The summer before 7th grade we built a shed on my mother’s property. I was 12 at the time. I hated that property, but it was my mother’s dream to own her own piece of land and she had somehow managed to purchase one. It was a 5 acre uncleared lot on the reservation. There was no electricity to the property and no running water. Just a piece of forest amongst many other 5 acre pieces of forest with dirt roads run out to them. A few of the lots had homes with electricity and such but most were undeveloped at that time. I realize that uncleared property in the forest might sound peaceful, and to an extent it was, but not for me. The only other plot with people living on it on our street was the lot next door. There was a multi-generation family living in a very dilapidated single wide mobile home with no electricity or running water. There was a girl a couple years younger than me living there who I would later befriend. I discovered her running around the land exploring. She was wild and unkempt and the only child I have ever met who was as feral as I was. Once we became aware of each other we began following one another from a distance, observing, venturing closer over time, sometimes getting scared and running away. Eventually, we began to talk and I would hang out at her house sometimes although her family scared me a bit and I never really got comfortable there. There were 6 or so adults and a few children of various ages, shoeless, dirty, and dressed in rags. The adults were greasy and loud and usually in some state of intoxication. Somehow I fit in there though, and so we were friends. But that wasn’t until after the shed had been built.
My mother and I spent that summer building the shed out of supplies from the lumber store in town. The wood was purchased painstakingly, in portions small enough to be hauled back in our Ford Escort. My mother had no experience or particular talent in building but the thing ended up with 4 plywood walls and a ceiling and was raised up off the ground a bit. It even had a plywood door with hinges and everything. We started putting insulation on the walls but didn’t get very far with that. The finished product, if you want to call it that, was around 8’x12′. When the school year began we moved into it. We had a little propane heater, a camping stove and a lantern. There was no furniture and we slept on the floor. That was all okay and was, in fact, an upgrade over previous living arrangements. The part I hated was being scared at night.
My mom would leave for work in the morning and I would wait for the bus to school with a girl a year older than me named Nichole. Nichole lived on the next road over with her dad, stepmom and little sister. They had put a new manufactured home on their lot and had electricity and running water. Nichole was also new to the school that year but she was one of those girls who is pretty, smart and smells good so she was popular from the start. She even had a boyfriend. She would apply lotion to her freshly shaven legs every morning while we waited for the bus. Her thick, damp curls would hang down and get in her way. I found her to be quite perfect. Her family was a cohesive unit with the father going off to work and the mother taking care of the girls, cleaning and preparing homecooked meals. I never knew how to act around those kind of people. Nichole and I didn’t talk at school but she was very nice to me while were waiting for the bus and even invited me in to have a snack and watch TV at her house after school sometimes. I didn’t fit in there though so I never stayed for long.
After school I would go back to the property and explore until dark. Once it was dark I would sit very quietly in the shed and wait for my mother to get back. I was always scared of the dark as a child so I would try to be as still as possible. I would hold my breath so no one and nothing that might be lurking outside would know I was there and I would be able to hear the sound of anything coming. When I would hear my mom’s car pull up I would fling open the door and run out feeling very relieved. Though truth be told, I was still scared once she was there, just far less so.
One night when we were sleeping, some of the men from the property next door (who I hadn’t met yet) decided to go 4-wheeling on our property. They were no doubt intoxicated and didn’t care, or more likely didn’t realize, that there were people living in the shed there. They were whooping and hollering and making all kinds of racket. I was of course quite frightened, and my mother was too. She hurried me into the car and drove around to Nichole’s house. We woke Nichole’s family up and explained to them what was happening. Nichole’s dad decided to go and have a talk with the men, bringing along his gun and the family dog. Her mom tried to give me pajamas and something to eat but about that point my mother decided that she was going go help with confronting the drunken 4-wheeling men. Nichole’s mom tried to persuade her not to but my mother was determined and started walking back to our property. I was absolutely terrified that my mother was walking into her death so I set off after her. I followed beside her begging her to come back, but she just kept telling me to go back to the house, that she would be fine. I did not agree that she would be fine so I continued along with her getting more and more frantic in my pleas for her to stop. We walked along like that for several blocks; the dirt roads that ran between the trees were long and dark without streetlights; me escalating in my distress, tears streaming down my face, her stubbornly stating that it was fine and that I should go back. As we were about to round the corner to our street I gave one last desperate display of protest and I remember her stopping and turning to look at me. It was like she had suddenly realized I was there; but probably in reality she had just realized that if she continued she was going to be walking into this situation with a panic stricken 12 year old in tow. “You really don’t want me to go help?” she asked me. “No, I really don’t want you to go.” So she turned around and we walked back to Nichole’s house and waited for her father to return and tell us the coast was clear and that the men would be staying off of our property now. We were safe from these men. The men who would turn out to be my little wild friend’s uncles or brothers or cousins. The men who I would never quite stop being afraid of.
Patchwork Girl 