stories2

Tiger Rock

"Daddy, don't let them make me like Joe." I whimpered from the backseat. Joe Velasquez owned the single smoky tavern in town. My father brought me there sometimes. It was at Joe's tavern that my father would teach me how to shoot pool, as he gulped down beer after beer and bullshit-ed with his buddies. Joe hobbled around on grimy, ancient crutches; his left leg had been severed at the knee. Although he never spoke of it I had always imagined it had been something heroic and equally gory that had caused him to lose his leg. Sometimes, in the summer when Joe wore shorts to work I would stare at the stump of his leg, horribly fascinated. Occasionally Joe would catch me making secretive glances at the scarred lump of flesh and he would smile at me; the grin revealing dark gaps between his yellowed teeth.

We lived in a truck stop of a town in New Mexico, about two hours northwest of Juarez. It rarely got cold enough to snow there, but when it did the whole town shut itself down. School got canceled, roads were closed and people stayed indoors as if it were the apocalypse on their doorstep. It snowed the morning of my birthday. I looked out the window of the adobe duplex we lived in. The flakes drifted down in slow motion, melting rapidly on the hard, packed soil. By mid-afternoon the flakes had stopped their futile fall and the town looked as if the snow had never touched the ground at all; the only evidence of their existence was the slightly damp earth. The huge pumice rocks lining the driveway glistened momentarily with moisture; a huge ancient lava field covered miles outside of town and these rocks were strewn all about for decoration. The sun shone brightly and it was springtime warm.

My friend Elizabeth and I went to the school playground which was a block away. Elizabeth was an entire year older than me and very wise- she and her family shared the duplex with us. I wore my new Capri pants my father had given to me for my birthday. They were pink with a white strip down the outside of each leg. Elizabeth had a pair just like mine, except hers were a pale yellow. We ran around gleefully, so happy that we had got a full day off from school! We began to play hide-and-seek and it was my turn to count. I turned my face towards the rough stucco wall of the school and yelled out the numbers from one to twenty..

"Ready or not, here I come!!" I screamed out.

I stopped and listened, hoping for a sound to betray Elizabeth�s hiding place before she could get to the Olly-olly-oxen-free. A sniffle came to my ears from around the corner. Ecstatic, I ran around the building and promptly fell over a hardened lava rock. The sharp edges dug into my skin, burning as it shredded. My face slammed into the slightly damp earth and I gasped in pain. Elizabeth came running and turned me over onto my back. My leg was bleeding; gushing blood down my shins. I thought I saw a glimpse of bone through the ragged edges of flesh. I struggled to my feet and Elizabeth helped me limp my way home. Blood pooled in my new white shoes, warm and sticky. I cried at the awfulness of that feeling more than the terrible sting in my leg.

My father was sitting on the couch with a Busch beer in his hand when I walked in. He glanced up and shook his head as he took in the dirt-streaked pink Capri's tinged with red, ruined tennis shoes, and my ravaged leg. He put his beer on the table reluctantly. He went into his room and grabbed a clean, ratty t-shirt which he wrapped around my leg, and put me into the back of the old Ford Grenada. We drove up the mountain to the hospital in Ruidoso.

"Daddy, don't let them make me like Joe." I whimpered from the backseat.

"Don't be stupid girl, they aren't going to take your leg off, its only a few scratches- You might need some stitches." my father said, "Although I should tell them to take it off, that would teach you to pay more attention to shit."

Years later, I can still trace the four white lines running along my right shin and remember. It looks as if an angry tiger has dragged his claws downward while they were imbedded in my flesh. The scars aren't very visible anymore except when I have the rare tan, but I always know they are there and it brings back the memory of snow on my 12th birthday.