The Glass Castle (12 page)

I tried on the ring. It was way too big for my finger, but I could wrap yarn around the band the way high school girls did when they wore their boyfriend's rings. I was afraid, however, that if I took the ring, Billy might start thinking that I had agreed to be his girlfriend. He'd tell all the other kids, and if I said it wasn't true, he'd point to the ring. On the other hand, I figured Mom would approve, since accepting it would make Billy feel good about himself. I decided to compromise.

"I'll keep it," I said. "But I'm not going to wear it."

Billy's smile spread all across his face.

"But don't think this means we're boyfriend and girlfriend," I said. "And don't think this means you can kiss me."

* * *

I didn't tell anyone about the ring, not even Brian. I kept it in my pants pocket during the day, and at night I hid it in the bottom of the cardboard box where I kept my clothes.

But Billy Deel had to go and shoot his mouth off about giving me the ring. He started telling the other kids things like how, as soon as I was old enough, me and him were going to get married. When I found out what he was saying, I knew accepting the ring had been a big mistake. I also knew I should return it. But I didn't. I meant to, and every morning I'd put it in my pocket with the intention of giving it back, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. That ring was too darn pretty.

A few weeks later, I was playing hide-and-seek along the tracks with some of the neighborhood kids. I found the perfect hiding place, a small tool shed behind a clump of sagebrush that no one had hid in before. But just as the kid who was It was finishing counting, the door opened and someone else tried to get in. It was Billy Deel. He hadn't even been playing with us.

"You can't hide with me," I hissed at him. "You're supposed to find your own place."

"It's too late," he said. "He's almost done counting."

Billy crawled inside. The shed was tiny, with barely enough room for one person to fit in crouched over. I wasn't about to say so, but being that close to Billy scared me. "It's too crowded!" I whispered. "You gotta leave."

"No," Billy said. "We can fit." He rearranged his legs so they were pressed up against mine. We were so close I could feel his breath on my face.

"It's too crowded," I said again. "And you're breathing on me."

He pretended not to hear me. "You know what they do in the Green Lantern, don't you?" he asked.

I could hear the muffled shouts of the other kids being chased by the boy who was It. I wished I hadn't chosen such a good hiding place. "Sure," I said.

"What?"

"The women are nice to the men."

"But what do they do?" He paused. "See, you don't know."

"I do," I said.

"Want me to tell you?"

"I want you to find your own hiding place."

"They start by kissing," he said. "Ever kissed anyone?"

In the narrow rays of light that shot through the gaps in the sides of the shed, I could see the rings of dirt around his skinny neck. "Of course I have. Lots of times."

"Who?"

"My dad."

"Your dad doesn't count. Someone not in your family. And with your eyes closed. It doesn't count unless your eyes are closed."

I told Billy that was about the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. If your eyes were closed, you couldn't see who you were kissing.

Billy said there was an awful lot about men and women I didn't know. He said some men stuck knives into women while they were kissing them, especially if the women were being mean and didn't want to be kissed. But he told me he'd never do that to me. He put his face up next to mine.

"Close your eyes," he said.

"No way," I said.

Billy smushed his face against mine, then grabbed my hair and made my head bend sideways and stuck his tongue in my mouth. It was slimy and disgusting, but when I tried to pull away, he pushed in toward me. The more I pulled, the more he pushed, until he was on top of me and I felt his fingers tugging at my shorts. His other hand was unbuttoning his own pants. To stop him, I put my hand down there, and when I touched it, I knew what it was, even though I had never touched one before.

I couldn't knee him in the groin like Dad had told me to if a guy jumped on me, because my knees were outside his legs, so I bit him hard on the ear. It must have hurt, because he yelled and hit me in the face. Blood started gushing out of my nose.

The other kids heard the ruckus and came running. One of them opened the shed door, and Billy and I scrambled out, pulling on our clothes.

"I kissed Jeannette!" Billy yelled.

"Did not!" I said. "He's a liar! We just got into a fight, that's all."

He
was
a liar, I told myself all the rest of the day. I hadn't really kissed him, or at least it didn't count. My eyes had been open the entire time.

* * *

The next day I took the ring to Billy Deel's house. I found him out back, sitting in an abandoned car. Its red paint had been bleached by the desert sun and had turned orange along the rusting trim. The tires had collapsed a long time ago, and the black rag roof was peeling. Billy was sitting in the driver's seat, making engine noises in his throat and pretending to work a phantom stick shift.

I stood nearby, waiting for him to acknowledge me. He didn't, so I spoke first. "I don't want to be your friend," I said. "And I don't want your ring anymore."

"I don't care," he said. "I don't want it, either." He kept looking straight ahead through the cracked windshield. I reached through the open window, dropped the ring in his lap, and turned and walked away. I heard the click and clunk of the car door opening and closing behind me. I kept walking. Then I felt a sharp sting on the back of my head as if a little rock had hit me. Billy had thrown the ring at me. I kept walking.

"Guess what?" Billy shouted. "I raped you!"

I turned around and saw him standing there by the car, looking hurt and angry but not as tall as usual. I searched my mind for a cutting comeback, but since I didn't know what. "rape" meant, all I could think to say was. "Big deal!"

At home I looked up the word in the dictionary. Then I looked up the words that explained it, and though I still couldn't figure it out completely, I knew it wasn't good. Usually, when I didn't understand a word, I'd ask Dad about it, and we'd read over the definition together and discuss it. I didn't want to do that now. I had a hunch it would cause problems.

* * *

The next day Lori, Brian, and I were sitting at one of the spool tables in the depot, playing five-card draw and keeping an eye on Maureen while Mom and Dad spent some downtime at the Owl Club. We heard Billy Deel outside, calling my name. Lori looked at me, and I shook my head. We went back to our card game, but Billy kept on, so Lori went out on the porch, which was the old platform where people used to board the train, and told Billy to go away. She came back in and said. "He's got a gun."

Lori picked up Maureen. One of the windows shattered, and then Billy appeared framed in it. He used the butt of his rifle to knock out the remaining pieces of glass, then pointed the barrel inside.

"It's just a BB gun," Brian said.

"I told you you'd be sorry," Billy said to me and pulled the trigger. It felt like a wasp had stung me in the ribs. Billy started firing at us all, working the pump action quickly back and forth before each shot. Brian pushed over the spool table and we all crouched behind it.

The BBs pinged off the tabletop. Maureen was howling. I turned to Lori, who was the oldest and in charge. She was biting her lower lip, thinking. She handed Maureen to me and took off running across the room. Billy got her once or twiceBrian stood up to try to draw the firebut she made it upstairs to the second floor. Then she came down again. She had Dad's pistol, and she pointed it dead at Billy.

"That's just a toy," Billy said, but his voice was a little shaky.

"It's real, all right!" I shouted. "It's my dad's gun!"

"If it is," he said. "she ain't got the cojones to use it."

"Try me," Lori told him.

"Go on, then," Billy said. "Shoot me and see what happens."

Lori wasn't as good a shot as me, but she pointed the gun in Billy's general direction and pulled the trigger. I squeezed my eyes shut at the explosion, and when I opened them, Billy had disappeared.

We all ran outside, wondering if Billy's blood-soaked body would be lying on the ground, but he had ducked under the window. When he saw us, he hightailed it down the street along the tracks. He got about fifty yards away and started shooting at us again with his BB gun. I yanked the pistol out of Lori's hand, aimed low, and pulled the trigger. I was too carried away to hold the gun the way Dad had taught me, and the recoil nearly pulled my shoulder out of its socket. The dirt kicked up a few feet in front of Billy. He jumped what seemed about three feet up in the air and broke into a dead run down the tracks.

We all started laughing, but it seemed funny only for a second or two, and then we stood there looking at one another in silence. I realized my hand was shaking so bad I could hardly hold the gun.

* * *

A little while later, a squad car pulled up outside the depot, and Mom and Dad got out. Their faces were grave. An officer got out also and walked alongside them to the door. We kids were all sitting inside on the benches wearing polite, respectful expressions. The officer looked at each of us individually, as if counting us. I clasped my hands in my lap to show I was well behaved.

Dad squatted in front of us, one knee to the floor, his arms folded across the other knee, cowboy-style. "So what happened here?" he asked.

"It was self-defense," I piped up. Dad had always said that self-defense was a justifiable reason for shooting someone.

"I see," Dad said.

The policeman told us that some of the neighbors had reported seeing kids shooting guns at each other, and he wanted to know what had happened. We tried to explain that Billy had started it, that we'd been provoked and were defending ourselves and didn't even aim to kill, but the cop wasn't interested in the nuances of the situation. He told Dad that the whole family would need to come down to the courthouse the next morning and see the magistrate. Billy Deel and his dad would be there, too. The magistrate would get to the bottom of the matter and decide what measures needed to be taken.

"Are we going to be sent away?" Brian asked the officer.

"That's up to the magistrate," he said.

That night Mom and Dad spent a long time upstairs talking in low voices while we kids lay in our boxes. Finally, late in the evening, they came down, their faces still grave.

"We're going to Phoenix," Dad said.

"When?" I asked.

"Tonight."

* * *

Dad allowed each of us to bring only one thing. I ran outside with a paper bag to gather up my favorite rocks. When I returned, holding the heavy bag at the bottom so it wouldn't split, Dad and Brian were arguing over the plastic jack-o'-lantern filled with green plastic army soldiers that Brian wanted to bring.

"You're bringing toys?" Dad asked.

"You said I could take one thing, and this is my thing," Brian said.

"This is my one thing," I said, holding up the bag. Lori, who was bringing
The Wizard of Oz,
objected, saying that a rock collection wasn't one thing but several things. It would be like her bringing her entire book collection. I pointed out that Brian's army soldiers were a collection. "And anyway, it's not the entire rock collection. Just the best ones."

Dad, who usually liked debates on questions such as whether a bag of things is one thing, was not in the mood and told me the rocks were too heavy. "You can bring one," he said.

"There are plenty of rocks in Phoenix," Mom added.

I picked out a single geode, its insides coated with tiny white crystals, and held it in both hands. As we pulled out, I looked through the rear window for one last glimpse of the depot. Dad had left the upstairs light on, and the small window glowed. I thought of all those other families of miners and prospectors who had come to Battle Mountain hoping to find gold and who had to leave town like us when their luck ran out. Dad said he didn't believe in luck, but I did. We'd had a streak of it in Battle Mountain, and I wished it had held.

We passed the Green Lantern, with the Christmas lights twinkling over its door, and the Owl Club, with the winking neon owl in a chef's hat, and then we were out in the desert, the lights of Battle Mountain disappearing behind us. In the pitch-black night, there was nothing to look at but the road ahead, lit by the car's headlights.

GRANDMA SMITH'S BIG
white house had green shutters and was surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Inside were tall French doors and Persian carpets and a huge grand piano that would practically dance when Grandma played her honky-tonk music. Whenever we stayed with Grandma Smith, she brought me into her bedroom and sat me down at the vanity table, which was covered with little pastel-colored bottles of perfumes and powders. While I opened the bottles and sniffed them, she'd try to run her long metal comb through my hair, cursing out of the corner of her mouth because it was so tangled. "Doesn't that goddamn lazy-ass mother of yours ever comb your hair?" she once said. I explained that Mom believed children should be responsible for their own grooming. Grandma told me my hair was too long anyway. She put a bowl on my head, cut off all the hair beneath it, and told me I looked like a flapper.

That was what Grandma used to be. But after she had her two children, Mom and our uncle Jim, she became a teacher because she didn't trust anyone else to educate them. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse in a town called Yampi. Mom hated being the teacher's daughter. She also hated the way her mother constantly corrected her both at home and at school. Grandma Smith had strong opinions about the way things ought to be donehow to dress, how to talk, how to organize your time, how to cook and keep house, how to manage your financesand she and Mom fought each other from the beginning. Mom felt that Grandma Smith nagged and badgered, setting rules and punishments for breaking the rules. It drove Mom crazy, and it was the reason she never set rules for us.