One in Every Crowd Read online

  I stared at the toes of my sneakers and said nothing.

  “Now excuse me, young lady, but would you like to explain to me just exactly what you have done here? How many people you have lied to? Have you been parading about all summer half-naked?”

  How could I explain to her that it wasn’t what I had done, but what I didn’t do? That I hadn’t lied, because no one had asked? And that I had never, not once, felt naked?

  “I can’t believe you. You can’t be trusted with a two-piece.”

  I said nothing all the way home. There was nothing to say. She was right. I couldn’t be trusted with a two-piece. Not then, and not now.

  Walks Like

  THE FABRIC OF THIS MEMORY IS FADED, its edges frayed by time.

  The young girl who lived it is now just a ghost inside of me. I can remember only her bones; the skin and flesh of her are brought to me in the stories of others. Mothers, uncles, and aunts remind me of the kind of child I was then.

  There was the smell of Christmas everywhere, I do remember that, pine trees and wood smoke and rum cake. The women smelled of gift perfume, the men of new sweaters.

  Everywhere were voices, maybe a dozen different conversations woven together in the rise and fall of talk and laughter that is the backdrop of all my mind’s snapshots of my family then, a huge room full of people connected to me by their blood.

  I was sitting almost too close to the fire. Iced window panes separated us from the bitter white of winter outside. Everyone I’d ever known was still alive.

  I was about four years old.

  Both of my grandmothers sat in overstuffed chairs next to the fireplace, talking, a trace of Cockney, and a hint of an Irish lilt, respectively.

  I sat on the thick rug between them, rolling a red metal fire truck up and down my white-stockinged legs, making motor, gear-changing, braking noises. Listening.

  “You should have seen the fuss this morning, getting her into that dress. I tell you, Pat, I’d’ve never stood for it from any of my girls. You’d’ve thought I was boiling her in oil, the way she was carrying on. She wanted to wear those filthy brown corduroy pants again, imagine that, and she knows we’re going to mass tonight.” My mother’s mother clicked her tongue and sent a stern glance in my general direction.

  “That was what all my boys were like, Flo. Really, if you could have seen me the day that portrait on the wall there was taken, I swear I didn’t have a nerve left for them to get on. Like pulling teeth, you know it was, to dress those four.”

  “Well, you’d expect it from the boys, you know, it’s only natural. But her, I don’t understand it. Her mother always liked to dress up, and never a speck of dirt could you find on my Norah … look here, come here you.” She curled an arthritic finger at me.

  I stood up reluctantly and dragged my feet across the carpet toward her, hoping for a good spark.

  “Look, see what I mean? Look at her knees, how does she do it? It’s only been a couple of hours, and there’s only snow on the ground out there. I couldn’t find any dirt right now if I went out looking. Here, let me fix up that zipper …”

  My small fingers shot up to intercept her, and a rather large bolt of static electricity flashed between us. She pulled her gnarled hand back for a moment, and then brought it down on the back of mine.

  “What a nasty thing to do to your poor old gran! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Now, run and fetch us both a rum ball, and for the love of Mary, don’t get it all over the front of you.”

  I looked over to my other grandmother, at the shadow of an evil smile which pulled at the corners of her mouth. She winked at me, and motioned for me to be off.

  “See what I mean about her, Pat? I’m worried sick she’ll turn out to be an old maid. What happens when she starts school? Look, now … she even walks like a little boy …”

  “You’re far too hard on her, Flo,” came the voice of the mother of my father from behind me, laced with just a hint of annoyance. “She will be just fine. She just walks like that. That’s just how she walks.”

  Just Reward

  SHE WAS NEVER THAT GOOD AT FRISBEE, but it wasn’t about that for me. Her summer brown legs bent with a grace I could never possess, and her straight black hair swung unbraided, always a strand or two across her face, in her mouth.

  Her palms were lighter than the backs of her hands, and often she would lay them in the place her hips would be one day, plant both feet in the dust, and throw her head back when she laughed.

  She was doing just this the day we found the money. Her Frisbee throws were unpredictable and wobbly, and this one had arced sideways into the juniper bushes that lined the parking lot next to the parched park we were playing in.

  Nothing is as dry as July dust in the land of the midnight sun, so I almost missed the brown leather wallet laying in the dirt.

  “Valerie, come look here. Look at this.”

  “I don’t want to look at bugs. Come on, throw it here.”

  She saw the look on my face and went silent, looked down into my hands.

  A rectangle of worn calfskin with a brass bill clip inside, pinning down a wad of American bills. I stuffed it into the waistband of my shorts and we ran down to the edge of the river, under the cover of willows.

  Eleven one hundred dollar bills, two twenties, four ones.

  “One thousand, one hundred and forty-four dollars.” Valerie was perched on the balls of her feet, her teeth shining white behind chapped lips. “We have to take it to the police station,” she whispered.

  “The police? Are you crazy? We could buy practically anything with this.”

  She shook her head, a wrinkle creasing her forehead. “Our parents would take it away anyhow. The police.” She said this like there was no other option.

  “We could hide it for a while then, in the fort. We could save for our educations.” I appealed to her practical side.

  “If we take it to the police, and they can’t find whose money it is, then we can keep it. We could be heroes.” She raised her eyebrows and rubbed her palms on her shorts for emphasis. “Rich heroes.”

  It was settled then. I never once thought to argue that it was I who had found the money. I had no name for what I felt for her; we were nine years old and I would have done anything she wanted.

  “You fucking did what?” My father was chewing his pork chop with his mouth open.

  My mom slapped his arm, right above where his shirtsleeve was rolled up to. “You did the right thing. I’m really proud of you girls, and so is Valerie’s mom.”

  My father looked at me like he couldn’t figure out just where he had gone wrong.

  The policeman shook his head as he filled out the form. “Well, he was probably an American.” This guy was sure to make detective. “No ID, huh?” He narrowed his eyes at us, beads of sweat on his forehead.

  We shook our heads simultaneously.

  “Beginning of summer, probably on his way up north. To Alaska,” he explained, as though there was a multitude of destinations for tourists to choose from. “There’s a chance he’ll check in on his way back down. No one claims this in six weeks, say, then you two are in the money.”

  * * *

  We spent that money over and over in our heads for the rest of the summer. Valerie wanted a camera, and an easel and paint set. “No cheap stuff. The kind of brushes with horse hair in them.”

  I wanted a BMX with chrome pedals, and a microscope. “Maybe a chemistry set, too. And walkie talkies. One for me, one for you. We could talk on them late at night. And a rowboat.”

  “Cowboy boots,” she added, swinging in the hammock, a piece of straw between her front teeth. “Red cowboy boots.”

  It was the ninth of August. We had seven days left.

  * * *

  The next morning, the phone rang at exactly eight o’clock. I was eating puffed wheat and listening to “Seasons in the Sun” on the radio that sat between the toaster and the plant on the lemon yellow counter next to the window. My mo
m was filling the kettle, and held the phone between ear and shoulder, motioning silently at me to turn the music down.

  “She’s right here. I see. Okay, I’ll tell her. Thank you, officer.” She uncurled the phone cord with her forefinger and hung it up. “Someone claimed the wallet. He’s downtown, he wants to give you two a reward. I’ll drop you both off on my way to work.”

  We sat side by each in the back seat of my mom’s Tercel, silent and lead-bellied under our seat belts. Valerie smelled like Irish Spring soap and toothpaste. I had forgotten to even brush my hair.

  He looked like a caricature of a tourist come magically to life. The buttons of his polyester print shirt strained to hold his belly inside his khaki shorts. He even had waxy hairs sticking out of his ears. He shook our hands, his moist palms unnaturally soft. “Here’s my little heroes,” he wheezed. He patted us both on our heads, mussing our hair and smiling at the cop behind the counter. “Let’s head across the street and get you girls your re-ward.”

  He stood perspiring in the service window of the Dairy Queen. “What’s your favourite flavour of milkshake?”

  “She likes strawberry, chocolate for me,” I piped up. Talking to strangers was my job. Explaining why we had done what we did to parents was her territory, but strangers were my area of expertise.

  “Too early for milkshakes,” she whispered to me, as he pulled out his billfold and handed over the four singles. I shushed her. Surely this was just the first phase of our reward.

  But ten minutes later we sat alone at the bus stop, the change from our milkshakes stuck to my palm, for bus fare. He had told us what good girls we were and hopped into his motor home. His wife had waved over her knitting at us from the passenger seat. The TravelEase edged back onto the road.

  “I hate South Carolina. Never going there.” Valerie spit in the dust and tied up her shoe.

  My dad was still at home when we got back, strange at this time of day. He was smoking an Export ‘A’, drinking tea, and reading Shogun. We tried to head straight into my room, but he looked up and cleared his throat.

  “Whoawhoawhoa. Where’re you two going?”

  Valerie picked idly at a scratch on her thigh; I stood on one leg, then the other, waiting for the inevitable.

  “Didja get your re-ward?” He split the word in two, like someone from South Carolina would.

  I nodded almost without moving my head. Valerie shrugged.

  “Welllll…?” His one eyebrow raised, his hands perched like spiders on the wooden table.

  “We got milkshakes,” Valerie said softly.

  My dad turned his right ear to us, played with a make believe hearing aid.

  “He bought us both milkshakes,” I blurted out, the sweetness of chocolate already halfway back up my throat.

  “Small or large?” he crowed, slamming both palms flat, slopping tea onto his paperback.

  “Large ones.” The bottom of Valerie’s jaw stuck further out defiantly, her brown palms returning to her hips.

  My dad laughed from deep in his belly at us both, and reached for his smokes. “Well, I hope it went down good, because that was the most expensive fuckin’ milkshake you’re ever gonna drink.”

  Twenty years later I realized we had, in fact, spent that money on our educations.

  It Doesn't Hurt

  My cousin claims he invented the game, but I swear it was me. You need what they call a rat-tail comb, one of those plastic ones you can buy at the drug store; they come in bags of ten. They have a comb part, and then a skinny plastic handle, which, I suppose, is where the name comes from.

  You take the comb and heat it up over an element on the stove so you can bend a curve into it, like a hockey stick. Then you get a ping pong ball, or one of those plastic golf balls with the holes, and there you are. Comb ball, we called it. Let the game begin.

  The game was invented to be played in a long, narrow hallway, so a mobile home is the perfect stadium. You close all the bathroom and bedroom doors, and each opponent gets on their knees at either end of the hall. Kind of like a soccer goalie, only shorter. Whoever has the ball goes first.

  You hold the handle of the comb in one hand and bend the comb back with the other, and let go. The ping pong ball rebounds off the walls and floor at speeds approaching the sound barrier, and the other guy tries to block the ball with any part of his completely unprotected body.

  A ping pong ball striking naked skin at the speed of sound is bound to hurt. So there were the obvious injuries: circular welts about the face, neck, and arms were common. There were other hazards, too: carpet burn, bruised elbows and knees. Once, my sister leapt up to block a shot and smashed her head on a door handle and just about bit the tip of her tongue off. My cousin sprained his wrist trying to flip himself back onto his feet for a rebound.

  My aunt stepped in, in an attempt to reduce the casualties. She tried to ban comb ball altogether, but was met with such a united front of dismay and pouting that she was forced to compromise. We were only allowed to play until someone cried. And we had to scrub off all the little white marks the ping pong balls left on the wood panelling.

  We were only allowed to play until someone cried. Of course, this added a masochistic element to the game we all enjoyed. I would take a stinging shot to the lower lip and kneel motionless in the hallway, breathing deep through clenched teeth. Everyone would stop, searching my face for any sign of moisture, which would signal the end of the game. “Doesn’t hurt,” I would whisper bravely. “It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt. Let’s go. My shot.” Everyone would let out their breath and continue.

  Whoever cried ended the game. Whoever cried sucked. My aunt would march in and grab our combs, and send us outside to play. “It’s a beautiful day out there. Quit killing each other in my hallway and go get some exercise.”

  Playing outside was okay, but there was nothing like a rousing, bloody match of comb ball. We would compare scars afterwards, like soldiers. “Took the skin right off, bled all over the rug too,” we would brag, our striped shirts pulled up over our elbows. “And not one tear. Kept right on going.”

  My cousin Christopher ended it all the day he broke his thumb. This required a trip to emergency, and a splint. He forgot to try not to cry, and the combs were confiscated for good. For a while we were impressed with his sling, and his need for painkillers, but then reality set in. No more comb ball. Christopher was a wimp, and prone to accidents. Remember, he got that concussion that one time and they took the tire swing away? We all mourned the loss of the greatest game that ever came to the trailer park.

  We came up with a version of cops and robbers that satisfied our bloodlust for a while. It involved riding around on our bikes and wailing on each other with broken-off car antennas, but it wasn’t the same. Crying while playing outside was a different story, because you got to go back into the house. The stakes weren’t as high. There was nothing to lose.

  I worry today, about my friends’ kids. Nothing hurts when you play Nintendo, not even when you die. What are we teaching our children? I still utilize the skills I learned playing comb ball. Just the other day, I fell off the back of a five-ton truck helping my friend move. I leapt up immediately, exclaiming, “It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt.” And a couple of weeks later, it didn’t. Just like the good old days.

  Sticks and Stones

  IT SEEMED LIKE A FINE IDEA AT THE TIME. Of course, now I look back and count my ten fingers and toes, my two legs and arms that still function properly, shake my head that sits on top of the neck I have never broken, and thank my guardian angel that I still possess these blessings. But it seemed like a fine idea at the time.

  My father is a welder, and his shop was located in the middle of a large and potholed industrial section just off the Alaska Highway on the edge of town. It came complete with snarling guard dogs and broken-down bulldozers, and even had its very own forgotten car and truck graveyard. If you looked up from the dusty ground and buckets of used oil, out behind colourless mecha
nics’ shops and the skeletons of scaffolding, you could see the whole valley stretched out, the Yukon River sparkling blue and snaking through the painted postcard mountains. If you looked up, which I rarely did. There was too much to do.

  There were any number of stupid and dangerous activities to pass the day with, untold numbers of rusty edges to tear your skin and clothes on, a myriad of heavy metal objects to fall off of or get pinned beneath. I don’t remember whose idea the tires were. They were not just any tires; they had once pounded dust under earth movers, or dump trucks. They were monsters, and they were everywhere. It took the whole pack of mechanics’ kids and welders’ daughters and crane operators’ sons to move them; getting them up and onto their sides was a feat of team effort and determination, aided by crowbars we pinched from the backs of our dads’ pick-ups when no one was looking. Rolling them to the edge of the power line without being noticed involved lookouts and quick action. We knew they would stop us if they found out; we didn’t need to ask. The covert element of the operation only added to the thrill of it all.

  Only two of us could fit in at a time, which was okay, because we had all summer and plenty of tires. Three or four kids would hold the tire steady, teetering on the edge of the cliff at the top of the power line, and two would climb inside. Kind of like gerbils on one of those exercise wheels, except you would face each other, arms and legs pushing out into the inside of the tire to hold yourself in. Gravity pretty much took care of the rest.

  It was better than any roller coaster, not that any of us had been on one. It was the random element of the tire’s path that did it. There was just no way to know what that tire was going to bump into or off of, and the only thing more fun than the roll down was when the tire started to come to a stop at the bottom, and did that roll-on-its-side, flip-flop dance at the bottom of the hill, kind of like a coin does when you flip it and miss and it lands on the linoleum. Only this was a huge dump truck tire with two dirty kids inside, laughing hysterically, laughing until tears ran and our sides hurt the next day. Only one of us ever puked: the heavy duty mechanic’s oldest daughter lost her lunch all over her brother one day, and so we never let her ride after that, just sent her into her dad’s shop to distract him while we rolled tires past his big bay doors out front.