IS THERE SOMEPLACE YOU CAN GO TO PURCHASE SOME COMMON SENSE?

It was  four in the morning, and , normally, the silence was , very nearly, visible.  On the reservation, in the village where I am living, there are no cars, no railroads, no boom boxes playing at all hours of the night.  Most of the time, while  lying in my bed, I hear nothing more than a   dog,  horse or, occasionally, a hungry coyote walking around outside.   However, I  had been awakened by, what?  The sound of footsteps, too many to be only one creature.  And what else? Snorts? Oh, Lord.

        After  a lifetime of residing in big, northeastern cities, I  have found myself in a village on the Navajo reservation that had no street lights, no door to door mail delivery, no gas station closer than twenty miles. Up to right that moment, I had found the change to be a fabulously wonderful experience. Also,  and while I had not, before, thought of it as a problem,  there is  no police station closer than Chinle, thirty miles away.

         An additional source of concern was that this was a   weekend. My Navajo co-workers, who live on school grounds only during the week,  had all gone back to their homes and were, therefore, spread out all over the rez.   The only single other person in the entire school compound, at that moment, was another employee, a lovely man, indeed, who resides in the apartment four doors down from mine.   However, I have noticed that he appears to  have a slight problem with , shall we say, imbibing?  Yes, let’s just say that.  As the  issue only arises on the weekends, and, as I am  a ’live and let live’ sort of a person, I have never cared.  However,  I was fully aware that by  this time on  a Sunday morning,  the smart money was  that the man would  be so plotzed  a tornado could send him to Oz and back, and he’d never awaken. 

        Once, while working in the prison, I was preparing to take one of my solo car trips.  A  student , worried about my safety,  offered to tell me where, along the Allegheny River, he had buried a Smith and Wesson.  While I appreciated and was quite  touched by  his concern, I didn’t think it advisable to take off for  Florida armed with a pistol that could be tied to a mob hit. That morning, lying in bed,  listening to noises outside my  kitchen door, I regretted that decision.  A lot. 

        With the covers pulled up over my head, I could not  help thinking that  this situation had the potential to end badly.

        The noise continued, no matter how I willed  it to cease.  I knew I could not  stay there  forever. Whoever was there might decide to come in.  At my school,   single staff quarters consist of  a one-room apartment, tiny kitchen, even tinier bathroom.  No closets, no hidden crannies, and , absolutely, no place for a chubby sixty year old woman to hide 

        I needed to know what I was facing. Pulling myself together, I tiptoed  through  to the kitchen.  As I pass the sink, I  reached into  the silverware  drawer and grabbed the only thing I thought might be of some help….a cheese slicer?  Don’t know why, closest thing at hand? A desire for a nice piece of Lorraine Swiss prior to dying?    I got to the back door and peeked

        “Oh my goodness!  Daddy was right.  I need a keeper!  Someone to just walk alongside me and keep me out of trouble.”

       
        My dad never had a lot of faith in my common sense or in my ability to focus on what he regarded to be the important things.  Once, when I was very young, I remember our family going to a circus  that had set up somewhere in Turley.  The day was unusual and stuck in my mind, no doubt, because my Dad was there at all. Working six days a week, he took off on Sundays to go to church.  That was it.  At any rate, on this day, he got us balloons, bent down and tied mine to my wrist.  Then, he handed me off to my Mother, with (and I remember this quite clearly), ‘Hold onto the girl, Alene.  She may take  a notion to run off with the clowns.’

        Well, I didn’t run off with them that day, but I have, through the years, awakened next to a clown or two,.  So far, however,   I’ve kept those stories from my children…Moving on.

        Daddy , also, felt that I spent too much time spinning stories in my head.  We lived on one side of Peoria Avenue, and my Grandmother Britton lived on the other. The major highway through town, it could be quite busy. Daddy would let my younger  brother cross   by himself all the time.  He insisted, however, that  I had to come to his auto repair  garage, wait for him to get a free minute, and then, he’d walk me across the highway.  Coming back, same deal.  I had to stand on the other side til he could come and cross me. I guess he thought I’d get so deep in my own head that I’d walk in front of a truck.


         At any rate, back to the situation at hand. The impulsivity that had so concerned Daddy was the reason I was looking out this particular kitchen window at all.   The year before, and for no other reason than I had become bored, I retired from the School District of Philadelphia, and after  an entire adult  lifetime of living in big, northeastern cities, I  wound up in this village on the rez.  The woolgathering came into play when, about six months prior, up on Interstate Forty,  I had rolled my Chevy sedan  five times , darn near killing myself.  After that, my brothers found me a pick up truck, spent hours and hours and hundreds of dollars  to make it safe  (I think Daddy charged them with keeping an eye on me), and now I have this gorgeous extended cab GMC truck which I just adore.   After school, it has become  my own personal idea of heaven to be able to go bouncing  up the dirt roads, taking pictures  of the beautiful Southwestern  vistas while  listening to Cole Porter music

        However, pickup trucks have one problem  With no ballast in the truck bed, they have a tendency to leave the road.  My new friends suggested kitty litter.  My brother told me  to go to  Lowe’s and buy  big bags of sand to place  over the axles.  I had a better idea.  I drove up the mountain into Window Rock, bought two bales of hay and had the man throw them into the back. Perfect! They would keep me on the ground all winter, and not make the truck bed all gritty the way  sand or kitty litter would do. I had been so very pleased with myself.

        However, and this is the big HOWEVER, I had not made allowance for the fact that livestock roams loose out here. The truth is coming to you.  I was  staring out into the dark desert morning  at  six horses who had their heads in my truck bed. Heads?  One was  up on his hind legs,  with his front hooves in the bed!  And, please believe me, they were  chowing down!  All they needed was  ketchup and salt.

        All right, now that was not so bad.  Lesson learned. There was a hardware store in Window Rock.  They had sand.  I put the cheese slicer back where it belonged , turned and went back to bed.  I felt so relieved.

        The real problem presented itself the next morning.  I opened up the back door and prepared to step out and drink my coffee in the fresh  early morning air,  Did I say fresh?
   
        While humans do not, normally and if they are in their right minds,  ‘dispose’ of the by-products of their dinners right in the exact spot where they have been eaten, horses are not so  fastidious.  My late night diners had remained right outside my kitchen (discussing the current state of the economy, I can only assume) until their food had been thoroughly digested,  at which time they passed it.

         I thought about cleaning it up, but I had no pitchfork handy, and believe me, this was too much to pick up with a paper towel, or for that matter, an entire roll of paper towels. I was left with  no alternative, but  to explain, on Monday, to the returning staff members who lived adjacent to me why, when they opened their kitchen doors, they were greeted  with piles and piles of horse shit!

        See? Daddy was right.  I really may need a keeper.