Read Online In the City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Spanbauer
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floor and around the bottom of the walls and around the door and the closet door was the dark brown wood. The walls were sloping green. Outside my window, thick branches, the sigh and scratch of cottonwood leaves. Past the cottonwood south to the railroad tracks and Highway 30 and, across the highway, was Vivâs Double Wide House of Beauty.
Nothing else in the room, just the bed and the window. A green rug right along the side of the bed on the hardwood floor to put your feet on when you got up. No pictures on the walls, nothing Catholic.
In the room with the fireplace, we put the couch and the chair and the three-way floor lamp and the end table with the doily, and in front of the fireplace on the hardwood floor the flowered carpet, and the wagon-wheel coffee table on the carpet. We called the room the living room and it looked like dollhouse furniture in there, the green walls way far, the green ceiling way high.
The first winter, above the fireplace, fingers of black reached out of the fireplace and up the green wall, spreading soot like some hand from inside grasping onto the wall.
Chimney needs work! Father said, too loud, Iâll take care of it! he said. But Father never took care.
The best place was the kitchen. Not the whole kitchen, because the whole kitchen was big enough to cook for an army, just the alcove part where the table was by the window. The big stove was right there, and we opened the oven door and turned the oven on full blast, and all the burners, and in the mornings before school we satâBobbie with Rice Krispies, me with Cheerios, Charlie 2Moons a disgusting mix of Cheerios and Rice Krispies, each of us with our cups of Nestlé Quik hot chocolateâon dark wood chairs in front of the stove with our feet up toasty on the open oven door, with all our clothes on, even our winter coats, and the army blanket over us.
I liked to be the one who got up first, so I could turn the oven on and all the burners and have the milk hot, not scaldedâwhen we had milk; just hot water if we didnâtâfor the hot chocolate, and have the cereal out and the army blanket ready.
If Father wasnât home, Charlie was always there with us. Mother never said anything about Charlie, one way or the other, except one time when she got drunk. Charlie was like a stick of furniture to Mother. But then, so were Bobbie and I. Mother mostly stayed in her room with the dark green shades pulled down and only came out for coffee and Herbert Tareytons late in the morning and sometimes not at all.
At least sheâd stopped running out into the field.
In the summer, you could open the window in the kitchen alcove and right outside was the cottonwood tree, and in the morning the sun came in the window, making a square of gold on the table, and you could sit in the square with the window open and hear the cottonwood and the wind and smell the smells in the wind, of grassâespecially after the grass was mowedâand the smell of the cottonwood, and the geraniums Charlie got from Viv.
Viv was Charlieâs mother, and Vivâs Double Wide House of Beauty always had lots of customers, mostly Indian women. Some white women went to Viv too because Viv was so good with hair, but Mother never did because Mother never left the house. Besides, even if Mother did want her hair done by Viv, Father would never have allowed it.
Father hated Indians.
Neâer-do-wells.
Especially Charlie.
THAT FIRST NIGHT in the Residency, Father slept on the screened-in porch. Then, later in the night, I heard him down in Bobbieâs room, in Bobbieâs Marilyn Monroe light with Bobbie.
Before sunrise, out my window, I watched his matching swimming-pool-blue Dodge pickup and trailer and horse trailer drive down the lane in between the cottonwoods to Highway 30 and turn left toward Pocatello. I watched Fatherâs pickup until I couldnât see it anymore.
The next morning, our second day at the Residency,
Nothing else in the room, just the bed and the window. A green rug right along the side of the bed on the hardwood floor to put your feet on when you got up. No pictures on the walls, nothing Catholic.
In the room with the fireplace, we put the couch and the chair and the three-way floor lamp and the end table with the doily, and in front of the fireplace on the hardwood floor the flowered carpet, and the wagon-wheel coffee table on the carpet. We called the room the living room and it looked like dollhouse furniture in there, the green walls way far, the green ceiling way high.
The first winter, above the fireplace, fingers of black reached out of the fireplace and up the green wall, spreading soot like some hand from inside grasping onto the wall.
Chimney needs work! Father said, too loud, Iâll take care of it! he said. But Father never took care.
The best place was the kitchen. Not the whole kitchen, because the whole kitchen was big enough to cook for an army, just the alcove part where the table was by the window. The big stove was right there, and we opened the oven door and turned the oven on full blast, and all the burners, and in the mornings before school we satâBobbie with Rice Krispies, me with Cheerios, Charlie 2Moons a disgusting mix of Cheerios and Rice Krispies, each of us with our cups of Nestlé Quik hot chocolateâon dark wood chairs in front of the stove with our feet up toasty on the open oven door, with all our clothes on, even our winter coats, and the army blanket over us.
I liked to be the one who got up first, so I could turn the oven on and all the burners and have the milk hot, not scaldedâwhen we had milk; just hot water if we didnâtâfor the hot chocolate, and have the cereal out and the army blanket ready.
If Father wasnât home, Charlie was always there with us. Mother never said anything about Charlie, one way or the other, except one time when she got drunk. Charlie was like a stick of furniture to Mother. But then, so were Bobbie and I. Mother mostly stayed in her room with the dark green shades pulled down and only came out for coffee and Herbert Tareytons late in the morning and sometimes not at all.
At least sheâd stopped running out into the field.
In the summer, you could open the window in the kitchen alcove and right outside was the cottonwood tree, and in the morning the sun came in the window, making a square of gold on the table, and you could sit in the square with the window open and hear the cottonwood and the wind and smell the smells in the wind, of grassâespecially after the grass was mowedâand the smell of the cottonwood, and the geraniums Charlie got from Viv.
Viv was Charlieâs mother, and Vivâs Double Wide House of Beauty always had lots of customers, mostly Indian women. Some white women went to Viv too because Viv was so good with hair, but Mother never did because Mother never left the house. Besides, even if Mother did want her hair done by Viv, Father would never have allowed it.
Father hated Indians.
Neâer-do-wells.
Especially Charlie.
THAT FIRST NIGHT in the Residency, Father slept on the screened-in porch. Then, later in the night, I heard him down in Bobbieâs room, in Bobbieâs Marilyn Monroe light with Bobbie.
Before sunrise, out my window, I watched his matching swimming-pool-blue Dodge pickup and trailer and horse trailer drive down the lane in between the cottonwoods to Highway 30 and turn left toward Pocatello. I watched Fatherâs pickup until I couldnât see it anymore.
The next morning, our second day at the Residency,
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