Aerie InternationaL - Missoula County Public Schools

house? and I could tell that was the turning point, where she would either
take the bait or bite my head off, and holy mackerel did she ever take
it. She said, I like your style, and her slender white fingers slithered down
into her blouse and emerged with a slip of paper that had her number on
it, like it had been waiting for me there, since forever. She said, Call me,
we’ll talk.
We talked. Our conversations were pretty one-sided. River would
cram information into my ear about politics and the “E.P.A.” and some
bunch of yahoos that protect animals, “Petta” I think it was, as in “to
Petta dog,” I’m guessing. Sometimes I’d have to think of hitching that
skirt up, just to keep sane. Her pet name for me was Honeybee, which
made sense and wasn’t so bad. It was just her talking non-stop, and
when she’d go hoarse, she’d ask me a question. Once it was, How do you
feel about nature, Honeybee? and I almost groaned out loud. I told her about
the big oak in the forest behind our double wide, how it used to be nice
but now it’s infested with all of these little white bugs that attack you
when you go near it, fly at your eyes and mouth and nose, like little space
ships protecting the Death Star. She didn’t say anything, and I said, I
don’t know, nature is kinda just a backdrop for the rest of life. And she said, No,
you’re such an idiot, life is just the backdrop for nature; humans are just reckless,
unstable weaklings teetering on top of magnificent organic and non-organic processes,
or some crap like that, and then
But now it’s infested with all
of these little white bugs that
attack you when you go near
it, fly at your eyes and mouth
and nose, like little space ships
protecting the Death Star.
she hung up.
I thought that was curtains for
me, but it wasn’t. River called
back and apologized, and a few
weeks later, she invited me over
for dinner with her father. She
picked me up in her white van
and drove me to their cottage
in the mountains. There was
wilderness everywhere, but it wasn’t po-dunk or anything. It was
classy looking, it had electricity and running water, and there was some
expensive furniture inside.
Before going inside, we ran around in the woods, chased after each
other and then collapsed in a random spot. She was panting, and I would
have been panting too, but I was too focused on her heaving chest to
make a sound. There was silence, and I thought, Is this it? Is this the day?
but no, she started talking. She said, You know Honeybee, everyone in the
world is stupid except you and me. Maybe my father, but he’s gone soft. Everyone
else, they’re destroying the world, and it’s not even on accident anymore. I said, I
don’t know, it seems to me that maybe God and the earth are going to do what they’re
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