Free Spirit Read online

  A week or so later, I was overcome by boredom and begged Claudia to take me to visit Christine the Donkey Girl. My mother looked up from the mud pit she was digging in and decided she’d done enough work on her Chinese kiln for the day. We walked down the mountain, hand in hand. As we rounded the bend, we saw Christine leading her donkey and her mother toward us up the hill. We waved and quickened our pace to meet them.

  “We were just coming to visit you,” I called out as we got closer.

  “We were just coming to visit you,” said Christine, wide-eyed with wonder. “What a coincidence this is.” She pronounced coincidence with great care as though the word was as magical as our serendipitous meeting.

  I knew what coincidence meant too, and appreciated the girl’s linguistic prowess. I repeated the word back to her: “Yes, it is quite a coincidence.”

  “It’s because of Jesus,” she declared.

  A bolt of electricity seemed to course through my mother’s body, and I winced as she suddenly clenched my hand tightly. I looked up to see that she was struggling to bring a forced smile to her face.

  I’d heard of this Jesus guy a couple of times before, but it seemed to be all Christine wanted to talk about as we walked back to her house. Her mother with the long black braid was also very taken with Jesus and spent most of the walk talking about how he had saved her. Christine and I fed carrots to the donkey and ran around her rickety house bearing wooden crosses she made from kindling. After that, Christine told me very solemnly that Jesus had died, and that he’d died for me. I was still processing this information when Claudia politely but firmly declined a dinner invitation. I was going to throw a minor fit in protest but could see there was no changing my mother’s mind. Plus I suspected that Christine’s mother was preparing spinach, so I went without a fight.

  As we trudged home, I asked: “Claudia, how come we couldn’t stay for dinner?”

  “Those people were fundamentalist Christians, Josh.”

  “They’re what?”

  “They believe in Jesus.”

  “Yeah, who is that Jesus?”

  “He was a man from a long time ago but they think he’s God.” Claudia shook her head. “Christ, that woman wouldn’t stop talking about Jesus for one minute. Did you hear her? ‘My pastor this, my pastor that.’ People have done a lot of really horrible things in Jesus’ name, Josh. The inquisition, the pogroms, the Native American genocide.”

  “That’s why we couldn’t stay for dinner?”

  “Yes. If we’d stayed, they would have tried to convert us.”

  That did sound unpleasant, even painful. “Would they have minded if I said fuck or shit?”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  “So, they were straight people?”

  “Well, yes… a kind of straight people.”

  Wait. There were different kinds of straight people? This was starting to get a little complicated. Straight people like the Stiglers were rich. But Christine wasn’t rich. She only had a little tiny black-and-white television, and the car in her driveway was old and junky. So straight people could be either rich people or poor people who believed in Jesus. There must have been some connection between Jesus and the rich that I wasn’t getting. I lost my train of thought, though, as Claudia began to point out the emerging constellations. There was the Big Dipper. And there was Orion’s Belt, always leading to Sirius the Dog Star. If only people were as easy to read as the stars.

  If Jesus was the mother tongue spoken by our neighbors down the hill, something called “sports” was the lingua franca in town.

  “Hey, Buford. You catch your Rams last night?”

  “Yup. Tyler’s on fire pretty much, but Haden’s a flop.”

  “Yessir, he ain’t the fastest thing rushin’ on two legs.”

  We were sitting at the counter in Annie Bow’s restaurant, eating fried pie. Annie Bow’s was the diner/bar that served as the town commons in the tiny community of Manton on the side of Mount Lassen. Fried pie was what it sounded like—deep-fried pockets of berry pie that my mother miraculously and mercifully didn’t consider junk food. As I carefully scraped the last of the berry filling off of my plate, Darlene mussed my hair and offered me more ice water. Darlene was the waitress/manager/chef/informal town mayor, and she kept up a steady line of chatter with everyone who walked in the door of Annie Bow’s.

  “Carl, you thinkin’ the Giants will shut out the Cubs again?”

  “Dunno. All depends on Blue comin’ off the bench and steppin’ up. You hear? Shifty lost a whole pile a money on them Angels.”

  My brain hurt trying to figure out what these people were talking about. The guy chewing tobacco in the corner was catching sheep? Someone was on fire? Someone lost money on angels? I was utterly confused. “Claudia, what are they talking about?” I finally whispered, imagining it was some sort of theological debate about an epic clash of spirits like in the Ramayana.

  My mother snorted dismissively: “Sports.”

  “What?”

  “Sports.”

  “You mean like running?” That didn’t make any sense.

  “No, Joshey. You know.” My mother hunched up her shoulders, furrowed her brow, and stuck her lips out like a gorilla. She let out a series of grunts, windmilled her arms around like she was throwing rocks, and then jerked her shoulders around like a drunk pushing through a crowd on the subway. She finished by compressing herself into a muscular squat, scrunching up her face, and growling with exertion. I was left to believe that “sports” was a Neanderthal soiling itself. But I knew that couldn’t be quite right.

  Whatever “sports” was, it could apparently be used as a pickup line. The logger with the red flannel shirt and lazy eye slid over to sit next to Claudia. It was only about three in the afternoon, but happy hour had come early for this gentleman, and he reeked of booze and slurred his words.

  “Hey, baby,” he addressed my mother. “You know why they call it ‘Manton,’ don’tcha? Manton is ‘Man-Town’ ’cause there ain’t enough women to go around. You catch my drift, babe?”

  Claudia didn’t look at him. She stared straight ahead at the shelf of Tabasco sauce.

  The logger tried again. “Who ya rootin’ for tonight? The Giants?”

  Claudia responded in a monotone. “I always root for the team with the largest fan base of urban poor.”

  The logger seemed confused. “Well, that’s… That is… what now?”

  “The largest group of urban poor. It’s a known fact that when the home team loses, wife-beating spikes dramatically. So I want the winning team to be the one that will spare the largest number of women from domestic violence.”

  The logger now stared at the Tabasco sauce bottles too. Then he shook his head, wiped his nose on his shirt, and slid back down the counter to ask Darlene for some coffee.

  Sports was such a passionate topic for these people that their team loyalties sometimes devolved into violence. One day at Annie Bow’s a middle-aged man next to us explained his black eye and multiple gory face bandages to Darlene: “I ain’t goin’ to no more high school football games. That’s for sure. I never shoulda worn that jersey.”

  Another time we entered the restaurant to find a trembling man standing inches away from Darlene’s outstretched carving knife. Darlene spoke calmly: “Clem, if you ever talk about them Raiders in my place again, I’ll cut your balls off. Got it?” Clem got it and sat down to enjoy the rest of his pancakes. A number of people clapped and then returned to their meals. It was a joke of some kind, but only sort of.

  On one of the many evenings when we bivouacked in the corner of Annie Bow’s, waiting to hitch a ride up the mountain, a group of men entered the restaurant taut with anger. Their jaws mercilessly worked their chewing tobacco, and their eyes bore the glassy invincibility of inebriation. Another group of men smoking cigarettes in the back of the restaurant stood up to confront them. Darlene ran out from behind the counter and put her hands out like a traffic cop. “Dusty,” she barked at t
he ringleader of the newcomers, “I know you ain’t comin’ in here to yak about the game ’cause the game is over and ain’t nobody goin’ be talkin’ about it tonight. Ain’t that right, Slim!?” She shot this last question at the tweaky ringleader of the smokers at the back. There was a long silence as the two parties sized each other up from across the restaurant. My mother and I hunched down in our booth. I was scared but decided that if a riot broke out, I would leap over into the next booth and grab the fat lady’s glazed doughnut in the confusion. Darlene didn’t like the silence. “In all my years here I ain’t never called the sheriff before to help me sort out my troubles. So, I’m real sure I ain’t gonna have to start callin’ the sheriff tonight and ruin my streak. Right, boys?” Dusty made some sort of executive decision, and he and his crew turned and walked out as silently as they’d come.

  The fat lady got up and looked down at me curiously. “Are you a boy or a girl?”

  This was one of only two non-sports-related questions that anyone ever asked of me. I knew the first was because of my long hair, and it was the easiest question in the world. I would answer in exasperation before it was even asked. “Are you…” “I’m a boy!” The second question—“What grade are you in?”—was harder to answer. I’d spent most of what would have been my kindergarten year traveling around in a funky blue van and a green bus. Now, it was summer and there was no school. And the plan for the coming fall was that my mother would home-school me. Sometimes I’d give this whole narrative as a response, which would leave the questioner silent and bewildered. Other times, I’d simply respond: “I’m home-schooled.” This prompted the questioner to give a sad shake of the head and say to my mother: “Oh, so he’s retarded, then?”

  As we hitchhiked home through the tiny cluster of buildings that was Manton, I gazed at the one place in town I’d never been: the elementary school. It was dark, closed for the summer. But in my mind, it was full of potential for the fall.

  My mother’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “You want to go to school!?” She wouldn’t have been more surprised if I’d told her I was leaving to join the Reagan administration. But she’d heard right. I wanted to go to school. “Are you sure, Josh?” I was sure. Deep within me I sensed that school was something kids had to do, even if their mothers told them they didn’t. “You remember what I told you about school, right?” She wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into. “Public school, it’s run by the government, remember?” I assured her she’d trained me so well that I would have no problem withstanding the Capitalist lies and conformist brainwashing that made school so dangerous.

  Once I’d made the decision to go, I began counting down the days to the first day of first grade. To avoid any further confusion about my gender, I asked Claudia to cut my hair. “Oh, your beautiful curls,” Claudia lamented, as she fetched the scissors. Sitting on a volcanic rock in the sun, my long blond locks shorn into the wind, I felt like Pinocchio being carved into reality.

  The appointed day came, and the babyish blond streaks were gone from my head. My big-boy hair was light brown now, and Claudia vigorously brushed it up into a frizzy bouffant. Then she adorned me with an elaborately embroidered vest she’d picked up from a Redding thrift store for just this day. “You look like Louis XIV,” she said, admiring me. I knew he was the Sun King, and I beamed. We walked hand in hand the mile down the mountain to the bus stop. When the bus came, Claudia sent me off with tears in her eyes. I controlled my emotions and climbed onto the battered yellow bus bravely, reminding myself to censor my language lest I run into any straight people. The chatter of the children dipped toward silence as I walked down the aisle. “What is that thing?” someone called out. “Nice vest!” called out another voice. I smiled. The vest was a hit!

  When I got to class, I was so excited I talked ceaselessly, introducing myself to and asking questions of my new classmates. But my day took a precipitous and traumatic dive a moment later when the teacher dragged me across the room by my hair.

  “I said no talking!” the strange giant man castigated me. “You’re all gonna learn to follow the rules in my class,” he announced, and I was banished to a plastic chair in the hallway. I covered my face with my hands and shook with shame and humiliation until I was joined a minute later by a tall, thin boy named Travis.

  Travis was mad. “That teacher is so mean!” he spat out.

  I felt instantly comforted by having a cellmate confident enough to be outraged. “I guess he really doesn’t like talking,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” Travis said, and we both laughed. “Why are you wearing that vest thing?” asked Travis.

  “My mom got it for me.” I knew he wouldn’t know who “Claudia” was.

  “Well, you should get rid of it. It looks stupid.”

  I flung the vest down the hall. We both laughed again. We were soon joined by two more kids, also banished for talking, and a sense of desperation returned to the hallway.

  When I got off the bus at the end of the day, and saw Claudia waiting for me with banana and carob chips, I started crying.

  “What happened, Joshey?”

  I told her what had happened.

  “Oh, my God, Josh! You do not have to go back there.”

  But I wanted to go back. In part, because I didn’t want to let the mean teacher win and, in part, because my trip to school brought me the same mix of fascination and fear that must have filled Pocahontas as she sailed up the River Thames for the first time. An alien and tremendous world awaited me.

  “He dragged you by the hair!?” My mother’s jaw hardened. When we got home she began working the phone like the harbinger of the apocalypse. An official investigation was demanded. The ACLU and class action lawsuits were mentioned. A protest march was threatened. Claudia told me the school “admitted” that Greg, the first-grade teacher, was ex-military. She wasn’t surprised. “He still thinks he’s in the Army. We’ll see how he likes his court-martial.” Greg remained my teacher, but he hardly even made eye contact after that, which made me feel powerful, but also invisible.

  That night Claudia and I slept outside under the stars. My day replayed itself over and over in my head. It wasn’t really the hair-pulling that stuck out in my mind. It was a thousand little clues that, taken as a whole, added up to a startling and unsettling conclusion. They were all straight. Every single one of them. I was the only kid who wasn’t. It was me who wasn’t normal. I’d started the day like a great American bison confident in his stature among the teeming kings of the prairie. I ended the day realizing I was on the endangered species list.

  They couldn’t tell I was from a different species just by looking at me, although my friend Travis told me I had the biggest nose he’d ever seen. Or, phrased another way, in front of some girls, he told me: “Josh, if you walked into a wall you’d hit your nose before your pecker.” That was a good one. Ha! Pecker. Whatever that meant. It was the language that gave me away. I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying.

  At recess the dead leaves smelled of decay and manure. I was the last kid still buried in a generous pile of them on the playground. We were supposed to pop out when we heard the right pig call but I couldn’t tell the difference between them. “OK, one more time, dummy,” scolded Billy. “Heeey-yooo. Shaaaw-weee. Sooo-weee. Weee-yaaay.” I popped out. “Nope, Josh, you missed it again. Git back under there.”

  Day after day, my ears hurt straining to understand what the kids were saying. My problem wasn’t so much the words—which, when they weren’t pig calls, were often English—but the context in which they were said. These were some of the incomprehensible questions they asked me:

  He-Man or She-Ra?

  Baptist or Methodist?

  Bird or Magic?

  Indiana Jones or James Bond?

  John Deere or Caterpillar?

  Christie Brinkley or Suzanne Somers?

  Donkey Kong or Pac-Man?

  I nodded knowingly and smiled deferentially but remained as b
ewildered as a Spaniard in Lisbon.

  Over time I began deciphering some of the language and reported my findings back to my mother. “Remember how I told you that a whole bunch of kids are in love with Jessie’s girl? That’s because there’s a song about that that kids listen to on the radio. Did you know that getting physical means sex? And stocking stuffers are on Christmas when you put red socks into a fire and put presents in them.” Claudia nodded distractedly, adding another layer of bricks into the kiln pit in the ground, trying to get the temperature high enough to fire raku pottery.

  She took full notice, though, when I told her that I’d been kneed in the head five times playing Smear the Queer. “Josh! That’s homophobic!”

  And she went absolutely bananas when she overheard me chanting: “Crack the whip… on the Japs!”

  “Josh!” she screamed at me. “How can you say that!? Hiroshima!”

  The next day I diligently tutored my schoolmates: “You can’t say ‘crack the whip on the Japs’ because it’s racist.”

  Bucktoothed Bo replied defiantly: “I’ll crack the whip on anybody I want.” I didn’t have a response to this, so I let it go.

  Later in the day, I got an even more surprising response when I told the football dudes: “My mom says you can’t say ‘Smear the Queer’ because a ‘queer’ is a gay person, like Harvey Milk. Gay people are men who put their penises in other men’s butts, and my mom says there’s nothing wrong with that.” The faces around me erupted wildly into a crimson flush. The dudes laughed themselves apoplectic, their open mouths wheezing for air and drooling with uncontrollable giddiness. As the laughter slowly died down, someone threatened to tell on me, and several of the dudes called me a “faggot.” I decided to let this one go as well.

  Most of the things I said sparked less of a reaction. Or no reaction at all. A blonde girl in my class named Misty would sometimes talk to me at lunchtime. We didn’t so much talk as exchange mutually unintelligible soliloquies.