Apgar, Glacier National Park, Montana, June 1975.
Mom’s silver-blue Oldsmobile Delta 88 moves slowly down the dirt road, its back bumper rocking, thrown around by the dipping mud beds and potholes. The road has yet to be graded; she has a mile to go before she gets to the highway. At her pace it will take her fifteen minutes to go that one mile. Fifteen minutes seem like forever when “good-bye” is involved.
But I’m not a kid. I’m sixteen and my anxiousness is not about celebrating my freedom but about my dread at being left behind. Abandoned. That thought is a wisp, a ghost. But I shove it away as I watch her car disappear into the trees. Only then do I fully appreciate that I am alone in the middle of absolute nowhere.
Welcome to the Youth Conservation Corps or, how people typically refer to it, the YCC, in Glacier National Park. The YCC is a summer program put together by the U.S. government that gives high school students a chance to learn skills, preparing them for future jobs. When Dad read the job announcement to me in January I wasn’t jazzed about these skills being my future. He had always encouraged me to go to college, not be a laborer. But he felt it important that I apply and had grown increasingly frustrated with my lack of motivation to do so. Therefore, before the application’s February due date, Dad filled it out himself and submitted it, and it was with a certain sense of self-righteousness that he handed me the acceptance letter two months later. So here I am, looking at the place that will be my home over the next eight weeks.
The premises consist of two constructed environments: one for the YCCers and the other for the leaders. The YCCers are housed in the center of the large open green in six military surplus tents, whose olive-green canvases are pulled tight over a wooden framework and whose floors, diagonal planks of two-by-sixes, sit several feet off the ground. The doorways face different directions, allowing for a certain amount of privacy for the occupants. Each tent contains two sets of bunk beds, guarded on each end by a dark-green footlocker. Everything we own is required to fit within that chest. As a result, the administration provided a succinct shopping list of required items: three chambray work shirts, three pairs of jeans, a pair of work boots, a pair of work gloves, clothes to relax in during the off hours, a hat, a raincoat, several pairs of wool socks, and assorted personal items, including underwear and toiletries. Whatever won’t fit, the directions stated, were to go home with our parents.
The leaders and camp administrators are housed in more permanent structures, namely, the four dark-brown log cabins with their large wooden porches that all look inward at our cloth residences. Beyond those structures lies a forest of dark pines that, by its very nature, curbs exploration in anything but broad daylight.
I feel the tears coming on again as I, once more, am aware of my isolation.
“Hi!”
The voice takes me by surprise, and I am embarrassed by the tears that roll down my cheek, wishing I had contact lenses to blame them on as I rub them away. I look around for the disembodied voice.
“Over here.”
A girl stands near the canvas tent behind me, partially hidden behind a tree. When she emerges, I am reminded of an Irish pixie, as I take in her short red hair, dark-brown eyes, and freckles that spread like the Milky Way across her pale skin. She’s waving a slender hand, and her head is tilted; her mouth curves into an expression that is open, mischievous, and daring.
“It’s okay,” she says, walking slowly toward me, her voice bright against the overcast sky. “It’s lonely at first, but that goes away quick. I’m Jackie.” She smiles as she extends her hand and asks, “What tent are you in?”
My first friend. I sigh and no longer see the image of Mom’s back bumper disappearing around the corner.
The camp has few rules; however, those are unquestioned. Lights out at ten, no sleepovers with people of the opposite sex, and no food of any kind allowed in the tents. The director emphasizes that this is to keep grizzly bears from busting through the canvas in the middle of the night. Therefore, all food will be consumed in the mess hall a mile away. Meal times are precisely at 0630, 1200, and 1830.
We can get to the mess hall one of two ways: catch a ride with one of the counselors five minutes before meal service or walk along the forest trail. Only once do I accept a ride and realize I don’t like to be hurried. I need this time in the morning and evening to prepare myself for the day and to review the day, respectively. I look forward to the mornings the most, when moisture hangs in the air, and the acrid scent of pine wafts through my senses. I awaken a little more with each step, my head clears with each breath, and by the time I reach the mess hall I am ready for the day. After work, when I return, long-fallen needles from these same pines dampen my steps, making it easier to observe the birds and small mammals that skitter along the branches decorated with long brown beards of lichen. Grasses grow tall by the side of the trail, and in the early summer the ecru blossoms of bear grass call for my fingers’ caress.
The people who join me on these walks are almost always the same. There is Judith, the twenty-two-year-old camp counselor who stands over six feet tall. She used to be embarrassed about her height and would walk stoop-shouldered wherever she went so as to not draw attention to herself. When she was eighteen she realized at six feet she was going to draw attention regardless. I listen to her soft voice tell her story as she walks with a daisy chain in her hair, lending an even more hippieish look to her cotton tunics and jeans and hiking boots. Shawn, a year younger than me, can’t wait to get away from the never-ending work on his parent’s wheat farm in eastern Montana. He divests me of my romantic notion of farming when he talks about his daily life: feeding the cows and chickens in the early mornings, bucking hay for winter feed, and endlessly combining in the fall when his town friends are gathering, drinking, and watching girls. Jeff came from Colorado at the beginning of summer to be a camp counselor. He’s twenty-four. He told me he was shocked at how empty Montana was. “I saw maybe twenty cars between Sheridan and Billings,” he said, awe tinging his soft voice.
Jeff practiced meditation, and when I showed interest he taught me how to do it. Every evening after dinner and every weekend morning after breakfast, I’d find a spot of grass on the bluffs above the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and sit. I’d close my eyes and cross my legs, touching the tips of my middle finger and thumb together while I whispered a mantra that sounded like something a meditator would say. And I would wait until the physical world melted into the background, and my thoughts became married to the sounds of the gentle currents of the river below.
There is Margaret and Ian, in their early fifties, she a nurse, he a carpenter. They tell me they’d participated in a fast a few years back, eating nothing and drinking only water. “You get weak,” Ian explains. “But it’s okay. It totally cleanses your system. Did you know there is ten pounds of junk that gets down into all the little crevices in your colon?”
I don’t know that. And I’m not going to try it out.
Within a few weeks I no longer miss the life I lived in Billings. I don’t miss my mom or her forced, awkward silliness brought on by the stress of living in a tension-filled house. I don’t miss my friends or their shallow conversations of five-finger discounts or make-out sessions in the back of their family’s station wagon with their older boyfriends. Nor do I miss the embarrassingly early curfews put in place by Dad, my parents’ bitter arguments that stretch late into the night because of his drinking, or the sound of my dad’s band saw revving up at three in the morning while he is revved up on vodka. But most of all, I don’t miss being an only child. With sixteen other teens, I’m forced to compete for attention, conversation, and even food. But competition reveals pain.
“Anyone want the last potatoes?” I ask at one of our first meals. Silence. I ask twice more, looking from face to face for denial or acceptance of my offer. Still there is no answer, and now some people stare at me in confusion. By the third time a boy explodes, “If you want ’em, take ’em. Just stop asking!”
I’m embarrassed, but then how would he know how Dad has trained me? That if anything was left over I was supposed to offer it to others, and if I didn’t Dad called me “selfish” and “piggy”? So I would offer. But even if I reached for it after a refusal, Dad then called me “grabby” or “greedy.” No matter how many offers I gave, if I reached for the food I wanted Dad would glare at me and bark, “You’ve had enough.”
Although I never went hungry, I was not entitled to this food without his permission. Despite his harsh words, this boy had just granted me permission to enjoy food without humiliation. I smiled before reaching for the potatoes. Welcome to coming-of-age without a net.
In 1970 I lived in the small town of Naselle, Washington, population somewhere in the low four hundreds. My sixth-grade class had about twenty students, and I was the only girl not wearing a bra, not even one of the cotton, waffle-weave training bras that slipped soft and pliable over the head without the wearer having to deal with awkward hooks. I was also the only one who didn’t have a starched, white, cotton, button-down shirt that allowed people to see through opaque fabric enough to discern a bra, training or otherwise. When one acquired both, the games and mating rituals truly began, as girls paraded around in their new-found womanhood and boys snickered. I so much wanted to be a part of it.
“Mom,” I said one rainy afternoon, “I need a training bra.” The words came out in a rush, and although I’d practiced them for weeks, they still didn’t feel comfortable, for me to say and probably for her to hear. Bras, or periods, or anything remotely associated with femaleness carried negative connotations for both of my parents. Their feelings were apparent by Mom’s tensing of her body and her face and the increased shaking of her hands, and Dad’s glower. All promoted feelings of discomfort that permeated the air around me, whichever parent I was with. Thank God I was never with both parents, or the air would have exploded.
A few months before my first menses, Mom didn’t give me the “talk.” No. Instead, she presented me with a box about two feet long, a foot wide, and eight inches deep, wrapped in plain brown paper—the kind of wrapping that covered my dad’s Playboy magazines that sat upstairs in his bedside drawer, beneath his government-issued pistol that he kept hidden in a purple Crown Royal whiskey bag. Every so often I’d slip up there and flip through the pages, in awe and embarrassment, but mostly in awe, my heart pounding at the fear of being discovered. Of course, this took place during the sexual revolution—it wasn’t unheard of for men to have this same type of magazine in their nightstand drawer. I knew because I asked my friends. Behind cupped hands we whispered about what was inside the glossy cover and giggled at the naughtiness.
“If you have any questions,” Mom said, handing me the box, “let me know.” Then she just walked away. Perhaps she was embarrassed, perhaps she wanted to give me privacy, but one way or the other her statement made it clear that one of us would feel discomfort if I did anything of the sort. The booklet inside explained what the box contained: “everything a young woman needs to learn about her changing body.” And it did: the pads, the garter belt, and an illustrated book about the female body. That was my “talk.”
Mom, however, wasn’t quite as embarrassed about my request for a training bra, a point evident in her laughter. “What are you training them to do?” Mom’s chortling stopped when she saw my frustration, and her amusement became a gentle smile. She sighed and looked at my chest for those first initial buds, which didn’t exist. I reasoned that maybe, like fertilizer, a bra would make breasts grow. But it wasn’t so much I wanted breasts; I wanted a bra, for what it represented: being grown up. I just wanted an end to the judgmental gazes that some girls threw at me out of the corners of their eyes in the lunchroom, across the classroom, or out on the playground, where we don’t really play but stand around and act very suave and sophisticated.
“Okay,” Mom said, realizing that what I wanted was group cohesion, and if a bra did that for me, so be it. “We’ll go this weekend.”
The following Saturday we drove across the five-mile bridge that spans the mouth of the Columbia River to the downtown area of Astoria, Oregon. Although Astoria was twenty miles away from where we lived, it was the only metropolis that was relatively close. That was the city we went to for my dance-recital outfits, my doctors’ appointments, and my age-appropriate clothing. We parallel parked near the JC Penney store, an aging building in an aging city, and found the bra section. I scanned the shelves and almost immediately my gaze landed on the style that all the girls were wearing—the gentle waffle weave of the training bra. I took it out of the plastic bag, whose seal was already broken, and held it gently across my fingertips, where it lay, soft and pliable; a tiny, white satin bow daintily separated the two bumps where the cups would otherwise be. I stuffed the bra back into the plastic and looked around for the white, starched cotton shirts. Mom saw the direction of my gaze.
“We’ll have to get a shirt another time,” Mom said. Then, seeing my look of disappointment, she smiled. “Let’s go to the five-and-dime and get a milkshake.” I could be bought.
On the way home, as the forests and saltwater marshes slid past my window, I wondered if the other girls would notice the different “me” the following day. I didn’t dare wonder about the boys. I’d been well trained that boys were not to be wondered about.
That evening after dinner I sneaked up to my room, closed the door, and tried on the bra, slipping it easily over my head. Looking at the mirror, I admitted I wasn’t exactly like the girls on the Playtex commercials, but I did feel more grown-up. I acknowledged my new status as a young woman.
“Suz!” Dad called up the narrow hallway of stairs. “Someone’s here and wants to see you.”
A visitor! It was rare that anyone came to our house, and I’d never known anyone to just show up; it was always by invitation. Curious, I slid a red-print turtleneck sweater over my head and felt the change immediately. Now only a narrow swath of cotton came between my shirt and me instead of the long cotton undershirt. Although my clothing felt awkward, that grown-up feeling had found legs.
When I got downstairs, a man Dad worked with (I’d seen him only a few times) occupied the couch, his arm thrown across its back. My seating options were limited, nonexistent really. I could sit on one of the kitchen chairs or on Dad’s lap. I was a child in a young woman’s body. My mind, really, hadn’t caught up to my status. Therefore, like so many times before, I sat on Dad’s knee and listened to the adult conversation that passed back and forth between the two men like a ping-pong ball. And like so many times before, Dad’s hand rubbed my back, absently. Until it stopped. Right at the ridge of the scooped back and then again three inches lower at the base of the strap.
I swallowed hard, my heart pounding, because when his hand stopped, his words stopped as well. A quick look revealed his anger as his black brows descended over eyes with pinprick pupils.
“What in the hell is this?”
His voice was harsh in my ear, as he reached under the back of my shirt and grabbed the fabric of the soft waffle-weave bra and pulled until the back of the bra came into view for him. I saw the look of discomfort cross the near-stranger’s face as all this unfolded. I felt my own discomfort as well, as my face grew heated, reddening almost to the color of my turtleneck. Dad abruptly let go and forced me off his knee, anger shaking his voice.
“Get upstairs and get out of that right now. I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, wearing that.”
That night Mom and Dad argued, exchanging bitter, hard words, until I finally pulled the blanket over my head, which dampened their voices only a bit. I wore the bra the next day, but I was scared and mortified instead of proud. Growing up was something to be ashamed of, not something that happened.
What we do at the YCC is physical labor. For hours we swing Pulaskis, cutting through dense, granite-filled soil as we build new campsites; shovel rocks and spade dirt to enhance trails; or swing sledgehammers to bring down rotting foot bridges and dilapidated structures. By the end of it our backs ache and our shoulders hurt; every muscle in our bodies sends an electric shock through our system, and we wince at the touch.
“Anyone know how to give a backrub?” Joey asks one day after eight hours of building a footbridge and four more days to go. I study him—that round face; that long, slender nose; the broad shoulders that taper to a narrow waist; those almond-shaped eyes and brown skin all indicate American Indian heritage. But he doesn’t say it and I don’t ask. People lie sometimes when they’re asked outright, especially if they can “pass” for white. What I know is that he comes from the eastern plains and wears T-shirts that hug his body, mainly because he’s outgrown them. In the past few weeks his muscles have grown from the nonstop manual labor.
“I can try,” I answer. With the help of a couple of guys, we set up a makeshift table outside, using one of the mattresses from a nearby tent. I stand to one side, or the other, but the distance is uncomfortable, and I stretch in ways that twinge my joints and muscles.
“Do you mind if I sit on you?” I ask. It is a question I would never have asked a few weeks before, but by now we have worked and lived together under conditions where privacy and social mores have been tossed aside for efficiency.
“No,” he mumbles into his arm. “Go ahead.”
I climb on his buttocks and am immediately aware of the heat of his body as it sears the secret areas of mine, our parts separated by mere millimeters of fabric. He jumps when I pump the cool lotion onto his warm skin, and I smile at his sudden vulnerability. Then I place my palms on his shoulders and begin to knead. I manipulate the muscles’ soreness and feel them give way under the pressure of my palm, while a surge of electricity shoots up my arms in an adrenaline rush unlike anything I’d experienced before. There is a hypnotic feel for both him and me as I push my thumbs along the groove of his spine and pull my fingers along his ribs, following their lines, feeling his flesh jump as I touch sensitive areas. His skin is satin beneath my hands; its heat pulses through me and drives the gentle motion of touch.
I will do this all summer. I will do this for just about every member of the camp at the end of just about every day. I know where to put the pressure and where to work out the pain. I have no idea that what I give is healing, for both them and me. I do know I need it, like a Pentecostal needs a laying on of hands. It reminds me I exist, that I am human. It also reminds me that I have control.
In the winter months of early 1972, before I turned thirteen, my father’s alcoholism was nearing its zenith. Although it would get worse, this was pretty bad. Once, after a hard night of hard liquor, Dad decided it was time to “teach” me the ways in which boys would try to take advantage of me when I began dating a “few years from now.”
My stomach churned with his attentions, his kissing, his nuzzling. Within moments, tears flowing, I begged him to stop, as his hands wandered over my body, my voice high and strained from the humiliation. He did stop, although he continued petting my hair and crooning, holding me close while his body shook. “You did the right thing,” he murmured, his lips close to my ear. “You know right from wrong. You did the right thing.” Revulsion seethed while he held me in his arms. And I did nothing, because I’d seen his anger, experienced his anger, feared his anger.
Mom must have sensed something, because she came down the stairs. By the look in her eye, she had surmised what had happened, but she needed me to say it. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice quavering with emotion. The look she shot my father was kilned hatred. “Did he touch you?”
Mute, I shook my head vigorously.
“Did he touch you?” she asked again.
Her eyes implored that I tell the truth. If you tell me the truth, her eyes said, I can do something about it. But if you don’t, there’s nothing I can do. All this she said with one look. I shook my head once more, but I could not meet her gaze.
People specializing in family sexual abuse say victims will protect the abuser because of fear of reprisal. In my case, although I feared Dad’s anger, I feared Mom’s anger toward him more. Mom was an accomplished big-game hunter. If she learned the truth, I knew that at some point in the not-too-distant future, she would walk calmly to the portable gun case she kept in the basement and take out her shotgun, the one whose stock had been intricately hand carved by my father years ago, when he loved her. She would clean it, oil it, and put two shells in the barrel. She would then aim that gun at my father’s head and pull the trigger.
Of that I had no doubt.
It is nearly the end of July in Glacier National Park, and my crew has worked all week to complete one final project before our eight weeks are finished: replace the subfloor on a historic cabin near St. Mary Lake, located on the east side of the park. Our home is a two-person tent at St. Mary campground, whose stunted aspen trees tell the story of harsh winters and endless wind. Now, however, it is warm, and winter is a long ways away.
Catherine, my tentmate, is a member of the Blackfeet tribe and an adoptee. She tells me that every weekend her adoptive family takes her to visit her “real” family. I feel a twinge of jealousy, because members of her real family are not ghosts; she knows them by name and by relationship. A few weeks ago Catherine’s Indian grandmother died, and she cried, deep sobs that welled up from her chest. This told me everything I needed to know about her love for this elderly woman. And I wanted to cry with her, but the tears wouldn’t come. I have no idea who my Indian grandmother is or what she’s like or even if she’s alive. Perhaps if I’d known these things I could have cried with her.
We’ve been working hard all week, so when I sleep, I sleep the way of the dead, unmoving. And I dream. I dream of someone calling my name, calling me to join him. “Come with me. Susan, come with me,” he whispers, this faceless, body-less being. I walk along a corridor whose walls are silk, giving way when I push on them, following the voice that seems to be continually moving on the other side. I try to answer the voice, but my tongue is thick in my mouth, and the words won’t form. Suddenly, my feet stumble over something unexpected. I hear a harsh whisper.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
I am forced back into wakefulness and realize I’ve stumbled over her legs. I have a sense of vertigo, and my hands and feet feel like lead. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I answer. My sleep-filled brain is confused, and I am unable to fully process where I am. “I guess I’m sleepwalking.”
Except that the voice continues to call for me to join him. Him.
“Who is it?” I ask through the fabric of the tent.
“It’s me. Victor. Come with me. I need your help.”
I make my way over to the tent’s doorway and unzip the fabric. The high-altitude cold slaps my face, and a billion stars wink beyond his shadow.
“What time is it?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
“It’s about one in the morning.”
Victor’s answer doesn’t make sense. What does he need help with at one o’clock in the morning? I ask him the question, and he replies, “We have to get tools at the cabin. I left a bunch there this afternoon, and I have to get them before we leave tomorrow.”
I pause, only momentarily. “Okay, hold on,” I say and turn back into the tent.
Catherine clamps her hand on my leg. “Don’t go.”
“I have to,” I whisper back, pulling on a cold pair of jeans and a T-shirt as well as the sweatshirt that’s been worn too many days. “He’s my boss.”
“You don’t have to go,” she implores. “You’re not on work hours. It’s weird he’s even asking you.”
“I don’t want to get fired,” I say to her as I step through the doorway. “My dad would kill me if I get fired.”
I step through the doorway, and it is immediately clear from his stumbles and the odor of liquor that seeps from every pore that Victor is drunk. My stomach churns at the smell.
“Your dad’s not going to kill you,” Catherine says, sticking her head out the door, giving one last appeal.
“Yeah, you don’t know my dad.”
No one outside my family trio knew how much my dad believed in corporal punishment. I would definitely get hit. A lot. Of that I am certain. His anger is already sparked by my dawning womanhood and its budding sexuality. He seems to sit and wait for me to screw up, to make bad decisions, which I always seem to do. And since he doesn’t trust me, I’ve stopped trusting myself. Other people obviously know better than me, and if I just go with the flow, anger is abated. At least that’s how it works in my sixteen-year-old mind.
“We gotta go get the tools,” Victor says, his eyes heavy-lidded and his tongue so thick the words sloop out of his mouth in a way that makes them barely understandable. He weaves in the fertile light of the full moon.
“Why?” I still can’t seem to shake the fuzziness from my sleep-drugged brain.
“Because we have to get them before we leave.” His voice is edged with annoyance, and I let it roll off me because it must be me who doesn’t understand. His voice indicates it is so obvious to him. Therefore, I am compliant as I follow Victor, watching him stumble toward the government truck. I am unfazed not only by his lack of coordination but by the fact that he’s getting behind the wheel. His behavior is nothing new; I’ve witnessed it with my dad many times. “Let’s go,” Victor says, his words slurring as he pulls open the heavy door, losing his footing once more.
“Can you drive?” I ask.
“I’m fine. Just get in.”
Victor burps and the smell of whiskey rides the steam of his breath across the cab. I look over at him and watch his deep-seated eyes fail to focus. The truck weaves beneath his unsteady hands, and the back tires fall off the asphalt. Something clunks around in the bed, and I swallow my fear, aware of the burning remnants of an ulcer that I first felt when I was ten. Victor roughly maneuvers the truck back on the road, and I lay my head back against the seat and close my eyes to all the other cues of dysfunction around me. This place where I am, physically and mentally, is out of my control, and it is familiar. So familiar that I fall asleep entirely as heat finally pours out of the vents, bringing an end to my shivering.
Glancing at my watch, I see that we arrive at the cabin at one thirty in the morning. In just a few hours we are scheduled to return to West Glacier, to our familiar camp, to my friends who weren’t placed on this crew, to Victor’s pregnant wife whose hip is riddled with cancer. He turns off the engine and suddenly my brain begins to wake up, processing the danger I’m in. We are in the middle of nowhere, it’s pitch dark, and I haven’t seen any other cars since leaving the campsite.
The screech of the truck door hinge makes me jump, evidence that my nerves are raw. Victor fishes around in the bed of the truck and finds the flashlight that has been rolling around back there, causing the clunking noise. “Well, let’s get to it,” he says, his slurring somewhat diminished.
Victor turns the flashlight on, and the beam weaves unsteadily in his hand, illuminating the hammers, wrenches, saws, and a myriad of other tools that lie scattered across the makeshift yard. One by one Victor and I throw these into the bed of the truck, where they slam, metal against metal. As I bend to pick up the leftovers, Victor’s voice, no longer quiet and whispered, cuts through the night’s eerie stillness. “There’s more upstairs in the cabin.” He indicates the doorway with his chin. He stumbles up the stairs of the front porch and motions me inside, without looking whether or not I’m following. Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe he just knows.
A chill crawls up the back of my neck, and I look out at the trees, feeling that we are being watched by spirits, by animals hiding behind shrubs or crouched in the grass. I shiver then and tell myself it’s only the eyes of night animals, the bats, the owls, the ones that move easily under a blanket of darkness, the ones annoyed at our presence. I turn away from the trees that guard the darkness and toward the shaking ray of light that falls on the floor of the cabin.
The beam is cast on the remnants of stairs, dismantled and not yet fully rebuilt. In their place are narrow oblong frames, on which a slab of oak will sit at some point in the future. Victor has already somehow scaled these and is standing about seven feet above me on what will be the second floor. I gingerly place a shaking foot on the two-inch width of framing and feel myself teeter. My balance has never been great, and there is no handrail to steady myself. What if my leg slips? I don’t think long on that possibility.
Victor stumbles around in the near darkness, and suddenly I feel anger welling up in my chest, traveling at light speed through my arms and legs, my fingers, my toes. I’m angry that I’ve been awakened for this job, angry that I’m here with a drunk, and angry that I’ve let myself get into this situation. It is that anger that carries me up those stairs. It quickly turns to fear, however, when I cross the flooring and turn around, only to find Victor blocking my way to the stairs. I feel his hands on my shoulders, pushing me, forcing me backward, hoping I’ll lose my footing and fall. But I stay upright. Without thinking I take a step back and watch as he stumbles forward.
“What are you doing?” I shout, fear chewing at the edges of my consciousness.
“Oh, come on. Don’t play dumb,” he says, his words sliding past his lips, swaggering and self-confident. He reaches his hand toward my chest, but his fingers are clumsy, and they grasp air as I take another step back. The momentum of his reach pulls him forward, and he lands on his hands and knees. Fear takes control, and I scream from the bottom of my lungs. I scream and I hear it shattering the night into a thousand aural crystals. Victor scrambles to his feet then; I’m surprised at his agility. That same agility allows him to clap his hands over my mouth. I bite into the tender flesh of his palm, and he lets go and steps back. There is anger in his eyes, and I open my mouth and scream again; this time the sound becomes even more shrill as I begin to panic. God, let someone hear me! I run out of breath then, and silence settles like a velvet curtain, dampening the echoes that seem to go on forever, growing weaker as they glide across the lake. They have been swallowed by the walls of the cabin, the forest, the carpet of tall grass in the meadow. All those barriers have taken huge bites, leaving only a weak strand to find its way to our camp ten miles away. No sound returns to me.
Once more Victor slaps his hand across my mouth. “Shhhh, shhhhh. Stop, stop, stop!” He pleads into my ear, misgivings saturating his words, alarm replacing the alcohol dullness in his feral black eyes. “Just stop screaming, goddamn it! I’m not trying to hurt you. Stop screaming and I’ll take my hand away. I won’t touch you. But you have to stop.”
I stare at him, my eyes wide, as my lungs suck a weak stream of air through his fingers. I nod. He pulls away, and we measure each other up for our word. Then I wait, fear overtaking all emotion. I wait for the slap, for the physical retribution, for the pain of the payment of my transgression. But it doesn’t come. We have changed positions through this dance of power, and I see the empty space behind him, where no railing stands between the first and second floor. If he moves toward me, I can push him back, where he’ll drop into the nothingness seven feet below. Now I have a plan. I hold his gaze and plant my feet wide. I am grounded. I am the warrior, and I am ready.
He takes a step toward me. That’s all it takes as I push, with my heart and soul, I push and watch as Victor’s mouth widens into an O as my hands land on his shoulders and take his feet out from under him. His arms rotate uselessly, like windmills, to catch his balance, and his eyes, black and wild, no longer see me as he falls backward.
I watch in horror as he teeters on the edge. Then other thoughts come. What if he breaks a leg? What if he falls so hard he hits his head and is knocked unconscious or ends up in a coma? What if he dies? He falls backward, and I rush to the edge, feeling a confusion of emotion: he fell but not seven feet. One leg is caught in the empty frames of the future stairs.
“Help me. Help me up,” he says as he lifts an arm in my direction.
But I stand and shake my head.
With a grimace he hauls himself up to a sitting position, straddling the framework. He is angry now, an anger that twists his mouth and brightens his eyes. “Jesus Christ! What in the hell did you do that for?”
I lean forward and clench my teeth, my own fear becoming as dark and dangerous as his. “Don’t fucking touch me again,” I say, low and measured. I feel adrenaline move like an electrical current through my arms, my legs, my jaw. I clamp my teeth shut to stop their chattering. “You touch me again, I will kill you.”
No more words are exchanged as Victor hauls himself out and walks out the door, far soberer than when he walked in. We get in the truck, forgetting about the tools that still lay scattered on the second floor and litter the makeshift lawn around us, the ones we will not be bringing back to the camp. As he climbs behind the wheel, I reflect on how much we all revered this man, this Native American, who sounded so wise, so learned, at the beginning of our summer. We held on to his every word, thinking he held the key to us realizing the people we would become. Me especially. But now I’m disgusted. “Women want me,” he sneers as he drives along the dark ribbon of asphalt. “I have slept with so many women; they beg me to sleep with them. You have no idea what you’re missing.” And it goes on, while I look out the window at the stars in the night sky, tarnished diamonds, the moon long in hiding. My shivering is back, but it’s not from the cold.
As I crawl back into my sleeping bag, I know I won’t tell the director or the counselors. I don’t want Dad to find out. He’ll wonder what I did to provoke the assault, what I said, what I wore, what vibes I gave off that would make this okay. So I will have to remain silent. In my family, sex and silence go hand in hand.