A View from the Buffalo Tree

By Kelly Woods

There was a time when I aimed my camera at Dad like a gun, slowly, breathlessly, pulling the trigger on my Boogeyman who sat there innocent as a child, unpredictable as a madman, unaware of my effort to capture him on film. So says Katie, in the gripping novel, A View from the Buffalo Tree, which is about one womans triumph over a childhood clouded with dark secrets. Under the gnarled branches of the Buffalo Tree, Katie weaves a passionate, hard-hitting, family saga of mental delusions and dark taboos. All the while she strives to overcome grief with humor and grit. A View From the Buffalo Tree blooms with woven themes of love and loss, good and evil, faith and forgiveness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 15, 2002
• ISBN: 9781477163085

Kelly Woods

I have been writing short stories and poetry for a number of years, however decided in 2012 that my bucket list had to include becoming a published author. Thus began the debut novella 'All Bets Off'. While this book was being written, I also won 3rd place in the 2013 Country Women's Association of Victoria State Literary Competition for a poem with the theme '85 years old'. Writing is a passion of mine, and it's how I escape the craziness of this world. I hope you enjoy my work and can escape with me!

Book preview

PROLOGUE

There was a time when I aimed my camera at Dad like a gun, slowly, breathlessly pulling the trigger on my Boogeyman who sat there unpredictable as a madman, looking innocent as a child, unaware of my effort to capture him on film. This crazy mixture of love and betrayal, of light and darkness, of faith and hope started long ago, before I was even born.

Yuh just don’t know your dad … how he was, Mom always said. He was different before the accident… .

That accident happened in 1948, when Mom, Dad, and two hitchhikers they’d picked up, came rolling up to the crest of Snoqualmie Pass. Grandma Danielle was at the wheel. They’d have been singing and smoking, because that’s what the Crammers always do. And of course they’d have had cold beers opened. I picture the black roads, illuminated by clear mountain air and a full moon in that instant before an oncoming car hit a patch of black-ice, and slowly drifted into my family’s lane. The bright headlights pointing at each other like spotlights on a tragic drama.

Children! Danielle screamed. There was a little boy and girl in the other car. To avoid a head on she cranked her wheel toward the cliff. There was an uproar of noise as the two cars hit sides, a whump, a thud, a grinding of metal. Then my family’s car plowed through trees and rolled down one hundred feet of mountainside. There was a roaring rumble as the car rolled, over and over down the mountain.

Mom was pummeled by rocks, tree branches, and the glass that exploded upon impact. She cried out with each roll, a wailing forced out of her by the violent motion. She was batteredand bruised inside and out. A tree branch speared through her lower right leg. But the heartbreak was the sight of Grandma Danielle who’d been thrown from the car with the final jolt. Grandma looked like a doll that had been caught in a hailstorm of rocks. Almost unrecognizable.

Mom would not go up to the road for help. She clung to Dad, refusing to leave him.

The hitchhikers crawled out of the darkened ravine, up the steep bluff on sharp rocks and over broken and twisted trees. They crawled away from the steaming car and away from Danielle’s body, who lay cold with all the song, all the color, and all the life gone from her, away from Dad, who was unconscious, bleeding from a wicked head-injury, and away from Mom.

Oh God … don’t leave me, Will. Mom sat shivering, crying, and rocking Dad in her arms.

The hitchhikers stood on the side of the road looking for help and saw the other car crumpled into the side of the mountain. The cold air was thick with the smell of sap from the fallen trees. The moon’s rays illuminated the children’s faces, as they stood by their crumpled car, looking innocent, big eyed, safe.

It was them or us, Mom’d tell. Your Grandma Danielle couldn’t harm children. So we went over the side. Danielle put herself between those children and the cliff. She was a wonderful woman, full of life. You’re named after your Grandma.

I am Katherine Danielle Crammer. I’m proud that I was named after Grandma. I wish she’d have lived long enough for me to really know her.

Mom and Dad had been married for seventeen joyous years before that accident. Then all the giggle was gone. They plunged down a cliff to financial ruin, losing their new home, their car, their business, their beloved Danielle, their former relationship, all gone because of that crash.

Dad suffered a broken back and a severe concussion, which left him in a coma for seven days. Changed forever, the crash left him a babbling invalid. That hit on his head had knocked him right out of himself. Two months later, Mom took Dad home from the hospital. He was in a back brace, needing full care. She wrapped her arms around him, hanging on to what had not been taken.

Four months after the crash Mom was feeling weak, nauseated. Doc. Petrovitsky told her she was expecting, pregnant.

No! I can’t be, she cried. They had tried for years to have a baby, then gave up, resigned to be childless. Mom had been five-weeks pregnant at the time of the accident. My brother had been in on the ride down the cliff. He was born silent, with water on the lungs, a blue baby that almost didn’t survive.

That was the birth of Wilhelm Crammer Jr. We called him Willy.

Dad was just learning to walk, talk, and feed himself. He’d sit like a dumb child in his back brace starting to remember fragments of who he was. Mom felt she could not handle two babies at the same time, so she sent the frail infant off to live with Grandma Kate’s sister.

Oh, Will, Mom cried, come back to me. She clung to him and somewhere in that passion, on a cold night made warm, less than a year after the accident she joined him as his wife and I was conceived.

One year from Willy’s birth, Mom had me. She called for Willy’s return and started her new life as a mother of two young children. She raised us like twins, him being older and frail, me being younger, robust, and healthy.

You kids were a lot of trouble, she’d say. Mom would sit us in high chairs facing each other. Never did need much from me, you’ve always had each other.

When Willy’d stick his tongue out, I’d laugh. And when Willy’d talk, I’d learn to talk. And when Willy’d walk on unsteady legs, I’d follow on my strong legs. And when he’d pick up his spaghetti bowl, turning it over on his head, spilling pasta over his hair and ears like a clown’s orange hair, I’d squeal and do the same.

* * *

If the Buffalo Tree had a voice it could tell stories, explain things. If I had a picture of it, you’d see a gnarled old maple with a rough-barked trunk about fifteen feet around that looked like the massive body of a buffalo. It had something hidden deep under its skin, a secret, a trunk tumor, a growth bulging out from its side looking like a buffalo’s head. Its huge fat branches grew like a canopy, up into the cloudy sky. Its big roots dug deep into the eroded ground like great hairy legs. It was a survivor of harsh northwestern winters. Willy said it was just a tree. But to me it was the biggest in all the woods, it knew things.

1

Cuz you ain’t seen the Boogeyman, I’m gonna tell yuh what he’s like. My favorite cousin Timmy and I were six, resting beneath the branches of the mighty old Buffalo Tree. Timmy and I had been running in the woods most of the morning. Then, cross-legged on a carpet of orange, brown, and green leaves we were Indians on a pow wow, holding in our hands the knives that would make us blood brothers.

Not the fuck-u-finger! I giggled as green leaves reflected on the knife.

Timmy laughed from deep inside. Yuh gotta cut the pointer finger! he said. His laughter exploded out of him, like he had things in there that needed escaping.

Looking at the knife that pushed skin down on my fingertip, my hand shook. I ain’t cuttin’ for the blood, I said quivering voiced, and threw the knife down.

Yuh chicken? Timmy asked.

No, I ain’t chicken.

Well, Timmy said, can’t have a girl be a blood brother, gotta be a boy.

Gotta be a boy, gotta be a boy, I said, rocking my head back and forth. So now what we gonna do?

Timmy was quiet as he laid back looking up at the tall trees.

Wish we could get married, go away, I said.

Gotta wait till we’re grown, Timmy’s brown eyes looked at me. Then we get married for sure. Timmy’s straight black hair was like a rainbow, lots of color.

Yeah, it’s a promise. We shook warm hands on it.

We’ll tell scary stories, Timmy said, fluffing leaves for his pillow. He deepened his voice, Once upon a time there’s this kid, who had his mom and dad took off to jail, by the tall cops … that was dressed in dark suits with shiny silver badges pinned to their chests and silver guns dangling’ on their hips.

I’d been there the night the cops came. I’d seen those cop cars, and the fights.

Timmy’s voice was not crying, but his eyes were, Ain’t nobody in that house, but the kid. That old house of theirs was dark, with dead air and long dusty shadows moving across peeling wallpaper.

He’s hungry … and tired … and alone … with the creaking. Hiding from the cops so’s they won’t take ‘im off to jail, too. Then like someone hit the air out of him, Timmy was quiet. We looked at dark clouds drifting in and out of the sun’s path making polka-dot lines of light streaming down to the woods. Timmy hit me on the arm.

Your turn, he said. I listened to the trees squeaking in the breeze, winds sounding like a creek running over soft round rocks.

Cuz, you ain’t seen the Boogeyman, I’m gonna tell yuh what he’s like. Now that youse live with us, I said, don’t know what he might do. You’ll know him by his white, white skin … naked in the night … comes out of the darkness while yuh sleep with a big base ball bat sticking outta his middle. Don’t let him hit yuh with it. Bad hands. Just squeeze you eyes shut ‘n scream. He’ll disappear. Him don’t like no cry babies.

Aw, come on Katie, yuh tellin’ the truth? Timmy pushed himself up, his brown eyes fearful.

Sorry, I said. I’s just tellin’ a story.

2

In the beginning Daddy pounded his hands onto my brother Willy’s back and legs to beat the polio out. Mom told stories of how she’d put all three of us in bed while she went off to work. Up till the time I was three, the hours passed to the sounds of those big hands pounding and kneading Willy’s legs and back. Then I’d pull my dress up and Daddy rubbed me too.

Most times Willy’s face was frozen, except when he’d make faces for me. He’d put his chin down on his chest, roll his blue eyes up just below the brow, then collapse his lips and stick out his tongue. I laughed, then he laughed. His light-brown eyebrows flipped up just at the part of the brow that curves down. I’d try to flip my eyebrows too, wanting to look like my big brother.

When Willy was four he was like some kind of exotic animal, big kneed, white skinny legs propelling a bird-caged body. He hunched over two wooden crutches, gliding like a dancer, flowing forward, and balancing on bird legs. I remember when we were at Grandma Kate’s house, everyone making a fuss over Willy, saying how cute he was on those crutches. Grandma Kate would rock me nice on her chair and giggle at the sight of Willy. I liked to chase him. Wished I had crutches.

He don’t need ‘em, I’d say. He could walk just fine.

Grandma laughed and said; You ain’t no doctor. And for that one summer Willy had crutches anyways.

There was lots of games back then. In the wrestling games, Daddy would stand in the middle of the living room and Mom watched from her big chair. Daddy was so tall his face was wayup in the air. Willy’d run up to Daddy, grab a leg, push and pull, trying to knock him down.

You gonna get me? Dad would say.

I’m gonna knock yuh down to size, Willy hollered, deep voiced.

Willy and I tried to wrestle Daddy to the floor. We gonna knock yuh down! I charged, thinking one day we would win.

But then one of those big hands shot like an arrow and grabbed me by the ankle, squeezing like a vice, pulling me up into the air, dangling me upside down. I was helpless in a grip so firm it hurt to struggle; feeling like my foot would be squeezed off while struggling to pull myself up. Not being strong enough to escape the bad hand, it felt like hours passed with my blue dress collapsed down over my face, unable to hide behind the blue curtain of my dress, fearing eyes were on my panties as I was unable to cover myself.

Willy jumped, pushed, and pulled trying to free me. But Daddy dangled me higher like a caught fish on a hook. Willy stood on one of the big shoes and held on as Daddy moved strong as a gorilla around the room. Deep pits of quiet surrounded us.

Blood rushed to my head, feeling like it would explode. I was afraid he’d drop me, afraid he’d never let me down. Angry voices inside my head whirling, It’s the bad hands … don’t wanna cry upside down … it hurts … face ain’t made to cry this way. All this chaos whirled in my head as tears pooled in my eye sockets then dribbled over my brows, into my hair, and onto the blue dress. Snot ran up my nose making me feel like I’d suffocate. I wiped my nose on the dress, and saw my reflection in the living room window. I was like a big-eyed doll dangling in a pool of blackness. Then framed like a picture the red-plaid shirt moved with no face.

Daddy saw I was crying. Get offa me boy, he bellowed flinging Willy into the air. Mad-faced, Daddy put me on the floor. I was the crybaby. Shame on me. Daddy went back to hisbig chair next to Mom where they sat like a king and queen looking down on me, the crybaby, who always ruined the fun.

Get me a beer, Daddy said. And Willy raced to the refrigerator.

* * *

At our house, I’d see the Boogeyman in the night, so snowywhite, I could see him in the dark. He’s kind of fuzzy around the edges like maybe he was a ghost. Not clear, like maybe I needed to rub sleep out of my eyes. He was skinny. When I looked up at him from my bed it was like his head almost touched the ceiling. His hair was dark and his eyes were black holes floating in a frosty face.

He’d always come when it was quiet, very still. I’d be so tired, not able to tell if he was really there or if I’d just had myself another bad dream.

The worst time was when the big hand, as big as a baseball mitt, came down on my face with the smell of cigarettes and beer. The beard scratched my face. The bad hand went over my mouth, over my nose, tasting of salt. Hard to breathe. Like the growl of an animal, pushing hot stinking air into my ear, Don’t tell.

He felt me crying, because I was jiggling under his hand, and he got mad, and disappeared into the dark.

one time the Boogeyman came into my sleep, rubbed my chest and belly, hurt my potty with those big fingers. I didn’t cry, because the big hand was over my mouth, couldn’t breathe.

A light came slicing into my room and I heard someone go into the bathroom across the hall. There was pain in my potty, I put my hand down there, and got wet on my hand. I saw blood just before the bathroom light went out.

Then it was quiet, a dark quiet with tears, snot, and spit mixing with the blood on my hand. I wiped my face on the sheets, blew my nose on the sheets, cleaned my hand on the sheets, then pulled them sheets up and went back to sleep.

So, I was always afraid of the dark. Every night Willy’d turn on the light in my bedroom because I’d not put my hand into the dark. He looked under my bed and in my closet.

You see a Boogeyman? I’d ask.

No, coast is clear. When he said coast is clear, I thought he sounded like a cowboy. I was proud of my Willy.

Pretend you’re a submarine, he said, dive under your blankets and go out to sea. He held open the covers and I’d climb in, pretending to be a submarine.

Sometimes I’d pretend to race down train tracks, speeding out of town, feeling the breeze as telephone poles flashed by. I’dget bigger and bigger as the tracks got smaller and smaller.

* * *

When I was three Daddy went back to work and pushed a broom around the airplane factory. At home he’d sit at the kitchen table and take things apart, then put them back together, like the toaster, an iron, a lamp and a hair drier. Outside he had a mountain of car parts beginning to grow along with all the partially disassembled car bodies.

Mom and Dad would go to the tavern a lot, leaving Willy and me in the car. We were like caged animals waiting, rocking forward and back on the car seat, like it was an invisible rocking chair. Willy always started first.

I dreamed Daddy reads the paper, I’d tell Willy. And Momma wears aprons and bakes cookies, just like on TV. My new Daddy’ll ask how my day was. He smiles, smokes a pipe, and holds me nice on his lap.

I’d rock some more on the car seat, like smacking a pillow, a dull thud, thud of our backs hitting the seat.

What you dreamin’? I’d ask.

I don’t dream, Willy said, pounding his back harder and harder, faster and faster into the seat. Sometimes the snot got beat right out of’ his nose, the whole car rocked.

Nothing to do in a car so long, we would look at our hands and feet at the big Crammer knuckles. He’d crack his fingers to make them bigger. When I cracked mine Mom’d say, Better stop that, won’t like big knuckles when youse get older. So I’d only crack them when she wasn’t looking. I wanted to crack mine loud like Willy.

3

Even, when my eyes grip tightly closed

against the evil things that darkness brings,

behind my lids shine white wishes,

till goodness reappears… .

Willy and I were playing in Mom and Daddy’s things. Cousin Nancy was supposed to be watching us but she was on the phone. I put on Mom’s high-heel lady shoes, and Willy put on Daddy’s back brace and big man shoes. We walked around to Willy’s room like grown-ups. I tried to give Willy a kiss like Momma does Daddy but Willy growled like a bear.

Then Nancy came into the room.

What you two brats doin’? she asked. Nancy had me and Willy take our clothes off. Youse gonna like this game, she said, in a voice that gave me the creeps. She had long red fingernails on bone-white hands that she lathered in lotion.

Willy was on top of me. I was four and he was five. Our naked skin touched from cheek to toe. We let out uncomfortable giggles at this game, making our bellies jiggle, moist in the summer heat. We didn’t smile.

I had seen Willy cry, and I had heard Willy cry, but this was the first time I’d felt him cry. I watched sunlight slice through the darkness filtering through the window. Lying on my back I saw little specks floating in the light as I pushed my hand out of the darkness. The floating stuff moved through the air, just like bath stuff moves on water.

Mom and Daddy were gone to the Tavern.

I watched Nancy move in and out of the shadow. Her hair and eyes were black. Nancy had an anger in her, all pent up, like she was gonna gnaw someone’s head off. She talked in a sugary voice, too sweet, making it crystallize and get scratchy.

"Okay, this is how you do it. Move your butt up and down." Nancy’s raspy voice smelled like cigarettes. Her eyes were glazed over like she was seeing something else. Her lips were pulled flat, like she was trying to smile, but her face didn’t know how.

I forced myself to think about the air, wondering if her words made waves in the particles as she pushed Willy’s butt on top of me.

"Move your butt," she commanded. Move your butt! She was swatting Willy on the rump. The slapping sound echoed off the blue walls, as the bones of his potty push onto the bones of my potty. It hurt. Willy’s tears ran warm down his face onto mine. I wondered if the tears made waves on my cheek as I tried to hold him off.

You kids, Nancy cried, are no fun. She jerked Willy up, pulling us off the dark bed and into the light. "Get dressed, you naughty kids." She stomped away.

We are naughty children … naughty children, I said as we pulled on our clothes.

As we pulled up our pants I saw Willy’s butt in the light. It was branded with big red hand marks. We wiped tears and snot on our shirts as we dressed.

Next time we’ll do it better, I said.

Willy said nothing.

I wondered if the particles in the air moved, as we walked out of his room. He flicked tears off his cheek and I thought about Nancy being some kinda boogeyman.

4

In my pretend playroom there was twirling,

swirling, prancing bright colors,twisting, turning,

sparkling in the light.

Around the stage I danced, breathing in music as I spin. White arms reached out, white legs launching in rhythmic turns to what I felt. I’d go on, my whole heart in the open, roaming the stage, dancing for applause, stomping away the shame of a naughty girl, chasing away a Boogeyman. In the secret-playroom I was one with the music, my spirit in its tune, hearing echoes of approval. I’d dance braver, harder, faster, powerfully flying through the air, my gown floating like colorful feathers. I was a bird, flying above it all, away.

In my pretend-playroom magic and dreams were free, to be anything, a bird, a fish, a dancer, singer, piano player, rainbow, tree. This is where I’d go during nap-time at school. This is where I’d go, when it was raining outside, or when trapped in a car. This is where I’d go when it was bedtime, dark. A place to hide, to play, a place to spin magic around myself.

It was hidden behind an invisible door in the back of my closet. My real clothes hung on a pole leaving plenty of room to enter under them. When I needed to get away, I’d run through the door like a ghost. I had magical powers. No one knew.

Just inside was a small wooden chair, a table, with one red cash register, and plenty of play money. Sitting at the table I’d put my head down resting safely, listening to the music in my head.

A shelf held my dream dolls. Three of them. The ballerina had charmed steps that helped me dance, in a rainbow of music. She was tall in a sparkling pink dress, smelling of a new doll, a brand new doll. The wedding doll had a white gown with a delicate veil floating above the long train. She was the keeper of goodness surrounded by church music. Raggedy Ann smelled like Mom’s Emeraude perfume. She had long, soft, brown hair to match her eyes. She was big enough to hold me, or small enough to be held with sounds of safe lullabies.

My secret playroom had a wardrobe of matching outfits for my dolls and me. I’d dance and sing on the stage. Sometimes I was a ballerina in a shimmery outfit that flowed out at the hips. And there were ballerina tights and shoes too. When I slipped on the shoes, my feet became the feet of a master dancer; up on my toes I’d twirl and leap through the air. My hair in a bun, as my doll and I danced together.

Sometimes I’d pick a long elegant gown that glimmered like the inside of an oyster shell, iridescent colors of pearl would cling to me. or I’d be trimmed with ostrich feathers or in the wild yellow lilies that grow by the Buffalo Tree. My dolls and I dressed in furs, and glittering jewelry, dresses for every desire: seaweed, flower petal, fish skin, maple leaves and more, lace, nylon, satin, and sunshine. I was a leopard in black tights with a brown spotted body suit. A black cap covered my long blonde hair, and long cat whiskers wavered below my nose. I leaped through the patches of dark and light spots on the stage, moving catlike to native drums, attacking the dance with powerful moves.

And when I’d sing, standing in a slice of light at center stage, my whole heart flowed out of my chest in notes of magical dreams. I was in a big city, or on a mountaintop, or by the side of the Salmon River. Anywhere, anytime, anything was possible, and the rapt audience sat quietly listening, hearing, knowing, as I was alone in my pretend room.

5

When I heard that our cousins Timmy and Ben were moving in with us, I thought about where they had come from and wondered if it was best to live in our house with the Boogeyman or in their house that blew and blistered up with anger in hurricane proportions. I can say, that them moving in with us was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was five then, not in school yet, 1955.

Where they had come from was down our hill, across the Salmon River, and up on the opposite hill at the farthest end of the city limits in Benson. Timmy’s house was like a black and white photo with splashes of red. Their two-story house with dark boards was worn to such an extent that it was hard to tell if it had ever been painted. Alongside the house, in the road’s gutter were all the sparkling shards of broken beer and pop bottles that us kids made by throwing rocks. Target practice. It was surrounded by tall trees and a deep rutted dirt road driving up to the porch that was covered with stacked beer cases, shovels, an old coal-burning stove, tools, car parts, and a slimy dog dish. Everything was coated with the constant dust flying off the bare dirt yard. Should you choose to sit, there was a broken lawn chair that would bite your butt if you sat on it.

The early years, at their house, it seemed that our families were like the raging torrents on the wintry Salmon River, out of control, as if we were all in some wild whirlpool being sucked deeper and deeper into the darkness of the muddy water. And because we’d be there every weekend, visiting, I’d seen those frigid storms at Timmy’s house.

Lots of blood comes out of a head wound, Mom had said, in a deep voice trying to calm the clamor of everyone running around. I was five years old in a wet tee shirt full of blood. Mom yanked the shirt over my head and rinsed it out in the sink, making a whirlpool of red. I’d been hit in the head with a rock. It didn’t hurt; just made a mess. Their place was always a bedlam of loud music, blaring from a screeching radio, kids shouting and running around, and the fights.

It seemed to me that turmoil and chaos were normal things for their place.

But cousin Ben started jittering in the chaos, Someone’s gonna die, someone’s gonna die. Ben hated blood. He’d go crazy like he does, flapping his arms like a crazed chicken flopping around after its head’s been lopped off.

And, I had seen uncle Clem’s head, that time when Aunt Amy hit him with the frying pan.

He’s been needin’ to get hit for a long time, Mom muttered.

Clem, had lots of blood running down his angry face like a red river splitting down both sides of his nose. I’d seen it, we’d all seen it, that dull gaze of brown eyes lost in the hit. Then the rage came back to those eyes. Screaming, spittle spewed in the scarlet river that ran down his head.

Everyone tried to hide.

uncle Clem grabbed Aunt Amy by her thick red hair. Her brown eyes glared back at him like an animal gone mad. Like rabid dogs they were going at each other. He hit her hard on the nose. Blood flew from her face, down her shirt, into her hair, across the walls, and cupboards.

Then, those cop car’s red lights came slashing into their yard, splashing red lights across the trees, lights flashing through the air, reflecting off the house, and drunken adult faces. The cop cars stopped their shrieking sirens and all the people got silent as they took uncle Clem away.

Under the bloody cloth Aunt Amy’s ranting voice, Sonofabitch, sonofabitch.

Dad’s got his head looking up at the tree branches, like what he sees in the trees is the show.

Mom’s trying to hold me away from what I’d seen. Willy’s eyes went blank.

Timmy was scuffing his foot in the dirt.

Cousin Ben was jittering up and down, crying, Daddy, Daddy … as we watched Uncle Clem get small in the cop car that took him away.

* * *

Not long after Uncle Clem was taken away we heard Aunt Amy had tuberculosis and Timmy and Ben needed a place to live.

What ‘bout his Goddamn family? Dad’s voice exploded through our house while Willy and I tried to sleep. Can’t they take ‘em?

They’re in Arkansas, Mom shouted. I don’t want ‘em shipped to Arkansas.

Well, what about the tuberculosis?

Kids don’t have it! Her voice was brittle from the screaming.

How the hell we gonna feed ‘em?

Everything shakes when they’re fussing and I tried to hide under my covers.

Early the next morning Mom and Dad marched cousins Timmy and Ben into our house. Dad plops two brown paper bags down onto the big round oak dining room table. Then he went back out to the green station wagon to get folding cots. Mom ushered the boys to the bathroom.

Take off your clothes, she ordered, as steaming water ran into the tub. They stripped down in the chilly air throwing their clothes in a pile.

Willy and I sat Indian style in the dark hallway looking into the bright-white bathroom. We kids were all dancing inside, couldn’t wait to play.

Shoo! Mom shouted, waving her arms at Willy and me as she charged to the kitchen for Pine-Sol and dish soap.

Don’t look, Ben hollered at me.

I seen your butt before, I said. There’d been plenty of times we’d all been in the shower at their house together. Been plenty of times we’d all been in this tub together, too, with just me in my panties, because I was the only one without a weenie.

Turn your head, Katie, Timmy said.

Okay, I said.

Mom returned to fill the small room with the strong smell of Pine-Sol and gigantic piles of bubbles from the dish soap.

It’s too hot, Ben’s voice reverberated over the splashing water, like voices in a cave.

No, it’s not, Mom said, I tested it with my own hand, now get in!

I watched as Mom ran a steaming wash cloth all over them, splashing bubbles everywhere and they just sat in the tub looking like soaked puppies.

Get up, she said, lifting Timmy out of the tub, throwing Ben a towel. Their pink skin was steaming and the room filled with a loud gurgling noise as the water ran out the drain. They pulled on some of Willy’s clean undies; them being small on Ben’s bulky butt and big on Timmy’s cute butt.

I followed Mom into the kitchen and watched her empty the brown bags of their clothes into the washer. She poured in extra soap and Pine-Sol. Then she chased me back down the hall.

Get ready for your bath, she said to Willy and me.

Then Timmy and Ben sat Indian style in white undies, outside the bathroom watching Willy and me get our baths. I sat with a smile as Mom rubbed that cloth over ears and everything. Then she popped up and we stepped out of the tub, me behind the towel. When we were dry she picked up all the clothes like they were worse than peed on and raced them to the washer.

Mom grabbed a bucket of soapy Pine-Sol water and started running a cloth over everything, all the old door knobs, the gray, Formica, kitchen table, the gray vinyl chairs, the old coffee tables, even the lamps and draw chains. She washed all the dishes, even the ones that were already clean, scrubbed the old linoleum floor, washed the white painted doors inside and out, then splashed the leftover soapy water over the worn, wooden steps and down the entry. Hot water steamed a puff of fog into the cold morning air.

Get me another beer, Dad growled, watching The Lone Ranger and Tonto gallop across the TV screen as Mom ran the cloth over the picture.

Get your Dad a beer, she said.

As I opened the refrigerator she was running out into the chilly morning, with the laundry baskets full of piping hot clothes for the line.

Ben didn’t have TB, Timmy didn’t have TB, none of us had it, we’d all been tested, but there was something about a TB bug that had all the adults acting scared.

Timmy and Ben slept in the dining room on cots pushed away from the table. That night I watched Ben neatly fold and unfold his three tee shirts. Then he stacked them on top of his two pair of blue jeans, the one with the most holes on the bottom. Timmy just threw his stuff under his cot. Ben pulled Timmy’s stuff out and folded and refolded, then put them back under the cot. He didn’t know I was watching.

I was supposed to be eating green beans but I’d sit for hours refusing to eat those damned things. Then Ben leaned over the cot running his hand over the sheet, over and over like an iron. Then he murmured, I miss my doggy.

You could share Happy with us. He’s a good dog, I said.

Ben jumped, he didn’t know I’d been watching. Happy ain’t my dog, he said, not looking at me.

Yeah, he is. Now that youse live with us he’s your dog, too.

6

Springtime, all us kids exploded out of houses.

Feeling like we’d been in dark caves, deep sleeps.

I wanted to fill my chest with fresh air, to see new leaves,

to run fast, maybe even fly away.

Grandma Kate worked hard all year. She had no car. Every Sunday she walked down the steep hill, across the Salmon River and up to the cemetery, putting flowers on Grandpa’s grave. All week she’d get up before the sun, head down the hill on strong legs, going to work. Then at night she’d carry bags of groceries up the hill.

At work she washed dishes at the Back Stretch Cafe of the racetrack. The kitchen was so small it was like Grandma filled the whole room. She was as short as a kid, but held herself tall as a man. The door was always opened out back. I wondered why she didn’t run away out that door, or at least sit on the step and watch the horses run in the morning with their hot breath steaming puffs of fog out of big noses.

Grandma humped over the sink in a thick mist of hot steaming water, scraping dishes with the same constant pounding noise as the horse’s hooves outside the door. Singing in a scratchy voice; Amazin’ grace, how sweet the sound, that saves a wretch like me.

Grandma wore one long gray braid of hair wrapped around her head like a kitten on a warm rug. She had dark skin with a round growth like a beauty mark on her forehead and piercing brown eyes that glared out from behind silver rimmed glasses that balanced across her straight nose.

I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see, she’d sing.

You like this kinda work? I asked her.

Doin’ a job good is its own reward, she said, plunging yellow gloved hands into the bubbly sink. Gotta keep it ship shape.

Every spring Grandma let word out that she’d be going for a walk, and if you were good, you could go too. All us cousins lined up like a bunch of soldiers, antsy, frisky, and ready to go. We’d march down the path into the dark and light colors of the woods. The path started at our house with the Buffalo Tree. It was the biggest tree in all the forests, standing like a guard at the entrance to our woods. I felt the sun’s heat, making long strokes of light, as it sneaked between the thick branchy cover. It was a heavy, woody smell on my nose. We followed Grandma’s slow marching steps, quiet in the woods like it’s a church. She’s looking this way and that over the ground for a mushroom, or a white lily, or a yellow daffodil pushing up for the light.

There’s one, she’d say, quiet in her voice like it beheld the most beautiful thing of her life. Seeings how she had no car, and seeings how she had to wash dishes everyday, and seeings how everyone said how hard her life had been, I was glad the woods could gift her with blooms.

Grandma would take a deep breath of the woods and declare, God’s work.

Look in the shadows, up close to the trees, she said, that’s where you’ll find mushrooms. Flowers grew in places where the sun had a chance to do its warming. She’d not pick the flowers, just look at them, and sigh.

Shush, she’d say when we were too noisy.

Sometimes we’d see deer, rabbits, and squirrels. Whoever saw them first was the winner. We came upon a big fat tree, fallen dead over the creek. We each took turns following our leader, balancing across the log. This time Willy fell into the shallow cold creek. our laughter echoed up the sides of the hill.

Willy started screeching, Get me outta here, swinging his arms and kicking