Shale. He grabbed Shale’s hand and took him to the kitchen. Mom returned, gathered Shale and Weston in her arms in the kitchen, and sobbed. Shale had never heard his mother cuss, and she’d never been physical. She’d also never gotten her husband to do what she asked.
Dad continued to see the boys every other Tuesday night. Mom didn’t attack him anymore. Dad took the boys to basketball games again. He was a teacher and the head coach at Plenty Coups now, thirty-five miles south of Billings on the Crow reservation. He introduced Shale and Weston to his girlfriend, and smiled. She was a lot younger than he was. Shale asked. She was twenty-five, or something. She looks white but maybe she’s mix, Shale thought. She worked with his father. The games were at the Shrine gymnasium, a small hot box in the middle of Billings with the thick smell of people and popcorn, the blond lacquer of hardwood. The kids flew like birds, Shale’s father’s boys—Marty Roundface and Max Spotted Bear, Tim Falls Down and Dana Goes Ahead—and they often won.
At home around the oval oak table in the kitchen Shale’s mother sat with dead eyes and her hands folded in front of her.
“Is she prettier than me?” she asked.
Shale and Weston raced to answer first.
“No, Mom.”
“Never.”
“Not even close.”
III. THE FIRST DEFINITION OF UGLY
“No, I don’t have to do what you say,” Weston said.
They’d all thought these words countless times, but Weston was the first of them, ever, to say them aloud.
It was three years after Dad had returned to the family, left the young woman, remarried Mom. Shale thirteen, Weston fifteen. It might have been a sublimation of sexual greed, or a kind of family death wish in Dad, or perhaps his brand of religion that made him increasingly more rigid, but things got uglier before they got better. He grew unbearable. Now Mom cried in the back bedroom of the mobile home, the kind that arrived in two pieces on the flatbeds of eighteen-wheelers, a step up from the trailer they had when Dad was a teacher in Sitka, Alaska, and the apartment they had when he was in graduate school in Bozeman. The mobile was more modern. The small, square kitchen, one night, became the battleground. Dad had left Plenty Coups and it was Shale’s eighth-grade year, at St. Labre, the school that was a mix of Northern Cheyenne from Ashland, Lame Deer, and Busby, and Crow bused in for the week from Lodge Grass and Crow Agency. Weston was a sophomore.
One white boy in the whole high school, that was Weston. Shale was the slender middle schooler they called Casper, or Salt. Dad was the principal and prided himself on being in charge. The students called him Ayatollah, or Khomeini. He liked that.
Shale remembered a night when a black rock, brick-sized, came bashing through the window in his mom and dad’s bedroom and woke them all. Dad yelled to get down. Shale heard the wheels of a car kicking up dirt, getting gone, and from the floor in his open doorway he saw his dad through the angled hall in the shadow of the master bedroom standing in his underwear, pointing a rifle out the window.
But on the night of the family battle it was late fall, September, maybe October, and dusk, no threat from the outside, no sign of storm. Out the kitchen window open fields of bunchgrass were white where the light waned, and beyond these was a rift in the land where the rakish tops of cottonwoods followed the downward lie of a swale. The trees formed a long, narrow
S,
naked of leaves, but thick enough to conceal the Powder River, the muddy ribbon that traveled the earth out there, brown even this late in the year. Dad had never hit Shale or Weston but for the tempered, though painful swing of the belt he spanked them with. He ruled primarily, and thoroughly, by the volume of his voice and the clarity of brutal intention. So neither Shale nor Weston had ever really revolted. Neither had Mom. The sky to the northwest was violet, and
Dad continued to see the boys every other Tuesday night. Mom didn’t attack him anymore. Dad took the boys to basketball games again. He was a teacher and the head coach at Plenty Coups now, thirty-five miles south of Billings on the Crow reservation. He introduced Shale and Weston to his girlfriend, and smiled. She was a lot younger than he was. Shale asked. She was twenty-five, or something. She looks white but maybe she’s mix, Shale thought. She worked with his father. The games were at the Shrine gymnasium, a small hot box in the middle of Billings with the thick smell of people and popcorn, the blond lacquer of hardwood. The kids flew like birds, Shale’s father’s boys—Marty Roundface and Max Spotted Bear, Tim Falls Down and Dana Goes Ahead—and they often won.
At home around the oval oak table in the kitchen Shale’s mother sat with dead eyes and her hands folded in front of her.
“Is she prettier than me?” she asked.
Shale and Weston raced to answer first.
“No, Mom.”
“Never.”
“Not even close.”
III. THE FIRST DEFINITION OF UGLY
“No, I don’t have to do what you say,” Weston said.
They’d all thought these words countless times, but Weston was the first of them, ever, to say them aloud.
It was three years after Dad had returned to the family, left the young woman, remarried Mom. Shale thirteen, Weston fifteen. It might have been a sublimation of sexual greed, or a kind of family death wish in Dad, or perhaps his brand of religion that made him increasingly more rigid, but things got uglier before they got better. He grew unbearable. Now Mom cried in the back bedroom of the mobile home, the kind that arrived in two pieces on the flatbeds of eighteen-wheelers, a step up from the trailer they had when Dad was a teacher in Sitka, Alaska, and the apartment they had when he was in graduate school in Bozeman. The mobile was more modern. The small, square kitchen, one night, became the battleground. Dad had left Plenty Coups and it was Shale’s eighth-grade year, at St. Labre, the school that was a mix of Northern Cheyenne from Ashland, Lame Deer, and Busby, and Crow bused in for the week from Lodge Grass and Crow Agency. Weston was a sophomore.
One white boy in the whole high school, that was Weston. Shale was the slender middle schooler they called Casper, or Salt. Dad was the principal and prided himself on being in charge. The students called him Ayatollah, or Khomeini. He liked that.
Shale remembered a night when a black rock, brick-sized, came bashing through the window in his mom and dad’s bedroom and woke them all. Dad yelled to get down. Shale heard the wheels of a car kicking up dirt, getting gone, and from the floor in his open doorway he saw his dad through the angled hall in the shadow of the master bedroom standing in his underwear, pointing a rifle out the window.
But on the night of the family battle it was late fall, September, maybe October, and dusk, no threat from the outside, no sign of storm. Out the kitchen window open fields of bunchgrass were white where the light waned, and beyond these was a rift in the land where the rakish tops of cottonwoods followed the downward lie of a swale. The trees formed a long, narrow
S,
naked of leaves, but thick enough to conceal the Powder River, the muddy ribbon that traveled the earth out there, brown even this late in the year. Dad had never hit Shale or Weston but for the tempered, though painful swing of the belt he spanked them with. He ruled primarily, and thoroughly, by the volume of his voice and the clarity of brutal intention. So neither Shale nor Weston had ever really revolted. Neither had Mom. The sky to the northwest was violet, and
Similar Books
