Tangled Streets
James Oliver Smith, Jr
To steal
A kiss
He had the knack
But lacked the cheek
To get one back
Burma-Shave
This rhyme flashes into my mind. I feel the rhythm and lilt of its humor as I walk west on Franklin Avenue. The sun is bright and a stiff wind stings my face and arms. On the sidewalk ahead of me one the residents of the East Seward Tower steps deliberately. Her hijab and long dark dress press tightly against her back and legs, wings of cloth flapping feverously in the agitated brilliance of early spring. She is too preoccupied with speaking to someone on the cell phone tucked tightly into the fabric framing her face to take much notice of me or the atmosphere, but the kaleidoscope of the moment sweeps me away.
In the glare of the afternoon sun the Minneapolis skyline washes away.
"The nice thing about losing your eyesight," says my ophthalmologist, "is that you can see whatever you want to see."
OK, so what if I let the images of the moment dissipate. The woman with the hijab, the traffic slipping by, the elm tree arching above me and even the trash can at the bus stop are all easy to squeeze out of the dishrag afternoon, but the sun and biting wind remain. My knuckles are stiff from gripping my walking stick. Extending the rubber tip to the cement makes me feel grounded, but that sensation of cold, raw tension in my fingers is impossible to eradicate, like the sun and the wind. It is a firm reality identical to walking the streets of Tuba City almost fifty years ago on the way to school.
My fingers often grow numb from the cold and icy wind while walking through the streets of the Bureau of Indian Affairs housing, by the boarding school, the trailer courts, and down Main Street to the public school. Willow street snakes its way past the houses of friends like the kid who calls himself the "Navajo Clown", even though he isn't Navajo, but he is quite the clown. Next to him is the cute brunette who is so serious a student that she frightens me. Further down the street lives the Morman girl that leads me to believe that Morman girls are the prettiest and most feminine of all. Her neighbor is the kid with a neat electric car track, a delightful little sister and a mother who laughs wildly when she listens to Johnny Cash sing "A Boy Named Sue".
When I pass the boarding school dorms I can't help but think of the twin girls living in the dorm where their mother works. I earnestly hope they don't come out and see me. They are far too sensual for me to feel comfortable around them.
When you move around as much as I do with my Mother and sisters the only thing you know is the road and your literature comes in the form of Berma Shave signs and mile markers. They define where you are, where you are going and who you will become.
Mileage Marker 4534
Spring 1964
My mother is on a mission from god.
Her theology dictates that God speaks Baptist, hates Catholics and Mormans, and that indian girls get pregnant before marriage.
Tuba City has lots of Catholics, Mormans and indians.
To make matters worse, the hymnals at the Baptist church speak Navajo.
She hates it here.
If she were to write a Burma Shave rhyme it might say:
Catholics here
Mormons there
This is the day
To hook the trailer
And pull away
God-The Baptist
With my mother I had to accept several important things:
01. The Bible is the ony valuable book
02. Baptists are the only ones to get it right
03. All boys are bad
04. Girls need to control boys
05. Never settle down and make friends because we'll be moving soon.
Tuba City, I couldn't help but think, is just another roadside stop.
"Hey, Jim, wait for me."
That's my walking companion. She lives right by the street that stops abruptly at the desert's edge. The desert extends east 'til you get to Nevada. Many of our houses have back yards that simply drift off into dunes, sagebrush and sandstone. From our back window I could sit down with a bologna sandwich and see the rugged edge of the Grand Canyon fifty miles away.
The wind presses her skirt against her legs and plays with her brown hair. She trots to my side, adjusting her ever-present headband. She smiles broadly. It's infectious. I'm fairly certain her blouse is becoming tighter.
"Oh look, a devil wind."
She runs and jumps in the middle of it, laughing.
"Come on, join me."
I am never all that comfortable being so compulsive and spontaneous, but she always seems ready to just fly into the now and engage it. I watch her and manage to smile warmly. At least I think I am. I switch my trumpet case to my left hand to releave my right, trying to cradle my book between my side and the horn. It works for a few minutes, giving my right hand a chance to losen up and get warm in my coat pocket. She looks comfortable in her sweater and has no trouble holding the book she is taking to school.
"What'd you do last night?", she asks.
"Wednesday night."
"Oh, right ... church?"
I nod. She chuckles.
"Ever wish you could just stay in one place for your whole life?"
She likes to ask me that question, almost every day, even though she enjoys hearing my stories of travel through Texas, Arizona and Colorado, never missing a Baptist church along the way. Then I would counter with "Ever wish you could just go out alone at night, miss that bible study your dad insists on every evening?"
Then she'd go silent for moment. The only time she couldn't say a word, when she thought of her dad, the curfew, the bible study ... and the night.
We are both puzzled about the bible. It just doesn't make sense how people can control people with something so old and out of touch. At thirteen we feel that it is not relevant to us so we created a secret "unbible", putting stuff in it that isn't in the bible, although we thought it should be, like how to have sex, dance and escape from parents. We can't write it down because they would see it.
The time on these walks is ours, away from our homes and out of school.
"What happened in choir yesterday? You were always able to sing higher than any of us girls. And then..."
"I know ... I know ... and it was so easy before. Now..."
A block away from school she walks ahead and stares back, briefly ... She smiles and straightens her headband ... She turns ... Her dress sways ... My fingers clutching the trumpet case and books ... quiver ...
* * *
Mileage Marker 21900
I grip the shaft of my walking stick with my left hand and twist the knob in my right palm. The woman in the hijab throws the cell phone into the depths of her leather purse ... She turns ... Her dress sways ...
I extend the rubber tip to the sidewalk and watch the traffic passing by on Franklin Avenue ... The wind bites through the fabric of my shirt.
To find
Your way
Outside the car
You must push
The door ajar
To myself
(josjr 2011 0720)
