Prairie Spy

by Linda, Alan

  In other words, good luck.

  15 said that after the movie, they drove around town a little, saw some kids they knew, waved and hollered, drove some more, and so forth. Since the only place in town open at that time of night was a combination convenience store-gas station, they decided to stop and check it out.

  Inside the brightly-lit apparent safety of the quick stop, they all three got Mountain Dews from the large glass cooler. On the way to the checkout counter up front, they dawdled and giggled over various items for sale on the counters. They were having fun, my daughter said. They were, in other words, enjoying their freedom.

  An older lady came up to 15, 15 said to us. And how old is this “older” lady, I asked 15, wishing to get ahead of this unfolding drama.

  She told us that her hair was about half grey, anyway, the lady came up, and said: “You look just like my daughter. I miss her so; she died of cancer last year after an awful time in the hospital.”

  The lady, 15 said, seemed so nice but so sad that what could she do but listen. Her girlfriends had moved away to the counter up front, leaving her alone with this woman. The woman continued to pour out her somber story.

  As this story came out, my mind leaped ahead to discover all the ways a total stranger could take advantage of a teenager on her first night out alone in the world. I kept a calm look on my face. Kept my trembling hands beneath the table.

  I could picture any young woman listening politely, as they had been taught, to an adult. What danger could they suspect?

  After a bit more of the story, the lady said to 15: “You have been very kind to listen to me. Would you do one thing for me?” Right here, I wanted to leap to my feet and do something. But what? Apparently no one is safe here on the northern end of the prairie anymore, when things like this can happen.

  15 said, yes, sure, what can I do for you?

  The lady said, “It would mean so much to me if my daughter had had the chance to say goodbye to me. As I go out the door, would you wave at me and say, “Goodbye, mom?”

  Sure, said 15. As the lady went out past the checkout counter, she said something to the clerk, turned around, and waved.

  15, in a voice loud enough to be heard, said, “Goodbye, Mom.” The lady waved again, and left. Suddenly, 15 said, the three of them weren’t having that much fun in there anymore, so they went to the cashier to pay for their stuff, but when 15’s turn to pay came, the cashier said, “What about your mother’s gas?”

  15 said, oh, she’s not my mother, and realized how lame that sounded.

  The cashier said, “Very funny, that’ll be $40.00.”

  Through the window, 15 saw the lady just reaching for her car door, and said that she cannot remember anything except sprinting out the door, running for that car, scattering people left and right.

  At this point, having listened intently, 15’s mother looked upon the verge of having a heart attack. Enough said.

  To myself, I thought: Oh, no. Con artists are mostly harmless until you corner them. What was my daughter thinking? I’m a failure as a parent. Why didn’t I warn her about stuff like…

  15 continued. “Stop! Wait!” she shouted as she raced for the lady, who, when she saw 15 coming, hurried a bit too much and fumbled just enough with the door latch to slow her entry into her car.

  “Stop!” 15 shouted again, as she ran. The lady was all in except for her leg.

  15 said she couldn’t think of anything else to do but grab the lady’s leg in a bear hug and begin pulling on it.

  Just like I’m pulling yours.

  Just like she pulled ours.

  §

  Girls: Moons

  Much ado has been made throughout time about the monthly cycles of the moon, and about the monthly cycles of women. Ado. Now, there’s a word.

  Forget the moon. I don’t live with the moon. Instead, my ado has to do with the monthly cycles of women. There’s a lot of ado there, piles and piles. It’s above average ado in most aspects, size-wise.

  Ado about women has little to do with science, especially the science that I, The Prairie Spy, can bring into crisp, clear focus. That’s my job. Scientific observation.

  I can take or leave the moon, because I don’t live with four moons. Instead, I live with Four Girls, all of whom have reached that particular biological age wherein they manifest certain…ahem…similarities of physical and mental behavior with one another, and with the moon. Ahem, ahem, ahem.

  To be sure, a lot of this PMS behavior that is attributable to monthly hydraulic hormone surges in the human female has actually, it seems to me, to have been there since birth, waiting for an excuse—any excuse—to have the floodgates opened, and the torrents loosed.

  The torrents are loose around here a lot, and that’s a scientific fact. Young Girls practice as much as possible when they’re little, so they’ll be ready when their hormones are. Open up those gates. Stand back.

  When the monthly flood of ado becomes so torrential around here that it threatens to drown me, I lower my eyes. (Rule 1: Hope they don’t notice you.) and repeat to myself these words: “They love me, in their own Girl Tribal Way; I am their Earth, their reason for being, the center of their orbital path. They are my Four Moons. They are here, captured in their heavenly orbits by my irresistible gravitational force. (I learned all this from another Guy named Copernicus. He evidently lived with Girls also.)

  Let’s be clear here (which would be a first), we’re talking in metaphorical similes here. I don’t have much gravitational mass…although perhaps there is a certain magnetic something…

  Back to the moons. When they’re all “orbiting” together, I like that the best. It’s fun being an Earth for them then. They (The Girls, in case you’re confused) hug and kiss and sing and giggle and have lots of fun. Sometimes, they even shine on me, sort of. But just as the earth’s moon affects the earth’s tides, the Girl-Moons affect mine, and when their monthly orbits deteriorate and reach glandular disintegration, one can do nothing right. All you can do is avoid eye contact. Like when they all came home the other evening from Sha-Ping (A weird Tribal Custom) in town together:

  “All right! Who tracked in all this mud? And what in (Tribal Word, can’t repeat it here) is that piece of junk stinking up the kitchen sink!”

  I don’t know about the mud, Darling Tribal Chief Girl, you know I’d never do that, but that’s my tractor carburetor there in the sink, soaking in NAPA’s world-famous carb cleaner. It had kind of a miss around 1200 rpms, so I…

  “Dad! Eeeeuuuwww! What are you doing to mom’s sink?”

  Well, like I said, that low-speed idle jet was kind of plugged so….

  “Whoa! That’s a major bogus smell you got going there, dad. Chad’s supposed to pick me up in an hour. Now, thanks to you, I’ll smell like a racetrack!”

  Maybe your boyfriend needs a lesson in carburetor overhaul. You know, I could help him…

  “Have you lost your mind? In the kitchen sink?”

  I don’t think….

  “Who took my Oreo cookies that I’ve been saving for when I’m desperate? I need them! I crave them! Chocolate! Now! Who did it? I’ll rip out their heart, I’ll…”

  “Oooooooh no! We’re out of Ibuprofen again. That’s the third bottle this month. Oooohhh no!”

  Listen, Girls, have you forgotten that I’m your central orbital reason for being? Your earth, your….

  “Give it a rest, Dad. Some of us have got some major problems going here. We’ve all got stomach cramps beyond reality. And headaches you wouldn’t believe. Nausea. You.”

  Must be the flu that’s going around.

  “Get real, Dad.”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “Whatever, Dad!”

  “You’ll have to fix supper again tonight, dear. Check the laundry pile, while you�
��re at it. We’re all indisposed.”

  Yes, Moon….I mean, dear.

  §

  Girls: Twits, Flat as the Walls

  “Hello. My sisters are all morons,” said 12 matter-of-factly. The phone had rang and she had gotten there first, knowing it was likely some boy. These days, it’s a race for the phone. Boys call on the phone. The phone belongs to the quick and the cute. Her, of course.

  12 may be last in arrival, but she is infinitely more motivated and amply capable of reminding the entire world—especially 14 and 16, her first-but-not-most sisters—that she is not least. Last but not least. A scientifically supportable theory around here.

  14 and 16 can take care of themselves, so don’t be concerned. They are each the valiant and proud survivors of countless duels to the split end with electric blow dryers. Most duels in the Tribe of Girls, however, do not involve any weapons other than The Sharp Tongue, an ancestrally inherited trait bequeathed down through centuries of customs, ceremonies, and continual sharpening during exchanges of wit.

  From the time the first Neanderthal Man left his underwear lying used side up on the floor of the cave, Girls have verbally slashed and parried their way up to Cave and/or Teepee Queen, by saying sharply to their male:

  “Ooooggg! Ahhhhdmmmmsssttt! Ugh! Aarrrgggaaahhh! And oh yes, ggggrrr ssccaaaieeedddooo!”

  (Interpreted, this means ‘pick’um up right now, Sweet Cheeks, or you’ll pay Dear-Lee.’)

  Dear-Lee, I now know, is an ancient God called often upon around here. It didn’t take long to figure out that if you mess with Her, you mess with your destiny.

  And your supper.

  All this savage teepee repartee is new to me, I have come to realize as I enter the latest outbursts into the journal I keep for research. I was a brother. Not a sister. All this is completely foreign to me, so I’m keeping notes. Growing up as a brother, one’s primary purpose in life was to practice upon one another the art of maiming, chopping, and hitting—all necessary skills to provide and defend a teepee against outside enemies.

  Where little girls try to verbally twit one another into submission, little boys quickly learn that striking is quicker. We learn not to bring fewer weapons to the fray than the other boy has got. Sticks and stones and so forth. Hit’em in the eye.

  Here in the teepee, every word uttered is a twit in some sister’s eye.

  “Where’d you get that lipstick? At the undertaker’s?”

  “Your hair looks so…so…soo nerdy!”

  “Hey, doorknob! Take a pill!”

  “The Tell-A-Phone’s for you! I think it’s Death-Breath!”

  Now I know why it has become customary for the father to give away the bride. Plus throw in some money to boot. Maybe a couple of goats and a cow. And lots of wine.

  Giving away the daughter as a bride is less of a give-away than it is a hand-off of a ticking bomb, in this case a bomb emitting twitting sounds. “Here,” the father of the bride is saying, “you charge into the pack with this one for a while.” It’s like playing quarterback with the Viking football team, knowing you’re going to take a beating. Here’s some money to buy bandages, here’s some goats to symbolize your new role in life, and here’s some booze to numb you up.

  The other day I overheard the ultimate Tribe of Girls insult, an age-old twit meant not for the male ear, the ultimate major all-time super-twit of the ages, in existence as far back as there have been monkeys capable of pantomiming this message:

  “YOU’RE SO FLAT EVEN THE WALLS ARE JEALOUS!”

  That is the Mother of all twits, and I, The Prairie Spy and official researcher of The Guy’s Club, was unfortunate enough to overhear it, and record it for posterity.

  “My sisters are both so ugly they can’t come to the phone,” 12 said into the telephone receiver, right after she answered it with the moron informational.

  “Well,” she said to me upon receiving my aggrieved parental look, and giving me her superior opinion back: “They are such losers!”

  Last but not least.

  §

  Clothing War

  We’re into teenage daughters, clothes and cars in an overpowering way at my house. Just-turned-16, as she moves about the house and through her chores, assumes a pace that only a mother turtle could love. But let someone be looking out the window and say: “Look at that hot car!” Then, hormones flush her cheeks, adrenaline floods her muscles, her legs turn into rockets, and she streaks over to the window where she says: “Hey! Check it out, man!”

  “Totally unreal!” So says 14, her eyes cool.

  Yet the third and youngest sister has her say. She’s 12: “Oooooo. He’s cute.” (At 12? Ahhhh please no.)

  14 says: “Get a life. Men are pigs!” I like 14. A dad could stay sane an extra-long time with a daughter who holds firm to that thinking.

  Somebody, along in here, usually pipes in with: “CHILL OUT!” or some such teenspeak. The “total” car has passed on by, and they have only each other once again. For those of you who either don’t know, or have forgotten, or have a well-developed case of protective amnesia, sisters are sometimes unthrilled with each other. For about 23 hours a day.

  Each of them is convinced that they were individually placed upon this earth in this particular household with this dismaying set of sister-things—there are three sisters in this house—for the express purpose of wearing as many of the others’ favorite pieces of clothing as is humanly possible. Mornings around here come like a combination fashion show and the trading pit of the wall street stock exchange.

  Sisters come up out of the basement laundry room, waving articles of clothing before them like Vikings used to wave battle shields. When this happens, almost always the waver is upset, and is shrieking something like: “Whoworethisandleftitinthemiddleofthefloorandiwantedtowearitnowican’t…..!!!!!”

  There’s more. You get the idea. Pure anguish, teenage style.

  Sometimes, though, the waver comes up the stairs wearing subservience like a serf before her queen. When that happens, they’re also waving clothing, but this time they’re waving it more as a flag of truce than as a flag of battle. Ah, yes. They’ve come to parley a trade, and that requires an entirely different personality front. Instead of confrontation and exclamation, they’re into charm and cunning.

  At these moments, I swear there’s a con man running a flim-flam school in the basement, that’s how good these Young Girls can be.

  “Whose is this?” the waver will peep in her most meek and humble fashion, holding up an article of clothing.

  No one even turns around to look. The response to a question this dumb is always one and only one thing. Without even seeing which item of clothing is in question, the Other Two always say: “Mine!” “Mine!” “No way!” “It’s mine!” “I wore it last!” (As if that really matters, but it’s becoming readily apparent that possession truly is nine tenths of the law.)

  The waver then must reveal part of her poker hand, but, not tooooo much. After all, she’s already acting like she likes these fellow sister-things. Enough is enough, usually, with that. But this morning, she opens with the slave gambit: “I’ll wash dishes on your day if I can wear this to the dance-school-town-etc.”

  And then hard ball begins.

  “Yeah? You still haven’t washed the dishes for the time I let you wear my best stockings.” Then comes the beggars stock reply:

  “Really! What makes you think they were yours. Mom said I could wear them.” Good counter.

  The psychology of this manner of interaction escapes me. I’m not certain I understand it. But it’s good. Very good.

  With the patience of one to the trading pit born, the sister-thing owning the clothing item replies, with the poker face of a river boat gambler: “When did you ever ask Mom? Let’s go ask her.” And then she makes a great fake at going to
ask Mom.

  Mom’s in the other room. She has a headache. The first person who asks her anything will return missing her head clear down to the ankles.

  Not knowing that Mom is indisposed, the sister-waver on the stairs falters, and her battle is lost.

  For today.

  §

  Prom Night

  This goes back, way back, to an autumn day when, as if to remind me that life wasn’t already whizzing by at light speed, there came into the farmyard a long black limousine. It stopped and lurked right outside the front door of the house. Right there in front of our door. Big black limos with shiny blacked-out windows don’t occupy normal space—they lurk.

  I looked at it from where I stood, leaning on the shovel with which I had been planting an apple tree, a shovel which now served to steady me. The tinted darkness of the limo’s windows was ominous in that its occupants could see out, but you could not see in.

  I knew why it was there, there other than to remind me that time is not within our control. It was prom night—the limousine was here to scoop up two of The Young Girls, the limo being the twenty-first century’s equivalent of a pumpkin drawn by a team of mice turned into horses, carrying children turning into adults, away to a dance. What made all this so emotional was that, this time, the pumpkin was carrying away two of my children. There was no escape. They too were growing up.

  I had a sudden memory of The Young Girls as Little Girls who, on a warm summer day, covered with mud, one still in a mud-soaked sagging diaper, stopped playing long enough to pose for the camera. Stopped making mud castles and pies with spoons and spatulas and dishes.

  Right there in the driveway where the limo lurked.

  Then I remembered them a little older, with the coaster wagon tied haphazardly to Sally, the Black Lab, whose body English served to remind everyone around her that she—not these usurpers—was our first child. She wouldn’t pull that wagon though, no sir, which didn’t seem to matter to the Little Girls. Regardless of Sally’s attitude, they spent blissful hours dressing her up and tying her up and what all, while she just stood there, patiently waiting for their attention to shift elsewhere. She stood and endured.