The Pale-Faced Lie

by David Crow

  I couldn’t believe it. This was the same line she used with us in Fort Defiance, but it was Ted then instead of Wally. Mom and Wally had hired a lawyer who clearly worried Dad. Not that he gave a damn about us, but he’d never let Mom win at anything. The thought of him paying child support was complete bullshit—as he said many times. I scooted forward and rested my arms on the back of her seat. We had people fighting over us like we were property, but none of them had our best interests in mind.

  “Mom, we live in Maryland now. We can’t go with you,” I said, “Please don’t get your lawyer to fight Dad. You know how that’ll turn out.”

  We ate in silence, except for Mom’s whimpering, and then they took us to their small hotel room. Sam, Sally, and I sat on one of the twin beds, and after putting down the baby, Mom sat next to me and grabbed my hand. Wally locked the door, dragged a chair over in front of it, and sat down, making it clear we would have to go through him to get out. The walls began to close in, and I jumped up to push him away from the door.

  “No one locks us in,” I said.

  His eyes were fierce behind his thick glasses. “You children are going to listen to everything your mother has to say. You don’t know her side of the story.”

  But we did know. I leaned against the wall and motioned for Sam and Sally to sit.

  “Your daddy tried to kill me many times, and he took you away. He turned you against me. If you’ll come with Wally and me now, you can live with us in Albuquerque and be away from him for good.”

  All three of us shook our heads.

  “I gave birth to you. You owe me.” Mom looked over at me, hoping for support, but telling us we owed her made me grit my teeth.

  “Wally has forms from our lawyer for you to sign,” she said. “We’ll tell your daddy you’re coming with us, okay? There’s nothing he can do about it.”

  I puffed out my chest. “We aren’t going with you. Take us home. Now.”

  Sam and Sally got up from the bed and joined me at the door.

  Wally’s eyes looked sad. He’d driven thousands of miles to help Mom make her case, and it wasn’t working out the way they had planned.

  But she wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t heard before. And even with an adoring husband and a beautiful baby boy, Mom didn’t seem happy. She blamed her misery on Dad’s cruelty and on missing us, but I’d never seen her content for more than a few infrequent moments.

  She didn’t ask us about school or about anything going on in our lives. Her singular focus seemed to be getting even with Dad and dragging us away because of a debt we owed her rather than providing a satisfying family life. Every conversation had always been about her and how life cheated her, and I couldn’t take another minute of it. Life hadn’t done me any favors either, and she bore some of that responsibility.

  The next day, Sam, Sally, and I had to endure another visit and more of the same badgering to get us to go with them to Albuquerque. We couldn’t wait for Mom to leave town. When we drove up to our driveway for the last time, Sam and Sally said goodbye and ran for the door. I stood next to Mom’s side of the truck to talk to her.

  “I love you, Mom, but we can’t go with you—we can’t take another change. I’m sorry. It won’t work. I promise to come to Albuquerque to visit. You have Wally and your new son now. Don’t ask us to leave.”

  Mom sobbed almost as hard as she had in the Gallup courthouse. She held my hand for the longest time, and I didn’t pull away even when it became wet and clammy.

  “Let’s go, Thelma Lou,” Wally said. “That no-account Crow has brainwashed these damn kids and they’re not worth getting upset about. We need to get out of here.”

  I pulled my hand back as Wally reached over to roll up the window. Standing at the end of the driveway, I watched the truck slowly make its way down Kingston Road, then right on Kensington Parkway and out of sight.

  I wondered when I’d see Mom again, but I knew whenever it was, it wouldn’t go well. It never had. I wanted to find peace with her, but it eluded me again. All I ever seemed to do was disappoint her.

  CHAPTER 42

  MY TRACK COACH, CHAUNCEY FORD, paid close attention to everything I did. No one was tougher on me. During one of our first meets in March, he told me to wait until the eighth and final lap to sprint to the finish. But I got excited and took off during the seventh, and then died on the eighth, caught by four runners. When the meet was over, we loaded onto the bus, along with the cheerleaders.

  Coach Ford got on last and stood at the front. “David Crow, get up here right now. You and I are going back to the track while everyone waits for us. You’re going to run laps until you learn a lesson. I want you to run three, sub-sixty-second laps or you can’t ride home with us.”

  One of the shot-putters called me an asshole as I climbed off the bus.

  I ran the first lap in seventy-two seconds, the second in eighty, and the third one slower than that.

  “You can run the five miles back to school,” the coach said. “I’ll be waiting for you. After all, you love to run.”

  He climbed on the bus and it drove away. I was stunned. He hadn’t yelled or cursed, but his fierce brown eyes told me he was serious. When I got back to school it was dark. He was waiting, just as he said.

  “No one on the team has more potential or tries harder. But you’re hardheaded. You think you have all the answers. Well, you don’t. Life is going to get tougher and tougher unless you listen. Take a shower and go home. Next time maybe you’ll pay more attention.” He gently touched my arm and gave me a smile. “You can do better, and I expect it from you.”

  I walked home in the dark. It turned out that Coach Ford had called the house and told Mona that I would be late but that everything was fine. When I got home, I ate dinner, took a shower, and collapsed into bed. Dad left me alone. I heard him say that it looked like I’d picked cotton for sixteen hours. Falling into a deep sleep, I dreamed about the track meet and Coach Ford.

  The next day at practice, he acted like nothing had happened. From then on, I wanted to please him more than anyone else in my life. My teammates made several sarcastic comments, and my new nickname was “Crow Brain, the Bird That Couldn’t Fly Right,” but I didn’t mind. I’d been called worse.

  COACH FORD ANNOUNCED THAT WE would compete against Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, DC, on Thursday, April 4. My teammates weren’t happy with the news. Our team was all white, and our opponents would be all black. The guys told me that black athletes ran faster than lightning and loved to fight. As the days passed, everyone grew more nervous, making racial comments I didn’t understand. Coach Ford was the only black person in our all-white school, and he was popular, so why wouldn’t the black athletes at Woodrow Wilson be the same?

  It was cool and windy when we got on the bus and left for the meet. No one spoke. Usually we joked around and bragged about how we’d beat the other team, but not that day.

  As we crossed the Montgomery County line into the District of Columbia, we stared at the black faces outside our windows. Some looked sickly and angry. A few of my teammates mentioned the poor condition of the neighborhood, but it was high class compared to the reservation. There were broken windows, barbed-wire fences, weeds my height, and men who looked almost as poor as the Navajos huddled around the bars in Gallup. The area differed starkly from where we lived in Kensington, which surprised me. I’d thought everyone in the East was rich.

  When our bus pulled up to Woodrow Wilson High School, no one smiled or welcomed us, not the coach, students, or spectators. Since they had a white coach, I figured his team would get along with us. But as we warmed up on the track, the Wilson athletes told us we sucked. We taunted back.

  One of their sprinters shoved one of ours at the starting blocks, and trash talk erupted through the crowd. The spectators booed our athletes in every event. They threw cups of ice at us, and we yelled back at them.

  “Which one of you thieves took my running spikes?” one of our sprinters
shouted, pointing to a group of Wilson athletes standing near the high-jump pit. The accusation brought them to our side of the field. One punch led to another and it turned into a brawl.

  The coaches blew their whistles and separated us and then spoke quietly with each other. I thought the meet would be suspended, but Coach Ford signaled for us to get ready for the next events. The pushing and shoving continued.

  When I took my place for the two-mile run, the final event, I had to wait for Wilson’s only competitor, a fat kid who’d thrown the shot put earlier.

  “I don’t want to run the two mile,” I heard him tell his coach.

  “If you don’t, we’ll have to scratch,” the coach said. “We just need one point, which we’ll get if you finish.”

  For a quarter mile, the fat kid stayed with me, so I picked up speed and pulled away from him. Behind me, I heard a loud groan and glanced over my shoulder. My opponent had fallen onto the infield. Running alone for the next mile and three-quarters felt like an easy workout.

  The instant I finished, Coach Ford hurried our team to the bus, and we drove off.

  “Listen carefully to what I have to say,” he said in his calm, fatherly way. “Thefts can happen anywhere. It’s up to you to keep track of your equipment. Black or white, it doesn’t matter. I’m disappointed that you taunted their team and got into fights. That’s not good sportsmanship, and it’s not what I’ve taught you. I don’t care what they said to you first. You should never respond to unkindness with more of the same. It makes you lesser. Let’s go home and do better.”

  I loved Coach Ford. He always took the high road, and I was proud to be on his team.

  IT WAS AFTER DARK WHEN I got home. Dad wasn’t there. He should have arrived hours earlier. Mona, Sam, and Sally sat in the living room, watching Walter Cronkite announce that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated.

  The news footage showed burning cars and buildings near where our bus had traveled a couple of hours before. People were caught on camera carrying clothes and appliances out of stores through broken windows. Murders were reported blocks from where Dad worked. Mona called his office repeatedly but got no answer.

  At ten o’clock, we went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I listened to reports on the radio of how the burning and looting were worsening, and the death toll was climbing. Dad might have gotten into trouble that even he couldn’t get out of.

  Around midnight, his car pulled into the driveway, and I jumped out of bed. Mona ran outside, and I followed behind her. The light above the garage lit up the inside of Dad’s Country Squire, and I could see a large console-style stereo system in the back. Dad looked up at me and smiled.

  “Where have you been?” Mona said. “Are you okay? I’ve been worried sick.”

  “I had a beer with one of the guys from work. Then on my way home, I drove past a stereo equipment store, and four black men stuck guns in my face. They dragged me from the car, held me facedown for hours, and threatened to blow my brains out.”

  Mona gasped. “Oh my God.”

  “When they let me up, they told me to take this fucking stereo and get my honky ass out of there.”

  “It’s a miracle you’re all right. Those men could’ve killed you,” she said, touching his arm. “You had no choice but to take the stereo to save yourself.”

  There’s no way she believed that story. Much like how Mom got on Dad’s good side by asking for his help to punish us, Mona kept on Dad’s good side by playing along with him no matter what he said. How the hell did he find two women who would put up with his bullshit?

  SEVERAL DAYS WENT BY without any more details from Dad about what had happened. But the news continued to report the seriousness of the rioting, burning, and looting in DC, so the events of that terrible night stayed on my mind. When he and I were alone, I asked him if he had been afraid.

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Afraid you’d be murdered.”

  “Of course not. They knew I was one of them.”

  My jaw dropped, but why was I surprised? “You mean a looter. What if they had tried to kill you?”

  “Oh, come on. We understood each other. We’ve all been screwed by the white man for too long. We’re tired of being exploited. I met some guys on the street, and we hid in the store until the fuzz moved along. We cleaned out the joint. Got a couple of watches and radios out of it too. Two guys helped carry the stereo to the station wagon. Anyone would have done the same thing if they’d had the chance.”

  No one else would have done that, and no one else could have convinced those rioters that he was one of them. How had he managed to get away with so much in his life?

  For the millionth time, I wished he wasn’t my father.

  CHAPTER 43

  IN ELEVENTH GRADE, I LIKED my world affairs class, though I was barely passing. One day in the fall, the teacher announced a special trip to the Soviet Union organized by the school. It would cost each student $600.

  As we left for our next class, James said, “This is going to be so cool.”

  “Yeah, but there’s no way my dad will let me go.”

  “Sure he will.”

  I shook my head.

  “At least ask him.”

  I knew Dad and Mona could afford it. Between their good government jobs and Dad’s criminal operations, they had a comfortable income—but they shared very little of it with us kids. They went on expensive vacations and never took us. Just recently, the two of them had gone to Hawaii.

  Since our move to DC, Mona had allowed us to keep whatever we earned but made us pay for everything other than basic food, clothing, and shelter. Every fall, she took us to Sears and bought each of us a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, a couple of shirts, and a coat. Everything else I needed or wanted—socks, glasses, track shoes, school pictures—was my responsibility.

  Luckily, I had started caddying the year before. A kid at school told me how I could make extra money on the weekends at Burning Tree Country Club. “Show up on Saturday morning at seven,” he’d said.

  I was there at six. Soon I was caddying up to four rounds a weekend. Adding in the tips, I could earn $150. Mona never knew how much I made.

  Encouraged by James, I decided to bring up the school trip the next morning at breakfast, when Dad was rested. “I’d be gone ten days,” I said. “We’ll go to Moscow, see the Kremlin and Red Square.” I got excited talking about it. “I might never get another chance like this. I’d really like—”

  Dad exploded from his chair. “People in hell would like ice water too!” he yelled. “I’m not going to waste a goddamn penny on you.”

  “But, Dad, I can pay you back—with interest.”

  He leaned toward me, his eyes bulging. “Who do you think you are? I had nothing when I was a kid. You act so privileged. Let me tell you—you’re nothing special, boy.” He stormed out of the room.

  Mona scoffed. “How dare you ask such a thing,” she said.

  THE MORNING AFTER SCHOOL LET out the following summer, I delivered my papers as usual. I’d grown to love the beauty of Maryland and its large trees, plush grass lawns, and well-tended houses.

  But I wanted to live with the Kontz family for my last year of high school. I had few friends and was getting D minuses in all my classes except PE. I belonged on the reservation, where it felt like home. I’d written Richard once more about staying with his family. He wrote back that his parents would need ten dollars a week for room and board. I’d been saving money from my paper route and from caddying. I felt certain I could get my old paper route back and work for Mr. Ashcroft on the weekends at the Fort Defiance Trading Post.

  During dinner that night, I showed Dad Richard’s letter and begged him to let me leave. I’d already asked Sam and Sally. They didn’t want me to go, but I told them in one year I’d be gone anyway and it would mean everything to me to go back. They said it was okay with them.

  Dad’s face turned red, and he slammed his fist on the table, shaking the glasses
of milk. “I’m so damn sick of you. You don’t know this yet, but I got you a job at a sod farm for the summer, you ungrateful little bastard.”

  If he was so sick of me, why wouldn’t he let me go? “I already have a job caddying on weekends, and I deliver newspapers in the mornings,” I said, my voice flat with disappointment. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “I want you busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest—it’s the only way to shut you up. Don’t ever mention the Kontzes or Fort Defiance again. Comprendo?”

  Mona gave me her usual sneer. “You have no respect for the sacrifices we’ve made to give you a fine education in the East, Mr. Brezhnev.” She never missed a chance to bring up the Soviet trip from so many months before.

  I ignored her and got up from the table.

  After delivering newspapers the next day, I rode my bike twelve miles to the J. T. Patton Turf Farm. I reported to the supervisor, a fat, sour-looking man with a weathered face and crew cut, who pointed to a pickup and told me to join the other workers. Some were close to my age, but several workers had gray hair and bald spots. None of them said anything. We drove to an enormous field of beautiful grass. I followed the men to a sod-harvesting tractor that cut swaths of grass approximately six feet long.

  We got on our knees, rolled the sod like a sleeping bag, and lifted the large, heavy bundles onto a truck until it was filled. And then we started all over again with a new truck. By midmorning my arms ached, my head was dizzy from the blazing sun, and my legs felt like mush. It was the toughest work I had ever known.

  Dad talked about picking cotton day after day in the Texas and Arizona heat as a boy. This work had to have been every bit as hard.

  ON A MUGGY MORNING IN the middle of July, our supervisor lined us up and told us we were driving a truck full of sod to a new housing development. I welcomed the break from rolling and loading. Surely unloading the sod and making brand-new lawns had to be easier work.