Desert Cut

by Betty Webb

  The meeting had already moved on from the silly script to costuming, and the mood in the charcoal-on-charcoal room was testy.

  “From now on, the Indians will wear loincloths,” Speerstra announced, “and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Cherokees—and I’m playing a half-Cherokee woman, remember—wouldn’t be caught dead in a loincloth,” Angel pointed out. “I Googled it.”

  Speerstra shook his head. “Google schmoogle. An Indian’s an Indian. Besides, our viewers want to see you in a loincloth.”

  “Will it never end?” the actress muttered, not quite under her breath. I had never seen her so angry. Continually cast in the early days of her career as the archetypical dumb blonde, she was now struggling to change the public’s perception of her. Desert Eagle was to be her chance to leave the T&A roles behind for good.

  I opened my mouth to explain the evolution in tribal clothing and customs throughout the centuries when Stage Mom, Kelli Keane, proclaimed herself in agreement with Angel.

  “I think loincloths are a bad idea, Mr. Speerstra. A really bad idea. All that exposed skin. This is a children’s show, right? And Miss Grey in a loincloth and bra top would be too revealing for a children’s show. I mean, She’s huge.”

  As one, we all looked at Angel’s chest.

  Used to stares, Angel didn’t take offense. “Mrs. Keane, having a child in the cast doesn’t mean that Desert Eagle is a children’s show. However, on this one issue you’re right. Me flouncing around in a loincloth just isn’t appropriate. Same for Cory there.” She flashed the boy a smile.

  Cory ignored her, but to Speerstra, he whined, “I want the loincloth. Medicine men always wear loincloths.” He snuck a quick peek at his mother, whose over-collagened lips pulled into a frown.

  Perplexed, Angel said, “You’re not a medicine man, you’re a medicine boy.”

  Leaning away from his mother, Cory crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I said, I want the loincloth!”

  His mother moved her chair closer to him. Cory moved his further away so that it almost touched mine. “Loincloth or nothing!” he pouted.

  With a bump, Stage Mom closed the gap between them. “Behave, Cory.” Her hand disappeared under the table.

  Cory’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  Then I knew for sure. And I was, oh, so sick of it.

  “You bitch.” I stood up, detoured around the boy, and hit Stage Mom in the face so hard with my good hand that her chair toppled over with her in it. As blood gushed from her nose, she sprawled on the thick charcoal gray carpet, her silk blouse rucked up to reveal a chartreuse thong and a stretch-marked stomach.

  I turned to Angel. “Call Child Protective Services.”

  Angel, no dummy, whipped out her cell and made the call.

  Speerstra rose to his feet. “What the hell?”

  Stage Mom stayed on the floor, gazing blankly at the ceiling. Not that she could do anything else, since my foot was on her chest, and pressing down hard.

  Gentling my voice, I said to the child, “Cory, take off your suit coat.”

  He hung his head. “Mom said not to, not ever, except when we’re alone in the house.”

  When his mother started to say something, I increased my foot’s pressure on her chest, and she shut her ridiculous mouth again.

  “You’re mom’s not in charge here, Cory. Take off your coat.”

  His arms were stiff, so Angel, now off the phone, helped him. When the coat peeled away, everyone in the room—except for his mother—gasped. The child’s arms were black with bruises from his mother’s pinch marks. Red cigarettes burns added color to the wound salad. I had no doubt that the same ugly pattern was repeated on other areas of his body.

  Like some other mothers I’d run into lately, Stage Mom had been willing to maim her child to further her own needs. Only in her case, the cruelty hadn’t been perpetrated to ensure sexual frigidity, it had been done for the money Cory’s stardom would bring.

  All the brattiness had disappeared from Cory’s face. Now he just looked lost.

  “That’s why you wanted to wear a loincloth, isn’t it?” I said to him. “You wanted someone to see what was happening. You wanted help, but couldn’t figure out any other way to get it.”

  He said nothing, and he was careful not to look in his mother’s direction.

  My heart ached for him. “It’ll be all right now, Cory.”

  At least I hoped so.

  ***

  The flight back to Arizona was uneventful, mainly because I knew better than to allow myself to fall asleep. Therefore, no nightmares rose from my past, only memories.

  I was seven. I was running away from my, what? My third foster home? Fourth? Bernie and Edna…Landis? No, Lansing. Yes, that was the name. The Lansings weren’t bad people, my adult self realized, just bewildered human beings trying their best to create a temporary home for a deeply disturbed child, a child still recovering from the bullet wound that had almost killed her.

  But the Lansings weren’t my parents, and I didn’t belong with them. As badly damaged as I was, I knew that.

  For some reason I believed that if I ran east far enough and fast enough, I would finally come to the place where the trees grew thick and tall, where our house sat at the edge of the creek, and the deer came to drink at sunset. East where my mother waited to hold me tight, east where my red-headed father would caress my hair, east where….

  East to the place we’d lived before it all went wrong.

  I didn’t make it, of course.

  The Lansings lived in Scottsdale, less than a half mile west of the Salt River Pima/Maricopa Indian Reservation, a rugged tract of land in the scorching Sonoran Desert.

  And I had run away in July, when the temperatures sometimes rose to a hundred and twenty degrees.

  The plane hit a spot of turbulence and I braced my hands on the armrests.

  “I hate this,” gasped my seat mate, a woman dressed for a business meeting.

  “Turbulence? Or flying, period?” I asked sympathetically, having endured a few rough flights myself.

  “Flying, period. It scares the crap out of me.”

  I wasn’t crazy about flying, either, but I’d become used to it. “It gets easier.”

  Her fingers clenched the armrests. “Really? I’ll have you know I’ve been flying twice a week for three years, and I haven’t noticed it getting any better.” She was around thirty, attractive. From the severity of her suit I guessed she was some kind of professional, an attorney, perhaps.

  “Work requirement?” I asked, more to distract her than from curiosity.

  She shook her head. “Long distance marriage. He lives in L.A., I live in Tucson.”

  I wanted to say something optimistic, but I wasn’t in the mood to lie. Instead, I rested my head against the seat and opened myself to memory again.

  I had started off early in the morning carrying two cans of Tab filched from the Lansing’s refrigerator. The first mile across the desert passed without too much trouble, but when the heat set in, both Tabs disappeared down my parched throat. As the sun burned down, big black birds—vultures—wheeled in the sky.

  Yet somehow I kept running for two more hours, always headed east. East toward home, east toward the house by the creek.

  By midday, the rising temperature had weakened me. No strength left, I sank to my knees by a rock. At first I was too exhausted to care when one of the big black birds landed near by, even though it seemed the size of a dragon. The fear came when the vulture hopped toward me, slashing its beak like a knife.

  “Go away, Bird!” I rasped.

  I glanced at the empty Tab can in my hand. Not desert-wise, I’d hoped to find a stream where I could fill it again.

  “Bird! I’ll hit you!”

  The vulture continued its progress.

  I threw the can. It bounced without harm off those glossy feathers, but at least halted the bird’s advance.

  I reached out and snatched the c
an from where it had rolled almost back to me, then filled it with rocks and dirt. “I’ll hurt you bad this time!” I warned.

  The vulture paid no attention, just hopped forward again as several of its friends swooped down to join the impending feast.

  “I mean it, Bird! I’ll hurt you! I’ll hurt you all!” I didn’t really want to hurt any of them, but I’d seen birds that looked like them doing terrible things to dead animals. I didn’t want those things done to me, so I had to make them go away.

  The Tab can felt heavier now, more like a weapon. “I’ll break your wing!” I screamed to the lead bird. “Then your friends will eat you!”

  The bird kept coming.

  I threw the can and struck the bird in the head. With a squawk, it flew away. But the others remained.

  The fight had taken a lot out of me, and I slumped against the rock. Sensing weakness, the rest of the vultures closed in. I had no weapon now, just my hands.

  I clenched my fists. I would fight them until they ate away my fingers, then I would battle them with my palms.

  One bird reared up and…

  A gunshot.

  In a great flurry of black, the birds flew away.

  Through the roaring in my ears, I heard a man’s deep voice. “Well, now, Little Miss. What’re you doing way out here on our Rez? Why don’t I take you home?”

  I gazed up into a mahogany-colored face, gentle brown eyes, and saw a policeman holstering his gun. His Salt River Tribal Police name tag said…

  SGT. JAMES EDWARD SISIWAN.

  As the Southwest flight pierced the clouds on its approach to Tucson International Airport, I sat amazed by this new memory.

  My rescuer had been my partner’s father.

  James Edward Sisiwan.

  A man who believed in bringing lost children home.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next day Los Perdidos lay Precious Doe to rest.

  Or rather, the town laid Sahra Hassan to rest. DNA testing proved that Precious Doe was definitely the child of Jwahir and Fawzia Hassan, formerly of Somalia, Los Perdidos, and Phoenix, now inmates of the Maricopa County Jail.

  From the turnout at the cemetery, you would think a governor was being buried, or at least, a congressman. Los Perdidos’ entire Muslim community was in attendance, along with Africans of every faith, cowboys, business owners, teachers, students, the sheriff and all his deputies. Writing furiously on their notepads were several reporters, including Max and Bernice Broussard.

  Standing next to me was Warren, who had flown in from Beverly Hills. Afterward, we’d decided, he would return with me to Scottsdale where despite our damages, we would attempt to build a life together.

  Behind us, Los Perdidos loomed as deserted as a ghost town.

  Sahra’s parents, the ones who had ordered her cut, then dumped her in the desert when she bled to death, had not been allowed to attend their daughter’s funeral. The Phoenix judge refused to release them on bail, arguing that his decision was for their own safety. He might even have been telling the truth, because someone in CPS had leaked the information that each of the Hassans’ daughters had been cut, one so badly that she not only walked with a permanent limp, but would never be able to have children. So much for keeping her “pure” for marriage. Now, according to the Hassans’ tribal beliefs, she was worthless anyway.

  Jimmy, determined to see Sahra Hassan safely delivered to her final home, had driven down to Los Perdidos in his new truck. He looked so much like his dead father that I wanted to reach out and hug him. But I didn’t. Pimas are funny about that sort of thing, although they do make exceptions for terrified children they find cowering in the desert.

  Sahra’s new grave was on a gentle slope, looking east across the Dragoons, where Geronimo and his band of free Apaches once roamed, east toward the land of her birth. I had paid a premium to ensure that she would be shaded by a palo verde tree, forever surrounded by desert wild flowers.

  Lee Casey was there, too, along with his employees. He had given them the morning off with pay so they could attend the funeral. I watched him across the small casket, noting his guilt-shaded eyes. Not guilt over Sahra, probably. Casey had no way of knowing what kind of man her father was when he employed him. As a rule, CEOs didn’t delve into their employee’s personal lives and cultural beliefs, but that might be about to change.

  No, Casey felt guilt about something else.

  I looked down the hill to the rocky edge of the cemetery where Floyd Polk, burned to ashes by a group of vigilantes, lay in an unmarked grave.

  No trees. No flowers. No visitors.

  Casey’s eyes met mine. He knew that I knew.

  Not far from Polk’s grave were those of Reverend Daniel and Olivia Hall. Paid for and attended by the Women For Freedom, the fresh mounds were heaped with flowers. How long would the Women’s misguided devotion last, especially since CPS had removed some of their daughters from their custody? Maybe someday, freed from the Reverend’s influence, the Women could begin to recover from his malignant control and begin the long process of healing. Until then, they would hate themselves as much as he had.

  What was it Reverend Hall had whispered as I walked away from our first meeting?

  Control women and you control the world.

  A martyr to Hall’s hatred of all things female, Precious Doe had died. So had Tujin Rafik. And across the world, so had hundreds of thousands of little girls.

  But some survived.

  As I looked across Precious Doe’s grave, I saw Nicole, that gallant heroine whose selflessness had saved a little girl from butchery. She stood in the crowd with Raymundo, and for the first time in her own sad life, fortune smiled on her. While Child Protective Services labored to track down her biological father, she had been removed from the group home and placed in foster care with Selma Mann.

  Selma, who had taken that mysterious trip to Africa in order to adopt a child, had failed when the tribal elders decided to cease all foreign adoptions. Maybe fortune would smile on her someday, too, and Nicole would make her an honorary grandmother.

  Raymundo, although he knew exactly what had been done to Nicole, held his beloved girl as tenderly as ever.

  Sometimes love does conquer all.

  In my carry-all was a copy of the photograph I found in the burned-out rubble of the parsonage. After Jimmy had Photoshopped the damaged original, I could now see the optimism in my parents’ faces as they stood beside the white bus that was to take them to Phoenix, where I would eventually be shot and left for dead.

  But not by my parents.

  My parents had loved me.

  Loved me enough to die for me.

  Some day I would avenge them.

  My partner, Jimmy, son of Pima Tribal Police Sergeant James Edward Sisiswan, would some day track down that white bus. It might be in a junkyard in New Mexico or rusting away in the Arizona desert, but wherever it was, he would find it.

  Jimmy wasn’t a cop’s son for nothing.

  One day I would travel to that white bus and run my hands across its side. In that moment I would unravel the secret of my life.

  Words in Arabic jolted me from the future to the present. A newly-arrived imam was speaking. His words were brief, and quickly translated into English.

  A prayer for compassion, a prayer for peace.

  With that, the service was over. People moved toward their cars.

  There was only one thing left to do. I stepped to the edge of the grave and tossed in a rose—white, for an innocent girl who had not been allowed to become a woman.

  With one final look at the child’s tombstone, I walked away.

  That tombstone, my final gift to her, read SAHRA HASSAN.

  But she would always be Precious to me.

  Author’s Note

  On June 23, 1993, Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband’s penis and the media went crazy.

  On June 23, 1993, the same thing happened to thousands of children aged two to twelve, but the media ignored the st
ory. What was the difference?

  There are three answers to that question: the victims in the second instance were female; they were black or Muslim; and finally, the misleading word used for the genital amputations the children suffered was circumcision.

  Language is a powerful thing. By using euphemisms and inaccurate wordage, we blunt the facts, allowing us to keep a clean, safe distance from messy truths. Thus we reduce rape to “molestation,” the slaughter of civilians in warfare to “collateral damage,” and the unanesthetized amputation of a little girl’s genitals to “circumcision.”

  Few of us are disturbed by the idea of circumcision. We all know (and are sometimes married to) circumcised men who are completely healthy and experience no pain or sexual difficulties from the procedure. Furthermore, doctors tell us that male circumcision helps ward off disease in both the male and his sexual partner. So what’s the big deal when it’s done to girls?

  The procedure performed on little girls—approximately 150 million of them world-wide—is not circumcision, although its practitioners call it that. Instead, the procedure is exactly the same as that performed on John Bobbitt—a complete amputation of the external genitalia (Bobbitt was luckier than the girls; Lorena left his testicles alone). Some doctors say the procedure is more akin to castration than circumcision (see Bibliography, Dr. Mohamed Badawi). In the very worst, but most common cases, a child’s clitoris, as well as her minor and major labia, is completely amputated and her vagina sewn shut (see Appendix I).

  As for after care, there is another difference between John Bobbitt and the thousands of little girls whose genitals were amputated the same day he suffered his injuries. Bobbitt was given immediate medical treatment, and his penis successfully reattached.