

89
.A few months later, she quit her job, sold her

furniture (a bed, a dresser, and a bookshelf), and'drove
from California to Michigan with a short stopover in Kansas.
A bottle of champagne she brought along with her exploded
when she opened it in my hallway.v

“And I used to be a bartender,” she announced. We
cleaned up the mess.

We moved slowly at first. I was going to college, and
she got a full-time secretarial job with a construction
company. I'm not sure when I came up with the idea of
marriage. Wasn't sure if she'd go for it. Sometimes, she
built this wall around her, and I couldn’t get past it. She
decided that I should meet her parents, so shortly before
Christmas, we drove from Michigan to Kansas.

The trip was uneventful until we reached the middle of
nowhere it seemed. A blizzard struck about ten miles from
her house. She said that she’d only seen one other one like
it.

“Kansas blizzards are shitty,” she said as I tried to
find the two-lane road in front of me. I couldn't see
anything, so we inched along. I hoped for the best.

She continued talking in a quiet voice. “Once, when I
was at a bar on the north side of town, a storm hit, and
trapped my friends and me inside. I called my father to

tell him that I would be late, and he didn’t believe that I

90
was watching a blizzard outside. Snow was actually blowing

in through a hole in the roof.”

“What happened?”

“He didn’t believe me. Said it was clear at home. No
snow. Well, I didn't believe him. But he was right.~
After the wind died down, there wasn't really much snow, so
all of us went home. There wasn't any snow near my house.
None. It was beautiful. The stars were out.”

“Shit,” I yelled as I slammed on the brakes.

“Shit,” she echoed as she braced herself.1 We were
surrounded by cattle, and they looked mad.

“What do we do now?” I asked. I'd never been in a
blizzard with a bunch of cows before. Come to think of it,
I hadn't passed a car for a long time. “Where the hell are
we?”

“Almost home,” she answered. “Norton's cattle must
have worked their way through a hole in the fence.” She
laughed, rolled down her window, and started mooing at the
cows. “Keep going straight.”

“Which way is that?”

She pointed.

By the time we reached her house, I had decided that I
was crazy. Meeting her parents. Thinking of marrying her.
We hadn't talked much during our trip since we had decided

to drive straight through. We had talked once, about three

91
in the morning. I think we were in Missouri at the time.

She drove, and her face was dimly lit by the car's interior
lights. 1

“You ever feel like you can't breathe?” she asked.

“Breathe? I'm not sure what you mean.” Sometimes she
did this to me. Asked questions I couldn't quite
understand.

“Certain places. I don't know. Places where you don't
feel right. Can’t breathe.”

“No. Not really. Well, once. When I was ten, I
think. A.thunderstorm hit while my family and I were
watching TV in the family room. Lightning hit and blew out
the TV. I was the closest to the TV, but I didn't get hurt.
I remember being scared. I probably had trouble breathing
then.”

She shook her head as if agreeing. “Lightning.” She
looked over at me. “Lightning.”' She smiled, and I fell

asleep after that.

Father’s Voice

She married Paul. He seemed like a nice young man.
College type. .Acted intelligent. Didn't want her to marry
him at first because I didn’t think they had known each
other long enough. I thought they needed to test each other
out longer. I told her that sometimes you can't really know
a man until he goes through some difficulty. I wanted to
make sure he wouldn’t jump and run the minute things got
tough. Young people always think getting married makes
everything better. Can’t foresee the rough spots. Don't
have to work on the relationship anymore. I warned her that
just the opposite is true. Takes more work. I wasn’t sure

if she was ready.

92

Marriage

.At first, I didn’t understand Paul because I couldn’t
negotiate his passion. He never raised his voice, and he
never laid a hand on me. He wanted to love me all of the
time. Touch me. I felt like I lived in a closet, and it
was just the right size. I could handle us in a small
space, but when I stepped outside of this place where we
existed as two people, I couldn’t breathe. I did not know
how.

There were no storms for me to chase. There was
nothing catching me off guard. I felt as if I could not
stumble no matter what I did. There was no one stealing a
part of me. This kind of passion seemed much more
dangerous, but I wanted to learn it. Learn how to breathe
through it. Breathe with it.

We married in Kansas, and I wore my mother's wedding
dress. Toby brought vodka and Seven-up into the dressing
room before the ceremony and made drinks for us as we
prepared to go into the sanctuary.

“Does this remind you of anything?” I asked her.

“What?”

“Girls in one room. Boys in the other.”

“Ha. You’ll be sorry you missed that movie now,” she

laughed.

93

94
“What do you think will happen to us?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Marriage. Kids. The whole bit.”

“Means we survived all the bullshit.” She picked at a
bit of ribbon on her bridesmaid dress. “You really should

have seen the movie.” We burst out laughing.

Sailing

.After Paul graduated, we moved to a small town in the
middle of the state. I loved Michigan, the lakes, and the
rivers. All of the trees made me claustrophobic, but as
time passed, I learned to walk through the forests without
feeling as if walls were closing in on me.

A few years passed, and Joe was born. He had my
cheeks, and Paul’s eyes, but people still asked if he
resembled Paul's side of the family or mine. I had a small
genetic pool to consider, so I learned to ignore the
question and found that giving people a blank stare worked
very well. I wondered if something was wrong with me.

Whose side of the family does he take after? He looks
just like his father. He looks just like you. He looks
like your father. Do green eyes run in the family? I
wondered if these things mattered? Was it really necessary
to know the past in order to survive? What stories did Joe
need to live by? Wasn't what I could offer him enough? I
wanted the unknown to remain unknown. After all, Joe had
not begun life nameless.

The three of us began taking weekend trips to Higgins
Lake where the water was unlike any water I had ever seen.
In Kansas, where the lakes have dirt bottoms, the water was

always a cloudy gray. In California, the Pacific Ocean

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96
fluctuated between turbulent green, and smoky blue. At

Higgins Lake, I could look into the water and follow my toes
with my eyes while I walked along the sandy bottom. The
deep parts of the lake, where blue swirls into black,
fascinated me. I knew that if I could find a light to guide
me, I would be able to see the bottom over one-hundred feet
down.

We bought a small cottage and fixed it up with the help
of Joe who believed that every job required a hammer. We
built up a rock wall along the shoreline to protect our
beach and cleaned up the woods around our yard. Soon, we
bought a Hobie Cat and learned to sail around the lake.

Paul would man the sails while I would ride the trapeze.
Joe was happy riding the waves.

On the boat, I found that I breathed fluently, relaxing
as the wind moved us forward, soothed as the waves slapped
against the body of the boat. This was a different kind of
calmness for me, floating as if in limbo, but breathing.

The lake was not always calm, and sometimes the wind
blew too hard for us to sail. Storms fired up quickly and
fanned out just as fast. Late one afternoon, the three of
us stood in our living room looking out across the beach,
watching the waves crash into our rock wall, and listening
to the wind steadily increase. Suddenly, a stillness took

our breath away. A.small white tornado formed from the dark

97
clouds churning above the middle of the lake, snaked its way

out of the sky, and slowly touched the water. We stared.
Motionless. Speechless. None of us were afraid.

The tornado gradually spun into a dark blue, and
continued moving eastward, away from us, before suddenly
losing its shape. Its tail receded back into the clouds.
We cursed our bad luck for not having a camera.

“I've been waiting all of my life to see one,” I said.

Paul grabbed Joe, and we headed outside.

Breathing

My parents are older now and have decided to sell the
house in Kansas. They want to live near us so that they can
watch Joe grow up. My breathing is out of rhythm, out of
syncopation. I fear that when they sell the house that it
will be the end of something. Something I cannot name.

It is not because I think I will miss the walls of the
house, or the fields, or even the river, but rather it is
something else. I am not sure if I can explain it, but it
is there, hanging over me like a star waiting to fall and
burst before my feet. It is as if the wolves are howling
down by the river again, and I feel as if needles are
sliding up and down my spine. I must return home, grab a
handful of Kansas dirt, and run my fingers through the
Arkansas River.

I fly home this time since I am no longer obsessed with
driving and take Joe with me. He thinks that we were meant
to fly on airplanes and hums quietly throughout the entire
trip. He no longer feels the need to carry a hammer around
or to bang things to see if they break.

We land in Wichita, and a man who sat behind us during
the flight compliments me on having such a well-behaved son.
I tell him that traveling comes naturally to us, and that it

is a family trait.

98

Breathing

My parents are older now and have decided to sell the
house in Kansas. They want to live near us so that they can
watch Joe grow up. My breathing is out of rhythm, out of
syncopation. I fear that when they sell the house that it
will be the end of something. Something I cannot name.

It is not because I think I will miss the walls of the
house, or the fields, or even the river, but rather it is
something else. I am not sure if I can explain it, but it
is there, hanging over me like a star waiting to fall and
burst before my feet. It is as if the wolves are howling
down by the river again, and I feel as if needles are
sliding up and down my spine. I must return home, grab a
handful of Kansas dirt, and run my fingers through the
Arkansas River.

I fly home this time since I am no longer obsessed with
driving and take Joe with me. He thinks that we were meant
to fly on airplanes and hums quietly throughout the entire
trip. He no longer feels the need to carry a hammer around
or to bang things to see if they break.

We land in Wichita, and a man who sat behind us during
the flight compliments me on having such a well-behaved son.
I tell him that traveling comes naturally to us, and that it

is a family trait.

98

99
I rent a small blue car, not sure if it is a Ford or a

Chevy, and Joe and I head for Dodge City on Highway 54, and
drive directly into a wall cloud. I remain focused on
keeping the car on the road, fighting off the gusts of wind
and the torrents of rain. I am somewhat relieved that we
are not still on the plane, but I am not pleased to be
driving such a small car when I am searching the sky for.
tornadoes. Is it possible that I used to chase them?

“The lightning is awesome,” Joe says as he comfortably
watches the sky. That is how I used to be, but now I only
want us to be safe.

We pass through the storm unharmed. In Kingman, I stop
at the A.& W and order french-fried pickles and root beer
for both of us. Joe, who loves drawing maps and memorizing
geography books, is happy to be traveling. He is living
what he loves. After a short break, we continue on the
road.

We pass through Pratt where a sign announces Home of
Beautiful WOmen, and Joe asks if we can stop and look for
one. Joe believes in signs, and I try to remember if Dodge
City has signs proclaiming anything that I will have to show
him. 1

“Hey, Joe. Do you want-to go to Boot Hill?”

“What’s that?" he asks.

“It's where cowboys are buried with their boots on.”

100
“Are they naked?”

“That’s funny,” I say, “I'm not sure.”

“Grandpa wants to take me to the rodeo.”

“Do you want to go?”

.“I guess so. Will you come?”

“Sure.”

Since my parents’ house is east of town, we use the
back roads by taking Highway 154 through Ford. Everything
seems the same. Joe wonders where all of the trees are.

We pull into the driveway, and my parents walk out to
greet us. They seem so brave to be starting a new life at
their age, and I realize that they are much tougher than I
had ever imagined.

After unpacking our clothes and eating some sandwiches,
I ask Joe if he wants to walk down to the river.

“Things have changed,” my father warns.

“Changed?” I ask. “In two years?”

“It's not the same. Take a look for yourself.” My
mother smiles carefully.

“I1will.”

Joe and I take our time walking down the path to the
river. We walk past one of our fields, and I can't believe
how large an empty field can look.

“That was Willie's favorite corner,” I say to Joe.

“Oh. Will we see any rattlesnakes?”

101
“I hope not.”

'“I want to.”

“You’re silly.”

We walk in silence to the dam and find that Harry's
wheel for turning the big gates has rusted shut. The iron
gate stands permanently closed, bolted shut, so we climb
over it. .No one fishes here anymore, and Harry retired as
dam keeper several years ago. We look down towards the
river. Barely any water flows between the banks and half of
the trees are dead.

“Do you like this place?” Joe asks. He doesn’t look
very impressed.

“I used to. Let's walk down the dike.”

My father had warned me that the Army Corps of
Engineers had re-figured the river, had reshaped it. They
did this to prevent any more floods from ruining the land
like the one did in 1965. They had managed to ruin the land
anyway.

Joe and I continue our walk along the dike,
occasionally passing discarded appliances, old tires, old
cars and tractors, a few animals, and the back side of our
neighbors' houses and fields. It seems strange to see
everything so exposed.

We come upon the old motorcycle racing course. Years

ago, someone had started up a course with the hopes of

4.4

102
making money. To get to the course, people drove down

another dirt road which was a mile south of here. We always
knew when there was a race because we could see the
motorcycles racing up and down the dike towards the dam.

The course had been highly popular for awhile, but somewhere
along the line, people just quit coming. It seemed strange
that something so popular could die out so quickly but still
remain a part of the land.

“I'm tired.” Joe says.

“Me too. Let's go back.”

“Are you sad?”

“No, why?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, I might be a little.”

“How come?”

“I can’t believe that people dump their old stuff back
here along the dike.” 1

“It’s dumb.”

“When I was younger, about your age, I used to live
down by the river. It was beautiful then. Clean. No one
would ever think of dumping trash here. We respected the
river too much.”

“What happened?”

“I guess people forgot the reasons why they loved the

river.”

103
I thought for a minute. ‘Why did I love this river? I

used to call it my river. As if I could own it. I had
believed that it was mine. I try to clear my head.

“We'd better head back before your grandmother worries
about us,” I say. I grab Joe's hand, and we walk back
towards the house. I glance towards Willie’s corner, and

for a moment, I think I see him waiting there for me.

Conversation

“We're so proud of you,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I'm glad. Have I made up for the trouble I caused
when I was younger?”

“You were never any trouble,” Mother answered.

“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else's
daughter.”

“Why do you think you were trouble?” she asked.

“I never came home on time.”

“But you’re so prompt now.”

“How about the time I ran off with that country-rock
band?”

“You were just confused,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I hope that I can be as understanding as you two are
some day.”

“I still am.” Mother smiled and took her pills.

Father nodded in agreement.

104

Conversation

“We’re so proud of you,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I'm glad. Have I made up for the trouble I caused
when I was younger?”

“You were never any trouble,” Mother answered.

“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else's
daughter.”

“Why do you think you were trouble?” she asked.

“I never came home on time.”

“But you’re so prompt now.”

“How about the time I ran off with that country—rock
band?”

“You were just confused,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I hope that I can be as understanding as you two are
some day.”

“I still am.” Mother smiled and took her pills.

Father nodded in agreement.

104

Conversation

“We're so proud of you,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I’m glad. Have I made up for the trouble I caused
when I was younger?”

“You were never any trouble,” Mother answered.

“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else’s
daughter.”

“Why do you think you were trouble?” she asked.

“I never came home on time.”

“But you're so prompt now.”

“How about the time I ran off with that country—rock
band?”

“You were just confused,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I hope that I can be as understanding as you two are
some day.”

“I still am.” Mother smiled and took her pills.

Father nodded in agreement.

104

Conversation

“We're so proud of you,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I’m glad. Have I made up for the trouble I caused
when I was younger?”

“You were never any trouble,” Mother answered.

“I think you've got me mixed up with someone else’s
daughter.”

“Why do you think you were trouble?” she asked.

“I never came home on time.”

“But you're so prompt now.”

“How about the time I ran off with that country—rock
band?”

“You were just confused,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I hope that I can be as understanding as you two are
some day.”

“I still am.” Mother smiled and took her pills.

Father nodded in agreement.

104

Conversation

“We’re so proud of you,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I'm glad. Have I made up for the trouble I caused
when I was younger?”

“You were never any trouble,” Mother answered.

“I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else's
daughter.”

“Why do you think you were trouble?” she asked.

“I never came home on time.”

“But you're so prompt now.”

“How about the time I ran off with that country-rock
band?”

“You were just confused,” my mother said. My father
nodded in agreement.

“I hope that I can be as understanding as you two are
some day.”

“I still am.” Mother smiled and took her pills.

Father nodded in agreement.

104

Conversation

“Reunion shows scare me.”

“Reunion shows?”

“Yes. The ones where someone is reunited with their
biological mother or father.”

“Why does that scare you?”

“I’m just afraid that someone will try to surprise me
someday.”

“You don’t want that?”

“I like things the way they are.”

105

   

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