Watermelon Days and Firefly Nights: Heartwarming Scenes from Small Town Life

by Smith, Annette

  The woman had already hung up.

  “Guess the Pierce sisters finally decided to give it up and get hearing aids. About time.”

  Past time, Polly and Molly would say. Past time indeed.

  9

  PINKIE AND THE CHIEF

  UPON MEETING CHIEF JOHNSON for the first time, most expect that he, the owner and curator of Ella Louise’s American Indian Arrowhead and Artifact Museum, will have a liberal lean. Nothing could be further from the truth, and such assumptions pain Chief.

  “For crying out loud,” a visitor recently observed, “the guy was wearing a silver and turquoise watchband. He has a teepee in his front yard. Gotta be just a little bit weird, if you ask me.” The visitor’s disrespectful comments were overheard by Ella Louise’s mayor, Alfred Tinker, and his secretary, Faye Beth Newman. Generally an even-tempered pair, the two of them did not take kindly to the insult directed toward one of the town’s good citizens. By the time they got through speaking their minds to the out-of-towner, he had been corrected on things he wasn’t even aware of being mistaken about. So repentant was he of his careless words that on his way out of town, he stopped and made a donation to Chief’s fine museum.

  But truthfully, Chief is an unusual fellow, and it’s no great stretch to understand why those who don’t know any better take a fellow like Chief to be the same kind of person who would worship the sun, dance naked for rain, or beat on a drum.

  Even vote Democrat.

  If given the chance, Chief can explain about the teepee and the watchband. He spent years researching, gathering materials, and preparing to construct his teepee. It was a twenty-year dream of his to create one that would be historically accurate. (You wouldn’t know it, but those things are bigger than what they look like on TV.) Chief was well into the building of the structure when he realized that the only place it would fit was right in front of his house. And as for his eye-catching watchband? It was a gift from his sweet little mother, God rest her soul. She bought the piece at an Indian gift shop while on a bus trip to Carlsbad, New Mexico, unaware that it was too gaudy for a man. Since the watchband was the last gift she gave Chief before passing away, he wears it every day.

  So no, Chief Johnson is not a worshipper of the sun. He’s an upright and moral man; he’s been a deacon in the Baptist church for the past decade and is a member in good standing of the Ella Louise Elect More Republicans Club.

  Of course, some folks still have trouble understanding why a normal man would even want a teepee in his front yard. Chief’s fascination with Indian stuff goes back to his Aunt Effie, who first got him interested in it. Starting the year he turned ten (at that time he was still called by his given name, Bill) and continuing through his lanky-legged teenage years, Chief would spend ten days every summer with his aunt. Aunt Effie didn’t have any kids of her own. She didn’t even have a husband—but she wore blue jeans, and she sure was fun.

  During his summertime visits, Bill and his aunt never did just stay at home. Year after year, the two of them hit the road, camping out together.

  Bill always arrived on the Friday 3:00 P.M. bus, and Aunt Effie was always there at the station to pick him up. They talked all the way to her house and stayed up half the night studying the map, going over their route. Early the next morning, they headed out in her car packed with sleeping bags and a tent, a bunch of mustard and bologna sandwiches, iodine tablets, and half a dozen quart jars of home-canned peaches. For one week every year, they traveled all over Colorado and New Mexico. They hiked, panned for real gold, visited Indian tourist sites, ate fry bread, and explored the ruins of old villages.

  It was on the first of their trips that Bill found his first arrowhead. Though less than an inch long and sporting a broken tip, it was a real arrowhead all the same. Bill was so proud of his find that he couldn’t stop pulling it out of his pocket to look at it. Wow! Made by an actual Indian. Someone who lived a really long time ago.

  When they got back to her house, Aunt Effie fixed him up a cardboard cigar box lined with a red velvet cloth so he could display it in his room when he got home.

  Every year after that one, Bill found more arrowheads. He also collected bits of pottery. So good was he at finding such things that in five years’ time, three bookshelves in his room had been given over to a growing collection of Indian artifacts.

  As Bill got older, his interest in Indians didn’t wane. He read books about Indians, visited museums about Indians, and took the bus to Houston to see traveling exhibits about Indians. Bill even traced his family tree back three generations and discovered that two of his ancestors actually had some Indian blood in them, which meant that he had some too. Navajo, as best as he could determine.

  So great was his passion for all things Indian that by the time he was sixteen, Bill’s friends and most of his family began calling him “Chief.” It started out as a joke, but the name fit so well that it stuck, and now most folks don’t even know that he used to be Bill.

  Today, Chief’s collection of artifacts are housed in a climate-controlled portable building that sits to the east of his house. Inside, he has done a great job organizing and creating interesting displays. With his own hands he built lighted, floor-to-ceiling shelves that hold all kinds of cool Indian stuff. Along with arrowheads and pottery, Chief displays Indian jewelry and clothing, Indian blankets and carvings, and Indian tools. One corner of the museum houses a library of books, which Chief is glad to lend out as long as people sign for them. He also has a little TV and VCR set up and a collection of educational videos that do a good job explaining Indian culture and lore.

  Folks from all over have visited Chief’s museum. He doesn’t charge any admission, but he does keep a guest book. In the dozen years that he’s had the place open, Chief has hosted visitors from eight different states, as well as families from Mexico and Canada.

  People from Ella Louise love to visit the museum too. Along with boring stuff like multiplication tables and state capitals, a trip to the Indian museum is on the agenda of every fifth-grade class that passes through Ella Louise Elementary. The kids love to come; they look forward to it all year. After Chief’s given them the tour and showed them his best video, he builds a fire and cooks fry bread, which they eat together, sitting Indian style inside the teepee.

  IT WAS IN PART because of the good times he enjoyed with his Aunt Effie that Chief even considered taking into his house his New York City sister Chesley’s fourteen-year-old grandson, Pinkie.

  Chesley had always been a fast talker. This time, as usual, she ran on and on. Pinkie’s single-parent mother, Chesley’s daughter, had been called upon to spend the entire summer working overseas. No one in the young man’s immediate family, including her, was available to keep him. His mother was at her wit’s end. And she had come up with the great idea to see if perhaps Chief would look after Pinkie. It would only be for two months. He was a good boy, Pinkie was—typical teenager, you know how they are—and would be no trouble.

  “Chesley, I’m flattered that you thought of me, but why send the boy here? I haven’t seen him since he was about three. There’s not much for a kid to do in Ella Louise. Well, yes. Yes. I understand. How about you give me till tomorrow to think it over? I promise. I will. All right. Good-bye.”

  Chief did think it over. He sat up most of the night thinking it over. By morning, he had not come up with a single good reason to say no. Actually, he told himself, this shouldn’t be so hard. He had been a fourteen-year-old boy once. He remembered what it was like. Things couldn’t have changed much.

  Finally, Chief gave it up. He decided that he would do his best to show the boy a good time. A really good time. Shoot, he would take the boy exploring and camping, maybe to the dry river bottom where folks still found Indian artifacts with surprising regularity. Maybe they’d even join the Boy Scouts—surely the Boy Scouts had some kind of summer program. Come to think about it, the kid might already be a Boy Scout. Wouldn’t that be fun! And didn’t the Boy Scouts hav
e some kind of badge or patch you could get for learning about Indian lore? Chief bet that such a badge would be hard to get living in New York City. Why, Pinkie would have it made in the shade. He’d be the envy of all of his friends. Imagine the paper Pinkie would write on what he did during his summer vacation. He, Chief, would personally see to it that Pinkie had a lot to say.

  In preparation for the young scout’s arrival, Chief bought new sheets for the sofa bed and stocked up on groceries, laying in a big supply of beef jerky, which made a great snack and would be easy to pack when they went camping.

  “WHICH FLIGHT are you putting him on? All right. That will be fine. I’ll be there at the airport to meet him. You’re welcome. No, he won’t be any trouble. You don’t worry about a thing. We’ll be just fine.”

  Pinkie missed his flight.

  He must have, Chief reasoned, because there was no one in the group of passengers coming off Pinkie’s flight that could be his nephew.

  “Uncle Bill?”

  Chief jumped at the voice behind him, then turned to face it and jumped again.

  “Excuse me, but are you my Uncle Bill? Bill Johnson? Are you, uh, the Chief?” Pinkie looked a bit confused. I mean, the man didn’t have a braid or anything (didn’t Indians wear braids?), but he was wearing a green windbreaker, which was what Pinkie’s grandmother had told him Uncle Bill would have on.

  “Yes, I am. But you wouldn’t be . . . I mean, you’re not . . .” Chief’s voice trailed off hopefully.

  “Yeah, I’m Pinkie.”

  Chief didn’t know whether to hug the nephew he hadn’t seen in twelve years or put him back on the plane.

  Likewise, six-foot-two-inch Pinkie, sporting spiked hair, three earrings, and sagging, ragged, three-sizes-too-big jeans, looked like he didn’t know whether he should shake the hand of his uncle or get back on the plane.

  Oh my. Earrings? Chesley hadn’t mentioned them. What did it mean to have three in one ear? Chief racked his brain. He thought he remembered that one earring used to mean something, but if a person has three, does that cancel out the meaning of one?

  Chief was sure the Boy Scouts didn’t allow such things.

  “Son,” Chief whispered so as not to embarrass the young man, “your underpants are showing.”

  Pinkie looked confused, like he hadn’t heard him, so Chief, as unobtrusively as he could, motioned in the general direction of Pinkie’s rear—a skinny rear, clad in royal blue boxers with tan monkey faces on them that were visible a good six or eight inches above his pants.

  “Oh, uh, thanks.” Pinkie gave his jeans a tug. “Should we go and get my bag, you think?”

  PINKIE AND CHIEF STOOD side by side, separated in height by a good six inches if you counted Pinkie’s hair. Neither of them spoke but instead concentrated on locating Pinkie’s bag on the luggage carousel. When Pinkie spotted the bag and pointed it out, Chief moved forward to retrieve it. Funny, Uncle Bill didn’t look like any Indian Pinkie had ever seen in movies. The guy had red hair, was wearing polyester pants, and was not wearing moccasins but instead silver sneakers with Velcro! Hadn’t his grandma said that he was going to stay with an Indian chief?

  No way. The man drove a twelve-year-old Buick. Four door.

  Their silence continued till they got out on the road. Finally, on the highway headed toward Ella Louise, Chief said to Pinkie, “We’ve got at least three hours ahead of us. ’Bout supper time. Are you hungry?”

  Pinkie, seeing the Golden Arches up ahead, could not contain his grin. Uncle Bill had read his mind. “I sure am. They gave us stuff to eat on the plane, but it wasn’t very good.” He could already taste a Big Mac, french fries, and a Coke.

  “I knew I remembered right. Boys your age, well, you can’t fill ’em up. Uh, Pinkie, reach down there under the seat, back between your feet.”

  Pinkie bent to look.

  “Find a paper sack? Yeah, that’s it. And a thermos? You may have to reach back pretty far for it. May have rolled. I packed some sandwiches—tuna, with lots of pickles and boiled egg—and a quart of cold sweet milk. That ought to hit the spot.”

  Tuna? Pinkie unwrapped a sandwich. Stuff sort of stunk. People eat this? His mother never cooked. Not even tuna. Pinkie was accustomed to food that came wrapped in some kind of plastic wrapper, Styrofoam package, or cardboard box.

  “Go on. Those are all for you. I ate before I started out,” said Chief.

  Pinkie took a bite and tried not to gag. He wrapped the sandwich back up. “You know, I’m pretty tired, and I’m sort of a vegetarian. Maybe I’ll wait and eat something later.”

  Pinkie dug headphones out of his bag, put them on, leaned against the door, and pretended sleep.

  ON THE RIDE HOME, Chief snuck long glances at Pinkie’s strange hair, his piercings, and his choice of clothing. He came to the realization that Pinkie was not of the sort to join the Boy Scouts. Nor did he look to be the kind of boy interested in exploring the river or going camping or hiking. A kid from New York? A city kid? Spending time outdoors? What had he been thinking? It had been a foolish notion, Chief determined, to expect to spend the summer showing the kid around.

  Chief steered the car off the freeway and let his thoughts ramble. No fool like an old fool. A boy like Pinkie was not going to be interested in Indian stuff, camping out, or hikes in the woods. He probably wished he was back in New York, going to rock concerts or whatever it was city kids did these days. And who could blame him? Wasn’t like it was Pinkie’s fault.

  Chief made the decision then and there to cut young Pinkie some slack. He’d set a few rules, give the boy a wide berth, and go on about things like Pinkie wasn’t there. It had been a mistake for the boy to come, but two months wasn’t all that long.

  “No drugs, no drinking, no loud music, and we’ll get along fine,” is how Chief explained things over lunch the next day. “There’s a TV in the living room. You can watch all you want. Fix whatever you want to eat—there’s peanut butter and cheese. Just clean up after yourself. Understand?”

  Pinkie did.

  “All right, then. I’ll be back after a while.” It was Tuesday, museum day. Chief grabbed the keys off the hook by the door.

  Pinkie sat at the table and stared at the door. Not a word about the teepee or the museum, both of which he was dying to see. Had he done something wrong? He didn’t know what. But it didn’t matter. He’d gotten the message loud and clear that Chief wished he wasn’t here. Fine. He could take a hint.

  And so for the first two weeks, though he hated being inside, that’s where Pinkie stayed—parked in front of the television or sprawled on the sofa bed, listening to music. Few people in Ella Louise even realized that Chief had company—which, honestly, considering how Pinkie looked, didn’t bother Chief all that much.

  Yet Chief reported to Chesley when she called, “Everything’s going fine.”

  “It’s okay, Grandma,” said Pinkie when it was his turn to talk.

  But it wasn’t. It was lonely and awkward and not what either of them had had in mind. The only good thing? Just six more weeks to go. And so far, they really hadn’t had any problems.

  Until Chief found cigarette ashes in the teepee. He didn’t have reason to enter the teepee often these days, but on a Sunday evening when he went inside the structure to retrieve a pottery bowl he planned to use for a special display in the museum, Chief discovered a nasty pile of ashes, butts, and black-tipped matches. He sat himself down and gazed at the evidence staring him in the face. He was shocked—and hurt. What was Pinkie thinking, sneaking out here to smoke? Chief had thought things were going okay, considering. They’d had no words, no arguments, no conflict of any kind. How could Pinkie have done such a thing? How could he have been so foolish as to leave the evidence for anyone to find it?

  What should he do? Confront the boy? Ignore what he knew? Punish him?

  Chief decided it was best to catch the boy in the act—which turned out to be no easy task. Several mornings in a row, Chief found fresh evide
nce that Pinkie had been smoking inside the teepee, but after several tries, he still had not caught Pinkie at it.

  “I’m going over to Pearly to pick up some groceries. You know, they’ve got a wholesale place over there. I’ll be gone at least three hours,” Chief baited Pinkie before going down to the Wild Flour so as to kill an hour before sneaking back home. When he came back home, he parked the Buick around back and eased around the side of the house to get a peek inside the teepee.

  No Pinkie.

  “Whew! I’m tired,” Chief said the next night. “I think I’ll head on to bed early tonight. You know, I’m so tired I bet I’ll sleep like a rock.”

  Chief set his alarm clock for midnight. But when, at the sound of the alarm, he crept out of bed, Pinkie was still in his—sound asleep and snoring. Yet the next morning? Fresh ashes in the teepee again.

  Confound it! Outwitted by a fourteen-year-old kid. Just wasn’t right.

  Then Chief came up with a surefire plan. That night, once Pinkie was asleep, or at least pretending to sleep, Chief crept out of bed, put on his shoes, and slipped out the back door. He padded around to the front yard, unfastened the leather-laced flap of the teepee, and let himself in. When Pinkie snuck in to smoke, he would be waiting.

  Chief got a bit sleepy, waiting in the tent, and dozed off. When he woke up an hour later, he was disoriented and startled from a dream in which he was falling. It took a few seconds for him to get his bearings, but when he did, he heard footsteps on the other side of the teepee.

  The flap lifted and a sneaker-clad foot stepped inside.

  Chief sat frozen in his spot.

  Another sneaker-clad foot. Then, surprisingly, four more. In the dark, the feet were all Chief could see. Six in all. Not only was Pinkie sneaking out here to smoke, he was meeting other teen hoodlums too! Chief heard whispers, but it was still too dark to see who the voices belonged to. He managed to stay still, to bide his time, but it wasn’t easy!