by David Crow
No one moved. Mom sobbed harder. Lonnie and I looked at each other.
The duplex foundation sat on the edge of the gully with little visible support. How had it not caved in? The front was covered with black tar paper, rusted chicken wire, a thin piece of buckled plywood, and moldy gray drywall. A shredded screen door hung by a corner. Our side of the duplex had a spray-painted number: 709½.
In front of the other half, the more prestigious 709, sat a fat, greasy-faced Mexican smoking a cigarette and chugging a bottle of wine. His blubbery body spilled over the broken wooden step outside his door. He grinned at us with tobacco-stained teeth that made him look like a Halloween pumpkin.
As I opened the door, the Mexican leaned over and let loose a series of loud farts. From the side of the house, three barefoot children burst into the yard, jumping over broken glass, wine jugs, beer cans, and rocks. A short, barrel-shaped woman lumbered out of the front door wearing a threadbare dress. She grunted when I said hello.
How could we have ended up in this pigsty with them as our neighbors? After all, Dad was the smartest man in the world.
“Is this a mistake?” Lonnie asked Dad.
“No, unfortunately, it’s not,” he said in a low voice without looking up.
Mom grabbed a box of dishes from the back of the station wagon. “I’ve lived in some pretty sorry places,” she said, “but this is the sorriest.”
“You’re the reason we’re here!” Dad yelled.
Mom scurried to the front door, tripping on the lopsided wooden steps. Plastic bowls, cups, and plates tumbled onto the dirt. Sam and I rushed to pick them up and went inside to the kitchen. When we set the dusty dishes on the chipped tile counter, Sam cried out and jumped back as cockroaches bolted out of the rust-stained sink.
Whiskey bottles and beer cans littered the living room floor. On Lonnie’s way to the kitchen through all the trash, she let out a shriek. “I just stepped on a mouse!” Sally ran out the front door screaming. The front window had a diagonal crack from corner to corner and was held together with peeling masking tape. Big dark blotches covered the walls, and a nasty urine smell filled the air. I held my nose, but that didn’t help much.
Sam and I went back outside to get boxes from the car, stepping around a drunk passed out in our half of the front yard. Another guy opened his pants and whizzed on the side of the house by the gully.
“Dad, make him stop peeing,” Sam said, throwing a rock at the man. It ricocheted off the wall next to him, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“At least the poor son of a bitch knows what he’s doing,” Dad said with a forced laugh. “Leave him alone.”
When we finished unloading, I stood by the car and looked down the street. I could see a pawnshop, a trading post, a bail bond business, another liquor store, and a junkyard full of wrecked trucks, broken concrete, whiskey bottles, wine jugs, and beer cans. Our block was one giant garbage dump.
Dad came up behind me and said, “This is an idiot’s paradise.”
LONNIE GOT OUT ALL THE cleaning supplies and began working on the bathroom while Mom sat on the couch, her head in her hands. Sam and I promised we’d help later, but first we had some exploring to do. Out on Route 66, we walked past trading posts, restaurants, gas stations, and bars, happy to get away from our house.
“Every Navajo within two hundred miles comes to Gallup to sell stuff, buy stuff, and bomb their asses on firewater,” Dad told us. “This isn’t how Cherokees live. They have more respect for themselves than that.” He shook his head. “Indians aren’t allowed to drink on the reservation. This town has enough whiskey to drown every single one of them. Half of America drives on Route 66 from Illinois to California hoping to touch a real Indian.”
The streets were filled with Navajos. The men staggered around, often stopping to pee right in the middle of traffic. Occasionally they looked around and asked sober passersby for money. Little kids and their mothers wandered aimlessly, oblivious to the trucks wobbling back and forth across the white lines. And on the sidewalks, Sam and I had to navigate around the sleeping drunks, like the one in our front yard.
Within a couple of days, I had a paper route with the Gallup Independent. Most of my new customers were poor and rarely smiled or said more than a couple of words when I collected. After my first week, I had some money, so Sam and I prowled the stores looking for friendly merchants willing to supply us with fireworks.
Less than a mile from the duplex, we stumbled upon Pino’s Curios and Indian Trading Shop. Looking through the window under the giant yellow and red neon sign, I spotted plastic cowboys and Indians, rubber tomahawks, and cap guns lining the shelves and the shiniest fake turquoise display I’d ever seen.
Inside, a skinny Mexican man with large brown eyes and aviator glasses greeted us with a wide smile from behind the counter. “I’m Ray Pino,” he said with a huge laugh, a cigarette dangling from his thin mustached lips. “I haven’t seen you boys before. Did you just move here?” He sounded like a big kid, excited to meet us.
“Yeah, about a week ago,” I said. “We’re looking for firecrackers and big action.”
Sam giggled, and I shot him a dirty look. He always did that when I tried sounding older, not helping either one of us.
Mr. Pino waved his hand, motioning for us to follow him. “I’ve got something you might like.” He laughed so hard his head shook and ashes from his cigarette sprinkled onto the concrete floor. His Wrangler jeans bagged around his skinny legs as he ambled to the back of the store, sidestepping boxes of curios. He stopped in front of cartons of Roman candles, sparklers, Whistling Jupiter rockets, and Black Cat firecrackers. I’d never seen anything so wonderful.
“I like fireworks and always keep a good supply.” Mr. Pino chuckled and slapped his knee. “These red donut-hole-sized balls are called cherry bombs.” He held one up and made an explosion sound with his mouth. “You’ll like these babies but be careful. If one blows up in your hand, it’ll take off a few fingers.”
It was our lucky day! I pulled my pocket inside out to get all my tip money. “How much will this buy?”
“Let’s see . . .” He handed us mounds of cherry bombs and packs of Black Cats—we needed a bag to carry everything. “Come back when you run out, and don’t get into any trouble.”
Did Mr. Pino know what we were going to do with them? He had to know. For a moment I got nervous because he didn’t give us any matches. When we returned to the store a few minutes later, he gave us several packs. “There are plenty more where they came from.”
On our way home, we blew up several anthills. Red body parts shot high into the air along with dirt and pebbles. When we threw a cherry bomb into an empty bucket, it popped off the ground and landed all dented up, as if it had been run over.
As soon as we entered the house, we went to our bedroom, closed the door, and threw our stash into the bottom dresser drawer. We counted the cherry bombs and Black Cat firecrackers over and over, not believing how many he’d given us.
That afternoon, Mom stood at the front door in her nightgown and stared out at four drunks lying face down. Sam and I walked up behind her, eager to go out and use our new ammo. She turned to me, frowning. “David, honey, those poor men haven’t moved for hours. It’s just awful to have them in our yard. Will you see if they’re dead? If they are, I’ll call the police so they can be properly buried.”
“We’ll find out,” I said, as Sam and I went into the yard.
One of the drunks was lying flat on his back on our side of the duplex next to the gully. “Sam, see that guy over there? Let’s see if this wakes him up.”
I held a cherry bomb up in the air. It took Sam three tries to light the match, and he flashed a huge smile when the fuse ignited and hissed. I bounced a perfect shot between the guy’s legs, inches from his crotch. Boom! His body quivered, and he staggered to his feet, getting out of our yard before falling down.
I laughed. “No need to call the morgue yet.”
On
to the second drunk. Sam took off the man’s hat and placed it over a cherry bomb on the ground about a foot away from his head. With the blast, his hat blew high into the air, splitting into pieces before falling back to the ground. The man winced and rolled to his feet only to drop a few seconds later.
Sam got creative with our third victim. He poured honey on his head, and soon a mass of stinging red ants appeared. The guy didn’t move for a long time, but when he did, he jumped into the air with a screech that reminded me of Midnight when he came flying out of the dryer. For the last guy, we dropped a Black Cat into his boot, and he got up and danced around, shaking his foot like it was on fire.
“David,” Mom called through the screen door, “do you boys need to use firecrackers? You might hurt them.”
“It’s the only way to make sure they’re alive. They leave the yard, don’t they?”
“I guess you’re right.” She shrugged and moved away from the door, leaving us to patrol our territory.
Whenever Sam and I came outside armed with firecrackers and cherry bombs, the drunks would stagger off, but once we left, a whole new group showed up. It was a constant fight to keep our yard clean at 709½ South Second Street.
CHAPTER 12
SCHOOL WAS A LOT EASIER IN GALLUP. None of the teachers knew I was dyslexic, and I didn’t tell them. They could barely keep up with the constant flow of students coming and going and never pushed us to do much. No one called me stupid.
Sam and I lived for the weekends. Because Gallup was the only major town for over a hundred miles in each direction, it began filling with Navajos at about three o’clock on Friday afternoon and didn’t empty out until nearly noon on Sunday. The tourists stayed on the strip on Route 66, where there were clean gas stations, nice restaurants, and good hotels. The locals and Navajos who came into Gallup for shopping rarely frequented those establishments. They drove to the side streets for groceries, dry goods, trucks, and alcohol.
Right after breakfast, we would race to Pino’s Curios, usually finding Mr. Pino talking to a customer while leaning over a glass case full of merchandise. As soon as he finished, I’d say, “Today is going to be a big one, Mr. Pino.” I poured my tip money onto the counter. He gave me a big smile and invited us to his back room, grabbing the change without counting it.
“That’s enough to buy the good stuff,” he’d say, his cigarette bobbing on his thin lips. He filled our paper bag with all kinds of explosives. “Don’t get into any trouble.” Then he would laugh hard.
He knew we were going to raise as much hell as possible. But the cops wouldn’t bother us—they were too busy with all the Navajo customers ready to hit the bars around the clock. The paddy wagons picked up drunks from sunup until long past sundown, carted them to the jail, which Mr. Pino said was one of the largest in the country, and let them sleep off their celebration.
By first light on Saturday, Navajo families in horse-drawn wagons and pickup trucks were already backed up for miles trying to cross Route 66. They poured in by the thousands. Long freight trains interrupted their flow at fifteen-minute intervals around the clock. When the railroad gate lifted, a stampede of traffic rushed across the tracks in a mad dash.
Sam and I set up our headquarters next to the Bubany Lumber Company, hiding behind a stack of boards piled close to the tracks. We would lay out explosives at our feet for quick access, along with eggs and water balloons. The biggest challenge of the day was how to get the most out of our arsenal.
I imagined us as underground soldiers, fighting the Germans or Japanese, reclaiming lost territory. We stashed enough weaponry to dramatically change the course of a battle. For a while, I wasn’t part of the Crow family—I was a courageous captain in the US Army.
And Sam, my trusty and fearless lieutenant, would stand alongside me, eager to make his mark. Nothing scared him. He’d never back down or run from trouble—or hesitate to blab about what we had done, no matter how many times I yelled at him to keep his mouth shut. He was sure everyone would think our antics were funny—but I knew better.
Heavily loaded wagons and pickups bounced across the uneven tracks, hurrying to get ahead of the next train. Sam and I would take turns lighting the fuses and launching the explosives at the unsuspecting passengers and then follow with eggs and water balloons. Though only seven years old, Sam threw like a rocket. Usually the explosives scared everyone so much they didn’t think to duck.
One Saturday morning in late October, when Navajo farmers flooded in to sell their crops, we spotted a horse-drawn wagon overflowing with hay and bulging with sheep. Three old guys squeezed into the back with the animals. The couple driving the wagon struggled to steady their load as the wheels groaned and the horses staggered under the weight. There couldn’t have been a better target.
“Sam, let’s loosen up the driver with eggs, water balloons, and cherry bombs,” I said. “The Crow triple play.”
Sam nailed the driver with an egg to the side of the head. I followed with a water balloon, washing off the egg yolk that dripped from his face. Against my orders, Sam dashed to the wagon and climbed inside, mounting one of the sheep like it was a horse, his arms waving in the air.
Seconds later, I tossed a cherry bomb into the wagon bed just a few feet from Sam, but he didn’t flinch. The sheep bleated like crazy at the blast, and the horses reared, jolting the wagon off the rig. When the back gate popped open, sheep spilled onto the street and scurried across Route 66 and the railroad tracks. The three old guys struggled to their feet and chased after them. Sam had already stumbled out, laughing his head off.
Traffic stopped, including the trains. Pedestrians, motorists, and the confused owners of the sheep attempted the longest and wildest roundup I’d ever seen. It was a glorious sight—everyone shouting and darting here and there. No one noticed us.
I felt powerful and invisible.
We rarely got caught. When we set up our headquarters, we carefully mapped out our escape routes and always had a good head start on any would-be pursuers. Occasionally we attracted the attention of a fast, pissed-off teenager, who caught us and pounded us into the ground. We’d promise to stop, and the kid would rejoin his wagon or truck. Then we would go right back to the tracks and begin again.
By midmorning we had moved on to the bars. Dozens of them lined Coal Avenue and Route 66 beyond the tourist strip. All the doors were covered in blood and urine, and all the patrons were wasted by noon.
Before going inside, we’d harass the drunks in the parking lot like we did the ones in our front yard—a firecracker or two strategically placed. Most of them jumped, but a few didn’t budge at all. They were stiff, their skin a scary bluish tinge. Dad said some of the drunks would pass out and freeze to death overnight when the temperature dropped. The police called them Popsicles.
Our first stop was at Seig’s Bar. It was so dark inside that we were hard to see. Racing in, I’d yell, “Kit Carson and the cavalry are coming. You better get out your tomahawks.” I’d throw Black Cat firecrackers on the floor next to men who could barely stand while Sam swung his arm to knock off their hats.
Once in a while, angry patrons caught us, but we usually wriggled free and dashed out the door, howling with laughter. When the owners chased us off, we moved to the next bar. There were so many to choose from.
For variety, we’d follow wobbly drunks to the filthy outhouses behind the bars. They walked like they had already taken a dump in their pants. Our favorite prank was to toss a cherry bomb inside after a patron took his seat. We pressed the door shut until it exploded. The drunk would stumble out looking like Wile E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoon, smoke and paper floating like confetti around his head.
From the cliff carved out behind the bars, Sam and I rolled huge rocks down the hill into the outhouses. It was like bowling but a lot more fun. When we made a perfect strike, the flimsy, filthy wooden boxes would fall over with the drunks inside, and they’d scurry away with their pants down. Sam and I laughed for days.
ON SUNDAY, I WOULD RETURN to the bars by myself after delivering newspapers. The town was always quiet. Sam wouldn’t go with me, complaining that everyone was too hungover to react to our cherry bombs and firecrackers. But I got a kick out of watching all the angry Navajo wives hunt down their men. And there was always a big one-sided fight when they found them. After doing this for a few weeks, I recognized several women who came back every Sunday. And there were plenty of entertaining newcomers too.
One morning, I followed a heavyset woman who had a look almost as tight and ferocious as Dad’s. She wove her way through the drunks sleeping it off in the parking lots and the bars. The men leaning against the outside walls of the bars had their hats pulled over their eyes to shade the sun. The woman went down the row, lifting one hat after another in search of her husband.
“You seen my hosteen?” she asked each one.
I chuckled as the men squinted up at her and slowly shook their heads, in no condition to lie convincingly.
She marched from bar to bar, her fists clenched, her face darker and angrier as she went along. Everyone knew her husband was about to get a vicious, well-deserved beating.
The loyal men shouted warnings when any woman approached. Some guys climbed out from under pool tables and bar stools and made a run for the exit. I rooted for them, but they never got far.
At last, the large Navajo woman found her husband lying flat on his stomach near the curb in front of the American Bar. She grabbed him by the hair and bounced his head on the hard pavement like a paddleball. Swearing in Navajo, she dragged him down the street and hoisted him into the bed of their wagon. The seat sagged under her weight as she flicked the reins to get the horses moving, signaling the end of another lost weekend.