Nickels

The Purse

The Purseflaps on my chest I am growing boobs they stick out pointy hard n*****s that hurt I hate them mad dad crazy man mumbling bought me a new pink purse for my birthday this one has sequins on it covering over it like the scales of a fish a pink fish! I hate it I ripped it on purpose made it look like it got caught on a fence so I didn’t have to wear it but mad dad crazy man had mom sew it and strung it around my neck again

he gives me nickels to fill it up with it gets too heavy to wear so I dump them but he makes me wear it I take it off at school put it back on when I get off the bus I have piles of nickels piles n piles of nickels in a Keds shoe box in my closet the back corner’s filled with shiny hard nickels hidden away in the dark dad puts one then another over my boobs I buy me and Patty ice cream and malted milk balls and fake candy cigarettes with the painted pink ends so we can pretend we are older smoking on the street where the truck drivers whiz by

Mrs. Olsonmakes us keep a diary for one week which I don’t want to do because first what will I write and second what if mom or dad read it but I have to for the assignment Mrs. Olson says to write about the past the present the future the only thing I like to think about is the future but I have to write about the past and present for the assignment Mrs. Olson says she will not read the diary she will look at the pages and give us a grade for how many pages we have written in so I sit down and write:

Crazy girl is gone she died a long time ago I can’t remember it very good being five was gray and lonely and sad and I (crazy girl who is not really dead just buried) barely never talked there was a black judge bowls of oatmeal without sugar at some lady’s house I never look at pictures of myself Little Miss So And So a five year old crazy girl all alone except for her gramma and her white China doll stuffed animals lined up under the window I have too many things to do now I am busy! I don’t want to remember neither does mom dad he doesn’t think about anything just walks around talking to himself maybe someday he will leave

now I go to Phalen Lake Elementary school fifth grade teacher Mrs Olson I live on East Rose Avenue one block off Payne in Saint Paul on a road that’s a straight truck line heading to North Dakota a gray nothing marsh land with black sticks of trees and three gas stations where the truck drivers get gas on their way to somewhere else but I don’t know where because I’ve only been to the edge of North Dakota where Indians live on reservations where my gramma lives she is a Indian so am I she says so but dad says Shut up! Just shut the hell up! when mom calls dad and me Indians but he doesn’t hit her like usual he just gets up leaves Shut up! Just shut up! stomps out the door drives away stays gone all night

once when I was nine we went to gramma’s for a whole weekend over Christmas me mom dad I got a feather headress keychain at a*****e that sells Indian stuff like Indian statues carved out of wood tall as the ceiling and necklaces made out of big bear teeth with little blue beads in between each tooth They’re fake mom said she likes Indian stuff more than dad does the teeth aren’t real she picked it up ran her fingers over the tips of the fake teeth to symbolize something she said but we couldn’t buy it because it was too much twenty dollars or more twenty dollars I saw mom’s thoughts on her face thinking twenty dollars would buy me a baby sitter in the summer maybe for one whole month instead of having me go to mom’s work with her and play in the gym and disrupt her which is what she says I do

that time at Christmas dad wouldn’t come in the Indian store sat in the car waiting to drive to gramma’s for Christmas she lives in a house without a TV and smaller than ours which is small smaller than anyone’s house in all of Saint Paul! in all of Saint Paul! we have the smallest house in all of Saint Paul! but gramma’s house is smaller and she doesn’t have a TV and her yard is mostly dirt which dad doesn’t like Grow some grass Mom Christ he says and I can hear embarassment in his words and his ears flop over like a dog when the whole family had a party for us dad sat in the corner by himself all night drinking beer is all he did wouldn’t talk to anyone or look at anyone but I didn’t care I had fun with gramma in her lap all night My girl my girl she said petting my hair

Two daysgo by and I don’t do any writing keep the diary under my bed until mom dad go to a meeting for something the babysitter watches TV so I write:

Patty comes with me to play kick ball in the empty gym dusty smelling sneezing gray walls we can’t turn the lights on Can’t waste the school’s money on electricity when school’s not in session is what the janitor said when mom asked him if she could turn on just half the gym’s lights so her daughter could see to play

Patty goes with me some days and some days I never see her like she disappears off the face of the earth we swing from the ropes Me Tarzan you Jane we play cowboys and Indians with my feather headress The Indians invaded the school! Watch out! I’m the Indian I yell whoo whoo whoo whoo whoo! I run in circles hold my hockey stick over my head watch out Patty I yell the Indians are in town! we play kickball the red rubber balls with dusty dimples all over we throw them at each other to practice for bombardment we want to beat the boys

Patty is in fifth grade now with me because she flunked it last year too many absences and they kept her back That’s what Patty gets for not going to school mom said and ate her toast at the breakfast table while dad read his paper he never pays attention to anything just walks around mumbling like he’s crazy Patty thinks he is He’s certifiable she says her arms crossed around her chest but most of all at mom’s school where me and Patty go over Christmas Easter summer break we practice floor hockey I am the goalie I bring my gloves and use the school’s goggles and stick with the orange blades and get down on my knees with the stick handle flat on the floor the way girl goalies play floor hockey not standing up like the boys on ice girls always have to do dumb stuff Patty shoots on me from everywhere and I catch the orange pucks out of the air quick as a cat like my coach says I snag them in midair slide them back to Patty who shoots again and again we can play all day just the two of us shooting catching saving sliding the orange pucks across the dusty floors the dust makes me cough

Patty is the star forward on the Eastside Raiders and I am the star goalie we have black t shirts with Raiders written in white on the front our numbers on the back and someday we are going to be professional hockey players we wear our Raiders t shirts and North Star hockey jerseys to school the boys especially Tim and Jeff say Yeah you’re going to be pros professional retarded ostriches and they laugh which makes me and Patty want to beat them bad hit them hard with the red dimpled balls in bombardment leave dusty circles on their backs for treating us like girls

Patty can play floor hockey because mom signed her up and drives her to all our games she scores goals because she is tall and not afraid she does not get called P girl anymore because her clothes don’t smell like pee anymore she figured out how to use the washer in the basement and washes her own clothes now some of them she steals from the Goodwill on White Bear Avenue she says it’s easy to do because you just rip off the tags and put them on in the dressing room and no one can tell if they’re yours or Goodwill’s cause they’re already used Patty’s clothes are used but they’re clean now even if her clothes smelled like pee no one would dare call her P Girl the boys are afraid of her even though they won’t say so she beat three of them up when she was in the fourth grade and now no boys will mess with her she’s taller than all of the boys in all of the grades the girls on the floor hockey teams are afraid of her too they get out of her way because she has five older brothers who knock her around and now another baby brother to go along with her other little brother Jimmy and a mom and dad who don’t pay her any attention

if Patty runs away I am not going to let her get away I am going with her headed out on the truck driver’s line straight to North Dakota to the Indians to my gramma’s to whatever is past I don’t know what the future will be but it’s all I can think about

Turn inyour diaries Mrs. Olson says leans against the front of her desk I hope that you’ll keep these when you get old it will be interesting for you and your children to read she smiles the way she does I smile back hand mine in

Two dayslater Mrs. Olson gives us our diaries I open mine in big red letters it says F Do not talk poorly about your parents it says I have half a mind to show these to your parents half a mind! she has half a mind to show them to mad dad n mom n my eye balls roll around thinking about the trouble the trouble I’d be in!

at lunch I tell Patty to save my place in line I go to the bathroom down by the janitor’s closet that’s only for one person that locks I rip out the pages tear them long and skinny soak them in the sink until my words are fat and faded then flush them down the toilet Fluuush they are gone no one will ever know no one can ever know I can never write again!

* * *

Susana woman watching the game yells from her chair the short fat girl on the other team has the puck she shoots from anywhere Susan the woman yells again I don’t want to look because the short fat girl will score Susan I drop my stick and walk toward the woman yelling my name Patty yells What’reyoudoin get back in the net I want to get back in the net but it is like I am walking under water all of a sudden I am standing in the middle of the court the short fat girl looks at me pushes the puck around Sally I left the net open! I run toward her dive on top of her stick grab the puck the short fat girl falls over me Tweet tweet! the ref yells Ref the other coach yells eject her I hold the puck orange and dusty between my hands look at the woman who yelled Susan her legs crossed I look at Patty who stares at me I walk around the short fat girl crying on the floor hand the ref the puck he stands there his whistle dangling on his chest I walk out the side door go to the girls’ bathroom sit on a toilet hide from mom dad Patty short fat girl parents teams I don’t know what just happened

Todayis a beautiful day here on East Rose Avenue mom says ready to go to work and she pulls the curtain on the sun it explodes into the living room suddenly I am five year old crazy girl standing in the living room boxes around mom singing California dreaming waiting for California sunshine to pour into the house Hurry up Little Miss So And So and I see mom standing in the living room with furniture no boxes but now it’s Easter break Today is a beautiful day mom says again hello anyone home she says I blink like a retard why did mom call me Little Miss So And So today instead of Miss So And So I’m ten not a baby anymore I see her white knuckles on the door my stomach sinks like a rock in the river

Skip skip skipping rocks in the river

Patty and the fifth grader chasing snakes

with fishing nets and sticks and buckets lined with grass

skipping rocks in the river on such a summer day

Can Patty come I say mom sighs pushes the curtains around digs at something with her fingernail If she’s ready in five minutes I really mean it five minutes period we can’t wait for her today Okay I say feeling the way I did when I was little a crazy five year old I remember those feelings bad bad feelings like I was going to die I forget them leave them leave the living room call Patty’s house swing the white phone cord like it’s a jump rope hit the refrigerator hit the wall hit the refrigerator hit the wall no one answers

Crazy girl’s buried

the fifth grader says so

the fifth grader buried her in the hole

under the rubble dirt sticks

it takes many to survive

the father mad dad crazy man talking to himself

the fifth grader doesn’t want to know crazy girl is alive she can’t know

the fifth grader must survive at school in the world or we all die

I knock on Patty’s door knock knock no one answers there’s only one pick up truck on the lawn knock knock the semis whoosh by splash puddles on the sidewalks knock knock until Jimmy answers Is Patty home I say No he says can I come instead Where is she I say whoosh whoosh whoosh I dunno can I come instead Where’d she go Jimmy shrugs his shoulders Can I go No I say wait for the trucks to quit whooshing worried she left without me mom pulls the garbage can to the curb Hurry up Miss So And So my boss is in today I hurry