From the Hilltop

From the Hilltop

If the hotel roof had been any hotter,if it had been any higher, if I had fallen,too,or instead; if Bean had officially died,if we had been drinking less or more, if there had been more than one girl there, if there had been fewer than us four guys, if we had all listened to Jeffrey, who is a biology professor now, the only one who got out, who was always worth listening to, who was hated, a little, for it If we had hated less, had been hated less, if there had been more Indian kids in our town, not just the five of us, if we had cared less about being the only five,or more about school or horseback riding or making our own comics or anything other than perfecting the art of not caring,of slouching against the wall outside the low-slung school, if Bean hadn’t been my brother, if he hadn’t been the youngest, if he’d learned to walk hard like I taught him, to sneer and scowl and stuff it all down, if he hadn’t worn those dumb, falling-off-his-ass From the Hilltop From the Hilltop 70 pants, if it hadn’t been the ’90s, those pants not yet cool, if they hadn’t been so good for hiding things If Roy hadn’t once loved Gloria, if Gloria hadn’t been our mother; if Roy had taken us camping again, like he said he would, if it hadn’t been so hot, if there hadn’t been that argument about frying an egg,if we’d chosen sidewalk over rooftop; if the Hilltop had not been so tall, calling us; if there hadn’t been the question of the egg, if we had stuck with smoking pot, if Mandy hadn’t moved in next door, into the bad-luck house, with its four small rooms, its cracked windows, its foundation full of fist-sized holes, its refrigerator holding only baking soda, the two eggs, then Mandy, holding the eggs out, one in each palm, if Bean hadn’t said, I’m going to marry her; if he hadn’t been just twelve years old, most of us older, fourteen, if we hadn’t all laughed—even Rick, who was Bean’s age, his best friend—if Bean hadn’t had to prove us wrong Because it was my mom’s house we stole the beer from,because there was wine,too,Boone’s Farm,and a fifth of Jack Daniels that Roy had hardly touched, because my mother had boxed it all up, neat, had set it on the front steps in the hot, white West Texas sun,because it was hot too early,only May,school out in less than a week, because we all itched—summer so close—because Mom said, No more, to Roy, our stepfather, because he had slammed the door for maybe the last time, because she picked up her books,the ones from up north,with the pictures of people she called our people, Blackfoot Because she watched our stepfather leave, pointed to the books,to the language none of us knew,said,This is what we’re From the Hilltop 71 going to do this summer,because Bean had never known our father, never known any of the Ramperts very well, because Bean followed Roy out onto the front porch, into the blowing dust, because Bean watched the pickup door slam, the tailgate bouncing and jerking down the rutted street, past yucca and prickly pear and lawns there was never enough water for, past plastic bags snagged by tree limbs and fence tops,past pit bulls running the streets,dragging thick chains, past the park someone had forgotten, half its grass as tall as Bean, the other half brown and scorched and never coming back, past families playing in their yards, past our school to the stoplight, then the last hope—a brake light—because Bean held his breath, me behind him wishing he would just goddamn breathe, because Roy and the truck bounced onto the highway, because we couldn’t rid our ears of the ring and bounce,that slamming door,because Mandy was holding out those eggs, because the box was there Given that I didn’t want to sit in the house all summer, given that I didn’t want to...