by Lee Lynch
Less than a minute later, Luke burst through the open front door calling, “Mama!”
They all watched him bolt across the old wooden floor, a crayon drawing in his hand.
“You’d think he hadn’t seen his mother in a million years,” marveled Clara. She told the group at the counter, “Jeep must have picked him up from school on her way back from the airport.” Without a break she rushed right on. “I’ve read all sorts of good things about that apricot pit cure. I only met the woman once or twice, but whatever else she’s done, she sounds ornery enough to beat cancer.”
“A-men,” said Hector. “If looks could kill a man, I’d be dead and buried ten times over by that one. I think her husband should apply for sainthood.”
Maybe, Chick thought, Luke wasn’t autistic at all. He still didn’t say much, and that mostly when his mother was near. Maybe he’d grow into a quiet man. There was nothing wrong with that. She had to laugh at the contradiction—a quiet drummer.
Jeep, her Natural Woman Foods baseball cap turned forward for once, was pointing out the step down into the store. She was beaming over the head of a dark-haired young woman wearing a long corduroy jumper, a scoop-necked T-shirt, and clunky platform sandals. Chick noted the familiar way they moved with each other and had no doubt they’d be sharing a bed again very soon.
That, she thought with a jolt of finality, is who Jeep needs.
Jeep stared at Katie with that mouth-slightly-open, out-of-focus look of hers long enough to remind Chick that the two hadn’t seen much of each other since their breakup. Jeep’s Sarah, for that’s who she must be, looked first at Jeep, then at Katie, and blushed. Chick liked this new gayfeather for that.
“Sarah, honeybunch,” she said with her arms open. “Welcome to Waterfall Falls!”
Sheriff Joan Sweet
Endnote
They said I was an athlete, they say I’m a cop, but I say I’m a friend, a loving friend of women in a certain town, in the town where I was born, where I hope to end my days. The town is Waterfall Falls, a tourist stop along rural Interstate 5 well north of California. I patrol the streets downtown and the county roads that stretch into these mountains.
My dead little town whose sidewalks roll up of their own accord at dark would be all lit up from the stadium lights when I played softball here. We took the state championship that year. Whistles, cheers, the yelling, the kids in Nikes, the bleachers full, and later, the traffic stopping when they saw me on the street. I was fast, but I wanted to be more than that.
These mountains are bigger than I’ll ever be, and older, and stronger. They range around us like a silent tribe of protectors. Their ancientness, their stubbornness, their Zen being-ness bring a serenity I’ve found nowhere else, though I long for it inside me.
And who am I? Who am I to forget to be humble, to dare to put our mountains into words? I am an Indian dipped in white blood, a child of this land and of the bigger world, one whose natures war with one another like most Americans. My blood is divided like the two forks of Sweet Creek that flow around Blackberry Mountain. Sweet Creek was named, after all, for my great-grandfather Thomas Sweet Water.
The cop patrols the Indian. The athlete runs from the white girl, although I don’t know why sometimes, because we were all one family until some crossed the ice. The friend knows this twin creek rages through her friends. I watch them and see myself, though I feel very different from them. I watch them and know I am one of them, yet I am of this mountain, and I am descended from those who once were the original strangers to this land.
When I am not patrolling, not controlling the people who live here or visit, I sit in my office next to the post office, in this old brown wooden building we call the town hall. I sit here at the computer I use to track records and criminals and travelers. I sit here with my yellow paper pads and write the stories of my friends.
The Indian is an oral storyteller. The European is a writer. I put my friends in words to understand myself and to understand this life we live, though I’ve yet to understand either.
Still, I like the stories which I’ll show someone some day. Cat probably, if I stand the test of time with her, and the kid in my life, Luke, so they know what treasures they are, are to me and to the mountain that cradles them in her hilly arms.
I’ll never forget what Donny told me one time.
“I believe,” she said, “that Chick loves me right down to this great big conflicted heart of mine which used to go off every which way like Sweet Creek when it turns into waterfalls. Because she does such a fine job of loving the dizzy old thing, it stays in one place now, almost as peaceful as those hills.”
That was the day I realized, it’s not about the waterfalls. It’s about the mountain.
About the Author
Lee Lynch has been writing about lesbian life and lesbians from the time she came out, almost fifty years ago. She was first published in The Ladder in the 1960s. In 1983 Naiad Press published her first books, including Toothpick House and Old Dyke Tales. Her novel The Swashbuckler was presented in New York City as a play scripted by Sarah Schulman. Lynch’s play, Getting Into Life, caused consternation when performed in Tucson, Arizona, due to its realistic portrayal of lesbians. She is working on her next novel, Rainbow Gap. Her recent short stories can be found in Romantic Interludes 2: Secrets (Bold Strokes Books) and in Read These Lips, at www.readtheselips.com. She has twice been nominated for Lambda Literary Awards and her novel Sweet Creek was a Golden Crown Literary Society Award finalist. Her reviews and feature articles appeared in The Lambda Book Report and many other publications.
Lynch’s syndicated column, The Amazon Trail, runs in venues such as boldstrokesbooks.com, womenscommunityconnection.com, and camprehoboth.com. She is a recipient of the Alice B. Reader Award for Lesbian Fiction and the GCLS Trailblazer Award, and has been inducted into the Saints and Sinners Literary Hall of Fame.
Her other books are available from Bold Strokes Books. She lives in rural Florida with her sweetheart Elaine Mulligan and their furry ruffians.