Burned (8 page)

No, you and Derek are history.

This is where I think the devil stepped in.

"Leave him alone, Carmen."

She laughed.

No way, freak.

Derek loves me.

Then I laughed. Or Satan

did. "Derek only loves

Derek. He never loved you."

I suppose you think he loved you? He only

used you for sex.

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Did he tell her that? Did he tell everyone that?

"We never had sex."

That's not what he said.

Not only that, he said it was lousy sex.

I should have done what I

did to Derek, not Carmen.

But he wasn't standing there.

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What I Did Was

I cocked back

my fist, took

dead aim, and punched her straight in the nose.

Her eyes went

wild.
Fuckin'

buch! I'll

kill you.

She and Dad

could team up.

I grabbed a fistful of coal-

colored hair. "Oooh.

I'm so scared."

Carmen raked

my cheek with deadly fingernails and might have done

me worse than a six-

inch weit, except right about then her nose gushed.

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I should have

run for first aid, or at least felt

bad. Instead, I

said, "Your nose is bleeding. Hey, think it's broken?'

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It Was Just a Hairline Fracture

But it was enough to get me suspended for the rest of the year.

And it was also enough to net a $1500 ER visit for sweet little Carmen, which, as you may have guessed, my dad had to pay for.

Well, actually, his homeowners'

insurance had to pay it.

But, as he told me explicitly,

My premiums will go up now

, so it's still moncy out of my pocket.

Two thousand dollars in one week.

What has happened to you, Pattijn?

Boys and booze.
(So he had smelled the tequila that day!)

Broken Windows, broken noses.

What kind of trouble have you become?

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For Once

Mom blew it worse than Dad.

In fact, she lost it completely.

I work and slave, to make your life

perfect. How coidd you do this to me?

Slave? Perfect? I might have argued.

Instead I said, "I didn't do anything to you."

Her face blossomed, rose red.
You

have stigmatized. this entire family!

"Stigmatized? That's the biggest word

I've ever heard you attempt, Mother."

]Her eyes flooded.
Ym not stupid. I

graduated high school, considered college.

"

Then along came Dad. True love won

you over. Please, don't make me gag."

Pattyn! How can you he so nasty?

Of course true love won me over.

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"Sorry, Mom, but if there's one thing

I've learned, watching you and Dad . . .

Yes? What have you learned?

"Love is just another word for sex."

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She Screamed

(This is the part

where she lost it.)

Sex? Sex! Tell

me what you know about sex!

Did that awful

boy touch you? Put it in you?

I couldn't resist

that lead-in.

"Put what in me?"

You know very

well what Tm talking about.

Did he take
his pants off? Did you let him?

Now it was a game.

"Let him? What if

I encouraged him?"

Pattyn Scarlet Von

Stratten. Exactly what are you saying?

Surely you can't

mean you
wanted
to have sex?

A vicious game.

"Don't you want to have sex, Mom?"

Her face ignited

flames.
Wha . . . wha . . .

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"Or is it all about overpopulating

this pitiful planet?"

She sputtered.

She fumed. She lizzled out.

'"Cause if that's

all it's about, you

can count me out."

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If I'd Have Known Then

What I learned a few days later,

I might have made her squirm a little less.

Then again, maybe not.

My head felt constricted, squashed in a vise of frustration, ready to pop like a blister.

All the questions I'd always

wanted to ask jumbled around in my brain, twisted into barbs.

"Don't worry, Mom. I know sex

leads to babies. You and Dad have

taught me that valuable lesson."

I could have stopped there.

Might have stopped, had I noticed

how her face had turned ashen.

Instead, I steamrolled her.

"You're like a blue-ribbon heifer,

Mom. Champion breeding stock, always in heat for her bull."

And almost regretted it when she ran over to the kitchen

sink and heaved her lunch.

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And truly regretted it when she Turned, shaky and pale, flecks of vomit in her hair, and said,

I need to lie down for a while.

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Later, Bishop Crandall Dropped By

The house to give me a stern

reprimand. He sat across the cluttered table, playing with a paper clip.

Your parents are worried
about you, Pattyn.

I was worried about myself.

But I wasn't about to let him

know it. "Really?"

Really. What have you got
to sayfor yourseif? You've always
been such a good girl.

Good girl. Sit. Stay. Fetch.

Bristies rose up along my

spine. "Define good."

I don't appreciate your attitude,

Pattyn. Fast and pray. Search your

Soul for the inequities in your life.

"Any inequity in my life

began when I was born

female. Can you fix that?"

You'll have tofix that yourself, by concentrating on the things

God expects of you.

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His two-faced rhetoric was pissing me off. "You

mean like kissing your ass?"

He slammed his hand on the table.

I will not listen to that sort of language. Apologize!

Behind me, I heard Mom

gasp. But I was on a roll.

"I'm sorry, Bishop.

I'm sorry I ever believed

ou might have something

worthwhile to say."

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J
ournal
Entry, May 18

1 kind of blew it. Again.

Told Bishop Crandall to put his advice where his toilet paper sticks.

Bad move. I knew it when I said it, but oh well.

I just don't care anymore.

About anything.

Mom actuallycried and sent me to my

room. I left the door

open so I could hear.

Bishop Crandall said

I should be punished.

Severely. "My children

get the belt," he hinted.

I don't know what kind of bomb Mom and Dad

will drop, or when they'll

drop it. But I do know

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If Dad comes at me with a belt,

I'm gone.

For good.

That is, ifthere's

any of me left.

168

D
ad Dropped the Bomb

Five days later.

Three bombs, actually.

Being so self-absorbed for so many weeks,

I guess I never noticed the too familiär signs.

Mom had been tired lately.

Throwing up a lot.

Your mother is pregnant.

Ultrasound says it's a boy.

Boom! Boom!
A baby.

And a son. Finally, a son.

Too much stress could

hurt your mother or Samuel.

They'd already picked a name?

Too much stress, meaning me?

We've decided to send you

away for the summer.

Ka-boom!
Away? Where

could they send me?

You II be staying out on your Aunt Jeanettes ranch.

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Aunt Jeanette? The sister he'd barely

spoken to in over thirty years?

No trouble out there but snakes and empty mine shafts.

"I thought you couldn't

stand Aunt Jeanette."

She and I don't see eye to eye on every little thing. . . .

Why then? Why exile me to the wilds of eastern Nevada?

But your mother and I want you out of here, and Jeanette was the only

one who would take you.

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I
Didn't Want to Go

But they played the guilt card, which gave me no choice. I did feel

guilty about lying to get my way, guilty about almost giving my virginity away to someone who didn't deserve it, guilty about the things we'd done instead, guiltier about broken Windows, broken noses.

And should I somehow make Mom

lose her baby, I would forever

lose

every inch of self-respect, every ounce of my newfound belief

that I wasn't born to be a loser

So I agreed to a road trip across Foreverland.

With my dad at the wheel.

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East from Carson City

The road stretched long and longer toward yesterday, sculpted in distant granite hüls and splintered ghost town boardwalks.

The Subaru's tires whined along the asphalt, a stray gray thread in the khaki weave--sage and hardpan, cheatgrass and bitterbrush.

Mirage puddles emptied, one into the next, and I wanted to dissolve, pour myself on the pavement and ride along. Somewhere.

Anywhere but where I was going.

Across salt flats, we picked up speed, past giant knolls of shifting sand and travel-trailer tenements, where rusting semis cohabited with Silver Stream

wannabes and a couple of lone tepees.

I wanted Dad to slow down, so I might

catch a glimpse of what might live there, where civilization ended and my new life was about to begin.

Beneath a sag of barbed wire was a stiff

bluetick hound. A ratty black Lab mourned him,

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from far enough to weather flies, but clöse

enough to chase away bone pickers,

Aying lazy eights in the blue desert sky, searching for the carcass du jour.

Did anyone miss those dogs?

Would anyone miss me?

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So I Ventured

Will you miss me, Dad?"

Now, you have to remember

that my dad and I hardly shared

fifty words in any given day.

I'd just used up one tenth of my allotment.

Miss you? I don't even

know you, Pattyn.

His admission stung. Enough to stick a big of lump in my throat.

Enough to give me the courage to ask, around the lump,

Whose fault is that?"

His hands tensed on the wheel and I could see the little veins at his temples swell and pump faster.

Too much to think about?

Enough hlame to go

around, I guess.

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He wanted to let it drop.

I wasn't about to give him his way.

He could blame me for many things.

But not for the closeness we'd lost.

175

S
o I Argued

"No way, Dad. I'm not taking the blame here. Yes, Fve done

ome things lately I'm not exactly

proud of. But the distance between us?

Don't you dare point your finger at me.

"You work, eat dinner, watch TV.

Sometimes you'll play with the little

ones, but you never talk to me.

All I've ever wanted is your respect.

But you don't even know I exist."

There! A quality dialogue.

Only it was mostly a monologue.

Dad mulled it over. Nodded once or twice at the conversation going on inside his head. Then he said,

Respect is a two-way street.

Do you respect me?

My house?

My rules?

I loved Dad, despite everything, wanted more than anything

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for him to love me back.

I respected him once.

But what about now?

"How can I respect a house

where women are no more than servants? How can I respect rules

laid down by a phantom father?

How can I respect a man who . . ."

I didn't dare say it, did I?

Who what?

Go ahead.

Spit it out.

End of conversation.

"Who spends all day . . .

"Who h . . ."

"Oh, never mind."

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