Crazy Horse's Girlfriend (9781940430447) (21 page)

We bought our tickets and got in just in time for the movie, a French one called
White
. And I loved it. I just loved it, the images floating out in front of me, the whole deal with the chick who was mad at her husband was kinda confusing but somehow familiar at the same time. But I couldn't help feeling sorry for Miguel because he kept trying to hold Will's hand which was brave of him 'cause even though we were in a cool, hip place, it was still a few streets away from Colfax. Will kept moving away like it wasn't even happening, just like in the car. I could see Miguel's hand snaking over towards Will's in the dark, and Will throwing his hand into the popcorn every time it came near. And every time, a wave of fury and sadness would come over me. I'd seen it a million times with guys who treated their women like this, even when they really liked them,
especially
when they really liked them.

When the movie was over, Miguel and me sat for a minute while the credits rolled. Will had gotten up immediately and muttered something about going to the bathroom and meeting us up outside.

“He's so weird,” Miguel said.

“You don't know the half of it,” I said, standing up and gathering our trash.

Miguel stood up, sighing hard and pushing his long, wavy hair over one shoulder as we walked out. “I'm just so tired of guys treating me like shit.”

“I understand,” I said, and patted his shoulder. He turned and smiled at me.

“Please don't tell him I said that,” Miguel said and I nodded.

“Of course.”

I went to the bathroom and when I walked outside, I could see Miguel smoking nervously on the corner and Will looking at the posters, his goddamn hands behind his back.

“You guys wanna walk around for a while? Get a beer or something?”

Will shrugged. Miguel nodded and threw his cigarette into the street. We started walking and though the shit was tense between the guys and I could see the hip people rolling their eyes at us as we moved down the street with our Walmart t-shirts and jeans, I was still glad to be there.

“Well, that movie rocked,” I said, looking over at Miguel and Will, hoping to distract them. Miguel was still trying to hold hands with Will. I couldn't believe it. Dude was fucking brave. It was getting dark, and the bums and the crazy drunk people were out, and though I did see a few other guys holding hands, I could also see people eyeballing them and it scared me. But Will just kept crossing his arms across his skinny chest, above that funny little beer belly he had, every time Miguel tried. Finally Miguel stopped trying.

Will was quiet, moving farther and farther away from Miguel every second until he was walking ahead of us, which irritated me 'cause I wanted to go into some of the used bookstores. Miguel kept acting like Will was doing it by accident, like it was a result of some movement of the street, instead of some movement of the heart. Will kept inching away and Miguel kept inching towards, which was making it more and more difficult to talk to him. I figured it wouldn't be long before I lost sight of them completely, the way they were going, though finally Miguel quit trying to catch up with Will and slowed until he was walking by me. I smiled and he looked over at me thoughtfully.

“Girl, you got great hair.”

I pulled some of it over to my line of vision and said, “It's OK.”

“No, it's straight and thick and dark.”

“Not as thick as my auntie's. Plus, I love your hair. I used to get perms all the time, trying to get my hair to look like yours.”

“Really? Well… it's OK, I guess.”

“It's great. It's cool that you keep it long. So, you from here?” I asked.

“No, Albuquerque. You?”

“From here.”

“What do you do?” he asked.

“I'm in high school.”

“Cool… cool. I work at this restaurant, in the kitchen. Thirteen-hour days man, thirteen-hour days.”

“Jeez, that's a lot,” I said.

“Yeah. Gotta pay those bills. But I'm thinking of going to school to be a mechanic.”

“You should. Do you like cars?”

He looked thoughtful. “More than I like the kitchen where I work.”

I laughed. “Makes sense.”

Finally Will slowed down and we caught up to him and I suggested we duck into a bookstore. I spent a little time wandering the shelves and I could hear Will and Miguel arguing in the next shelf over, Miguel's voice sweet and pleading and Will's hard and dismissive. I could not understand Will at all. He was being a royal fucking douche. I sighed and looked at the shelf in front of me. I felt weirdly proud of myself for avoiding the horror and science fiction sections and going into the one with all the classy books. The kind of books that Mike read. Though thinking about that made me feel conflicted. I mean, Mike had turned out to be such a fucking jerk, but then again, some of the stuff he had told me about was cool. And I had been getting tired of all the ghosts, and warlocks and planet Zegateron type stuff I'd been reading before I'd even met Mike. It didn't matter. I looked down at my stomach and my heart twisted, sharp and heavy in my chest, like some kind of dull kitchen knife was in there. I could hear Will and Miguel arguing again as I looked at the back of a few books and wondered what the fuck even mattered in this life. People were always treating other people like shit, even when they loved them, even when it was wrong and they knew it.

I had been holding a couple of books under my arm and looking at another. I put that one back and pulled the two out from under my arm and walked over to the cash register. Will and Miguel had made it to the couches up front. Miguel was looking at Will and Will at his flat fucking feet. In that moment, I truly hated him.

The cashier ringing me up had a blond Elvis
'
do and big, black Buddy Holly glasses. These guys really killed me. I smiled and he smiled back and I shoved the lovely, dusty smelling books into my backpack and walked over to the couches. I sat down next to Will and looked at him with all the anger I could muster and he glared right back at me.

“Let's get a beer, you grumpy fucking fucker,” I said.

He stared back at me like he was gonna slap my giant yellow head and then he cracked a smile.

“OK, girl,” he said, getting up and putting his hand out at Miguel, his long, brown arm extending down as elegantly as a dancer's. Miguel looked up at him like he was his personal fucking savior and then took his hand and let himself be pulled up to his feet.

We walked out of the bookstore, the bell on the door jangling pleasantly, and onto the street. It was now fully dark, and the blue and red and yellow neon lights were shining through the bars on the windows, and the hum of it, the people, the smell of beer and smokes and sex was putting me in another world. Will looked over at Miguel and Miguel took that as a signal to try and take Will's hand again. I winced, thinking Will was going to throw a fucking shit fit, but he let him put his hand in his, though I could see that it was totally limp.

“So,” Miguel said to Will. “What about your family?”

I nearly mouthed,
God no
but it was too late.

“What about them?” Will gave a little head snap and pulled his hand away from Miguel's.

Miguel looked real uneasy but kept going. “Well, I mean, do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“How many?”

“Lots.”

“He's got seven, total,” I said, instantaneously regretting it. I couldn't help it. I felt so bad for Miguel, and I knew he just wanted to bond with Will. A bum with a cardboard sign saying,
Hell, why lie, I need a drink
, was standing on the corner as we crossed the street. I laughed and gave him a dollar. He looked up at me with big, blue eyes, and smiled.

“Me too!” Miguel continued. “I got three sisters and four brothers. All crazier than the last.” Miguel looked at Will for a response but Will stared ahead and said nothing. “Do you hang out with them?”

“No,” Will said. “I ain't like them at all.”

“Well,” Miguel said, giggling, “neither am I. You know… ”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“Hey! The Skylark,” I said. “Let's go in. I love this place,” and I walked in under the neon, hoping that they'd follow me and we'd drink and bond and forget all of our pain. I'd been there plenty of times, but I always got a little nervous at the bar, especially when they were examining my fake ID. I watched as the scarred, old bartender held my ID in front of his face. He looked bored and passed it back to me without a word. I ordered two tall gin and tonics for the guys and one tonic for me. I paid before handing the drinks out and then led the way to a booth in the corner, the sound of CCR thundering around us.

We settled into a booth and Will began gulping at his drink, staring into space while Miguel watched him. I lit a cigarette and thought desperately of something to say, as the CCR had stopped. But before I could, Miguel sighed and flickered his long, beautiful eyelashes at Will. “You know, you got great hair,” Miguel said, running his hands through it. Will's eyes got big and he slapped Miguel's hand, hard.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing!”

“Nothing—I mean, we… ”

“Just stop that shit, OK?”

“OK,” Miguel said and sighed. We were all quiet for a while and then Miguel turned to Will again. “Didn't you tell me that you're from a… reservation?” I shook my head, just a little.

“Yeah, so?”

Miguel laughed his little donkey laugh like it was a joke. “Well, I mean, that's kind of cool, don't you think?”

Will looked back at him like he was carved outta shit, his eyes narrowed into angry little slits and his head set back like a snake.

“No.”

“No… well, why not?”

Will went silent and then we were all silent for a while. I looked out at the people in the bar as strange, angry music like the kind Mike liked started pumping out of the speakers. The bar was packed with people looking for drinks, and I'd never seen so many biker types combined with people with nose rings and dyed black hair in my life. I looked at all of the names carved into the wooden table and traced them with a finger.

“It's OK, baby, I want to hear about your family,” Miguel finally said, breaking the silence and batting his eyes at Will. I took a long, long drink of my tonic water and prepared for Will to totally lose it.

Will looked all set to get crazy angry and then he leaned back and got this funny, kinda stoned look on his face.

“Wanna hear a story?” He asked.

“You know I do baby,” Miguel said, looking real happy. I wasn't so sure.

“Well,” Will said, sitting up and pulling a cigarette out of my pack and lighting it. “I had this one best friend when I was a kid. One. We was just a couple of stupid boys I guess, but we really talked, you know. We hung out every day. We'd talk about TV and school and what life could be like off the rez and comic books and everything, all the things boys talk about, but it was different with him.” Will paused and Miguel nodded encouragingly.

“That kid was cool. We would always walk home from school together, kicking up dirt and making fun of the teacher, this wasichu bitch who hated all of us. Then we'd get home to my house and hang out in my room, or in the badlands behind my house… laugh about shit until our faces got numb. Things were fucking great. Until one of my uncles decided to get in our faces.”

Will sighed, looked back at the two of us and took a long drink. He went on.

“We'd been sitting behind my house, drinking Pepsi and throwing the cans into the distance, drawing things in the dirt, when I saw my uncle coming up the driveway. He didn't live far away and he was always around. He was kind of an angry guy
—
not real nice to his wife and kids and always fucking yelling about something. I heard later he was elected to council.” Will laughed roughly. “Figures. Anyways, it was hot and real dusty and I could see his shitkickers kicking up dust on the drive as he came walking up towards, real fast.
Hey
, I started to say, but then as he came up close I could see how pissed off he was. I looked over at my friend, George… yeah, George was his name… and shrugged and threw my stick down.
What's—
I said, kinda worried 'cause I hadn't seen my dad for a coupla days, but he interrupted me. Got real close to my face and grabbed me by my arms and started to shake me, hard. I started to cry. Finally, he stopped and said,
Listen to me! Listen to me!
And he dropped me on the ground. I was crying hard by then and snotting and I looked up at him, tall as he was, his big ol' belly standing out, his fists on his hips, waiting to see what I'd done wrong. I thought maybe he was gonna bust us for throwing black cats behind the trees by his house.

Are you two listening to me?

I told him yes.