Your initial post is due by Thursday night, January 27, 11:59 p.m. CST.
For your initial post, thoroughly answer the following questions. (“Everyday Use,” “Eveline,” and “The Red Convertible”)
1. Which character from these three stories did you relate to most and why? You only need to choose one character. What attributes of this character remind you of yourself? Thoroughly explain your thoughts. If you cannot relate to any of the characters, then answer the following question: Did the authors create believable characters? Why or why not?
2. Which of the three stories pulled you in immediately and why? Which of the three stories did you have a hard time getting into and why? Thoroughly explain your thoughts.
3. All of these stories contain rich symbols. Choose one symbol from each of the stories (three symbols total), and discuss the meaning of each symbol. Your opinion counts as long as you can support your ideas through the text.
“Everyday
Use”
by
Alice
Walker
I
will
wait
for
her
in
the
yard
that
Maggie
and
I
made
so
clean
and
wavy
yesterday
afternoon.
A
yard
like
this
is
more
comfortable
than
most
people
know.
It
is
not
just
a
yard.
It
is
like
an
extended
living
room.
When
the
hard
clay
is
swept
clean
as
a
floor
and
the
fine
sand
around
the
edges
lined
with
tiny,
irregular
grooves,
anyone
can
come
and
sit
and
look
up
into
the
elm
tree
and
wait
for
the
breezes
that
never
come
inside
the
house.
Maggie
will
be
nervous
until
after
her
sister
goes:
she
will
stand
hopelessly
in
corners,
homely
and
ashamed
of
the
burn
scars
down
her
arms
and
legs,
eying
her
sister
with
a
mixture
of
envy
and
awe.
She
thinks
her
sister
has
held
life
always
in
the
palm
of
one
hand,
that
“no”
is
a
word
the
world
never
learned
to
say
to
her.
You’ve
no
doubt
seen
those
TV
shows
where
the
child
who
has
“made
it”
is
confronted,
as
a
surprise,
by
her
own
mother
and
father,
tottering
in
weakly
from
backstage.
(A
pleasant
surprise,
of
course:
What
would
they
do
if
parent
and
child
came
on
the
show
only
to
curse
out
and
insult
each
other?)
On
TV
mother
and
child
embrace
and
smile
into
each
other’s
faces.
Sometimes
the
mother
and
father
weep,
the
child
wraps
them
in
her
arms
and
leans
across
the
table
to
tell
how
she
would
not
have
made
it
without
their
help.
I
have
seen
these
programs.
Sometimes
I
dream
a
dream
in
which
Dee
and
I
are
suddenly
brought
together
on
a
TV
program
of
this
sort.
Out
of
a
dark
and
soft.seated
limousine
I
am
ushered
into
a
bright
room
filled
with
many
people.
There
I
meet
a
smiling,
gray,
sporty
man
like
Johnny
Carson
who
shakes
my
hand
and
tells
me
what
a
fine
girl
I
have.
Then
we
are
on
the
stage
and
Dee
is
embracing
me
with
tears
in
her
eyes.
She
pins
on
my
dress
a
large
orchid,
even
though
she
has
told
me
once
that
she
thinks
orchids
are
tacky
flowers.
In
real
life
I
am
a
large,
big.boned
woman
with
rough,
man.working
hands.
In
the
winter
I
wear
flannel
nightgowns
to
bed
and
overalls
dur.ing
the
day.
I
can
kill
and
clean
a
hog
as
mercilessly
as
a
man.
My
fat
keeps
me
hot
in
zero
weather.
I
can
work
outside
all
day,
breaking
ice
to
get
water
for
washing;
I
can
eat
pork
liver
cooked
over
the
open
fire
minutes
after
it
comes
steaming
from
the
hog.
One
winter
I
knocked
a
bull
calf
straight
in
the
brain
between
the
eyes
with
a
sledge
hammer
and
had
the
meat
hung
up
to
chill
before
nightfall.
But
of
course
all
this
does
not
show
on
television.
I
am
the
way
my
daughter
would
want
me
to
be:
a
hundred
pounds
lighter,
my
skin
like
an
uncooked
barley
pancake.
My
hair
glistens
in
the
hot
bright
lights.
Johnny
Carson
has
much
to
do
to
keep
up
with
my
quick
and
witty
tongue.
But
that
is
a
mistake.
I
know
even
before
I
wake
up.
Who
ever
knew
a
Johnson
with
a
quick
tongue?
Who
can
even
imagine
me
looking
a
strange
white
man
in
the
eye?
It
seems
to
me
I
have
talked
to
them
always
with
one
foot
raised
in
flight,
with
my
head
fumed
in
whichever
way
is
farthest
from
them.
Dee,
though.
She
would
always
look
anyone
in
the
eye.
Hesitation
was
no
part
of
her
nature.
“How
do
I
look,
Mama?”
Maggie
says,
showing
just
enough
of
her
thin
body
enveloped
in
pink
skirt
and
red
blouse
for
me
to
know
she’s
there,
almost
hidden
by
the
door.
“Come
out
into
the
yard,”
I
say.
Have
you
ever
seen
a
lame
animal,
perhaps
a
dog
run
over
by
some
careless
person
rich
enough
to
own
a
car,
sidle
up
to
someone
who
is
ignorant
enough
to
be
kind
to
him?
That
is
the
way
my
Maggie
walks.
She
has
been
like
this,
chin
on
chest,
eyes
on
ground,
feet
in
shuffle,
ever
since
the
fire
that
burned
the
other
house
to
the
ground.
Dee
is
lighter
than
Maggie,
with
nicer
hair
and
a
fuller
figure.
She’s
a
woman
now,
though
sometimes
I
forget.
How
long
ago
was
it
that
the
other
house
burned?
Ten,
twelve
years?
Sometimes
I
can
still
hear
the
flames
and
feel
Maggie’s
arms
sticking
to
me,
her
hair
smoking
and
her
dress
falling
off
her
in
little
black
papery
flakes.
Her
eyes
seemed
stretched
open,
blazed
open
by
the
flames
reflected
in
them.
And
Dee.
I
see
her
standing
off
under
the
sweet
gum
tree
she
used
to
dig
gum
out
of;
a
look
of
concentration
on
her
face
as
she
watched
the
last
dingy
gray
board
of
the
house
fall
in
toward
the
red.hot
brick
chimney.
Why
don’t
you
do
a
dance
around
the
ashes?
I’d
wanted
to
ask
her.
She
had
hated
the
house
that
much.
I
used
to
think
she
hated
Maggie,
too.
But
that
was
before
we
raised
money,
the
church
and
me,
to
send
her
to
Augusta
to
school.
She
used
to
read
to
us
without
pity;
forcing
words,
lies,
other
folks’
habits,
whole
lives
upon
us
two,
sitting
trapped
and
ignorant
underneath
her
voice.
She
washed
us
in
a
river
of
make.believe,
burned
us
with
a
lot
of
knowl
edge
we
didn’t
necessarily
need
to
know.
Pressed
us
to
her
with
the
serf’
ous
way
she
read,
to
shove
us
away
at
just
the
moment,
like
dimwits,
we
seemed
about
to
understand.
Dee
wanted
nice
things.
A
yellow
organdy
dress
to
wear
to
her
grad.uation
from
high
school;
black
pumps
to
match
a
green
suit
she’d
made
from
an
old
suit
somebody
gave
me.
She
was
determined
to
stare
down
any
disaster
in
her
efforts.
Her
eyelids
would
not
flicker
for
minutes
at
a
time.
Often
I
fought
off
the
temptation
to
shake
her.
At
sixteen
she
had
a
style
of
her
own:
and
knew
what
style
was.
I
never
had
an
education
myself.
After
second
grade
the
school
was
closed
down.
Don’t
ask
my
why:
in
1927
colored
asked
fewer
questions
than
they
do
now.
Sometimes
Maggie
reads
to
me.
She
stumbles
along
good.naturedly
but
can’t
see
well.
She
knows
she
is
not
bright.
Like
good
looks
and
money,
quickness
passes
her
by.
She
will
marry
John
Thomas
(who
has
mossy
teeth
in
an
earnest
face)
and
then
I’ll
be
free
to
sit
here
and
I
guess
just
sing
church
songs
to
myself.
Although
I
never
was
a
good
singer.
Never
could
carry
a
tune.
I
was
always
better
at
a
man’s
job.
I
used
to
love
to
milk
till
I
was
hooked
in
the
side
in
’49.
Cows
are
soothing
and
slow
and
don’t
bother
you,
unless
you
try
to
milk
them
the
wrong
way.
I
have
deliberately
turned
my
back
on
the
house.
It
is
three
rooms,
just
like
the
one
that
burned,
except
the
roof
is
tin;
they
don’t
make
shingle
roofs
any
more.
There
are
no
real
windows,
just
some
holes
cut
in
the
sides,
like
the
portholes
in
a
ship,
but
not
round
and
not
square,
with
rawhide
holding
the
shutters
up
on
the
outside.
This
house
is
in
a
pasture,
too,
like
the
other
one.
No
doubt
when
Dee
sees
it
she
will
want
to
tear
it
down.
She
wrote
me
once
that
no
matter
where
we
“choose”
to
live,
she
will
manage
to
come
see
us.
But
she
will
never
bring
her
friends.
Maggie
and
I
thought
about
this
and
Maggie
asked
me,
“Mama,
when
did
Dee
ever
have
any
friends?”
She
had
a
few.
Furtive
boys
in
pink
shirts
hanging
about
on
washday
after
school.
Nervous
girls
who
never
laughed.
Impressed
with
her
they
worshiped
the
well.turned
phrase,
the
cute
shape,
the
scalding
humor
that
erupted
like
bubbles
in
Iye.
She
read
to
them.
When
she
was
courting
Jimmy
T
she
didn’t
have
much
time
to
pay
to
us,
but
turned
all
her
faultfinding
power
on
him.
He
flew
to
marry
a
cheap
city
girl
from
a
family
of
ignorant
flashy
people.
She
hardly
had
time
to
recompose
herself.
When
she
comes
I
will
meet—but
there
they
are!
Maggie
attempts
to
make
a
dash
for
the
house,
in
her
shuffling
way,
but
I
stay
her
with
my
hand.
“Come
back
here,
”
I
say.
And
she
stops
and
tries
to
dig
a
well
in
the
sand
with
her
toe.
It
is
hard
to
see
them
clearly
through
the
strong
sun.
But
even
the
first
glimpse
of
leg
out
of
the
car
tells
me
it
is
Dee.
Her
feet
were
always
neat.looking,
as
if
God
himself
had
shaped
them
with
a
certain
style.
From
the
other
side
of
the
car
comes
a
short,
stocky
man.
Hair
is
all
over
his
head
a
foot
long
and
hanging
from
his
chin
like
a
kinky
mule
tail.
I
hear
Maggie
suck
in
her
breath.
“Uhnnnh,
”
is
what
it
sounds
like.
Like
when
you
see
the
wriggling
end
of
a
snake
just
in
front
of
your
foot
on
the
road.
“Uhnnnh.”
Dee
next.
A
dress
down
to
the
ground,
in
this
hot
weather.
A
dress
so
loud
it
hurts
my
eyes.
There
are
yellows
and
oranges
enough
to
throw
back
the
light
of
the
sun.
I
feel
my
whole
face
warming
from
the
heat
waves
it
throws
out.
Earrings
gold,
too,
and
hanging
down
to
her
shoul.ders.
Bracelets
dangling
and
making
noises
when
she
moves
her
arm
up
to
shake
the
folds
of
the
dress
out
of
her
armpits.
The
dress
is
loose
and
flows,
and
as
she
walks
closer,
I
like
it.
I
hear
Maggie
go
“Uhnnnh”
again.
It
is
her
sister’s
hair.
It
stands
straight
up
like
the
wool
on
a
sheep.
It
is
black
as
night
and
around
the
edges
are
two
long
pigtails
that
rope
about
like
small
lizards
disappearing
behind
her
ears.
“Wa.su.zo.Tean.o!”
she
says,
coming
on
in
that
gliding
way
the
dress
makes
her
move.
The
short
stocky
fellow
with
the
hair
to
his
navel
is
all
grinning
and
he
follows
up
with
“Asalamalakim,
my
mother
and
sister!”
He
moves
to
hug
Maggie
but
she
falls
back,
right
up
against
the
back
of
my
chair.
I
feel
her
trembling
there
and
when
I
look
up
I
see
the
perspiration
falling
off
her
chin.
“Don’t
get
up,”
says
Dee.
Since
I
am
stout
it
takes
something
of
a
push.
You
can
see
me
trying
to
move
a
second
or
two
before
I
make
it.
She
turns,
showing
white
heels
through
her
sandals,
and
goes
back
to
the
car.
Out
she
peeks
next
with
a
Polaroid.
She
stoops
down
quickly
and
lines
up
picture
after
picture
of
me
sitting
there
in
front
of
the
house
with
Maggie
cowering
behind
me.
She
never
takes
a
shot
without
mak’
ing
sure
the
house
is
included.
When
a
cow
comes
nibbling
around
the
edge
of
the
yard
she
snaps
it
and
me
and
Maggie
and
the
house.
Then
she
puts
the
Polaroid
in
the
back
seat
of
the
car,
and
comes
up
and
kisses
me
on
the
forehead.
Meanwhile
Asalamalakim
is
going
through
motions
with
Maggie’s
hand.
Maggie’s
hand
is
as
limp
as
a
fish,
and
probably
as
cold,
despite
the
sweat,
and
she
keeps
trying
to
pull
it
back.
It
looks
like
Asalamalakim
wants
to
shake
hands
but
wants
to
do
it
fancy.
Or
maybe
he
don’t
know
how
people
shake
hands.
Anyhow,
he
soon
gives
up
on
Maggie.
“Well,”
I
say.
“Dee.”
“No,
Mama,”
she
says.
“Not
‘Dee,’
Wangero
Leewanika
Kemanjo!”
“What
happened
to
‘Dee’?”
I
wanted
to
know.
“She’s
dead,”
Wangero
said.
“I
couldn’t
bear
it
any
longer,
being
named
after
the
people
who
oppress
me.”
“You
know
as
well
as
me
you
was
named
after
your
aunt
Dicie,”
I
said.
Dicie
is
my
sister.
She
named
Dee.
We
called
her
“Big
Dee”
after
Dee
was
born.
“But
who
was
she
named
after?”
asked
Wangero.
“I
guess
after
Grandma
Dee,”
I
said.
“And
who
was
she
named
after?”
asked
Wangero.
“Her
mother,”
I
said,
and
saw
Wangero
was
getting
tired.
“That’s
about
as
far
back
as
I
can
trace
it,”
I
said.
Though,
in
fact,
I
probably
could
have
carried
it
back
beyond
the
Civil
War
through
the
branches.
“Well,”
said
Asalamalakim,
“there
you
are.”
“Uhnnnh,”
I
heard
Maggie
say.
“There
I
was
not,”
I
said,
“before
‘Dicie’
cropped
up
in
our
family,
so
why
should
I
try
to
trace
it
that
far
back?”
He
just
stood
there
grinning,
looking
down
on
me
like
somebody
inspecting
a
Model
A
car.
Every
once
in
a
while
he
and
Wangero
sent
eye
signals
over
my
head.
“How
do
you
pronounce
this
name?”
I
asked.
“You
don’t
have
to
call
me
by
it
if
you
don’t
want
to,”
said
Wangero.
“Why
shouldn’t
1?”
I
asked.
“If
that’s
what
you
want
us
to
call
you,
we’ll
call
you.”
.
“I
know
it
might
sound
awkward
at
first,”
said
Wangero.
“I’ll
get
used
to
it,”
I
said.
“Ream
it
out
again.”
Well,
soon
we
got
the
name
out
of
the
way.
Asalamalakim
had
a
name
twice
as
long
and
three
times
as
hard.
After
I
tripped
over
it
two
or
three
times
he
told
me
to
just
call
him
Hakim.a.barber.
I
wanted
to
ask
him
was
he
a
barber,
but
I
didn’t
really
think
he
was,
so
I
didn’t
ask.
“You
must
belong
to
those
beef.cattle
peoples
down
the
road,”
I
said.
They
said
“Asalamalakim”
when
they
met
you,
too,
but
they
didn’t
shake
hands.
Always
too
busy:
feeding
the
cattle,
fixing
the
fences,
putting
up
salt.lick
shelters,
throwing
down
hay.
When
the
white
folks
poisoned
some
of
the
herd
the
men
stayed
up
all
night
with
rifles
in
their
hands.
I
walked
a
mile
and
a
half
just
to
see
the
sight.
Hakim.a.barber
said,
“I
accept
some
of
their
doctrines,
but
farming
and
raising
cattle
is
not
my
style.”
(They
didn’t
tell
me,
and
I
didn’t
ask,
whether
Wangero
(Dee)
had
really
gone
and
married
him.)
We
sat
down
to
eat
and
right
away
he
said
he
didn’t
eat
collards
and
pork
was
unclean.
Wangero,
though,
went
on
through
the
chitlins
and
com
bread,
the
greens
and
everything
else.
She
talked
a
blue
streak
over
the
sweet
potatoes.
Everything
delighted
her.
Even
the
fact
that
we
still
used
the
benches
her
daddy
made
for
the
table
when
we
couldn’t
effort
to
buy
chairs.
“Oh,
Mama!”
she
cried.
Then
turned
to
Hakim.a.barber.
“I
never
knew
how
lovely
these
benches
are.
You
can
feel
the
rump
prints,”
she
said,
running
her
hands
underneath
her
and
along
the
bench.
Then
she
gave
a
sigh
and
her
hand
closed
over
Grandma
Dee’s
butter
dish.
“That’s
it!”
she
said.
“I
knew
there
was
something
I
wanted
to
ask
you
if
I
could
have.”
She
jumped
up
from
the
table
and
went
over
in
the
corner
where
the
churn
stood,
the
milk
in
it
crabber
by
now.
She
looked
at
the
churn
and
looked
at
it.
“This
churn
top
is
what
I
need,”
she
said.
“Didn’t
Uncle
Buddy
whittle
it
out
of
a
tree
you
all
used
to
have?”
“Yes,”
I
said.
“Un
huh,”
she
said
happily.
“And
I
want
the
dasher,
too.”
“Uncle
Buddy
whittle
that,
too?”
asked
the
barber.
Dee
(Wangero)
looked
up
at
me.
“Aunt
Dee’s
first
husband
whittled
the
dash,”
said
Maggie
so
low
you
almost
couldn’t
hear
her.
“His
name
was
Henry,
but
they
called
him
Stash.”
“Maggie’s
brain
is
like
an
elephant’s,”
Wangero
said,
laughing.
“I
can
use
the
chute
top
as
a
centerpiece
for
the
alcove
table,”
she
said,
sliding
a
plate
over
the
chute,
“and
I’ll
think
of
something
artistic
to
do
with
the
dasher.”
When
she
finished
wrapping
the
dasher
the
handle
stuck
out.
I
took
it
for
a
moment
in
my
hands.
You
didn’t
even
have
to
look
close
to
see
where
hands
pushing
the
dasher
up
and
down
to
make
butter
had
left
a
kind
of
sink
in
the
wood.
In
fact,
there
were
a
lot
of
small
sinks;
you
could
see
where
thumbs
and
fingers
had
sunk
into
the
wood.
It
was
beautiful
light
yellow
wood,
from
a
tree
that
grew
in
the
yard
where
Big
Dee
and
Stash
had
lived.
After
dinner
Dee
(Wangero)
went
to
the
trunk
at
the
foot
of
my
bed
and
started
rifling
through
it.
Maggie
hung
back
in
the
kitchen
over
the
dishpan.
Out
came
Wangero
with
two
quilts.
They
had
been
pieced
by
Grandma
Dee
and
then
Big
Dee
and
me
had
hung
them
on
the
quilt
ftames
on
the
ftont
porch
and
quilted
them.
One
was
in
the
Lone
Stat
pattetn.
The
other
was
Walk
Around
the
Mountain.
In
both
of
them
were
scraps
of
dresses
Grandma
Dee
had
wotn
fifty
and
more
years
ago.
Bits
and
pieces
of
Grandpa
Jattell’s
Paisley
shirts.
And
one
teeny
faded
blue
piece,
about
the
size
of
a
penny
matchbox,
that
was
from
Great
Grandpa
Ezra’s
unifotm
that
he
wore
in
the
Civil
War.
“Mama,”
Wangro
said
sweet
as
a
bird.
“Can
I
have
these
old
quilts?”
I
heard
something
fall
in
the
kitchen,
and
a
minute
later
the
kitchen
door
slammed.
“Why
don’t
you
take
one
or
two
of
the
others?”
I
asked.
“These
old
things
was
just
done
by
me
and
Big
Dee
from
some
tops
your
grandma
pieced
before
she
died.”
“No,”
said
Wangero.
“I
don’t
want
those.
They
are
stitched
around
the
borders
by
machine.”
“That’ll
make
them
last
better,”
I
said.
“That’s
not
the
point,”
said
Wangero.
“These
are
all
pieces
of
dresses
Grandma
used
to
wear.
She
did
all
this
stitching
by
hand.
Imag’
ine!”
She
held
the
quilts
securely
in
her
atms,
stroking
them.
“Some
of
the
pieces,
like
those
lavender
ones,
come
ftom
old
clothes
her
mother
handed
down
to
her,”
I
said,
moving
up
to
touch
the
quilts.
Dee
(Wangero)
moved
back
just
enough
so
that
I
couldn’t
reach
the
quilts.
They
already
belonged
to
her.
“Imagine!”
she
breathed
again,
clutching
them
closely
to
her
bosom.
“The
ttuth
is,”
I
said,
“I
promised
to
give
them
quilts
to
Maggie,
for
when
she
matties
John
Thomas.”
.
She
gasped
like
a
bee
had
stung
her.
“Maggie
can’t
appreciate
these
quilts!”
she
said.
“She’d
probably
be
backward
enough
to
put
them
to
everyday
use.”
“I
reckon
she
would,”
I
said.
“God
knows
I
been
saving
’em
for
long
enough
with
nobody
using
’em.
I
hope
she
will!”
I
didn’t
want
to
bring
up
how
I
had
offered
Dee
(Wangero)
a
quilt
when
she
went
away
to
college.
Then
she
had
told
they
were
old~fashioned,
out
of
style.
“But
they’re
priceless!”
she
was
saying
now,
furiously;
for
she
has
a
temper.
“Maggie
would
put
them
on
the
bed
and
in
five
years
they’d
be
in
rags.
Less
than
that!”
“She
can
always
make
some
more,”
I
said.
“Maggie
knows
how
to
quilt.”
Dee
(Wangero)
looked
at
me
with
hatred.
“You
just
will
not
under.stand.
The
point
is
these
quilts,
these
quilts!”
“Well,”
I
said,
stumped.
“What
would
you
do
with
them7”
“Hang
them,”
she
said.
As
if
that
was
the
only
thing
you
could
do
with
quilts.
Maggie
by
now
was
standing
in
the
door.
I
could
almost
hear
the
sound
her
feet
made
as
they
scraped
over
each
other.
“She
can
have
them,
Mama,”
she
said,
like
somebody
used
to
never
winning
anything,
or
having
anything
reserved
for
her.
“I
can
‘member
Grandma
Dee
without
the
quilts.”
I
looked
at
her
hard.
She
had
filled
her
bottom
lip
with
checkerberry
snuff
and
gave
her
face
a
kind
of
dopey,
hangdog
look.
It
was
Grandma
Dee
and
Big
Dee
who
taught
her
how
to
quilt
herself.
She
stood
there
with
her
scarred
hands
hidden
in
the
folds
of
her
skirt.
She
looked
at
her
sister
with
something
like
fear
but
she
wasn’t
mad
at
her.
This
was
Maggie’s
portion.
This
was
the
way
she
knew
God
to
work.
When
I
looked
at
her
like
that
something
hit
me
in
the
top
of
my
head
and
ran
down
to
the
soles
of
my
feet.
Just
like
when
I’m
in
church
and
the
spirit
of
God
touches
me
and
I
get
happy
and
shout.
I
did
some.thing
I
never
done
before:
hugged
Maggie
to
me,
then
dragged
her
on
into
the
room,
snatched
the
quilts
out
of
Miss
Wangero’s
hands
and
dumped
them
into
Maggie’s
lap.
Maggie
just
sat
there
on
my
bed
with
her
mouth
open.
“Take
one
or
two
of
the
others,”
I
said
to
Dee.
But
she
turned
without
a
word
and
went
out
to
Hakim~a~barber.
“You
just
don’t
understand,”
she
said,
as
Maggie
and
I
came
out
to
the
car.
.
“What
don’t
I
understand?”
I
wanted
to
know.
“Your
heritage,”
she
said,
And
then
she
turned
to
Maggie,
kissed
her,
and
said,
“You
ought
to
try
to
make
something
of
yourself,
too,
Maggie.
It’s
really
a
new
day
for
us.
But
from
the
way
you
and
Mama
still
live
you’d
never
know
it.”
She
put
on
some
sunglasses
that
hid
everything
above
the
tip
of
her
nose
and
chin.
Maggie
smiled;
maybe
at
the
sunglasses.
But
a
real
smile,
not
scared.
After
we
watched
the
car
dust
settle
I
asked
Maggie
to
bring
me
a
dip
of
snuff.
And
then
the
two
of
us
sat
there
just
enjoying,
until
it
was
time
to
go
in
the
house
and
go
to
bed.
1
James Joyce (1882-1941)
Eveline (1914)
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned
against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was
tired.
Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard
his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder
path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to
play every evening with other people’s children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field
and built houses in it—not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining
roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field—the Devines, the
Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however,
never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field
with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw
her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so
bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers
and sisters were all grown up her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the
Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like
the others, to leave her home.
Home! She looked round the room, reviewing all its familiar objects which she had
dusted once a week for so many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from.
Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed
2
of being divided. And yet during all those years she had never found out the name of the
priest whose yellowing photograph hung on the wall above the broken harmonium beside the
coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque. He had been a
school friend of her father. Whenever he showed the photograph to a visitor her father used
to pass it with a casual word:
“He is in Melbourne now.”
She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh
each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom
she had known all her life about her. O course she had to work hard, both in the house and at
business. What would they say of her in the Stores when they found out that she had run
away with a fellow? Say she was a fool, perhaps; and her place would be filled up by
advertisement. Miss Gavan would be glad. She had always had an edge on her, especially
whenever there were people listening.
“Miss Hill, don’t you see these ladies are waiting?”
“Look lively, Miss Hill, please.”
She would not cry many tears at leaving the Stores.
But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it would not be like that. Then
she would be married—she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not
be treated as her mother had been. Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes
felt herself in danger of her father’s violence. She knew it was that that had given her the
palpitations. When they were growing up he had never gone for her like he used to go for
Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl; but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say
3
what he would do to her only for her dead mother’s sake. And now she had nobody to protect
her. Ernest was dead and Harry, who was in the church decorating business, was nearly
always down somewhere in the country. Besides, the invariable squabble for money on
Saturday nights had begun to weary her unspeakably. She always gave her entire wages—
seven shillings—and Harry always sent up what he could but the trouble was to get any
money from her father. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he
wasn’t going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and much more,
for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night. In the end he would give her the money and
ask her had she any intention of buying Sunday’s dinner. Then she had to rush out as quickly
as she could and do her marketing, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand as she
elbowed her way through the crowds and returning home late under her load of provisions.
She had hard work to keep the house together and to see that the two young children who had
been left to hr charge went to school regularly and got their meals regularly. It was hard
work—a hard life—but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly
undesirable life.
She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, open-
hearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in
Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her. How well she remembered the first time
she had seen him; he was lodging in a house on the main road where she used to visit. It
seemed a few weeks ago. He was standing at the gate, his peaked cap pushed back on his
head and his hair tumbled forward over a face of bronze. Then they had come to know each
other. He used to meet her outside the Stores every evening and see her home. He took her to
4
see The Bohemian Girl and she felt elated as she sat in an unaccustomed part of the theatre
with him. He was awfully fond of music and sang a little. People knew that they were
courting and, when he sang about the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly
confused. He used to call her Poppens out of fun. First of all it had been an excitement for
her to have a fellow and then she had begun to like him. He had tales of distant countries. He
had started as a deck boy at a pound a month on a ship of the Allan Line going out to
Canada. He told her the names of the ships he had been on and the names of the different
services. He had sailed through the Straits of Magellan and he told her stories of the terrible
Patagonians. He had fallen on his feet in Buenos Ayres, he said, and had come over to the
old country just for a holiday. Of course, her father had found out the affair and had
forbidden her to have anything to say to him.
“I know these sailor chaps,” he said.
One day he had quarrelled with Frank and after that she had to meet her lover
secretly.
The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew
indistinct. One was to Harry; the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite but
she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would miss her.
Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been laid up for a day, he
had read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their
mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the Hill of Howth. She remembered her
father putting on her mother’s bonnet to make the children laugh.
5
Her time was running out but she continued to sit by the window, leaning her head
against the window curtain, inhaling the odour of dusty cretonne. Down far in the avenue she
could hear a street organ playing. She knew the air. Strange that it should come that very
night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as
long as she could. She remembered the last night of her mother’s illness; she was again in the
close dark room at the other side of the hall and outside she heard a melancholy air of Italy.
The organ-player had been ordered to go away and given sixpence. She remembered her
father strutting back into the sickroom saying:
“Damned Italians! coming over here!”
As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother’s life laid its spell on the very quick of
her being—that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she
heard again her mother’s voice saying constantly with foolish insistence:
“Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!”
She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would
save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she
be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his
arms. He would save her.
She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall. He held her
hand and she knew that he was speaking to her, saying something about the passage over and
over again. The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages. Through the wide doors of
the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat, lying in beside the quay wall,
6
with illumined portholes. She answered nothing. She felt her cheek pale and cold and, out of
a maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what was her duty. The boat
blew a long mournful whistle into the mist. If she went, tomorrow she would be on the sea
with Frank, steaming towards Buenos Ayres. Their passage had been booked. Could she still
draw back after all he had done for her? Her distress awoke a nausea in her body and she
kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer.
A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:
“Come!”
All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he
would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing.
“Come!”
No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas
she sent a cry of anguish.
“Eveline! Evvy!”
He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on
but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her
eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.
The Red Convertible
LOUISE ERDRICH
I was the first one to drive a convertible on my reservation.
And of course it was red, a red Olds. I owned that car along
with my brother Henry Junior. We owned it together until
his boots filled with water on a windy night and he bought
out my share. Now Henry owns the whole car, and his
younger brother Lyman (that’s myself), Lyman walks every-
where he goes.
How did I earn enough money to buy my share in the first
place? My one talent was I could always make money. I had a
touch for it, unusual in a Chippewa. From the first I was dif-
ferent that way, and everyone recognized it. I was the only
kid they let in the American Legion Hall to shine shoes, for
example, and one Christmas I sold spiritual bouquets for the
mission door to door. The nuns let me keep a percentage.
Once I started, it seemed the more money I made the easier
the money came. Everyone encouraged it. When I was fifteen
I got a job washing dishes at the Joliet Cafe, and that was
where my first big break happened.
It wasn’t long before I was promoted to busing tables, and
then the short-order cook quit and I was hired to take her
place. No sooner than you know it I was managing the Joliet.
The rest is history. I went on managing. I soon became part
owner, and of course there was no stopping me then. It
wasn’t long before the whole thing was mine.
After I’d owned the Joliet for one year, it blew over in the
worst tornado ever seen around here. The whole operation
104 I GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA
was smashed to bits. A total loss. The fryalator was up in a
tree, the grill torn in half like it was paper. I was only sixteen.
I had it all in my mother’s name, and I lost it quick, but be-
fore I lost it I had every one of my relatives, and their rela-
tives, to dinner, and I also bought that red Olds I mentioned,
along with Henry.
The first time we saw it! I’ll tell you when we first saw it. We
had gotten a ride up to Winnipeg, and both of us had money.
Don’t ask me why, because we never mentioned a car or any-
thing, we just had all our money. Mine was cash, a big
bankroll from the Joliet’s insurance. Henry had two checks—
a week’s extra pay for being laid off, and his regular check
from the Jewel Bearing Plant.
We were walking down Portage anyway, seeing the sights,
when we saw it. There it was, parked, large as life. Really as
if it was alive. I thought of the word repose, because the car
wasn’t simply stopped, parked, or whatever. That car
reposed, calm and gleaming, a FOR SALE sign in its left front
window. Then, before we had thought it over at all, the car
belonged to us and our pockets were empty. We had just
enough money for gas back home.
We went places in that car, me and Henry. We took off
driving all one whole summer. We started off toward the Lit-
tle Knife River and Mandaree in Fort Berthold and then we
found ourselves down in Wakpala somehow, and then sud-
denly we were over in Montana on the Rocky Boy, and yet
the summer was not even half over. Some people hang on to
details when they travel, but we didn’t let them bother us and
just lived our everyday lives here to there.
I do remember this one place with willows. I remember I
lay under those trees and it was comfortable. So comfortable.
The branches bent down all around me like a tent or a stable.
CROSSING 105
And quiet, it was quiet, even though there was a; powwow
close enough so I could see it going on. The air was not too
still, not too windy either. When the dust rises up and hangs
in the air around the dancers like that, I feel good. Henry was
asleep with his arms thrown wide. Later on, he woke up and
we started driving again. We were somewhere in Montana,
or maybe on the Blood Reserve—it could have been any-
where. Anyway it was where we met the girl.
All her hair was in buns around her ears, that’s the first thing
I noticed about her. She was posed alongside the road with
her arm out, so we stopped. That girl was short, so short her
lumber shirt looked comical on her, like a nightgown. She
had jeans on and fancy moccasins and she carried a little suit-
case.
“Hop on in,” says Henry. So she climbs in between us.
“We’ll take you home,” I says. “Where do you live?”
“Chicken,” she says.
“Where the hell’s that?” I ask her.
“Alaska.”
“Okay,” says Henry, and we drive.
We got up there and never wanted to leave. The sun
doesn’t truly set there in summer, and the night is more a soft
dusk. You might doze off, sometimes, but before you know it
you’re up again, like an animal in nature. You never feel like
you have to sleep hard or put away the world. And things
would grow up there. One day just dirt or moss, the next day
flowers and long grass. The girl’s name was Susy. Her family
really took to us. They fed us and put us up. We had our own
tent to live in by their house, and the kids would be in and
out of there all day and night. They couldn’t get over me and
Henry being brothers, we looked so different. We told them
we knew we had the same mother, anyway.
: 106 I GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA
One night Susy came in to visit us. We sat around in the
tent talking of this and that. The season was changing. It was
getting darker by that time, and the cold was even getting
just a little mean. I told her it was time for us to go. She stood
up on a chair.
“You never seen my hair,” Susy said.
That was true. She was standing on a chair, but still, when
she unclipped her buns the hair reached all the way to the
ground. Our eyes opened. You couldn’t tell how much hair
she had when it was rolled up so neatly. Then my brother
Henry did something funny. He went up to the chair and
said, “Jump on my shoulders.” So she did that, and her hair
reached down past his waist, and he started twirling, this way
and that, so her hair was flung out from side to side.
“I always wondered what it was like to have long pretty
hair,” Henry says. Well we laughed. It was a funny sight, the
way he did it. The next morning we got up and took leave of
those people.
On to greener pastures, as they say. It was down through
Spokane and across Idaho then Montana and very soon we
were racing the weather right along under the Canadian bor-
der through Columbus, Des Lacs, and then we were in Bot-
tineau County and soon home. We’d made most of the trip,
that summer, without putting up the car hood at all. We got
home just in time, it turned out, for the army to remember
Henry had signed up to join it.
I don’t wonder that the army was so glad to get my brother
that they turned him into a Marine. He was built like a brick
outhouse anyway. We liked to tease him that they really
wanted him for his Indian nose. He had a nose big and sharp
as a hatchet, like the nose on Red Tomahawk, the Indian
who killed Sitting Bull, whose profile is on signs all along the
CROSSING I 107
North Dakota highways. Henry went off to training camp,
came home once during Christmas, then the next thing you
know we got an overseas letter from him. It was 1970, and he
said he was stationed up in the northern hill country. Where-
abouts I did not know. He wasn’t such a hot letter writer, and
only got off two before the enemy caught him. I could never
keep it straight, which direction those good Vietnam soldiers
were from.
I wrote him back several times, even though I didn’t know
if those letters would get through. I kept him informed all
about the car. Most of the time I had it up on blocks in .the
yard or half taken apart, because that long trip did a hard job
on it under the hood.
I always had good luck with numbers, and never worried
about the draft myself. I never even had to think about what
my number was. But Henry was never lucky in the same way
as me. It was at least three years before Henry came home. By
then I guess the whole war was solved in the government’s
mind, but for him it would keep on going. In those years I’d
put his car into almost perfect shape. I always thought of it as
his car while he was gone, even though when he left he said,
“Now it’s yours,” and threw me his key.
“Thanks for the extra key,” I’d said. “I’ll put it up in your
drawer just in case I need it.” He laughed.
When he came home, though, Henry was very different, and
I’ll say this: the change was no good. You could hardly expect
him to change for the better, I know. But he was quiet, so
quiet, and never comfortable sitting still anywhere but al-
ways up and moving around. I thought back to times we’d
sat still for whole afternoons, never moving a muscle, just
shifting our weight along the ground, talking to whoever sat
with us, watching things. He’d always had a joke, then, too,
108 I GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA
and now you couldn’t get him to laugh, or when he did it was
more the sound of a man choking, a sound that stopped up
the throats of other people around him. They got to leaving
him alone most of the time, and I didn’t blame them. It was a
fact: Henry was jumpy and mean.
I’d bought a color TV set for my mom and the rest of us
while Henry was away. Money still came very easy. I was
sorry I’d ever fought it though, because of Henry. I was also
sorry I’d bought color, because with black-and-white the pic-
tures seem older and farther away. But what are you going to
do? He sat in front of it, watching it, and that was the only
time he was completely still. But it was the kind of stillness
that you see in a rabbit when it freezes and before it will bolt.
He was not easy. He sat in his chair gripping the armrests
with all his might, as if the chair itself was moving at a high
speed and if he let go at all he would rocket forward and
maybe crash right through the set.
Once I was in the room watching TV with Henry and I
heard his teeth click at something. I looked over, and he’d
bitten through his lip. Blood was going down his chin. I tell
you right then I wanted to smash that tube to pieces. I went
over to it but Henry must have known what I was up to. He
rushed from his chair and shoved me out of the way, against
the wall. I told myself he didn’t know what he was doing.
My mom came in, turned the set off real quiet, and told us
she had made something for supper. So we went and sat
down. There was still blood going down Henry’s chin, but he
didn’t notice it and no one said anything even though every
time he took a bite of his bread his blood fell onto it until he
was eating his own blood mixed in with the food.
While Henry was not around we talked about what was go-
ing to happen to him. There were no Indian doctors on the
CROSSING 109
reservation, and my mom couldn’t come around to trusting
the old man, Moses Pillager, because he courted her long ago
and was jealous of her husbands. He might take revenge
through her son. We were afraid that if we brought Henry to
a regular hospital they would keep him.
“They don’t “fix them in those places,” Mom said; “they just
give them drugs.”
“We wouldn’t get him there in the first place,” I agreed,
“so let’s just forget about it.”
Then I thought about the car.
Henry had not even looked at the car since he’d gotten
home, though like I said, it was in tip-top condition and
ready to drive. I thought the car might bring the old Henry
back somehow. So I bided my time and waited for my chance
to interest him in the vehicle.
One night Henry was off somewhere. I took myself a
hammer. I went out to that car and I did a number on its un-
derside. Whacked it up. Bent the tail pipe double. Ripped the
muffler loose. By the time I was done with the car it looked
worse than any typical Indian car that has been driven all its
life on reservation roads, which they always say are like gov-
ernment promises—full of holes. It just about hurt me, I’ll
tell you that! I threw dirt in the carburetor and I ripped all
the electric tape off the seats. I made it look just as beat up as
I could. Then I sat back and waited for Henry to find it.
Still, it took him over a month. That was all right, because
it was just getting warm enough; not melting, but warm
enough to work outside.
“Lyman,” he says, walking in one day, “that red car looks
like shit.”
“Well it’s old,” I says. “You got to expect that.”
“No way!” says Henry. “That car’s a classic! But you went
and ran the piss right put of it, Lyman, and you know it don’t
deserve that. I kept that car in A-one shape. You don’t re-
110 I GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA
member. You’re too young. But when I left, that car was
running like a watch. Now I don’t even know if I can get it
to start again, let alone get it anywhere near its old con-
dition.”
“Well you try,” I said, like I was getting mad, “but I say it’s
a piece of junk.”
Then I walked out before he could realize I knew he’d
strung together more than six words at once.
After that I thought he’d freeze himself to death working on
that car. He was out there all day, and at night he rigged up a
little lamp, ran a cord out the window, and had himself some
light to see by while he worked. He was better than he had
been before, but that’s still not saying much. It was easier for
him to do the things the rest of us did. He ate more slowly
and didn’t jump up and down during the meal to get this or
that or look out the window. I put my hand in the back of the
TV set, I admit, and fiddled around with it good, so that it
was almost impossible now to get a clear picture. He didn’t
look at it very often anyway. He was always out with that car
or going off to get parts for it. By the time it was really melt-
ing outside, he had it fixed.
I had been feeling down in the dumps about Henry
around this time. We had always been together before.
Henry and Lyman. But he was such a loner now that I didn’t
know how to take it. So I jumped at the chance one day
when Henry seemed friendly. It’s not that he smiled or any-
thing. He just said, “Let’s take that old shitbox for a spin.”
Just the way he said it made me think he could be coming
around.
We went out to the car. It was spring. The sun was shining
very bright. My only sister, Bonita, who was just eleven years
old, came out and made us stand together for a picture.
CROSSING 11
Henry leaned his elbow on the red car’s windshield, and he
took his other arm and put it over my shoulder, very care-
fully, as though it was heavy for him to lift and he didn’t
want to bring the weight down all at once. “Smile,” Bonita
said, and he did.
That picture. I never look at it anymore. A few months ago, I
don’t know why, I got his picture out and tacked it on the
wall. I felt good about Henry at the time, close to him. I felt
good having his picture on the wall, until one night when I
was looking at television. I was a little drunk and stoned. I
looked up at the wall and Henry was staring at me. I don’t
know what it was, but his smile had changed, or maybe it
was gone. All I know is I couldn’t stay in the same room with
that picture. I was shaking. I got up, closed the door, and
went into the kitchen. A little later my friend Ray came over
and we both went back into that room. We put the picture in
a brown bag, folded the bag over and over tightly, then put it
way back in a closet.
I still see that picture now, as if it tugs at me, whenever I
pass that closet door. The picture is very clear in my mind. It
was so sunny that day Henry had to squint against the glare.
Or maybe the camera Bonita held flashed like a mirror,
blinding him, before she snapped the picture. My face is right
out in the sun, big and round. But he might have drawn
back, because the shadows on his face are deep as holes.
There are two shadows curved like little hooks around the
ends of his smile, as if to frame it and try to keep it there—
that one, first smile that looked like it might have hurt his
face. He has his field jacket on and the worn-in clothes he’d
come back in and kept wearing ever since. After Bonita took
the picture, she went into the house and we got into the car.
There was a full cooler in the trunk. We started off, east, to-
112 I GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA
ward Pembina and the Red River because Henry said he
wanted to see the high water.
The trip over there was beautiful. When everything starts
changing, drying up, clearing off, you feel like your whole
life is starting. Henry felt it, too. The top was down and the
car hummed like a top. He’d really put it back in shape, even
the tape on the seats was very carefully put down and glued
back in layers. It’s not that he smiled again or even joked, but
his face looked to me as if it was clear, more peaceful. It
looked as though he wasn’t thinking of anything in particular
except the bare fields and windbreaks and houses we were
passing.
The river was high and full of winter trash when we got
there. The sun was still out, but it was colder by the river.
There-were still little clumps of dirty snow here and there on
the banks. The water hadn’t gone over the banks yet, but it
would, you could tell. It was just at its limit, hard swollen,
glossy like an old gray scar. We made ourselves a fire, and we
sat down and watched the current go. As I watched it I felt
something squeezing inside me and tightening and trying to
let go all at the same time. I knew I was not just feeling it my-
self; I knew I was feeling what Henry was going through at
that moment. Except that I couldn’t stand it, the closing and
opening. I jumped to my feet. I took Henry by the shoulders,
and I started shaking him. “Wake up,” I says, “wake up,
wake up, wake up!” I didn’t know what had come over me. I
sat down beside him again.
His face was totally white and hard. Then it broke, like
stones break all of a sudden when water boils up inside them.
“I know it,” he says. “I know it. I can’t help it. It’s no use.”
We start talking. He said he knew what I’d done with the
car. It was obvious it had been whacked out of shape and not
just neglected. He said he wanted to give the car to me for
CROSSING I 113
good now, it was no use. He said he’d fixed it just to give it
back and I should take it.
“No way,” I says, “I don’t want it.”
“That’s okay,” he says, “you take it.”
“I don’t want it, though,” I says back to him, and then to
emphasize, just to emphasize, you understand, I touch his
shoulder. He slaps my hand off.
“Take that car,” he says.
“No,” I say. “Make me,” I say, and then he grabs my jacket
and rips the arm loose. That jacket is a class act, suede with
tags and zippers. I push Henry backwards, off the log. He
jumps up and bowls me over. We go down in a clinch and
come up swinging hard, for all we’re worth, with our fists.
He socks my jaw so hard I feel like it swings loose. Then. I’m at
his rib cage and. land a good one under his chin so his head
snaps back. He’s dazzled. He looks at me and I look at him
and then his eyes are full of tears and blood and at first I
think he’s crying. But no, he’s laughing. “Ha! Ha!” he says.
“Ha! Ha! Take good care of it.”
“Okay,” I says. “Okay, no problem; Ha! Ha!”
I can’t help it, and I start laughing, too. My face feels fat
and strange, and after a while I get a beer from the cooler in
the trunk, and when I hand it to Henry he takes his shirt and
wipes my germs off. “Hoof-and-mouth disease,” he says. For
some reason this cracks me up, and so we’re really laughing
for a while, and then we drink all the rest of the beers one by
one and throw them in the river and see how far, how fast,
the current takes them before they fill up and sink.
“You want to go on back?” I ask after a while. “Maybe we
could snag a couple nice Kashpaw girls.”
He says nothing. But I can tell his mood is turning again.
“They’re all crazy, the girls up here, every damn one of
them.”
“You’re crazy too,” I say, to jolly him up. “Crazy Lamartine
boys!”
114 GROWING UP ETHNIC IN AMERICA
He looks as though he will take this wrong at first. His
face twists, then clears, and he jumps up on his feet. “That’s
right!” he says. “Crazier ‘n hell. Crazy Indians!”
I think it’s the old Henry again. He throws off his jacket
and starts springing his legs up from the knees like a fancy
dancer. He’s down doing something between a grass dance
and a bunny hop, no kind of dance I ever saw before, but nei-
ther has anyone else on all this green growing earth. He’s
wild. He wants to pitch whoopee! He’s up and at me and all
over. All this time I’m laughing so hard, so hard my belly is
getting tied up in a knot.
“Got to cool me off!” he shouts all of a sudden. Then he
runs over to the river and jumps in.
There’s boards and other things in the current. It’s so high.
No sound comes from the river after the splash he makes, so
I run right over. I look around. It’s getting dark. I see he’s
halfway across the water already, and I know he didn’t swim
there but the current took him. It’s far. I hear his voice,
though, very clearly across it.
“My boots are filling,” he says.
He says this in a normal voice, like he just noticed and he
doesn’t know what to think of it. Then he’s gone. A branch
comes by. Another branch. And I go in.
By the time I get out of the river, off the snag I pulled myself
onto, the sun is down. I walk back to the car, turn on the high
beams, and drive it up the bank. I put it in first gear and then
I take my foot off the clutch. I get out, close the door, and
watch it plow softly into the water. The headlights reach in as
they go down, searching, still lighted even after the water
swirls over the back end. I wait. The wires short out. It is all
finally dark. And then there is only the water, the sound of it
going and running and going and running and running.
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