The Pale-Faced Lie

by David Crow

  “Please stamp ‘admitted’ on it, Gladys, and let’s sign him up for some classes. Tell the instructors I’d appreciate it if they would add him to their rosters. And, David, come back in here before you leave.”

  She pushed her glasses up and frowned at me. “Have you selected the classes you’d like to take? Of course not. You are totally unprepared. You haven’t even read through the course book, have you?”

  “No, but I have a money order for tuition.”

  “That’s the only thing you’ve done right. If Dr. Davis didn’t have such a big heart, you’d be out on the street trying to figure out how to get in.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me like I was a lazy bullshitter unworthy of her help, and she was right. A few phone calls later, she gruffly handed me my list of classes. “No one has ever come to this office without applying to the school and left with their entire schedule filled out.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled. “You’ve made me feel right at home.”

  She waved me away, not appreciating my sarcasm. I ducked back into Dr. Davis’s office, and he pointed to a chair in front of his desk. “So, David, tell me a little bit about yourself.”

  I studied his kind face. How much could I say? Would he even believe me? “Dad is an ex-con from San Quentin,” I said, and Dr. Davis’s eyebrows shot up. Then I told him about George and hiding on the Indian reservation. “No one cares what you’ve done wrong if you’re willing to work there. Along the way, Mom went crazy—or maybe she always was. Dad lost his job in the life insurance business, and we went broke and ditched Mom, and I nearly got my butt shot off by a mean Navajo drunk, . . .” I ticked off on my fingers. “It’s been a wild ride, and I won’t even be eighteen until Sunday.”

  “How’d you get to Walter Johnson?”

  “Actually, that was never supposed to happen. Dad was going to work for the BIA in Washington for only six months, but most of high school, we went back and forth between here, Fort Defiance, and North Carolina, where my stepmother’s parents live. I missed nearly a year of classes. Thanks to my track coach, Chauncey Ford, Walter Johnson gave me a diploma. But I didn’t pass anything. I’d be pumping gas, caddying, and working construction the rest of my life without his help and yours. You’re giving me a chance—thank you.”

  “I’m not sure I understood most of what you said, but you’re welcome to come to my office anytime. You certainly know how to find me.” He got up and walked around his desk to shake my hand again. “Based on what I’ve seen, you’ll be just fine. Welcome to Montgomery College, David Crow.”

  OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS, I lived in several apartments and rarely saw anyone in my family. I worked hard to get my grades up and earn money at caddying and other part-time jobs. Some days I was down to less than a dollar for food, I barely made the rent, and the Rambler practically ran on fumes.

  Plus, my eyes continued to get worse. The optician told me that the only way to correct my severe myopia and astigmatism was to buy special Zeiss glasses from Germany. But each lens cost five hundred dollars, an impossible amount. I asked him to make cheap glasses for reading while I wore hard contact lenses out in public. The glasses were so thick I might as well have been looking through a telescope, and the contacts felt like sandpaper. My eyes ached from the moment I got up until I could finally close them to sleep.

  Even so, I passed all my classes, and with the training I’d gotten from Coach Ford, I made the cross-country and track team. Then in the spring of my second year, I earned an associate of arts degree.

  I was convinced it would now be easy to get into the University of Maryland, but they turned me down three times. On a whim, I wrote to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, about two hundred miles from Fort Defiance. They said my times were fast enough to try out for the cross-country and track team, but I’d have to pay out-of-state tuition and room and board and enter on probation. The total cost would amount to about the same as two pairs of Zeiss glasses.

  All of it was out of the question.

  One afternoon, I drove to the University of Maryland, found the track coach, and handed him a letter of recommendation from Jim Davis, my Montgomery College coach. Maryland’s coach was impressed and wrote a letter to the dean of students at the university. I was accepted as a sophomore, again on probation, and made the team.

  No matter how much I struggled, I had to make this work. I got an afternoon job at the Maryland Student Union, along with a night job at a local 7-Eleven, and caddied on weekends around practice and meets. Due to a shortage of campus housing, the coach let me live in a locker room in the old coliseum for free, along with several other runners and wrestlers. It was damp, dark, and chilly, but I had a cot to sleep on.

  Early in my junior year, I joined the Sigma Chi fraternity and moved into the frat house, an enormous, three-story brick colonial. I felt an immediate kinship with more than sixty guys, who became in many cases like real brothers. The day I arrived, Mike, my short, skinny roommate and our talented chef, asked me if I wanted a job as a busboy.

  “Will I get meals?” I asked.

  Mike nodded, and I started working that night, eating better than I had in years.

  When I called Dad to tell him how well things were going, he said, “I never got to go to school. There’s nothing to brag about, boy. You’ve had it easy. Is that all you called about?”

  He hung up.

  Sam joined the army the day he graduated from high school, right after Dad gave him the same speech about being on his own at twelve. I drove Sam to the bus station, and we hugged for a long time, not knowing when we would see each other again. He was still fearless and reckless, and as I watched him board for Fort Dix, I couldn’t imagine how he’d survive in the military.

  Lonnie received her doctorate in early childhood development and continued teaching elementary school. Sally moved in with her to finish high school, and I was grateful none of the Crow children were stuck in the house with Mona and Dad.

  The frat house pulsed with energy and excitement. It was new and strange and wonderful. Surrounded by good friends and laughter, I felt safe for the first time in my life.

  IN LATE SEPTEMBER, one of my frat brothers told me a woman named Mona was on the phone. She’d never called before. Even more shocking, when I spoke to her, she asked me to come to their house that Saturday. I dreaded seeing her. Time hadn’t lessened my hatred for her.

  As I stood on the front porch, my knuckles froze an inch from the door. This wouldn’t be good. I took a big breath and knocked anyway.

  Mona barely opened the door. “You’ve received an unmarked brown envelope,” she said. “It has an Albuquerque postmark but no return address. Wait here.” She closed the door. When she returned, she shoved the package at me and said, “This is for you. Take it and go.”

  Nothing had changed since I’d seen her the previous Christmas—the same stony behavior, more like a mail clerk than my stepmother of eight years. She didn’t say goodbye. She hadn’t said hello. She just shut the door. Why did she marry a guy with kids she despised? Did Dad make her happy? How could he? He was as restless as a tomcat. And I was certain she couldn’t make anyone happy, much less him.

  I went to my car and stared at the large envelope on my lap. With an Albuquerque postmark, it had to be from Mom. Probably bad news. I drove back to the frat house, and thankfully, the parking lot was empty.

  My hands shook as I ripped open the package. Inside were all my childhood pictures and a note in Mom’s unmistakable, childlike handwriting: “I’m no longer your mother. These are yours.”

  I flipped through one photo after another—from the EPNG days, a few from Albuquerque, and two from my tenth birthday party in Gallup. One had Violet hugging me as I blew out the candles. How I faked that smile I’ll never know. Each picture brought back a worse memory until I couldn’t look anymore.

  It was as though I’d witnessed my own funeral and no one had come to say goodbye. I couldn’t stop crying. My childhood replayed in my
mind—along with a voice telling me that every horrible thing that happened had been my fault.

  I hadn’t hurt this much since the day in Gallup when Mom begged me not to leave her in that cold, empty house. I deserved this for not going with her. Since her awful visit in Kensington, I hadn’t been in touch. Comforting her seemed impossible, so I’d given up.

  I sat alone in the parking lot, feeling lost. I had begun to lower my guard to let in a few of my fraternity brothers, but if they really got to know me, they’d want nothing to do with me.

  Choking on guilt, struggling to inhale, I vowed never to let anyone get close enough to hurt me again.

  CHAPTER 45

  LONNIE CALLED EVERY SATURDAY THAT fall to see how I was doing, though there was little to say. Sometimes she invited me to her apartment for a meal and a place to study. But the air was always heavy with unspoken words about our childhood, and I seldom stayed long.

  I’d written several letters to Sam, now stationed in Korea. He wrote back to tell me he chewed on opium beans to soothe his nerves while he patrolled the North Korean border. If his letters were accurate—and Sam never lied—his dependency on opium and alcohol was growing.

  One Friday morning in late October, a fraternity brother knocked on my door. “Your dad’s on the phone. He really needs to talk to you.”

  Every scary thought ran through my mind. Had Sam been hurt? What about Lonnie and Sally? Something had to be wrong.

  “Dad, is everything all right?”

  “No, damn it, it’s not,” he said, as if I should have known. “Go to the house tomorrow and start a huge fight with Mona.” He acted like this was a routine request.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean ‘why’?” he yelled. “I’m leaving her for a woman I met on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. She’s eighteen but seems much older.” He lowered his voice. “It’s something that just happened.”

  Something that just happened. What the hell did that mean? Like spilling coffee on your shirt or taking the wrong turn? I was furious. He was using me again to do something sleazy and cruel.

  “Tell Mona you’re leaving her. Why do I have to start a fight with her? She’s going to figure it out pretty soon anyway when you move out.”

  “Because right after your fight, she’ll tell me all about it, and I’ll say, ‘If you can’t even get along with David, then I have to leave you.’”

  “That’s crazy, Dad. There’s no connection between how Mona feels about me and whether you want to stay with her. Don’t you see that? Besides, she and I have never gotten along.”

  “Think of something. What’s wrong with you? The day you can’t think of a reason to hate that frigid bitch will be a cold day in hell.”

  “We haven’t talked since she handed me the envelope from Mom two months ago.”

  “What envelope? I have no idea what you’re talking about or why it matters.”

  “Mona and I don’t see each other except when you ask me to come home for a few hours on Thanksgiving and Christmas. She acts like she wants me to leave as soon as possible every time. I don’t even see you that often. I wouldn’t know what to say to her on a good day.”

  “Get your ass over there and do it!” Dad yelled again. Then he hung up.

  ON SATURDAY, I WOKE UP thinking about the time Mona sent me into the brutal cold to find the lost five-dollar bill. And the garbage she and Dad put in Sam’s bed. I didn’t care whether Dad stayed or left. Either way, they were both pathetic, and nothing would change that.

  Still, I did what Dad ordered me to do and drove to their house on Burning Tree Road in Bethesda, where we had moved my junior year of high school. Going as slowly as possible, I tried to think of what to say. Oddly, I had seldom yelled back at Mona for any of the mean things she’d done—I’d hated her silently. I pulled into the driveway without remembering the final miles of the ride. Her white Chevy Nova was in the carport and Dad’s was gone, as he had planned it.

  I sat there for a long time, staring at the front door of the split-level. My left hand trembled, the way it had the last few years when I was nervous. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I could carry on a conversation with the light bulb inside a refrigerator, but words escaped me now. Mona peered out from the curtain. Once I realized she saw me, I hurried to the door.

  Before I could knock, she opened it. “Why did you come? If you want money, you aren’t getting any. If you want to stay here, you can’t. Your father and I agree that you should make your own way.”

  Her nasty greeting inflamed every nerve. What a bitch. I couldn’t help but remember how she had stuffed all my things into a box after high school graduation and tossed it out on the front porch. I didn’t need to stage an argument. She was far more likely to pick a fight than the other way around. She just had. How could she have thought I came to her for help?

  “I don’t want anything,” I said. “I just thought it’d be nice to pay you a visit.” It would have been impossible to sound less sincere.

  “This is about your father, isn’t it? Something’s going on with him. Do you know what it is?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “He comes and goes at all hours. He’s anxious. He won’t talk to me. He makes trips to West Virginia. He has post office boxes he thinks I don’t know about. He’s buried all kinds of things in the yard. And some guys are after him. Did he kill someone? He’s in real trouble, isn’t he?” She paused, glaring at me. “You do know something, don’t you?”

  Yes, I knew about the boxes of stolen weapons and coins Dad had buried in the yard. He told me about them when he gave me the combination to a safe that would have detailed instructions for getting revenge if anything ever happened to him. And he was always talking about killing people.

  But no matter what I said to Mona, I’d only make things worse. This was a fool’s errand, just as I expected.

  “I’ve got to get back to school.” I turned and walked to my car. “Sorry I bothered you.”

  Stopping at a pay phone, I called Dad. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Did you make her cry?” he asked.

  “I don’t think that’s possible. I didn’t have to start a fight. She yelled at me right off, thinking I wanted money or a place to stay. She knew it didn’t make sense for me to visit. I left without saying much.”

  “You’re as useless as tits on a boar hog.” He slammed down the phone.

  In early November, Dad called to say that he had left Mona, but it sure wasn’t because I’d helped him. He and Caroline had moved into a condominium in College Park, a few short miles from campus. Whenever I went outside, I looked for Dad’s Ford Capri, afraid I’d run into them.

  THE WEEK OF THANKSGIVING, the fraternity house and college campus were empty. I felt empty too. Even the noisy furnace had been turned off to save money. I usually went to Dad and Mona’s for a few hours on Thursday, but that wouldn’t be happening this year.

  Wednesday afternoon, I jumped when the frat house phone on the second floor interrupted the quiet.

  “Hello, David.” It was Mona. “Your father is gone. Lonnie and Sally are celebrating the holiday together, and since Sam is out of the country, would you like to have Thanksgiving dinner with me?”

  “Uh . . .” I didn’t know what to say. Not only was I her last choice, but she probably only invited me to find out what I knew about Dad.

  “Come over at one o’clock and stay for at least an hour or so.”

  Was that fear I heard in her voice? I couldn’t help it—I felt sorry for her. “Okay, sure. See you tomorrow.”

  Minutes after the call, I wanted to cancel. Over the next twenty-four hours, my emotions changed by the minute—from yes to no to hell no. And then back to yes.

  A girl from one of my classes invited me to her family celebration, but I told her I’d get in trouble if I missed a holiday at home. That was a lie, of course. But I didn’t want her family to ask where my family was and what they were doing. No one needed to know. />
  When I arrived, Mona greeted me at the door with a stiff, formal handshake, but her eyes held deep sadness. Opera music blared from the same stereo system that Dad and I unloaded from his car the night of the Martin Luther King assassination. Bloody Marys and turkey sat on the table, along with dressing and cranberry sauce. She bustled around like she was expecting the entire family. She raised her glass and toasted to my good health. After we ate for a few moments, the conversation turned to Dad.

  “Have you heard from your father?”

  “No, I guess he’s been busy.” We both pretended he hadn’t run off with another woman.

  “Your father is trying to find himself,” she said. “It’s hard to be a Cherokee in the East. In Fort Defiance, he had Indians around him every day. He had a true purpose. Now he feels lost without his circle of Navajo and Cherokee friends.”

  “Ah, really?” I tried to sound sympathetic, but what bullshit! Dad’s true purpose was breaking the law and carrying on with young women. Did she really feel sorry for him, or was this how she rationalized what he had done?

  “His work for the BIA in Washington has made him long for his Cherokee roots. Many of the workers at headquarters are Anglos, and he feels abandoned. Once he works through this, he’ll return.”

  She had always accepted whatever Dad told her. Surely, if he wanted to reconcile, her reasoning would allow him back without having to admit what he’d done. After all, how long could he stay with his teenage Indian mistress?

  Mona had tears in her eyes. Under the thick makeup, her face was puffy, the way Mom’s looked much of the time, and I realized Mona must have been crying before I got there. I felt genuine sorrow for her, which I hadn’t thought possible.

  CHAPTER 46

  IN JANUARY, I RECEIVED MY grades for the fall semester. All of them had dropped to Cs. I wasn’t surprised.

  Since the call from Dad about moving in with Caroline, I had stopped caring about the future. It didn’t seem possible I could ever be successful or happy, no matter what I did or how hard I tried. Maybe even more than that, it didn’t seem possible I could ever be free of Dad’s control.