by Nora Martin
He shook his head. “Your brother has a bad case of jealousy. From the way you describe how you and your dad were always tight, it makes me green too.”
“You?”
He nodded. “My old man doesn’t even notice me unless I’m doing something that embarrasses him, like getting into trouble at school or wrecking his new car.”
It’s weird how four people can live together in a trailer ten feet wide and forty feet long for weeks without saying what’s on their minds, but that’s the way our house was. Every day Dad, David and I pretended that nothing was different but everything was. Mom was the only one who tried to get us to talk about the tension that hung in the air. I heard her talking to Aunt Jana on the phone about it. When she saw me coming she whispered to her sister that she would finish telling her later. Between us guys, the unsaid words built up, getting thicker and harder to break.
Every weekday Jason and I put in a couple hours on the housing project. And on weekends I usually did something with Eden. Sometimes we went skiing or snowshoeing; sometimes we went to the movies. If Jason came along, he brought a girl named Ashley with him. We never even mentioned Jill anymore.
What David did I don’t know. I suspected he was doing a lot with Chuck and Travis. Many times on weekends he didn’t come home. Mom would worry, but Dad always said, “Leave the boy alone. He’s finally growing up.” Then he would look at me disappointed. It made me feel sick and angry every time he mentioned it.
We kept this up right through January and part of February. Then the weather turned frigid again. Hard wind and snow blew for days, pounding against the trailer.
It was in the middle of a storm one night at dinner that David declared he had a job.
“After school?” Mom asked.
David and Dad exchanged looks across the table. I knew they had already talked this over and the announcement was for Mom’s sake only, or maybe for mine.
“No, not after school,” David said, his confidence sinking a little, I thought.
“You’re quitting?” I asked. I felt every lesson Mom and Dad had ever tried to teach us slide away. Mom and I looked to Dad at the same time, probably with the same expression. He just stared at his plate. Yes, he knew all about it and had already given David his permission. Hypocrite, I thought. All these years telling us to study, go to college like he never got to do.
“The boy’s going to be working for Lonn down at his garage.” Dad’s voice was apologetic. “At first he’ll just be running errands and such, but Lonn is going to be teaching him the trade.”
“Quit school?” My mother sounded weak, almost faint. “Is that right, Frank?”
At that moment I was angry that my mother was not like she used to be. Before we moved she would have exploded and laid down the law about quitting school. But now my mother didn’t even question my dad.
“It seems to be the right thing for now. If we were still ranching, it would be different,” Dad said. “David’s trying to become a man the best way he can.”
I sneered at Dad. “Sounds more like they’re making a stupid redneck out of David.” As soon as I said it I was sorry. The problem was much more complex than calling people names.
“That’s enough,” Dad shot back. His face turned dark and the muscles up and down his arms contracted. “Your brother is helping this family. We can’t make it on the seven bucks an hour I get working at the market or the little your mother has to work so hard for. He’s going to bring in a check.”
Then I felt guilty again. They did need help paying the bills. I hadn’t even thought of it.
David was sitting back, surprisingly calm. In a confident voice he added, “I’ll be making money for the family, not for the rich Jew bankers.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“I think you know,” he said. He remained like a stone, while my whole insides were trembling in anger and, for some reason, fear. “That welfare housing you work so hard on with the rich guys, who do you think the rent goes to?”
“David’s right.” Dad sounded so hurt, as if I had punched him. “All that time you spend building houses to make money for the pigs that own this town. And when your brother tries for one day to fix up your own home you won’t even help.”
“The cleanup was my idea.” But it was as if they didn’t even hear me.
“I never thought a son of mine would turn his back on us.” Dad sat down and started eating. He wouldn’t look at me again and I knew that the discussion was over.
But David, the new David, wasn’t finished. “I saw there was an article in the paper about that housing project you’re working on. It all sounds so good: ‘Help your fellow man.’ But it’s bullshit. It’s really about helping the rich pigs get richer, Ben.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” I seethed back at him. But the voice of doubt nibbled at my insides. Would some rich guy benefit from all the work we were doing? Who would collect the rents?
“Lonn knows,” David said. “And he doesn’t like it.”
Then the questions really started bouncing against the inside of my skull like a superball inside the trailer. What did he mean, Lonn knows? And what didn’t Lonn like? David pushed back from the table, grabbed his coat and announced, “I gotta go.”
Once he was out the door, Mom got going about David quitting school. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Frank.”
“It’s just until we’re on our feet again, Donna,” Dad insisted. But he sounded as if he was asking for her understanding. “And we need the money. You know that.” That ended it. Dad turned on the TV and plunged into his chair. Mom quietly started clearing the dishes.
I followed her. “Why don’t you stop him?” I asked.
She stopped midstep and looked at me. “How?”
“Just tell David he can’t quit school,” I said. “If we were still in Prairie Springs—”
“We’re not,” Mom said loudly. She sounded more like she used to, almost like Aunt Jana. “It’s different here. I’m not sure what is right and wrong now.”
I knew Dad could hear us talking, but he didn’t say anything.
“But you don’t want David to quit and end up working in some cheap motel like you.” Or, worse, being a street thug, I thought.
“A parent always wants everything for their child, but that’s not possible. I wanted both you boys to go to college, but at the same time I wanted you to never leave home. I have to believe you each will find your way.”
“I’m not so sure we will,” I said, giving up. She didn’t want to understand. It was like she and Dad were living in a deep hole and made no effort to climb out.
Later, when I came out of my room to get some water, I surprised my parents. Dad had his arms around Mom’s shoulders and he planted a gentle kiss on her temple. He looked embarrassed when he saw me, but Mom’s face was at peace.
Chapter Twelve
Water
After that night at the dinner table everything changed. I felt my life split out from under my feet like thick ice giving way. David strutted through the days as if he had become more than skin and bone, more than human. And Dad, well, he acted as if his younger son could perform miracles.
“You let David take the truck to his job,” Dad told me. “He can drop you off at school.”
David spent every day at the shop and hanging out with Chuck and Travis. My brother never talked about what they did, but from occasional articles in the paper I guessed they were the ones who knocked over the gravestones in the Jewish cemetery and spray-painted a church that had hired a black preacher.
Meanwhile, I became dependent on Eden and Jason for rides everywhere. Eden would pick me up in the morning and Jason would take me home after we finished working at the housing project. This went on right into the middle of March.
Eden was too polite to say anything about where we lived being a dump, but I won’t ever forget Jason’s reaction one day as he stared up the driveway at the group of trailers. “A tr
ue tin can.” Then he seemed to think about it for a minute and added, “Sorry, Campbell.”
“No problem,” I said. The words sounded so funny to my own ears. Just four months earlier I would have busted Jason’s nose for making the tin can comment, true or not. Now I simply admitted it.
It was the weirdest feeling, like I had become some completely different person but my mind was just now realizing it. I remember seeing a movie once where this white guy gets up one morning and looks in the mirror to find he became black overnight. That’s how I felt.
Then one day in the second week of April I found a printed sheet sticking out of the pocket of David’s jacket, which was hanging on a nail by the door. I looked over my shoulder to make sure he or Dad wasn’t watching and then pulled it out to read.
TAKE ACTION!
Protect your jobs and family from the
Jewish threat!
Before I could finish I heard David, out in the kitchen, ask Mom what there was to eat. I quickly stuffed the paper back into his pocket.
Later that day Eden met me at my locker. “Hey, Ben, let’s go out to eat lunch today. My treat. I never get to see you during the week, and you and Jason are always working after school.” She patted my cheek in the way she had that said she really wasn’t complaining.
“Sure.” I put my arm around her and started for the parking lot. “I will make up for the neglect of my demanding princess this weekend. I promise.”
“Let’s pack a picnic and go hike along the river on Saturday. See if we can find some spring.” Eden shivered as we walked to her car. The wind was harsh despite the clear sky and sunshine. “I sure wish it would warm up,” she added.
“In Montana,” I told her, “you can’t expect spring until June.”
As we drove past the supermarket I spotted David. He was with Chuck and Travis and two other guys. They were placing pieces of neon blue paper under the windshield wiper of each car in the lot.
“There’s your brother with those guys you used to hang around with,” Eden said, pointing. “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know.” But as I spoke I recognized the paper as being the same one I had seen in David’s pocket.
“It looks like they’re distributing a flyer,” she commented.
I got nervous. That paper was the last thing I wanted Eden to see. It was bad enough that she knew what a dump I lived in, but if she ever caught wind of what David did . . .
So I tried to shrug the whole scene off. “I don’t care what David’s doing.”
“I think we should stop and see what it is.” Eden slowed the car.
“No!” My voice was too loud, even in my ears.
“Okay, okay. No need to get so upset.” She sped up again.
“It’s just that I know David doesn’t want to see me. We hardly even speak anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Ben,” Eden said. “I wish you and your brother weren’t fighting with each other. What happened, anyway? Is it still about the cleanup?”
It was so much more. But what was I supposed to tell her? That I used to dig going around shooting up churches and burning cars? That I turned my brother on to it and now he dug it too? I searched for a safe answer. “We just don’t like the same things anymore.” It sounded lame. I could tell Eden didn’t believe a word I said.
I struggled for a more complete explanation. “David always followed me. It was like he couldn’t even think for himself. I played football, so David did. I liked fishing, so David did. But I was always better at everything. Now it’s as if he’s tired of being second string and is trying to prove he can be better than I am. Plus he needs to rub my nose in the mud at the same time.”
“You told me once that you took care of your brother,” Eden said carefully, like she was sticking her toe in the river. “Are you sure you didn’t do a little nose rubbing yourself?”
I knew it was true. I had known ever since the cleanup. I had taught my brother a lot, including how to be a bully.
On Saturday morning I made plans to meet Eden. Timing was everything in a situation where she was coming to pick me up. I didn’t want to do the introduce-girlfriend-to-parents routine. Dad and Eden shaking hands and chitchatting? Mom and Eden’s mom exchanging recipes? I couldn’t see it.
The TV was blaring a basketball game when I came out of my room. Mom was bent over, cleaning the oven.
From the green chair I heard Dad’s voice shout over the announcer’s. “Those bugger basketball players make millions. And for what? Throwing a damned ball around like any kid on the playground.” He swiveled in the chair and looked me up and down. “Where are you going?”
I pulled my boots on by the door. “Fishing.” I made a point of leaning my fishing pole against the wall. “What time do you have to be at work?” I wanted to be gone before him so he wouldn’t see Eden picking me up.
“When I get there,” Dad said, pouring another cup of coffee.
I went out the door and walked fast down the driveway to wait for Eden out by the road. Five minutes went by but Eden still hadn’t come. I kept looking up to the trailer, afraid I’d see my dad heading for work.
Finally I saw Eden’s little blue car coming down the road. At the same time I heard the door of the trailer slamming. Dad was getting into the truck as Eden came to a stop. Before the wheels halted I had the door open and jumped in, trying to squish down in the seat. But it was too late—Dad passed us, staring at Eden and me. The car and truck slid by each other like slow ships.
“Was that your dad?” Eden pointed.
I nodded and watched the truck disappear down the road. I was already thinking what I’d tell Dad when he asked who the girl was. Would he believe it if I said she was just someone from school who happened by and offered me a ride? No way.
“So when are you going to introduce me to your folks?” Eden asked.
I squirmed.
“What’s the problem with that, Campbell?” Her eyes were narrowing at me. “It’s not as if you’re too young to have a girlfriend. Actually, I would think your parents would kind of expect it around now.”
“It’s not that,” I said, still trying to imagine Eden coming for dinner at the trailer. “Things haven’t been too good around there lately.”
“Is it because my dad makes more money?” Eden glanced sideways at me, as if it would be easier to hear if she wasn’t looking straight into my face.
I jumped at the chance to use her explanation. “Yeah, kind of. Ever since my dad lost his job he’s been out of sorts. Not what you’d call overly friendly.”
“I thought he was working now,” Eden said.
“Part time at a convenience store is a long way from being in charge of a huge ranch.”
“You’re right,” Eden agreed. “It must be pretty hard for him.”
I felt the point was settled and Eden wouldn’t want to come around the family for a while.
When we reached the river Eden parked the car. The snow that still clung to the edges of the bank was dirty and jagged from the rush of water sweeping against it. The wind held the feel of shuddering cold. I zipped my jacket all the way up and Eden pulled a stocking hat down over her ears.
“Let’s walk upriver to get warm,” Eden suggested. She flung the pack that held sandwiches and a water bottle onto her back.
We walked fast until the river’s layered brown banks closed in around us on the trail. When Eden let go of my hand I felt the cold air grip where her warm skin had been. She moved ahead, leaping from one boulder to the next. On the really big ones she scrambled up the side and jumped to the ground from the top. Finally she stopped and waited for me.
“I think I’ve found our picnic spot.” She pointed down.
Behind the rock where Eden stood, sloping up from a quiet side pool, was a place just big enough for the two of us. The sun reflected off the rocks, making a warm pocket between water, sky, stone and ground.
Eden whispered, “Green grass,” as she held her hand out to me.
Finally she broke the spell. “You hungry?”
“Sure.” How much poetry is a guy supposed to spout in one lifetime, anyway?
We sat down with our backs against the warm rock. Eden unpacked the sandwiches and a plastic bag of chips, setting them on the ground between us. Suddenly she stopped and looked closely between the blades of grass. Her fingers began to probe, parting the green strands. I leaned over to see what she had found. It was a miniature purple violet. As she touched it softly she said, “Look, spring must be coming after all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Darkness
I had some extra money from cutting firewood for Mrs. Kenny, so after leaving the river we drove into town for hamburgers and a movie. It was pretty late by the time we returned to Eden’s house.
“Looks like everyone’s home,” Eden said. Her parents’ cars were lined up in front of the garage.
As soon as we came to a stop Eden started to open her door. “Let’s go make hot chocolate,” she suggested.
“Stay a few minutes.” I put my hand on her arm. All evening I had been thinking that I needed to come clean with Eden. She was the one person who would possibly understand the changes I was going through with David, my parents and even Jason Johnson. Maybe she could translate the world and tell me why I had become a foreigner in my own house.
Eden closed the car door. “What do you want to talk about?”
I wanted to spill my guts. I wanted to tell her about burning the car and how I had loved the sense of power. I wanted to explain about throwing the rock through Trenton Biggs’s window. I needed to confess that I had dragged my brother into the violence and then left him there to be swept away.
