Crazy Horse's Girlfriend (9781940430447) (11 page)

“You're really a beautiful guy, you know that?”

He turned to me, his blue boxers and white v-neck t-shirt wrinkled from nights of sleep. We'd slept naked but clearly this was what he regularly slept in. I could see he was embarrassed.

“I always thought I was kinda tiny for a dude. And strangely hairless. But I figure maybe when I get a little older, that'll come in. Well. Not the height maybe. But the hair.”

I laughed, hard.

“What?” He said, sitting down.

“Oh, Mike. You're
not
tiny. You're muscular and tight and I don't know… that's how Indian guys look. And it's plenty manly. And very hot. And I'm afraid you're not going to grow any more hair.”

He looked at me, confused. “Sure I will.”

“No
—
no, Mike. Indians don't really have a lot of body hair. I mean, I have some, 'cause I'm part white. But you… no.”

He looked down at his arms and back at me, his eyes wide. “Oh… oh.”

I leaned over and stroked his hair. “Oh, you're funny.”

“You're the funny one.”

“I am pretty fucking funny,” I said and wiggled my eyebrows. I tapped my feet under the table in a funky little powwow rhythm.

“You're also very weird.”

“Now I'm very offended.”

“How offended?”

I adjusted the long, white t-shirt I'd pulled out of his dresser that morning and looked at him.

“Enough to kick your hairless ass.”

“You think you can take me?”

“Bring it on,” I said, and he drank from his coffee and then sprung up, surprising me and wrestling me to the ground.

“You've been very bad,” he said, and kissed me.

“You should punish me.”

He looked at me playfully, hesitantly, and gave me a spank. I squealed and ran strategically over to his bedroom. He ran after me.

Pulling out of his driveway, after having to turn the engine over several times before it would start, I thought about how happy I was. It frightened me, but looking up, I could see that the sun was strong. I heaved a heavy sigh and turned the radio up. The drive down was a little rocky and steep, and I had to hit the brakes a ton to keep from speeding like hell around the corners that led into town.

After driving for about twenty minutes, I could see the school on my left. I'd be hitting town in a few. For some reason, this triggered something. I squinted, thinking. I searched my mind and realized after a few seconds what it was I was trying to remember.

“Oh, fuck,” I said, turning the radio down and then slapping my hand to my forehead. I realized that Mike and I had forgotten all about the party.

“I'll just call Julia later,” I muttered to myself. I hoped she wouldn't be too mad at me; fuck she'd dumped me about a billion times for some dude, and I'd always been fine with it. I stopped at the gas station as I pulled into town and filled up. I remembered that I had to work that day and had to do some deals that night. I thought about Jake as I pumped the gas, hoped that he was OK. He had called me a day ago to tell me that he was but I didn't believe him. Those places were shit.

I got out, hoping Mom wouldn't be able to sniff dude on me. Inside, things were peaceful. Dad was nowhere to be seen, which meant that he was more than likely sitting in his office, drinking and doing whateverthefuck he did in there and Mom and Auntie Justine were sitting in the kitchen, laughing up a goddamn storm, and the twins were sitting by the TV.

“Hey guys,” I said, walking into the kitchen. They looked at me suspiciously, turning towards one another and then back at me as I maneuvered around the kitchen, putting a bologna sandwich together.

“Did you get your work done at Julia's?” Mom asked and Justine snorted.

“Yeah.”

Mom was silent for a few minutes, and I leaned against the counter, eating my sandwich and sweating.

“I just don't know how you concentrate with all of those kids running around,” Mom said and Auntie Justine looked at me, hard.

“Heard from Jake?” I asked.

Justine picked up her mug of coffee and drank. “Yes. He called. Though his father won't talk to him. Those two are stubborn. But Jake. He just won't do right,” she said, her mouth in a thin, angry line. She was lighter than my mom, shorter too. And tough. Real tough. She was the only person under 5
'
2
"
I truly feared.

“I'm sorry Auntie,” I said, finishing my sandwich and washing my hands.

“You better be studying up there,” she said. “You need to work hard if you want to do something with your life and you know it.”

“I know… it,” I said, finishing lamely.

“Don't you get saucy with me, hey,” she said.

“I'm not. I want to do well, I do.”

“I worry about you Margaritte. You're just like your great-grandma. Crazy and wild and full of it.”

“I'm nerdy,” I said.

“Nerdy, hell. Just 'cause you read those damn demon books doesn't mean you're a nerd. It means you're bored. Nerds get good grades,” she said and Mom got up and started making a fresh batch of coffee.

“I… I gotta go to work,” I said. I could feel my pits becoming a swamp. Auntie Justine didn't pull any punches. Mom sat down and looked at me.

“Dammit, Margaritte, just don't screw your life up. You're smart. Don't be stupid.”

“I really gotta get ready for work,” I said. “Later you two.”

Both of them sighed, hard and in unison, and just the damn sound of it stressed me out. I probably smelled like boy and I'm sure the both of them knew exactly what I'd been up to. But they probably didn't know where. The thing was, if I had gone to Julia's, I probably would have ended up going to her party, where trouble of all kinds would have been much more possible than it had been at Mike's. We'd watched a goddamn Woody Allen movie for fuck's sake.
'
Course I hadn't done a bit of homework.

The hallway felt long and white and endless and I put both of my hands on either side of it, moving them forward as I walked towards the bathroom, sliding them down as the pictures we had put up came into view. I opened the bathroom door, closed it and sat down on the toilet before I took my clothes off. I shared the bathroom with the twins and their shit was everywhere: little yellow bathtub duckies, tiny toothbrushes in the shapes of animals, pink matching pajamas from Dad's mom in Jersey, all of the stuff that it took to wash and brush
and
entertain two children while doing so. I could hear them yelling at their toys in the living room, the sound of the TV overwhelming. Mom and Justine were laughing about something. Justine told the dirtiest jokes, which killed me considering how Christian she was.

I turned the shower on and got into the stall, shutting the water-stained and rusted sliding doors behind me. I closed my eyes and stepped into the water, the sounds of the house fading. I thought about Mike, his hands on me, and smiled as I washed my hair with the cheap shampoo that I bought from Safeway. It smelled good though, like the way lilacs and candy would smell if there was a way to naturally combine them. I put conditioner in the long ropes of my hair, pulled it up in a thick black rubber band, washed my body, shaved, rinsed. I got out and dried myself off with a towel, wrapping it around me when I was done and walking downstairs to get dressed. I hated what my boss liked for us to wear: khaki pants and a white collared shirt. I looked like a fucktard.

I tied my hair back, walked up the stairs and outside, passing the twins who were still watching TV, and Mom and Justine, who were still laughing in the kitchen. The day was beautiful and the car only needed a few turns this time to start. I'd had a lot of luck with it lately, but it looked like it was back to its usual behavior. I pulled out of the driveway with a noisy, rusty squeak and into the road, which was busy with tourists. I could see as I came into town that they had descended like locusts and were running in and out of the stores, buying ice cream, weird wooden birdhouses and carved ducks, bullshit Indian dream catchers and the like, and were probably loving the hell out of it.

I pulled into the short, dirt driveway and parked and got out, walking past the large, dormant cherry tree that stood outside of the restaurant and into the dark wooden smell of the place.

I worked hard and the first couple of hours went quickly. The place was actually packed for once. But the last hours passed slowly; it was like I was living in someone else's body, the body of a stranger that was moving through fog. I was thinking about Mike but mainly that was always the way I felt around people, especially at work or at school. There was no way to be myself. I was talking, taking orders, cleaning, getting high in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror and fixing the long black lines of my eyeliner as slowly as possible. The mirror in the bathroom always made me feel foreign to myself. It always left me wondering if I was still in there.

I walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen to get the order that was up. It smelled of meat, spices, cleaners of various kinds.

Buddy looked at me, her medium-length grey hair tied back in a short ponytail.

“You better not be getting high in there. I know that smell. I was a teenager in the '60s,” she said. She was a weird lady, always giving me and half her patrons advice even when it was clear they didn't want it. I remember her trying to convince an obese white lady about a year ago to order light ice cream instead of the regular. The woman wasn't having it and just kept saying
I want my treat
. Buddy continued to try until the woman got furious and left.

“I was burning sage.”

“Yeah. Sage. Don't you try to fool an old lady with that Indian shit.”

“Never,” I said, smiling and picking the tray up. I walked into the wood paneled dining room and over to the couple sitting over in the corner. They had two kids, and the whole damn family was dressed in North Face jackets. The parents were wearing dark colors and the kids, bright. I could see the white stitching on the front of all of their jackets, which none of them had taken off. The kids were yelling like hell, launching bright pieces of silverware into the air every few minutes. I just picked the forks up from the old, slightly yeasty smelling carpet and slid them into the pockets of my apron. Both parents were clearly depressed, exhausted. They weren't talking to each other. In fact, they weren't even looking at one another. I could only imagine that they hadn't realized that this was all part of the deal.

I set the tray down and served them their dishes. I asked them if I could get them anything else. The woman turned to me, her little blue eyes empty, worn.

“No, just the check when you get the chance,” she said, smiling weakly.

“Cool. 'Cause I never remember what we got for dessert anyway,” I said, and she laughed.

“We just got back from skiing,” she said, “and we're beat.”

“You took them skiing?” I asked.

“Yeah, they take lessons. And we love to ski. Do you?”

“No, I don't ski. Lots of people from here don't ski.”

She laughed, and it was a tiny metallic sound. “Well, we're from California. We moved to Evergreen a few months ago. Try not to hold that against us.”

“Oh, I'm dating a guy from there,” I said. “Well, he's closer to Evergreen than Idaho Springs. So I guess he's from Evergreen. And originally from California too.”

“Oh, really?” she said, smiling.

“Yeah,” I said and felt silly. The woman smiled. Her husband hadn't looked up at me, once. He was already eating. The kids were looking at their piles of cheesesticks as if to figure out how quickly they could make them airborne.

“Well, enjoy your meal,” I said, walking away. I returned a few minutes later to ask them if they needed anything else, fill their drinks, see if they were enjoying their meal. A while later I came back with their check, and watched their kids throw their piles of untouched cheesesticks at each other as I picked the bill up. In the kitchen, I looked at my watch. I could go soon.

I cashed the couple out, folded my apron into my backpack and told Buddy that I was leaving. I had already done all of the prep I needed to do so I was really free to go. I walked into the slowly darkening night, the wind blowing stiffly against me. I got into my car, turned the engine over a few times and got it started. I'd told Mom that my shift ended later than it did so that I could go over to Megan's and hang after I'd done my deals. I just wanted to sit and have a couple drinks without having to deal with my family. Plus, Megan smoked a little and had asked me if she could get a dime bag.

I did a couple of deals and then drove over to Megan's. I walked up the stairs, knocked, and Megan answered, the baby in her arms, an
I'm going to ram a fist down Will's mouth
expression on her face. I handed her the dime bag and when she went to her bag, I said no. I told her that I hung there all the time and that she'd taken Jake in when we needed it.