Social Blunders by Tim Sandlin Page B

on the board—like the outlines they draw around murder victims found on the sidewalk.
    I had no reason for being in the garage, other than I was tired of people. Inside the house, another complicated relationship no doubt waited to be dealt with. Gus, probably, or Shannon demanding information on her grandfathers.
    The truth is, meeting never-before-met parents takes a lot of emotion. Less than halfway through the process and I felt drained. Fried. Since then I’ve learned large cities have support groups for people who thought they knew who they were, then one afternoon a stranger knocks on the door and says Mother. Dad. Whatever . I don’t know what they call the support groups—Switched At Birth Anonymous, maybe—but I know they exist. One sent me a newsletter.
    ***
    I found Gus dribbling used coffee grounds into the garbage disposal. The moment she saw me, her index finger crossed her lips in the international sign for Shhh.
    “San Francisco by fourteen,” she said. “Bet on it.”
    “I don’t know any bookies.”
    “Your loss.”
    I opened the refrigerator for a Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper is my one remaining degenerative addiction. “Gus, I’ve read everything I can find on mystic, ju-ju bwana fortune-telling methods, and no legitimate psychic in the country reads the future in coffee grounds put down the garbage disposal.”
    She shut one thick eyelid and cocked her head over the drain. “My mama taught me, her mama taught her. The spirit ear goes way back to Africa.”
    “How many generations in your family owned garbage disposals?”
    Gus didn’t care to answer that one. “Going to be war,” she said.
    “Me and Wanda?”
    Her closed eye popped open. “United States of America.”
    “I have enough problems this week without a war.”
    Both eyes closed as Gus concentrated. “Against black people. The brothers and sisters going to fight men disguised as plants.”
    She obviously meant camouflage suits and I was supposed to go “Wow,” but I was too worn out to pretend amazement. So I sat at the kitchen table and drank my Dr Pepper.
    “You’re just like my friend Hank Elkrunner,” I said. “He thinks because he’s Blackfeet he has to say Great Spirit and bond with birds and stuff. You didn’t practice any of this voodoo jive till Roots was on TV.”
    Gus straightened and turned off the disposal. She glared down at me from on high, doing something with her eyes that increased the intimidation factor beyond the normal housekeeper-boss relationship.
    “Shannon tells me pretty soon you be listening to Elmore James yourself.”
    “You think I might really be black like you, Gus?”
    “Not like me. I been black all my life.”
    Throughout my junior high and high school years a rumor floated around GroVont that my father had been black. I don’t know how the rumor got started. It may have been because in 1963 I was the only person in northwest Wyoming who used the term Afro-American . Or maybe after Lydia took up with Hank Elkrunner townfolk decided cross-racial sex turned her on.
    I must admit, I didn’t deny the rumor. At times—around girls—I even hinted that it might be true. This was partly to pique curiosity, but more than mere seduction, I’d seen the photos in Lydia’s panty box and I liked the idea of Sam Callahan: outsider.
    I would be the wandering poet, scorned by black and white, shunned by all, except certain women of both races who are drawn to danger like a moth to flame.
    “You’re in trouble,” Gus said.
    “The disposal picked a football game, predicted a war, and said I’m in trouble? What brand of coffee are we drinking?”
    “The phone call say you’re in trouble. Man says get your ass over to Starmount Country Club. He says now.”
    “He say his name?”
    “Was a horse’s name—Scout.”
    “Skip.”
    “How do you know? I’m the one talked to him.”
    I hate being ordered around by men. Women, I can live with. A woman says Now , there’s generally a reason.