Sound Of Gravel, The (16 page)

I couldn’t believe that my life had begun with that kind of story. I felt so sad for Mom, thinking of her with all of us and a dead husband. And I felt so sad for myself because I never got to know my dad.

“Ervil was arrested in Ensenada,” Mom said. “He was found guilty at first, but then they let him go. The judge said that they didn’t have enough evidence against him. Our people believe that Ervil bribed the judge, but no one knows what really happened.”

A blue sign announced a rest area. Mom turned on her blinker and sped up to pass Lane. “It wasn’t long after that when Ervil and the Ervilites started threatenin’ us. He started havin’ his people murder polygamist leaders all over Mexico and the US. He even wrote letters to the president of the United States, threatenin’ him if he didn’t recognize Ervil as God’s prophet. It was just unbelievable.”

As Mom passed Lane’s trailer and truck, she gripped the steering wheel with both hands and leaned her body forward, squinting her eyes at the yellow headlights that cut through the darkness.

“Ervil is finally in jail now in Utah. They caught him after seven years of killin’ people and finally found him guilty for murder and attempted murder. The reporters on TV called him the ‘Mormon Manson.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Ervil never pulled the trigger himself but ordered his followers, even his wives and kids, to kill people, over twenty-five of them. Your dad was the first victim. But Ervil’s followers are still out there, so we still have to be careful.”

She took the off-ramp toward the rest area that was quiet as we wound our way toward the parking area.

“I loved your dad,” Mom said suddenly, as if interrupting herself. “I never wanted anything more in my life than to marry him. I got to spend the night with him on my twenty-fourth birthday, the day before he died. I was so tickled.” She looked at me and smiled. “I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him. He had so many kids and wives and was workin’ in the church almost all the time. And even when he wasn’t, people were always stoppin’ by one of his homes lookin’ for him. I never saw him turn anyone away.” The Microbus came to a stop and she turned off the ignition. “Believe it or not,” she said as if to end the story, “being married to your dad was a lot harder than being married to Lane.”

“Really?” That seemed impossible.

Mom parked the van and Meri started to squirm under the blankets behind us. “Oh, yeah. Seems like I was always cravin’ your dad’s love and attention. I couldn’t get enough of it.”

Lane appeared at Mom’s window and she rolled it down. “You want to stop for the night here?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m too tired to keep drivin’.”

“That’s fine with me. I could use a break too.”

He stepped away, and Mom opened her door. “I’ll get the beds made up.”

Everyone had blankets and a spot to sleep when she was finished arranging the van and moving sleeping bodies around. Matt and I lay in sleeping bags on top of cots in the open air as the traffic whizzed by. I stared up at the stars and wondered what it meant to crave attention. What was so important about it that Mom actually looked for it in Lane?

18

We arrived in El Paso in late afternoon. The May air was hot and thick with the smell of asphalt, but it was much better than the air in the Microbus, which was like a furnace. By the time we drove off the highway, into a neighborhood, and then into a driveway alongside the camper that would serve as our temporary home, my hair was drenched in sweat.

The camper we pulled up next to would have fit snugly onto the bed of a pickup truck. The lightweight tin was painted white, and its edges had rusted into reddish brown dust. It wasn’t designed to sleep seven people. Lane’s brother Gary lived in El Paso, and Lane had unloaded the camper onto a slab of concrete behind Gary’s convenience store. Lane explained that this was his “little home” when his work brought him to El Paso. All I could think about was how happy I was that people couldn’t see the dilapidated heap of metal from the street.

A short, narrow hallway was just inside the door with a two-burner electric stovetop on one side and a compact fridge on the other. Thanks to electrical hookups, they both worked. But the toilet didn’t, so it was back to primitive living and a five-gallon paint bucket for us. I thought that with Audrey’s departure my days of living in a urine-scented room had passed, but the stench from the little bathroom permeated the entire space.

The sun had set, and Mom told us we only had time for a quick bowl of cornflakes before bed, which was fine with me. I couldn’t imagine there was much else we could do in that cramped tin can. Matt and Lane unscrewed the white tabletop and laid it between the foam plastic seats, creating a full-size bed that Mom covered with a quilt. This was where Matt, Luke, Aaron, and I would sleep.

Meri slept with Lane and Mom on the top bed, a mattress inside a narrow compartment that ordinarily hovered over the cab of the truck. Lane waited to turn out the light until everyone else was in bed and undressed to a pair of tight, white briefs. He stepped over us to pull the thin string connected to the bare lightbulb overhead. Seeing him in that moment, the deep farmer’s tan on his arms, the pasty whiteness everywhere else, made me fell that familiar nausea in my gut.

Still, nothing prepared me for the next morning, when we got our first glimpse of what would become our new home. Mom said Lane had found a single-wide trailer that he was hoping to purchase with money borrowed from Mom’s parents. He drove us across town in the Microbus to see it. We arrived at a large, fenced-in lot that looked like a trailer-park graveyard. All around us were single- and double-wides with doors wide open and hinges falling off. On some, the roofs had been partially torn away, as if giant can openers had abandoned their work midstream. Others had broken windows and drooping, white tin walls with pink and yellow insulation that sprang from every crack.

For a moment, I thought that this might be the last straw between Mom and Lane, especially when I noticed the look of horror on her face. She sat in the driver’s seat with Meri in her arms, her mouth open and her eyes wide under her glasses. I thought she had stopped breathing for a few seconds. “Lane,” Mom said with a gasp, “what kind of place … are we movin’ into? This looks like a junkyard.”

“One man’s junk is another man’s treasure,” he said, chuckling, not missing a beat.

Mom didn’t smile and neither did the rest of us.

The Microbus stopped in front of a single-wide with solid-white outer walls and light brown trim framing the windows and roof. The front door was several feet off the ground, and even though no steps led up to it, it looked nice compared to the other trailers. But when Lane opened the front door, a strong smell of burned plastic and wood greeted us. The entire interior had been scorched almost beyond recognition. The plywood walls and linoleum floors were the color of charcoal, and fire had burned through the living-room carpet into whatever was underneath it. The ceiling was black too, and the only surviving overhead light fixture was covered in soot.

Somehow, Lane seemed excited. I didn’t feel the need to see more, but he hoisted me up through the doorway anyway, and my white sandals landed in a pile of ankle-deep ash. “Don’t get your clothes and hands all dirty,” he cautioned as if it were avoidable.

Mom stayed silent, entering the trailer with one high step, Meri still limp on her shoulder. Black dust from the burned carpet rose from Mom’s feet as she perused the living space, biting the corner of her lower lip. She was in shock.

“This … looks like it’ll take … a lot of work and … money to fix up.”

“Well,” Lane said, still genial, “I can replace all the walls and floors and roll the linoleum down myself. I might need some help with the carpet, but it doesn’t need that big of a piece. And I can fix any electrical problems this place has just like I did at my homes on the farm.” My mind was flooded with memories of live wires sticking out of the ground and cords snaking up and down walls.

Lane motioned for Mom to come see the two bedrooms and bathroom, but she stayed planted in the living room. I studied her face as my hand brushed over pink insulation, which made my skin itch.

Still, Lane’s confidence never wavered. In fact, he was beaming. “Nice thing about this place is that the structure is still in good shape. I just have to build around it.”

Mom’s jaw dropped.

Lane tossed a sympathetic arm around her shoulder, caressing her back with his palm. “Think your parents will let ya borrow the money?”

“I don’t know, Lane.” She looked up at the filthy ceiling. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

He chuckled again. “Oh, come on now. Don’t be silly. I can fix this place up real nice. Nothin’ to worry about.”

“Where will we move it to? We can’t live here.” She pointed out the door at the surrounding mess of homes.

“We can find a rental lot at a trailer park and get it towed.” Now Lane sounded agitated. “People move trailers all the time. It’s no big deal.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said, deflated. That afternoon, she called my grandparents from a phone in Gary’s store, and they wired her the money the next day. Lane located a trailer park with an empty spot to rent and commenced work on the project. Meanwhile, we would live in a cramped, boiling camper for two weeks.

The school year was almost over, but Mom signed us up anyway. It felt as if no one wanted us there. I couldn’t blame them: it was weird to be joining the second grade in a new school with only a few weeks left before summer vacation. The teacher barely said hello the first day I entered her putty-colored classroom. “You can sit there,” she said, pointing at a vacant chair, her voice raspy and monotone. The air smelled like Vicks VapoRub. She cleared her throat, spit into a tissue that she then hurled into a wastebasket already full of soggy tissues, and went back to her work.

I looked over at the three other girls at my four-desk pod. They took their cues from the teacher, neither smiling nor acknowledging me in any way. I sat uncomfortably in my hard plastic chair.
This is going to be a
long
few weeks,
I thought.

At last our trailer was done, and Mom took us to see it after school on a muggy Friday afternoon. The mobile-home park, just off Alameda Avenue, a busy four-lane road, was a small neighborhood of clean, well-kept mobile homes. Each space had a swept and tidy concrete parking spot and, next to that, a small patch of lawn. As we pulled up to our trailer, I noticed that our lawn was the only dry and yellow one. A hammering sound came from inside, and as we climbed the new plywood steps, I dreaded what we would find.

Mom held the door open for me, and now it was my turn to gasp. It was astonishing. The inside looked brand-new, with only a faint hint of the old burnt smell. Lane had installed shiny glass fixtures on dark brown plywood walls, and the ceiling had been painted a blinding white. The new carpet was dark with brown, tan, and white speckles, and the new windows were open to the sunlight and a light summer breeze.

Luke and Aaron ran up and down the hall, opening and closing doors in all the rooms. Lane came out from the bedroom with a hammer, and his torn jeans and polo shirt were covered in white spots of paint. He smiled at us through bloodshot eyes and informed us that he’d been up all night working, saying that although there was still a lot to do, we could move in over the weekend. Mom’s face lit up.

The period of remodeling was the longest time I ever remember Lane spending with our family at one time, and I was disappointed in Mom’s excitement at all his attention. This was obviously not the end of their marriage. Worse, he also started to pay more attention to me. He seemed to be always looking for reasons to spend time with me alone. He needed me to ride with him to the hardware store, he said. He needed me to hold something while he hammered. And he needed me to sit on his lap, something he never asked me to do whenever Mom or my brothers were around. He began to kiss me on the lips when he said good-night. Aaron’s bedroom and mine didn’t have a door on it, so he’d just slip right in without my realizing it until he was at the edge of my bunk bed. It always startled me and made my stomach feel sick. I used to ask Mom if I could stay home with her when Lane wanted me to go with him, but she always just said, “Oh, go on. He needs your help,” in a way that made me think all she wanted was for me to like him.

At the beginning of summer came unexpected good news: Lane had been hired to haul a load of something to Oklahoma and would be gone for several days. My sense of relief was overwhelming.

Mom then invited inspectors from HUD to appraise the trailer. This wasn’t a coincidence. Her goal was to get the government agency to pay for at least part of the lot we had rented for it. She thought she had a better chance of succeeding if she applied as a single mother, which was what she had to pretend to be for the inspectors since she and Lane weren’t legally married. I listened, confused and stunned, as my deeply religious mother told the men from HUD that she didn’t know who the fathers of her children were. Mom would rail against us kids’ lying, telling us what a horrible sin it was, but it was clear from her performance that she was good at it herself. She spoke to the inspectors with a straight face and made full eye contact. I don’t think they ever suspected.

They were more suspicious of the trailer itself, which in spite of Lane’s hard work was not up to code. It took a government agency to state the obvious: a two-bedroom, one-bath trailer was too small for a family of six, seven if you counted the baby on the way (Lane, of course, wasn’t supposed to be living with us). Our trailer failed the inspection.

Lane returned from his trip and spent the first part of the summer building a new bedroom off the back door of our home. He did the best he could with the add-on—our trailer looked as if it had a square tumor—but HUD was satisfied, and we passed a second inspection.

Now we had a third bedroom, one large enough to hold a crib, a dresser, and a full-size bed. Aaron and I shared the back bedroom, which had bunk beds—mine on top, his on the bottom—and old sleeping bags Mom had repurposed as comforters by sewing a set of
Sesame Street
sheets over them. A curtain made from the same material was on the window next to my bed. My brother and I shared the built-in dresser on the opposite wall, and we each had our own closet.