“You really hit it hard this morning, Teacher.”
We’re sipping beers under the moon, in reclining lawn chairs, poolside at an apartment down the road from ours, alone except for a fat guy doing laps with barely a splash.
Lorenzo means my head. I keep forgetting to duck it as I climb into the back of the canopied truck that takes us out to the fields. Not to make excuses, but it’s dark at five in the morning and I’m still half-asleep. Anyway, about every other morning I smack my skull on an overhead beam. The other workers—all Mexicans—call me Bobo. Lorenzo says it means Idiot.
This morning they called me lots of other things too.
“What was everyone yelling at me for?”
“They were pissed off, man. Some of them.”
“All I did was hit my head.”
“That’s right.”
“I do it every morning.”
“Not every morning,” he corrects.
“Every other morning.”
“Just about,” he says.
“So?”
“So today was Monday, so it was hard to tell if you would or not. But now you did, so tomorrow you probably won’t. Except, tomorrow you will. Tomorrow you’re gonna hit your head. So remember.”
“It’s ducking my head I’m trying to remember.”
“Just do it, man.”
“Hit my head.”
“Right.”
“Wanna tell me why?”
“You have to know every fucking thing, man?”
We’re quiet. I’m thinking.
“Lorenzo?”
“What.”
“Are people laying bets on whether or not I hit my head?”
He takes a drink from his beer.
“Christ,” I mutter. “How long’s this been going on?”
“Since this morning. Couple guys lost their whole day’s pay, thanks to you.”
“My fault?”
“Well, what the hell, you can’t remember to duck your head?”
“You bet your whole day’s pay?”
“It was stupid, man. I shoulda waited.”
“So we could set something up, you mean?”
“That’s right. So hit it good, you know? Like this morning. Don’t fake it.”
“Forget it, Lorenzo. You tell them I know what’s going on. Tell them from now on I will always duck my head.”
“After tomorrow.”
“Starting tomorrow.”
He sits up. “Teacher, listen to me. I’m the only one who says you’re gonna hit your head tomorrow. Everyone else— ten guys, man—they’re all betting the other way. I can win a hundred dollars. And here’s the best part: you get twenty-five of it. A whole day’s pay for bumping your head. That’s not so bad, you know?”
“Sorry.”
“All right, thirty-five, but that’s it, man.”
“I’m not doing it.”
He studies me. “Why are you being such a bobo?”
I give a large sigh. “Lorenzo, I don’t know if you can understand this, but I happen to have something called scruples. It comes from having something called a conscience.”
“I have something called an ass and you can kiss it, man. You think you’re better than me? A better person, man? Fuck you, Teacher.”
“I didn’t say I was necessarily—”
“Fuck you, Bobo.”
We’re quiet.
The fat guy is doing the backstroke now, his big wet belly shining in the moonlight.
“Anyway, don’t they know you know me? Won’t they suspect something?”
“They don’t know shit, man. Do I ever walk to the truck with you? Eat lunch with you? Speak to you?”
“No. You don’t.”
“Know why?”
“Let me guess. Because I’m a bobo.”
“That’s right, man. And don’t ever forget it.”
We’re quiet again.
I stare at the moon, feeling sorry for myself, out there all day yanking away at some rubbery goddam tangled-up vine, bush after bush, row after row, no one to talk to but myself, known only as Bobo, as Idiot …
I ask Lorenzo what other names the men were calling me this morning.
“In English?”
“Please.”
“Let’s see … they said you were an asshole … a fornicator of goats … the son of a whore … the daughter of a whore … an eater of donkey shit … a stuck-up gringo bigot …”
“Bigot?”
“That’s right.”
I sit up. “Based on what?”
“Your attitude, man. With your scruples. Too good to talk to a buncha wetbacks.”
“I don’t speak Spanish, Lorenzo—remember?”
“That’s very convenient, man.”
“Jesus.” I lie back and drink.
“There’s that attitude. There it is, right there.”
“Excuse me.” It’s the fat guy, standing near us in the shallow end, hands at his hips like a hardass. “Do you fellows live here?”
“What’s it to you, man?”
I wave him away: “Do some more laps.”
“Because if you don’t live here—”
“Look at how fat you are,” Lorenzo says. “You’re like a fucking whale, you know that?”
The guy stands there a moment, slowly nodding his head, like he knows what to do about us, then gets out and grabs his towel and marches off.
Lorenzo yells insulting things about the size of his butt.
“He’s gonna call security,” I point out.
“Let’s go.”
I start putting the empties in the carton.
“Leave that shit for him.”
I leave it.
“Take the box, man. There’s some beers left.”
“Right.” I take the carton.
He stands there shaking his head at me.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“Don’t what, man.”
“Call me a bobo.”
He laughs.
“I mean it, Lorenzo. I don’t like it. I’m not an idiot. I have a goddam Masters degree, you know?”
“So what should I call you? Master?”
“I’m serious.”
“I know, man. That’s your whole problem.”
We head down the moonlit gravel road, palm trees on either side.
“Give me one of those,” he says.
I hand him a beer from the carton. He pops it open and takes a long drink, belches and sighs. “You know what I should really call you, man?”
“No more names. Please.”
“You’ll like this one.” He puts his arm around my shoulder. “ Amigo. That’s what I should call you. You know what that word means, don’t you?”
“Friend.”
“That’s right, man. And don’t ever forget it.”
It’s a little embarrassing with his arm around my shoulder like that, but I feel glad we’re amigos—happy, in fact. “Guess we told that fatass, didn’t we?”
“Hey, I bet that guy can really stink up a bathroom, man. You know?”
We laugh like amigos.
Then he gets serious. “Hey, listen. About tomorrow. Don’t forget. Okay?”
“What.”
“You forgot already. Bump your head, man.”
I slip out from under his arm.
“What’s the matter?” he says.
I don’t answer.
“Listen, man, don’t let me down. It’s not just the money, you know? It would hurt my feelings. I would feel like … what’s the word?”
“Betrayed.”
“I would feel like betrayed. You know what I mean by betrayed?”
“I just gave you the word.”
“I know. My English, it is not so good,” he says, his accent suddenly thicker. “Maybe if I had more school. But it was not to be.”
“Don’t start that.”
He goes on, “You know, amigo, that day when you told me I could no longer be in your class anymore, it
was like you were telling me I could no longer be in your world anymore, that I must always remain a poor ignorant Chicano.”
“My attendance policy was very clear.”
He sighs. “So now I must work in the fields, where I belong.”
“Hey, Ym in the fields and I was the teacher”
“Yeah, but you’re a fucking bobo, man.”
“Right. I keep forgetting.”
We walk on.
“Listen, I didn’t mean that, man. Still amigos, right? Okay?”
When I duck my head the next morning, there are sounds all around of satisfaction and gratitude. And as I sit on the bench an old man to my right says quietly, “Buenos días, Señor Bobo.”
“Buenos días,” I say to him, a little lump in my throat.
Lorenzo lets go a yell, steps up and grabs me by the front of my T-shirt, pulls me to my feet, swings me around and throws me out the back.
The truck is going slow along a sandy road, so all I do is skin my elbows and drive a lot of grit up under my fingernails. I get to my feet and stand there in the dark watching the tail lights growing smaller.
Maybe he meant that stuff about being amigos. This seems pretty extreme just for money.
I begin walking after the truck.
Tutor
ST. FRANCIS INDIAN SCHOOL ST. FRANCIS, SOUTH DAKOTA 1978-79
Aug 20, 1978
Dear Lorenzo,
I’m leaving. I can’t take this job
another day. It’s just too goddam
hot out there.
I sincerely hope you have a very
pleasant life.
Your amigo,
Teacher
I take 17 up to Flagstaff, then 40 over to Albuquerque, then 25 up to Denver. There’s some beautiful scenery along the way and I try to pay attention and appreciate it. But I’m feeling very ghostly. I feel like I could slip into being dead with hardly a ripple.
I take 80 east, which goes to Chicago, but at North Platte, Nebraska, I get on 83 north. I don’t know where I want to go but I don’t want to go back to Chicago.
I hit a town called Valentine, just before the South Dakota border. It’s after dark as I park my little Nash between two pickup trucks and walk into a bar called Diamond Jack’s. Country Western music is playing and a woman on a little stage is taking off her clothes. I find a stool and order a beer and watch her. She isn’t very attractive but she seems to be enjoying herself.
At a table in front of the stage a bunch of guys in cowboy hats are whistling and hooting and laughing and tilting their chairs back and slugging one another in the arm. They seem to be imitating cowboys in a beer commercial. You could argue it’s the other way around, but that’s not my impression.
When the girl gets down to her g-string and pasties— apparently as far as the law here allows—she doesn’t seem to know what else to do. So she starts doing jumping-jacks. I’m serious. She has great big tits and they’re flopping and wheeling like mad and the cowboys are hooting and hollering like cowboys and I finish my beer and get back on the road.
I continue north, into South Dakota, onto the Rosebud Indian Reservation, into a little town called St. Francis, and knock on a trailer with lights in the windows, to ask directions to the nearest motel, hoping a wise old medicine man invites me in and we smoke a peace pipe and he teaches me the ways of the Red Man and gives me an Indian name, something like Many Roads or Many Jobs.
An old skinny baldheaded very pale-faced paleface in thick glasses, a narrow black tie and suspenders opens the door. He is smoking a pipe, and he’s very friendly.
“Hello. Come in,” he says. “Welcome to the Rosebud. Would you like something to drink? I have some lemonade. Why don’t you ask your wife to join us.”
“Actually, I don’t have one,” I say, apologetically.
“I see. Well, now I’m confused. I was told you were bringing a wife.”
“I think you’re mistaking me for someone else, sir.” I tell him my name and how haphazard my being here is.
“I thought you were the new history teacher. I was told he was coming out early, being something of an Indian enthusiast. You’re still welcome to some lemonade, if you’d like.”
“Thank you.”
“‘A Persian’s heaven is easily made. ‘Tis but black eyes and lemonade.’”
“Pardon?”
“From Thomas Moore, early 19th century. Sit at the table. My name is George Burns, by the way—like the comedian, only I smoke a pipe instead of a cigar and I’m not very funny, at least not intentionally. Here you are.”
“Thank you.”
He stands by my chair. “In fact, I’m told that the students refer to me as Mister Death. I assume it’s because I resemble a cadavar, dress like a mortician and teach mathematics, which is dry like old bones.”
“High school?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do you know if they need any English teachers?”
“Not to my knowledge. But they may be needing people for the new tutoring center. You should speak to a man named Bob Sage. So. You’re an English teacher. Do you think someone else wrote Shakespeare’s plays?”
“No.”
“I quite agree. You can sleep here tonight, if you like. I’m not a homosexual.”
It’s past noon when I wake up on George Burns’s lumpy corduroy couch. He’s in the kitchen, a few feet away, talking to a big brown broadfaced Indian in a T-shirt and John Deere cap, who comes right over when he sees me sit up, shakes my hand, says his name is Ben Walking Eagle, and asks if I like baseball.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I do.”
He asks if I need a glove.
“Well, no. I’ve got one in the car, in the trunk.”
He tells me to hurry up and get dressed.
He explains on the way, driving George and me in his pickup truck along a dusty gravel road that rolls through miles of nothing but grassland. Game time is in half an hour. Three of their players—including their best hitter, Ben’s cousin Charlie Bad Hand—were in a car accident last night driving back from Cut Meat. No one was killed but they’re all in the hospital, leaving the team with eight guys, and he wasn’t able to recruit anyone because no one wants to risk it.
“Risk what?”
“Screwing up. This is a big game. We’re playing the Negroes.”
I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “The who?”
“The Negroes. They’re from Mission. They’re not really Negroes. That’s just their team name, you know?”
George says, “As, for example, Redskins, Chiefs, Indians, Braves …”
“We’re the Jews,” Ben says.
Seems fair enough.
The field is laid out in the middle of nowhere, with cars parked every which way, and Indians everywhere—on the hoods and roofs of the cars, packed into a pair of rickety bleachers, and some on actual horses. Little kids are racing around, dogs chasing them, and there’s a couple of tables with women selling quilts and cookies.
The field isn’t bad. It has a freshly-dragged dirt infield with a well-built pitcher’s mound. The outfield grass needs cutting but hopefully I’ll be in the infield, where I belong. They’ve got cement block dugouts, a good backstop, and up behind it a wooden shaky-looking announcer’s booth where a fat guy in a straw cowboy hat with a big white feather is chatting away over a loudspeaker.
Ben turns off the engine and says, “Right field or second base—which you want?”
“Second base, definitely. I’ve always—”
He gets out and hurries off towards the announcer’s booth.
George gets out, carefully climbs up on the hood and lights his pipe. I get out and stand there with my glove.
“Last-minute addition for the Jews,” the announcer says. “A wasichu!”
There’s some polite applause.
I look at George.
He removes his pipe. “Means white man.”
Ben yells something at me, cupping his mouth, and I o
pen my arms and shake my head, meaning I didn’t hear, and he yells something up to the announcer, who speaks again:
“He doesn’t seem to have a name. So: batting ninth, playing second base for the Saint Francis Jews: No-Name.
There’s some laughter.
I look at George.
He shrugs.
“Okay, folks,” the announcer continues, “just about ready to get started. Couple messages. Ellen One Feather, if you’re here …”
I’ve gone from Idiot to No-Name. That seems the right direction. And it’s certainly a beautiful day for a ballgame.
Ben waves me over and I follow him to the third base dugout to meet my fellow Jews.
The P.A. guy never shuts up, as if he’s covering the game over radio. He’s pretty good though:
“Here’s the wind-up and the first pitch of the game—a strike, says umpire Bill Many Horses, right on the outside corner. Nice pitch, Ben. Sally Iron Shell just gave us some good news from the hospital: all three are listed in good condition. Happy to hear that. If you seen what their car looked like—here’s an easy fly ball out to left field, Eddie Red Water under it… for the out.”
As we throw the ball around the infield, I have to work hard at keeping a stupid grin off my face. I mean, here I am, playing baseball on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. I feel like I’m leading a pretty damn colorful life.
The game turns out to be a pitcher’s duel. I make a couple of handy fielding plays, receiving a nice response from the crowd. At the plate though, I whiff my first time up and ground out in my next appearance. But in the bottom of the eighth, with still no score, I push a perfect little bunt up the first base line and easily beat it out.
Lots of cheering, and the announcer says, “Well done, No-Name! Well done!”
I’m quickly becoming a local favorite.
The batter after me hits a weak grounder to the shortstop, who throws to second base, and I slide in hard to break up the double play.
The second baseman is hurt. He’s on his back, holding his knee, rocking from side to side with his eyes closed. Other Negro players are gathered around him, speaking to him in Indian. He looks up at me and says something. I ask the guy beside me to translate.
“Said you better go on back home, wasichu”
“Tell him I’m very sorry. Tell him I—”
“He speaks English.”
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