by David Crow
Or was this simply a case of two sick bastards taking it out on one of their kids before they turned on each other?
For some reason, he paused with the belt in the air. “Why were you so late, and why didn’t you let your mother know where you were?”
“I was at Joey Perea’s house reading their Encyclopedia Britannica,” I blurted out. It was the best lie I could come up with on my walk home. “We have a project due for school tomorrow. Mine is on Genghis Khan, the Mongolian warlord.”
Dad lowered the belt.
I talked fast, hoping to delight him with my knowledge of a brutal leader who perfected violence in a way he could appreciate.
“Genghis Khan pinned his own uncle on an anthill for three days in a hundred-degree heat and then tied his arms and legs to four horses that ran off in different directions. His uncle got yanked to pieces for challenging Genghis for leadership of the Mongol hordes. The great Khan tortured and killed all his rivals, not just his uncle. The carnage was amazing.”
“Carnage? What does that mean?”
“It means the slaughtering of lots of people in bloody battles.”
“Carnage,” Dad repeated softly several times, as if the sound soothed his twisted mind. His eyes calmed and the creases on his forehead smoothed out. I’d triggered a complete mood change by praising a vicious, conquering asshole, someone like him. Genghis Khan was the Emile Griffith of dictators. I often won Dad over with the cleverness of my pranks, but this time, I had impressed his violent side.
It was a lesson I wouldn’t forget.
He broke into a broad smile and lowered the belt. Exciting him had knocked Mom’s complaint to the side. She pouted, not understanding what I’d just done.
“How’s school?” Dad asked, lacing his belt back through his pant loops with a smile as if he hadn’t thought of beating me at all.
“Fine.”
“Your mother says your paper route is growing.” He nudged me toward the kitchen table. “Get David something to eat, Thelma Lou.”
“But he deserves a whipping for being late . . .” Mom’s voice trailed off when Dad turned to look at her, and she went to the fridge to pull out leftover roast beef and okra.
Our conversation about Genghis Khan almost made me forget about what Sam and I had done on Elephant Hill. Every day had the possibility of a beating, so it didn’t matter if I lied to get out of trouble today. Lying was always preferable to the truth if it produced a reaction Dad liked.
“Tell me more about Genghis Khan and the Mongolian empire,” Dad said as I ate cold roast beef at the table, rinsed down with iced tea. I regaled him for an hour, remembering every detail of the Mongol hordes and the great Khan’s exploits. I even brought up Alexander the Great, which he wanted to hear all about another time.
Our class hadn’t studied Genghis Khan, but I’d read about him at Joey’s house the last time he had me over. It was always fun to read the encyclopedia. I knew Dad would never call his parents to check. The truth meant nothing to him unless it reinforced something he already believed.
I could control Dad, unless his anger had reached a fever pitch. The trick was to catch him before that happened. It took split-second timing. On that night it worked.
The best way to control Mom was to make her feel important. All I needed to do was agree with whatever she said, and then I could convince her she had allowed me to be late. Once she thought I was on her side, I didn’t have to worry about her saying anything to Dad—but I had to talk to her before he got home.
Neither one was hard to figure out. Staying as far away as possible from both of them was the best form of self-defense.
FOR WEEKS AFTERWARD, SAM LAY on the bottom bunk and kicked my bed above him, laughing about Elephant Hill. He loved to waddle around the room, imitating the tire. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
Both drivers’ accounts in the newspaper said the rogue tire might not have been attached to a vehicle. That was code for “two little bastards rolled it down Elephant Hill.” Sam and I had to be on the shortest of short lists of suspects.
On the local news, a reporter said, “A large, inflated tire from an industrial machine struck two cars, causing serious damage to both. One witness thought he saw the tire roll down Green Avenue, and it didn’t come from a vehicle.”
The next morning, after Dad went to work, Mom caught me as Sam and I were about to leave for school. “David, one of the neighbor ladies thought she saw you and Sam rolling a large tire on Green Avenue. Is that right?”
Anyone else would have nailed us, but not Mom.
“No,” I told her. “I bet the tire flew off a truck.”
“That seems right to me too.” She turned and walked into the kitchen.
Secretly, I hoped the police would catch us and take Sam and me away. I’d dream that we were sent to live with a nice couple who couldn’t have children. Our new family might get mad at us sometimes, but no one would get beaten, and we’d make up. Most of the time everyone was happy. Our new parents would want Lonnie and Sally too.
In the morning, I’d wake to the cold reality of the Crow household.
CHAPTER 15
IT WAS MY TENTH BIRTHDAY and I was excited. The Gallup Giants, my Little League team, were about to start the first playoff game. Two weeks before, we beat the Dodgers, giving us a chance at the championship. I would be pitching. I was the only one on our team who could throw a slider and a curveball.
But that wasn’t enough to save us. As the afternoon wore on, the Red Sox made one home run after another, and we never got past second base. At the bottom of the last inning, they were ahead 6–0. Two of our players struck out, and then I hit a hard ground ball right to the shortstop. Our season was over.
I dragged myself home, and when I came through the door, Mom still didn’t mention my birthday. That was typical of Dad, but Mom usually wished me a happy birthday first thing in the morning and gave me a hug and something very small and inexpensive, like a pack of bubble gum. Not this year. The turmoil in our lives had gotten so bad she’d forgotten.
That Saturday at breakfast, Dad thumped me on the arm. “Eat up,” he said. “We’re going for a ride.”
Before we left, he wanted me to help him change the oil in the station wagon. We were almost done when I tripped and spilled used oil on the driveway. No one was clumsier than me unless I had a baseball or cherry bomb in my hand.
“Goddamn you,” he said. I turned to say I was sorry, and he hit me in the stomach with his wrench, knocking me to the ground. “You have no mechanical ability at all. You must be dyslexic to the bone. Let’s go before you screw up something else.”
He didn’t say much as we drove into the hot desert, his usual pulsing Y vein and bulging eyes working overtime. Today, he was extra angry—his chest puffed out like he was getting ready for a fight. It had to be about Mom.
On a lonely strip of highway, he pulled over, stopped the car, and stared out the windshield. For several minutes, his lips chattered and his head twitched, bobbing around on his shoulders. My hands got sweaty as his face grew darker and his frown deeper.
“You’re the reason we didn’t get rid of your mother ages ago,” he blurted out. “The other kids don’t care what happens to her.” He leaned toward me, his eyes blazing with rage. “You’re a momma’s boy. My father died when I was twelve. I had to become a man. Now you need to do the same.”
I shrank back against the door. “Please don’t hurt Mom.”
“No one wants her around. Why can’t I count on you for the simplest thing?”
Dad went back to staring out the windshield. I’d been afraid of this moment since that first car ride in the blinding snowstorm. After Mom hid the mail in Albuquerque, I knew she would be gone soon, as much as I’d hoped otherwise. Lonnie and Sam had been ready for a long time. Who could blame them?
But she was my mom and I loved her—even though she was far more helpless than five-year-old Sally. I needed to protect her from Dad and the world.
That was my job. It wasn’t right to hurt her or leave her behind.
Dad didn’t wait for an answer. He started up the car and headed back as if all had been resolved. My stomach hurt worse than ever, and I got dizzy thinking Mom might not last the day. At home, Dad stood behind me as I opened the door. That was strange—he usually disappeared or drove off again. The curtains were drawn and the house was dark and quiet.
“Happy birthday, David!” my friends shouted as Sam turned on the lights.
A Cowboy Bill birthday cake sat in the middle of the coffee table. Ten candles stood in thick white frosting inside a chocolate lasso around the top. Mom lit the candles as I walked into the living room. Gifts were piled on one side of the cake, and paper cups filled with Kool-Aid were on the other. Sam flung confetti in my face.
Joey, Billy, Tinker, Benny, and six of my buddies from the Gallup Giants blew whistles in my ear. They patted me on the back and teased me about a home run I’d hit in our last winning game—a grounder the shortstop missed, followed by three overthrows. The worst home run ever.
Violet was there too. She hugged me. I liked to think of her as my first girlfriend, but Joey claimed they kissed every day. The liar.
As my friends clapped and laughed, I wanted to freeze the moment. Everyone smiled at me, but Mom’s face glowed with a happiness I had never seen.
“Make a wish,” she said.
I blew out each candle, wishing to be anyone but David Crow. Dad had taken me for a drive to bully me into helping him get rid of Mom while she set up this wonderful surprise—it was the meanest trick he had ever played on me. I hated him almost as much as I hated myself for not sticking up for her. I didn’t deserve the cake or the gifts.
Forcing away the tears, I couldn’t wait for everyone to leave. I wanted to run through the streets so no one could see me cry.
With Dad, fun was always mixed with pain and suffering. All allegiance had to be to him alone.
TWO MONTHS PASSED WITHOUT ANY discussion of getting rid of Mom, but I carried the weight of it everywhere. In the middle of October, my fifth-grade teacher walked to my desk and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. I liked Mrs. Garcia—she let me be funny in front of the class without getting too mad. Sometimes she even laughed at my jokes. “Mr. Rodriguez wants to see you in his office,” she said. “The school secretary will be here to take you in a minute.”
Every bad thought raced through my mind. I’d done so many things that could have gotten me into trouble. Maybe the principal found out I’d stomped on a carton of milk and soaked one of the cafeteria ladies a couple of days before. Maybe the recess teacher saw me kick the ball at Violet again. She always complained about me, but I told myself she didn’t really mean it.
When the secretary came into the classroom and called my name, Violet pointed at me. “You’re going to get it, brat,” she said. “I bet Mr. Rodriguez gives you a paddling and sends you to jail. You deserve it for being the worst boy in school.”
On my way to the door, I tugged on her ponytail for the second time that day, and she stuck out her tongue again. That’s how I knew she liked me, maybe even more than she liked Joey.
I dragged my feet down the hallway, and the secretary pushed me in front of her toward the office. “I’m really sorry for whatever I’m in trouble for,” I whispered, practicing to myself. “It won’t ever happen again. Honest. I mean it this time. Just please don’t tell Mom and Dad. Please.”
In the principal’s office, I glanced out the window at the sign—“Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School, Home of the Raiders”—and braced myself for the worst. Mr. Rodriguez, a balding man with a narrow band of gray hair above his ears, sat behind a big wooden desk, talking on the phone. A college diploma from the University of New Mexico hung on the wall to the right, and a picture of him, his wife, and two daughters sat on a table along the wall. Official-looking papers sprawled out in front of him, probably listing my terrible deeds.
When he hung up, he asked, “Do you have any idea why I called you in here?”
I shook my head. “No, but I won’t do it again. Honest.”
“Hmm?” He tilted his head, puzzled. “Your mom says you love baseball, especially the New York Yankees. So why don’t we sit here together and watch the last few innings of the final World Series game?”
My jaw dropped. Mom knew I loved baseball more than life, especially the New York Yankees: Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Clete Boyer, Bobby Richardson, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford. The Yankees were playing the San Francisco Giants in the 1962 World Series. I’d memorized the Yankee lineup and all the statistics, and I listened to Dizzy Dean announce the games on my tiny transistor radio.
I imagined myself as the great Mickey Mantle. I’d throw baseballs high in the air, positioning myself to catch them, or hit balls across the street and retrieve them. Sam would play with me, but even he got tired of it. Following a major league game, I’d provide a complete blow-by-blow account to anyone who would listen. Lonnie and Sally closed the door to their room when they saw me coming.
Mr. Rodriguez brought over two chairs, turned on the small TV set on the side table, and told the secretary to hold his calls. “I loved baseball as a boy too,” he said. “Nothing excited me more than the World Series. My favorite team is still the Los Angeles Dodgers. I love to watch Sandy Koufax, but the Yankees are very good also.”
How had Mom pulled this off? I couldn’t believe that she’d had the guts to call my school and ask if I could watch the World Series during school time, and I couldn’t believe that Mr. Rodriguez had agreed.
For the rest of the afternoon, I was the luckiest kid in the world. We watched the last four innings of game seven on October 16. I never wanted it to end. The Yankees won, 1–0, clinching the series, a close game until the last out.
After thanking Mr. Rodriguez several times, I ran home and burst into the house. Mom was sitting with Sally at the kitchen table. She jumped up and I hugged her for what seemed like an hour. I described every pitch, hit, and out. Smiling, she went over to the couch to lie down and asked every baseball question she could think of, including how many bats Mickey Mantle hit.
I felt like a normal kid with a normal mom. But then I remembered my tenth birthday party, the terrible ride with Dad, and his plot to get rid of her. Before she could see my tears, I escaped down to the basement and darted out the garage door. I ran for as long as I could, doing the only thing that could dull my sadness and guilt.
That night, I woke up crying after another nightmare, soaked in sweat.
“What’s wrong?” Sam whispered. “Are you sick?”
“No, but something bad is going to happen to Mom. Dad might kill her. And it might be soon.”
I waited for Sam to say something, but he didn’t. My brother always kept his thoughts about Mom to himself unless we were plotting to trick her or trying to get out of trouble.
RIGHT AFTER THE WORLD SERIES ENDED, the country was thrown into a crisis. For the next two weeks, Dad stayed riveted to the television and radio. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was going to nuke the United States into oblivion, Dad said, because that silk-panties-wearing President John F. Kennedy was afraid of him. Dad sprang into action, burying gasoline, water, canned food, and batteries in the yard, preparing to survive a nuclear holocaust.
On a Saturday morning, Dad drove us to a nearby warehouse and led us down into the basement, where we spent most of the weekend in what would be our bomb shelter when the nukes hit. Mom flitted around, not knowing what to do, until she saw a couch and some beds set up for people staying overnight. She immediately made herself comfortable. Sam and I helped Dad and Lonnie carry a hundred-pound bag of dry beans into a cool, dark corner near where we would sleep. We also had powdered milk, jugs of fresh water, and canned corn. Dad said we might have to live off the provisions for months, waiting for the radiation to clear.
Other families were there, as well as a handful of Gallup’s newly formed volunteer security team. They fiddled with
flashlights and tried out some donated pocket knives, talking about what to do if we were invaded. No one came up with anything other than staying in the basement.
As we lay in our sleeping bags, Dad loudly told us that the Communist bastard Nikita Khrushchev had no respect for the pansy President Kennedy. He yelled into the dark, “After the Bay of Pigs, the Commies knew they were dealing with a pathetic blue-blooded dipshit!”
I could hear people moving away from us. At least two families climbed out of the basement and drove away. We took off the next afternoon but left our supplies and marked everything with our name. Dad said we’d keep coming back to practice because the time of doom was near.
When we reached an agreement with the Soviets and they dismantled their missiles, Dad told me they would try to nuke us again, so we needed to continue the drills. But as the days passed, he lost interest, and I went back to the shelter with him to pick up our stuff. His superior survival skills would have to wait. For the duration of the crisis, though, Dad was busy and content, a model husband and father protecting his family.
CHAPTER 16
I STOOD OUTSIDE OUR HOUSE WATCHING Mom and Dad walk down the sidewalk. It was a Sunday afternoon in early November, and they were going to the Gallup hospital, only a few blocks away. Mom would be having her hemorrhoids removed, which seemed the least of her problems. Dad yelled at her to hurry up and pulled her by the elbow, almost making her fall.
He returned in less than an hour. “I want everyone in the living room for a family meeting,” he said. We huddled together on the red couch, staring at the TV.
“Your mother will be gone for good soon,” Dad said. “So get ready to move and forget about her.” His eyes didn’t bug out, and the vein was asleep inside his forehead. “When she’s released from the hospital, she’ll take a bus to California to recuperate at her mother’s house. By the time she gets back here, we’ll be in Fort Defiance. She’ll never find us.”