when she’s in an especially good mood.
I pretend to be grabbing something out of my truck to get a better view of the girl’s window. The main light is off, but some smaller light glows in there. I wonder if she’s bored. I wonder what she’s doing here. The aunt—I forget her name or never knew it—doesn’t have a TV or a radio. Teresa said the aunt attends a Baptist church that forbids watching TV and prohibits pants for women. The girl wears pants, even shorts that I wish were shorter. And I noticed she doesn’t go to church with her aunt and uncle, who go all the time. Why doesn’t she? Maybe she’s an atheist. Not that I know what an atheist looks like, but I picture glasses and a lab coat. Maybe she’s a rebel. In Omak, rebel white girls either dye strips of their already bleached hair pink and wear barely any clothes, or they go Goth by piercing their lips and brows, wearing tons of eyeliner and layers of black clothes. I stay away from both. Their pissed-off, often laid-off dads scare the crap out of me. They blame Indians—the close proximity of the Colville Reservation, just across the Okanogan River—for their woes. And their hoes, as Benji says. We blame whites for the dams that keep the salmon from returning to the rez. It’s still fucking cowboys versus Indians up there in Omak and the other towns around the Colville.
I hear a couple coyotes yipyapping. The girl must’ve heard them also because she flips on the main light for a few minutes. She doesn’t peek through the blinds after shutting the light back off. I wonder what she sleeps in? God, what am I—thirteen? Getting hard just thinking about a girl in bed. I go inside, take a shower. Another goal: not to get a girl pregnant. Both Mom and Teresa had babies before eighteen. I won’t do that to a girl. Or me. It’s simple, really, or it should be. Wear a damn condom even if a chick says she’s on the pill. I went through boxes of condoms with Danielle, the rodeo queen, not that I’m complaining. She had a lot of responsibilities that her parents never let her shirk, mostly riding her horse in parades and roundups and speaking at camps and youth meetings and every 4-H and FFA club in Washington State, it seemed. She liked “to let her hair down” with me, or so she said. I think she meant “take her shirt off.” Maybe Danielle was just slumming it with me to mess with her parents, as Benji insisted, the asshole.
Tomorrow is my sister’s day off. I told her I’d go to the Laundromat because her washer is broken and her back sore from lifting patients. She can veg in front of the TV, watch Home Shopping Network or reruns of her favorite mystery shows. Besides, I barely have any clean clothes myself. I couldn’t get her washer to spin. If Ray could fix it, Teresa might actually let him kiss her on the cheek or at least hang out with her at the Fourth of July Pow Wow next month. Instead, before he fell asleep, he offered to move the washer outside. She told him we weren’t on the rez. The manager doesn’t allow appliances on the front porch, even if it is only a trailer park. He then offered to haul it to the rez and dump it. “Jesus,” she said.
----
Sunday morning. I’ve been waiting. The aunt and uncle leave for church. The girl immediately opens the blinds that the aunt keeps closed all day. Next time I check, she’s outside. I have to at least go introduce myself and find out her name. She must be so bored. I am. And I have a TV and a truck. Tomorrow I’m going to start running three miles a day—and stop smoking—to get in shape for football. I’ve been doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats, but I need a field for sprints and monkey bars for pull-ups. The girl wears a hippie-looking sun hat, Hollywood shades, and she reads a book on the little stone bench in her aunt’s garden. Precious. Ray would splooge his pants. Maybe I shouldn’t disturb her. She’s not really concentrating—keeps looking at the poplars, whose
I pretend to be grabbing something out of my truck to get a better view of the girl’s window. The main light is off, but some smaller light glows in there. I wonder if she’s bored. I wonder what she’s doing here. The aunt—I forget her name or never knew it—doesn’t have a TV or a radio. Teresa said the aunt attends a Baptist church that forbids watching TV and prohibits pants for women. The girl wears pants, even shorts that I wish were shorter. And I noticed she doesn’t go to church with her aunt and uncle, who go all the time. Why doesn’t she? Maybe she’s an atheist. Not that I know what an atheist looks like, but I picture glasses and a lab coat. Maybe she’s a rebel. In Omak, rebel white girls either dye strips of their already bleached hair pink and wear barely any clothes, or they go Goth by piercing their lips and brows, wearing tons of eyeliner and layers of black clothes. I stay away from both. Their pissed-off, often laid-off dads scare the crap out of me. They blame Indians—the close proximity of the Colville Reservation, just across the Okanogan River—for their woes. And their hoes, as Benji says. We blame whites for the dams that keep the salmon from returning to the rez. It’s still fucking cowboys versus Indians up there in Omak and the other towns around the Colville.
I hear a couple coyotes yipyapping. The girl must’ve heard them also because she flips on the main light for a few minutes. She doesn’t peek through the blinds after shutting the light back off. I wonder what she sleeps in? God, what am I—thirteen? Getting hard just thinking about a girl in bed. I go inside, take a shower. Another goal: not to get a girl pregnant. Both Mom and Teresa had babies before eighteen. I won’t do that to a girl. Or me. It’s simple, really, or it should be. Wear a damn condom even if a chick says she’s on the pill. I went through boxes of condoms with Danielle, the rodeo queen, not that I’m complaining. She had a lot of responsibilities that her parents never let her shirk, mostly riding her horse in parades and roundups and speaking at camps and youth meetings and every 4-H and FFA club in Washington State, it seemed. She liked “to let her hair down” with me, or so she said. I think she meant “take her shirt off.” Maybe Danielle was just slumming it with me to mess with her parents, as Benji insisted, the asshole.
Tomorrow is my sister’s day off. I told her I’d go to the Laundromat because her washer is broken and her back sore from lifting patients. She can veg in front of the TV, watch Home Shopping Network or reruns of her favorite mystery shows. Besides, I barely have any clean clothes myself. I couldn’t get her washer to spin. If Ray could fix it, Teresa might actually let him kiss her on the cheek or at least hang out with her at the Fourth of July Pow Wow next month. Instead, before he fell asleep, he offered to move the washer outside. She told him we weren’t on the rez. The manager doesn’t allow appliances on the front porch, even if it is only a trailer park. He then offered to haul it to the rez and dump it. “Jesus,” she said.
----
Sunday morning. I’ve been waiting. The aunt and uncle leave for church. The girl immediately opens the blinds that the aunt keeps closed all day. Next time I check, she’s outside. I have to at least go introduce myself and find out her name. She must be so bored. I am. And I have a TV and a truck. Tomorrow I’m going to start running three miles a day—and stop smoking—to get in shape for football. I’ve been doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats, but I need a field for sprints and monkey bars for pull-ups. The girl wears a hippie-looking sun hat, Hollywood shades, and she reads a book on the little stone bench in her aunt’s garden. Precious. Ray would splooge his pants. Maybe I shouldn’t disturb her. She’s not really concentrating—keeps looking at the poplars, whose
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