Burn Down the Ground (18 page)

“The drummer’s beat,” the reverend hissed, “is meant to lure you in so you’re free to accept the message of Satan!” His sweat seemed to seep through the speakers. “Let me tell you the name of that song,” he pressed. “That song’s title is ‘Runnin’ ’ ”—he interrupted the title with a deep breath and a long pause—“ ‘with the DEVIL!’ ”

We laughed so hard we could barely finish our joint.

Maria had arrived on horseback, and Star, her rust-colored Arabian pony, was tied to a tree in our yard. I was bowled over when Maria asked me to ride with her to Webb’s, at least a four-mile trek from our trailer. She was only thirteen yet was permitted to ride a horse wherever and whenever she wanted. I thought that kind of freedom only came with a driver’s license and a car. This was revolutionary.

After Maria climbed into the saddle, I stuck my foot in the stirrup and pulled myself up behind her on Star’s rump. As we headed down Boars Head at a slow clip, Maria dug out a fresh pack of Marlboro 100’s, smacked them on the fatty part of her palm, and unwrapped the cellophane. She extracted a cigarette, lit it, took a drag, and handed it over her shoulder to me.

I stared at it, not believing how brazen she was to smoke in public. “What if somebody catches us?” I asked, searching for cars of people I might know.

Maria remained cool, but to help me loosen up she suggested climbing down into the dry creek bed under the bridge Dad had built on Boars Head. Safely out of view, I took a drag from her cigarette, then blew the smoke out without inhaling.

“You’re just wasting it,” Maria said. “Here, watch me.” She sucked the filter, showed me the smoke that was in her mouth, and breathed in. “Try again.”

This time the smoke filled my lungs and I was overwhelmed by a tunnel of darkness. Just as quickly, the world was light again. I grabbed a tree to keep my balance.

“Head rush? Cool. You’ll get used to it, though.”

We finished the cigarette, climbed the embankment, remounted Star, and spent the next hour riding to Webb’s. I had been a customer at Webb’s since I was seven years old. I often bought Dad’s cigarettes while he waited in the car, so Mr. Webb didn’t question me when I asked for a pack of Marlboro 100’s even though Dad smoked Kools. Star carried us the five miles back to Maria’s trailer, where Maria introduced me to her parents, Sarah and Eugene Kingfisher. Although I was only thirteen, I towered over both of them. Maria’s short stature was undoubtedly hereditary.

As her parents quizzed me about having deaf parents and the fine points of living on Boars Head, Maria lit up a cigarette. I was visibly thunderstruck that she would smoke in front of them. Her mother shrugged and said she knew Maria would smoke anyway. She preferred an honest smoker to a sneak. Maria blew out a puff of smoke with a smug grin.

Maria was an only child and her parents treated her more like a comrade than a thirteen-year-old daughter. They were home every night, eating dinner and watching TV. They shared long walks and talked together about current events without bickering.

Over the next few weeks I became a permanent fixture in the Kingfisher trailer. I cooked myself Kraft macaroni and cheese, bathed in their tub, and turned in for bed when I felt like it. As I snuggled up in my old sleeping bag on Maria’s floor, I’d call out, “G’night, Maria. G’night, Sarah. G’night, Eugene. G’night, John Boy.”

My days of being bored were over. Each morning, Maria and I packed saddlebags with water, snacks, and cigarettes, hopped on Star, and headed anywhere we wanted. I’d stop at the trailer to check in with my parents or get supplies, but Mom and Dad never questioned me. They were happy that I finally had a girl friend that lived close to us. I was a studious nerd who preferred working on my library to going out, so I never gave my parents reason to worry.

Some days Maria and I searched for arrowheads and other hidden treasures from Montgomery’s days as an Indian trading post. Other times we swam in the creek, explored concealed trails, and gathered wild blackberries until the brambles were picked clean.

Star’s back was being challenged by our daily five-mile, hours-long trek between Maria’s trailer and Webb’s. He was a pony barely thirteen hands high, perfect for accommodating Maria’s pint size but not much more. We were literally breaking his back. Maria’s father put an end to it and said I should get a horse of my own.

I approached Mom with the idea.

I was trustworthy, made straight A’s, worked two jobs, and never had gotten anything special. David had terrible grades, never had a job, got suspended from both school and the bus, yet was still given a shotgun and a waterbed.

After what felt like months of closed-door discussions, my parents finally decided that I could get a horse of my own. That weekend, Mom and Dad got gussied up like they were going dancing at the honky tonk. The Kingfishers and I had been going to the auction held behind Webb’s every Saturday evening, so I led my parents to the barn to see the livestock that was up for bidding. Strolling from stall to stall, Dad inspected each horse, checking out its teeth and eyes, making note of its age, sex, and size.

We settled on a bay-colored quarter horse with jet-black mane and tail that stood fifteen hands high. The sign on his stall said he was a gelding just shy of two years old and was available at a minimum bid of two hundred dollars. When my choice finally came trotting into the auctioneer’s ring, my pulse quickened. I yanked on Dad’s arm. “That’s him!” I signed.

Dad put his hand out and moved it up and down like he was dribbling a basketball, signaling me to take it easy. “R-E-L-A-X,” he spelled.

“This here two-year-old gelding has an opening bid of two hundred dollars. Do we have two hundred?”

Mom tapped Dad’s leg and he raised his paddle. “We have two hundred dollars. Do we have two twenty-five?”

Mom was the interpreter for Dad when the bidding accelerated between Dad and other interested bidders. At last, we heard
the final words: “Sold for four hundred fifty dollars to that good-looking couple in the back row.”

I squealed and clapped before bestowing Mom and Dad with hugs and kisses.

“Looks like that young lady just got herself a horse,” the auctioneer said.

“Does he have a name?” I asked the seller after the auction.

“Charlie Brown.”

“That’s cute,” Mom said. “Let’s keep it.”

“He’s a smart fella but he’s still green; you need to break him. He’s got spunk.”

We didn’t have a horse trailer, so we tied Charlie Brown’s reins around the hitch of our truck and slowly drove down Honea Egypt Road toward Boars Head. True to the seller’s words, Charlie Brown fought and kicked the whole way there.

Though he was technically my horse, Charlie Brown was a family project. Aunt Norma’s husband, Jimmie, was a blacksmith and drove down from Oklahoma to show Dad how to trim hooves. Maria’s mother gave Mom a lesson in administering vaccinations with a syringe. “Smack his ass three times then jab him. He won’t know a thing,” Sarah instructed.

Mom was a fast learner and had Charlie Brown vaccinated on her first attempt. Feeling the sting, Charlie Brown shot a glance at his rear, then returned to chewing.

“Hey, that was easy!” Mom grinned like a schoolgirl getting a first-prize ribbon.

Dad was possessive of the shed, where he kept his expensive tools. He hung them on a pegboard and meticulously painted bright yellow outlines around each one in order to know right
away if a tool was missing. The door was secured with a heavy chain and padlock, which only my father could open. I was surprised when he gave me my own key and showed me the space he had cleared for my saddle and tack supplies.

Dad and David dug holes for fence posts, and then hooked up three rows of barbed wire around the entire perimeter of our property to secure it for Charlie Brown. At the end of the driveway, we put up an aluminum gate, just like the one at the Crews farm. While it was being installed, we kept Charlie Brown tied to a tree. We saddled him and stood in a circle around him as he thrashed around trying to throw it off. When the horse calmed down, David volunteered to be the first to ride him but he was bucked off twice in quick succession.

Dad signed, “Let me try.” He only lasted a second longer than David. Charlie Brown’s saddle was like an ejector seat.

“Kambri, he’s your horse,” Mom said. “You’re gonna have to try.”

I didn’t weigh much more than the saddle and Charlie Brown was nearly tuckered out. I cooed in his ear, “It’s okay, boy. I’m not gonna hurt you.” I climbed on and Charlie Brown bucked and kicked, but not very hard. He settled down and Mom led us up and down the driveway the way Grandpa Crews used to lead Clipper and me. After a couple of weeks, Charlie Brown gave up fighting altogether and was broken.

Mom bought a cast-iron bell in the shape of a longhorn at a flea market and Dad hung it on a tree outside the shed. Anytime we wanted Charlie Brown, we clanged the bell and called his name. He’d trot to us to get alfalfa or oats, or have his saddle put on. Mom said he didn’t know he was a horse; he thought he was one of us.

Once, I heard a racket outside of my bedroom door and was startled to see Charlie Brown standing in the hallway of our trailer. He had climbed onto the porch, opened the back door somehow, and walked inside. He was stuck at the first corner, too big to make the turn.

“Charlie Brown! What are you doing, boy?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and he nuzzled mine; his hot breath shot down the back of my shirt. “It’s a wonder your hooves didn’t crash through the floor!” I exclaimed.

He snorted and nibbled my ears as I backed him out the way he had come in. “You just want to be with me, don’t ya?”

One afternoon when I went to check the mail, Charlie Brown was nowhere in sight. I stood on our front porch calling his name before he came into view, sprinting along the perimeter of our land.

“Charlie Brown?” I called, but uncharacteristically, he didn’t pay me any mind. I clapped and called louder, but he still ignored me. He was tossing his head around as if he were trying to shake off flies. His strange behavior had me worried, so I called out to Mom, who was sitting in the living room with David. They both joined me on the front porch.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know. Watch him.” Just then Charlie Brown came into view. “See!”

He ran through the trees in big, graceful laps, almost in slow motion. He shook his head from side to side before circling out of sight in the woods and appearing on the other side.

“Yeah, that
is
strange,” Mom said.

Suddenly David tore off running barefoot into the woods behind the shed and let out a bloodcurdling scream. He reemerged, cursing and snarling. “He ate my plants!” he screamed.

“Your what?”

“My pot! He ate it all!”

“My God, Charlie Brown is stoned!” Mom laughed.

David had been growing stalks of marijuana behind the shed and Charlie Brown chewed the top off each and every one. He was “loping under the influence,” satisfied to run in circles.

He really did think he was one of us.

In junior high, fashion was a life-or-death matter. I once saw a clipping taped to the wall of the school nurse’s office warning us of the dangers of wearing tight jeans. They caused circulation problems that led to blood clots that could be fatal. In spite of looming death, the fashion consensus was the snugger the jeans, the better. To make them shrink to the form of our bodies, we even wore them while soaking in tubs of ice-cold water.

The week before eighth grade began, Maria’s mother drove us to the new Wal-Mart in Conroe. I spent my paychecks on school supplies, new clothes, and cartons of Marlboro 100’s. The year before, I had tried to fit in with my best preppy look. Now I had a new Joan Jett spiky mullet and wore dangly earrings in my left ear and studs in my right. Maria showed me how to heat up eyeliner with a lighter to get an extra soft tip for applying layers of black rings around my eyes. We tucked the cuffs of our skintight jeans inside floppy suede ankle boots and tied different-colored bandanas around our wrists.

Oblivious to the rules of preppy-to-punk evolution, I signed
up for the basketball team. My first practice was particularly hard work for a pack-a-day smoker like me, not factoring in the times I smoked pot. I found myself heaving and gasping for air, blaming Coach Carter for my shortness of breath. Afterward, my parents picked me up from a nearby shop on their way home from work, but that was three hours later. I missed Maria and her family and wondered about the fun they must be having while I sat there bored. I decided to quit sports altogether, using my parents as an excuse. My departure meant the team was left with five players, the bare minimum, but if this was irresponsible, I didn’t care.

I stopped other activities, too. I didn’t join volleyball or track, I quit the Youth Advisory Council, and I stopped volunteering as a teacher’s aide.

My drastic makeover and withdrawal from the extracurricular activities that had made me so happy should have warned adults who cared about me that I was heading on a bad path. Other than Coach Carter being angry with me for leaving the basketball team in the lurch, nobody seemed to notice.