Indians much. One of those towns, called Poison, tried to secede
(that means quit, I looked it up) from the rez. Really. It was
like the Civil War. Even though the town is in the middle of the
rez, the white folks in that town decided they didn't want to be
a part of the rez. Crazy. But most of the people here are nice.
The whites and Indians. And you know the best part? There's this
really great hotel where hubby and I had our honeymoon. It's on
Flathead Lake and we had a suite, a hotel room with its own
separate bedroom! And there was a phone in the bath room!
Really! I could have called you from the bathroom. But that's
not even the most crazy part. We decide to order room service,
to have the food delivered to our room, and guess what they had
on the menu? Indian fry bread! Yep. For five dollars, you could
get fry bread. Crazy! So I ordered up two pieces. I didn't think
it would be any good, especially not as good as grandma's. But
let me tell you. It was great. Almost as good as grandma's. And
they had the fry bread on this fancy plate and so I ate it with
this fancy fork and knife. And I just kept imagining there was
some Flathead Indian grandma in the kitchen, just making fry
bread for all the room-service people. It was a dream come true!
I love my life! I love my husband! I love Montana!
I love you!
Your sis, Mary
Thanksgiving
It was a snowless Thanksgiving.
We had a turkey, and Mom cooked it perfectly.
We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin
pie. It was a feast.
I always think it's funny when Indians celebrate Thanksgiving. I mean, sure, the Indians and Pilgrims were best friends luring that first Thanksgiving, but a few years later, the Pilgrims were shooting Indians.
So I'm never quite sure why we eat turkey like everybody else.
"Hey, Dad," I said. "What do Indians have to be so thankful for?"
"We should give thanks that they didn't kill all of us."
We laughed like crazy. It was a good day. Dad was sober. Mom was getting ready to nap.
Grandma was already napping
But I missed Rowdy. I kept looking at the door. For the last ten years, he'd always come over to the house to have a pumpkin-pie eating contest with me.
I missed him.
So I drew a cartoon of Rowdy and me like we used to be:
Then I put on my coat and shoes, walked over to Rowdy's house, and knocked on the
door.
Rowdy's dad, drunk as usual, opened the door.
"Junior," he said. "What do you want?"
"Is Rowdy home?"
"Nope."
"Oh, well, I drew this for him. Can you give it to him?"
Rowdy's dad took the cartoon and stared at it for a while. Then he smirked.
"You're kind of gay, aren't you?" he asked.
Yeah, that was the guy who was raising Rowdy. Jesus, no wonder my best friend was
always so angry.
"Can you just give it to him?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'll give it to him. Even if it's a little gay."
I wanted to cuss at him. I wanted to tell him that I thought I was being courageous, and that I was trying to fix my broken friendship with Rowdy, and that I missed him, and if that was gay, then okay, I was the gayest dude in the world. But I didn't say any of that.
"Okay, thank you," I said instead. "And Happy Thanksgiving."
Rowdy's dad closed the door on me. I walked away. But I slopped at the end of the
driveway and looked back. I could see Rowdy in the window of his upstairs bedroom. He was holding my cartoon. He was watching me walk away. And I could see the sadness in his face. I just knew he missed me, too.
I waved at him. He gave me the finger.
"Hey, Rowdy!" I shouted. "Thanks a lot!"
He stepped away from the window. And I felt sad for a moment. But then I realized that
Rowdy may have flipped me off, but he hadn't torn up my cartoon. As much as he hated me, he probably should have ripped it to pieces. That would have hurt my feelings more than just about anything I can think of. But Rowdy still respected my cartoons. And so maybe he still respected me a little bit.
Hunger Pains
Our history teacher, Mr. Sheridan, was trying to teach us something about the Civil War.
But he was so boring and monotonous that he was only teaching us how to sleep with our eyes open.
I had to get out of there, so I raised my hand.
"What is it, Arnold?" the teacher asked.
"I have to go the bathroom."
"Hold it."
"I can't."
I put on my best If-I-Don't-Go-Now-I'm-Going-To-Explode face.
"Do you really have to?" the teacher asked.
I didn't have to go at first, but then I realized that yes, I did have to go.
"I have to go really bad," I said.
"All right, all right, go, go."
I headed over to the library bathrooms because they're usually a lot cleaner than the ones by the lunchroom.
So, okay, I'm going number two, and I'm sitting on the toilet, and I'm concentrating. I'm in my Zen mode, trying to lake this whole thing a spiritual experience. I read once that Gandhi was way into his own number two. I don't know if he I old fortunes or anything. But I guess he thought the condition and quality of his number two revealed the condition and quality of his life.
Yeah, I know, I probably read too many books.
And probably WAY too many books about number two.
But it's all important, okay? So I finish, flush, wash my lands, and then stare in the mirror and start popping zits. I'm all quiet and concentrating when I hear this weird noise coming from the other side of the wall.
That's the girls' bathroom.
And I hear that weird noise again.
Do you want to know what it sounds like?
It sounds like this:
ARGGHHHHHHHHSSSSSPPPPPPGGGHHHHHHH
AAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHAGGGGHH!
It sounds like somebody is vomiting.
Nope.
It sounds like a 747 is landing on a runway of vomit.
I'm planning on heading back to the classroom for more scintillating lessons from the
history teacher. But then I hear that noise again.
ARGGGHHHHHHHHSGHHSLLLSKSSSHHSDKFDJSABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ!
Okay, so somebody might have the flu or something. Maybe they're having, like, kidney
failure in there. I can't walk away.
So I knock on the door. The girls' bathroom door.
"Hey," I say. "Are you okay in there?"
"Go away!"
It's a girl, which makes sense, since it is the girls' bathroom
"Do you want me to get a teacher or something?" I ask through the bathroom door.
"I said, GO AWAY!"
I'm not dumb. I can pick up on subtle clues.
So I walk away, but something pulls me back. I don't know what it is. If you're romantic, you might think it was destiny.
So destiny and me lean against the wall and wait.
The vomiter will eventually have to come out of the bathroom, and then I'll know that
she's okay.
And pretty soon, she does come out.
And it is the lovely Penelope, and she's chomping hard on cinnamon gum. She'd
obviously tried to cover the smell of vomit with the biggest piece of cinnamon gum in the world.
But it doesn't work. She just smells like somebody vomited on a big old cinnamon tree.
"What are you looking at?" she asks me.
"I'm looking at an anorexic," I say.
A really HOT anorexic, I want to add, but I don't.
"I'm not anorexic," she says. "I'm bulimic."