by Kurt Caswell
I thought of Virginia vanishing up the driveway. How long would she have waited at the school had I not been home this night? Or if I had never come to Borrego in the first place? What would she have done? She would have figured out something, I imagined. She didn’t really need my help, did she? That realization came to me just as I had begun to think well of myself for making this small sacrifice to take her home, that I was doing something generous and this gesture would somehow make a difference in her life. I had begun to think of myself as a kind of savior, her savior, at least for tonight. But then, sitting there in the dark inside the warm cab of the truck, I realized there would always be a Virginia at Borrego waiting outside in the cold with no coat looking for a way home. What could I do to help matters here? Nothing, it seemed. And maybe I was like the truck and Virginia was like the rabbit. Would I have to run her over to save myself? I wasn’t going to fix Virginia’s life. I wasn’t going to fix the problems down here at Borrego. And what did I mean by “problems”? Did I mean alcoholism? That was everywhere off the rez, too. Did I mean domestic abuse? That was everywhere I had ever lived, hidden in my friends’ and neighbors’ homes. Did I mean poverty? I’d seen it next to the richest neighborhoods in the world’s great cities: Paris, Rome, New York, Athens, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing. I couldn’t fix all that. All I was going to do by living on at Borrego was send myself into the ditch by striving and striving and striving without hope of success, and for every little gesture I might think would make a difference, there were ten or twenty or a thousand Navajo children waiting outside in the cold.
I wanted to believe—as the righteous do—that any gracious gesture would help change things. I wanted to believe that if one person, just one student at Borrego, found anything of value in my class, that that was enough. But I didn’t believe this—not really. And this troubled me. Had my heart gone stone cold? Had it been so before I arrived, or could I blame it on the place? It wasn’t the place, I knew, but I wondered what was going on inside me. It seemed that what at first shocked me about living at Borrego, startled me, troubled my dreams, now barely raised my temperature. I wondered if I’d ever get out alive. It occurred to me then that this was one of the fatal stages of giving a shit—you go from novelty and curiosity, to a weird unsettling indifference, to devoting your entire life to a cause. They would say about you after you died, “He made a dif ference,” but of course no one knows what that means. Perhaps you did make a difference, but only for a few individuals. The rest of it was pretty much the same. Did I want this? Did I want to live my life out here making a difference? No. I wanted to go on wandering, traveling, learning, experiencing, getting in and getting out.
I had accepted this job at Borrego only to continue exploring; I never meant to care. And now that some measure of caring about what happened to these kids and this community had penetrated my defenses, I didn’t quite know what to do. Caring just caused trouble for me. I could no longer live here without caring or leave here without regretting. Perhaps this had been my initial resistance to Borrego and to my students in the first place. Perhaps this kind of self-protection had been in my way all along. Now that I had broken through it and begun to feel this terrible desire to help, to save, I knew I had to get out. When I arrived I thought I would leave because that is what I did. That is what I had always done. I arrived in places and left them. Now I thought I would leave because I did not want to care about people whose lives seemed so battered and bruised as to be beyond healing. At least, I knew I didn’t know how to heal them, and in striving to do so, I could only end up in the ditch. Was Virginia worth the cut bank or the chasm? Was Borrego Pass worth that? Probably. Certainly. But was I going to sacrifice myself for it? Thing was, no one was asking me to. The people who lived at Borrego were not looking for a savior, and even if they were, nothing about my time here so far told me it was me.
We drove on through the dark, and it wasn’t long before we topped out and came by the Trading Post. The road led us along the fence and to the opening over the cattle guard. We parked and got out. In the quiet under the desert sky, I looked up into the countless stars that graced the night. It was beautiful.
On Monday, yet another Monday at Borrego, the seventh-grade class came in smirking and laughing after what they had talked about on the way out to the trailer. Were they laughing at me, mocking me because they were so angry about the dance? I took roll, found someone missing, who was it, let’s see, and then the door opened as George George came in, a little late and alone, sour and a little downtrodden, but smiling weirdly. He sat down, and everyone laughed. I tried to get on with the lesson, pretend nothing unusual was happening, but something obviously was. It couldn’t be about me, I thought, and was relieved. What, was I paranoid? I pressed on, had the class open their books to such and such a page, got nowhere, and finally said, “What? What is it?”
“It’s George,” Maria Young said. “He’s doin’ it again.” And the class erupted into laughter.
To which George spouted, “I ain’ no sheep fucker!”
And even I had to laugh at that.
After the class settled out, and surprisingly George George looked somehow at peace with the situation (perhaps this wasn’t his first accusation), I expected to be harassed for not helping with the dance. Only Jolanda spoke a few sharp words.
“Here,” she said, handing me a metal box full of money. “Even though you didn’t help us. Alice helped us. And she kept the money for us. Maybe next time you’ll help us.”
“Yeah,” said Maria. “Will you? Help us next time?”
“Yes,” I said. “I will. I’m sorry I couldn’t help with the dance. I hadn’t seen my parents in some time, and so I had a nice visit with them.”
“Did you cook a turkey?” asked George George.
“Yes,” I said, unable not to think of sheep. “We did. I’m sorry, you guys,” I pleaded. “I’m sorry I didn’t help.”
“And did you eat it real fast and make a pie?” asked Maria.
“We did make pies,” I said. “Apple and pumpkin.”
“What about those sour berries that look like Jello?” asked Jolanda.
“And did you go somewhere?” George George asked.
I didn’t know why they were so interested. “Yes, cranberries. We had those. And we did go somewhere. We went out to Chaco to look around,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you all. I will next time.”
“That’s okay,” said Samuel Smith. “Everything worked out okay. We made some money and everyone came and had a good time.”
I felt relieved to hear Samuel’s support. He had been the voice of reason from the first few meetings I had with my homeroom. He seemed always to be smiling, and he wasn’t as wowed by Caleb Benally as the other boys, maybe because he outweighed Caleb by at least twenty pounds, and his good nature allowed him to laugh off petty challenges and potential conflicts. One day on the playground, I watched Samuel break up an argument between Caleb and Tom when they collided in midair trying to catch a football. “C’mon, you guys, let’s play,” Samuel said. “This isn’t any fun.” He reached in and took the football out of Caleb’s hands, and the game resumed.
“Yeah, that’s okay,” said George George, picking up Samuel’s enthusiasm. “We had a good time. And, oh, that road to Chaco is real bumpy, you know.”
“As long as you help us next time,” Jolanda said. “But only if.”
It sounded like she was offering me some grace, that she was going to forgive me on the condition that I didn’t cross her or the class again. I vowed not to.
“I will,” I said. “I will help you next time. In fact, let’s talk about next time. Let’s make a plan for our next event. I think we need a little more money for our field trip.”
“We do,” Jolanda said.
“Yeah,” said Samuel Smith. “We do. If we want to have a real good trip.”
We went to work. We settled on running a cakewalk at the Christmas Bazaar and organizing a car wash in Crownpoi
nt sometime in the spring.
“That might do it,” Jolanda said.
“Good,” I said. “And now it’s time for breakfast.” Everyone lined up at the door. “When it’s quiet, you can go,” I said. Remarkably, no one said a word. “Okay,” I said promptly, and the group filed out to the cafeteria.
“Sit with us today, Mr. Caswell,” Samuel said as he walked by me.
“All right,” I said. “I will.”
I didn’t regret not helping with the dance that night, not completely. I didn’t feel good about disappointing the class, but I had stood my ground, and it seemed that something had shifted in our relationship. Did they respect me now, more than before? Everything seemed to be working out. But perhaps it wasn’t that at all. Perhaps Virginia had told the story of how she got home that night, and a few of the kids decided that I wasn’t so bad. Looking back, I realized that trusting too deeply in the two cardinal rules was as dangerous as not trusting them at all. I had found their limitations. I came to believe that it wasn’t the rules that helped me save face that night, but adapting to a fluid and unpredictable set of circumstances, which translates into acting like a human being instead of a teacher.
I had yet to resolve my conflict with Caleb Benally, and I hoped that I could use this little bit of positive momentum with my homeroom to do that. I tried as well as I could not to antagonize him, but it was very difficult when he, by his very presence, held much of the classroom hostage. For all my lesson planning, little could happen in the way of learning unless Caleb somehow approved. The other kids, even the girls, responded to his choice. And his choice was always unspoken.
In class one day the week of the Christmas Bazaar, Caleb said something to George George in Navajo when he came into the classroom. George walked by Caleb on his way to a seat and hit him in the shoulder. Then Caleb stood up and George sat down. It didn’t matter that we were in classroom. Caleb was ready to fight.
“Caleb, sit down,” I said.
Caleb pushed his chair back and started around the table toward George.
“Caleb! Sit down,” I said.
He stopped, but he didn’t sit down.
“Now,” I said. “Sit down.” I spoke the words slowly without raising my voice. I did not want to lose control again.
“I ain’t afraid of you,” Caleb said to me.
“Just sit down,” I said. “That’s all. I saw what happened. But you’re in class.”
“You can make me,” Caleb said.
I had tried that with Tom Thompson, and it didn’t turn out very well. The only weapon I had was my voice, and I wasn’t sure what the limits were.
“You’re a bully,” I said calmly, pointing my finger at him. “And bullies are cowards.”
That old musty truism—where had it come from? I didn’t even know if I believed it, and I had just then issued a challenge, an insult, and escalated the situation. I wanted to achieve the opposite.
“I ain’t afraid of you,” he said again.
The class sat motionless, like statues. The heat was off Caleb now, and on me. It was like we were playing a tennis match, the ball going back and forth across the court. The whole class waited to see what I would do next. I didn’t want to ruin any inroads I’d made since Thanksgiving break. I had to be careful.
“You are afraid,” I said. “Not of me. I know you’re not afraid of me. You’re just afraid.”
Caleb glared back at me. I didn’t really believe this about him either. He wasn’t afraid at all; in fact, he was recklessly unafraid. That was why people feared him. His instinct for fighting, the way he responded in his body to his opponent—athletes call this kinesthesia—was infallible. Did he have that knife in his pocket? Maybe in facing an opponent his mind disappeared and he became completely and wholly his body in motion, and his body then became a single purpose: to destroy the threat in front of him. If fear lived anywhere inside him, it fell away the moment he went into action, the way an actor loses all sense of stage fright the moment he becomes his character. I could see in Caleb’s eyes then that he thought nothing of challenging me to blows, right here, right now, and that he believed in his heart that he could kick my ass.
“You’re afraid,” I said again.
I wondered if the idea of it might console some of the boys Caleb bullied. If they came to believe Caleb had a flaw, especially some of the stronger boys like Samuel, it might somehow weaken his grip on them, and so weaken his grip on the class. Weaken his grip on me.
Caleb made a clicking sound in the back of his mouth and jutted his chin at Clemson, who laughed in his nervousness. Clemson didn’t seem to want to get involved.
“You have two choices,” I said to Caleb. “You can sit down and we’ll go on with class, or you can go see Frank. There won’t be any fighting in my classroom.”
Caleb stood there a moment trying to decide. If he went to Frank’s office, he’d be confined to a desk in a tiny room for the rest of the day while Frank watched him do his schoolwork. If he sat down, everything would return to normal, he’d receive no reprimand or punishment, and instead of being forced to do his schoolwork, he’d exercise his near limitless opportunities to fuck off. He wanted that, as opposed to the other, I knew. Caleb had not yet let his anger take over completely, so perhaps he could still avoid doing anything stupid. Somehow, he also had to save face, to stand firm so as not to lose any ground with the other boys. He had to prove he wasn’t afraid. I needed to give him an opportunity to do that, or there was no telling what he might do next.
“You can take care of your differences with George after school,” I said, “but not here.” I was not advocating fighting. I wanted to make a space in the moment for Caleb to cool down. He stood there, still as a post.
“I ain’t afraid,” he said calmly, and then he sat down.
Oddly, it was the best class I had yet had with my seventh graders, and Caleb led the way, raising his hand and answering questions, completing his writing assignments, reading aloud. Perhaps he felt he had improved his standing with the other boys, that he had proved only he was powerful enough to stand against his teacher, and now they would fear him even more. Or maybe it was the kind of happiness that comes with resolve, the way happiness comes just before the suicide.
That should have been the end of it with Caleb Benally, but it wasn’t.
Mary and I, along with Kuma and Ranger, made a long hike up the Ganado Wash that weekend. The cottonwood leaves were changing, and the cool, moist air of the wash reminded me of home. I also helped Mary and her friend Kris Chick, who worked with girls and family planning at Ganado High School, sell a few unwantables outside the Ganado post office. A bicycle. A few tables and a chair. Various items of clothing. We sold almost everything, and I came close to buying a beautiful handmade flute from a tall, cosmopolitanlooking Navajo from Santa Fe. We spent Saturday evening eating homemade pizza and drinking beer while watching taped episodes of the X-Files.
On Sunday morning I left early for Borrego because I had some planning to do before classes on Monday. Between Window Rock and Gallup, I passed all the hitchhikers lining the road, the usual scene, people on their way home or running from home after a weekend drunk in Gallup, some of them alone and ragged, some passed out in the ditch, some in small groups or coupled up, two thumbs hitching, and some holding dollar bills out, offerings to passing drivers or to the wind. I came to depend on these people for company each Sunday morning when I drove that lonely highway back from Mary’s. I always felt a sense of loss leaving Ganado, as Mary’s stability and optimism faded into the west behind me. I never picked anyone up along that road. I never did. Just that they were there, always there, told me that the world hadn’t changed much over the weekend and that life at Borrego would be about the same too.
The dirt road north from Prewitt was quiet and empty that morning. I drove slowly, bumping along and looking at the country. Out ahead of me, I saw a long line of horses running fast across the desert. I saw two men on horseback
among them, driving the horses into a little corral near the base of the sandstone bluffs. The figure on the roadside ahead of me had dismounted his horse. He stood there holding the reins in one hand, and a long rifle in the crook of his other arm. As I drove by, he raised the rifle and pointed it at me, the butt perched against his hip, tracking me with the barrel.
It was Caleb Benally.
The next day in class Caleb said, “Hey, did you see my gun? I was gonna shoot you.”
He said it so that I knew he was joking and so that I knew he was not joking. I took Caleb’s words to heart. I understood him to mean that we had come to a kind of impasse and our relationship could turn bloody if something did not change. He wasn’t going to give up whatever power and position he had earned in this world, because it was all he had. If I was going to use force, then so was he. Now more than ever I felt like a trespasser at Borrego, and I had good reason to wonder about my safety. Not that Navajos are overly aggressive or violent (though this is the traditional view of the Hopi), but as a culture they had come face to face with their own annihilation and endured it, endured some of the most bloody, inhumane, stupid destruction imposed on another culture by any government in history. They had endured that. They were still here on their ancestral land. They still spoke their own language. They were still Navajos. And now their future, their identity as a people, hung in the balance: who were they now in this new world, and who would they become? No one was going to get in the way of these questions, even if blood had to be spilled. For Caleb’s part, that was all there, buried somewhere in his mind, in his heart, in his belly, and on top of that he was defending something personal. Something intimate. Something only he could know. What I heard him saying with his rifle was that we needed to make some changes in our relationship, or he might feel forced to do something that would damage both of us forever.
