The Quiet Drummer

eep and the little blond, round-faced boy sat on the classroom floor at Waterfall School. He beamed up at her. "He don't talk," scorned his half-sister, barely a year older than little Luke's four. "How come?" Jeep asked Luke, who watched with solemn interest as his sister flounced away. "How come you don't talk?"

He looked at Jeep again, his eyes pools of trust. He wouldn't talk to her, but he was tapping a kind of Morse code rhythm on his knees with the heels of his hands.

A maelstrom of preschoolers in pastel spring dresses and shirts swirled around them. One girl in a pink dress hurried on Canadian canes toward the windows. A precociously handsome boy with neatly combed hair sat at a tiny desk that almost hid his leg braces. The boy at the next desk rocked himself.

Arlene, the other teacher's aide, led singing while Dottie, the legally blind teacher, bent low over her paperwork despite the commotion.

A child playing in the pink plastic log cabin yelled, "P-U!"

"Whoops!" Dottie cried, instantly abandoning her desk to wheel a wailing little girl to the bathroom. Frequent incontinence in the classroom could get a kid banished. That was one of the standards for attending; they would never make it into a regular classroom until they were potty trained.

"Can you say your name?" Jeep asked.

Her nightmares these days were about multitudes of children with overwhelming needs and herself neediest of all. She dreamed that she was trying to teach impossible tasks to too many children. In the dream they had no eyes, no limbs, only wordless voices that were never silent. She'd awake with her hands sweating and swollen. Even awake she felt a constant imperative to know everything she needed to know, to give them everything they so badly needed all at once. There was no yardstick, like continence, to measure her readiness for this classroom.

The job scared her. Donny had said people who had something to teach were drawn to teaching kinds of jobs, but she'd never thought of herself as having anything to teach. These were preschoolers, though, preschoolers with a strike or two against them. She guessed she might be able to teach them some of the essentials. She'd watched her mom so patient all those years with her sister Jill.

Luke reached with a tentative hand to Jeep's buzz cut and pressed softly on it, as if expecting sharp points. He flattened it and smiled an entirely pleased kind of smile. With her first paycheck she'd gone to Arnie Herrera, the town barber, and described her old haircut. He'd tried, but she'd ended up with something that looked more flattop fifties than nineties neopunk.

"Bad haircut," she told Luke.

Dottie had told her there was no physical reason Luke couldn't talk. He was the sweetest kid, kind of like love on two feet. What had happened to him? What would happen?

"You know, Luke," she confided to the boy, "this is the last place in the galaxy I thought I'd find myself. And you-you're some advanced being luring me to Planet Bliss. Right?"

Luke startled her with a smiling nod, like a wise little alien.

"Wild. Who am I evolving to?"

While Luke tapped the toy piano next to him, she remembered that rainy day a month ago when she got started on the road to this job.

"Being poor is depressing!" she'd griped to the bluegrass band's sexy harmonica player. She was hanging her laundry on a line she'd strung across the tiny trailer when Cat knocked at the door, her pit bull George at her side. She was there to rehearse a harmonica duet Jeep wanted to add to one of the band's songs.

"Never doubted it," Cat had replied, ducking two damp flannel shirts to sit at the fold-out table. Jeep's eyes kept being drawn to those excellent breasts underneath Cat's bright white hooded sweatshirt.

"See?" demanded Jeep to distract herself. "I'm hand-washing everything. Laundromats are too pricey."

Cat leaned against the back of the countertop refrigerator and stretched her long legs across the bench. George was exploring all the new scents. Like the other locals, Cat wore Wrangler jeans, but she bought hers at the tack shop south of Natural Woman Foods on Stage Street, not at Wally World in Greenhill. Jeep had gone over to the tack shop with her and had been sorely tempted by a black cowboy hat with a lavender band. In Reno it had been mostly tourists who wore cowboy hats in air-conditioned casinos, but here, with all the rain and as hot as she was told the sun got, she could use a hat with front and back brims. Cat was sorely tempting too, even if she did smell kind of horsey today. Except, Jeep was not about to fall for anyone. She was just fine married to her solitude and her freedom.

"You're bragging on your poverty," said Cat.

"No way. I'm not your downwardly mobile type. I was brought up middle class. True, there were a lot of us, and the family minivan was always secondhand, but we at least had a minivan and our own Sears fucking washer and dryer, thank you very much. This scrimping on food or eating handouts from Chick and Donny is getting real old, even though I know it's some kind of worshippy-spiritual gig for Chick. Every time I thank her she's kind of like telling me, what goes around comes around."

"You're not the first one they've helped out."

"No? Who else?"

Cat was so good to look at. She could be a model for that Title Nine women's catalogue she and Sarah used to get. Meaning, she thought, strong-looking, healthy, and capable, like she wouldn't need anyone to help her change a tire on the freeway. Cat had started coming over to give her a ride to band practice, then hanging out afterward. She always brought in homemade date bars or oatmeal cookies she stashed in her truck. Jeep had laid in some of that mild green tea Cat drank all the time and put the kettle on now, wondering whose story Cat would tell her today. Donny and Chick had probably helped out half the dykes in town.

"Me for one," Cat answered.

"But you have a job, a nice house." Donny had driven her by Cat's house one day, and she'd felt herself gaping at it.

"I wasn't a financial rescue." Cat put her hands behind her head to cushion herself from the refrigerator. "Love was my problem."

"Been there, done that, did you get my postcard?"

Cat smiled, scratched George's back, and was silent so long Jeep wasn't sure she was going to tell the story. Then she saw her take a deep breath. "I fell in love with a woman and couldn't imagine a way to make a life with her. Or without her."

Jeep held her breath. Was Cat talking about her?

"So when she made her move, like a jerk I said no."

Her hopes, like a pretty little bubble, popped. Of course it wasn't her. She hadn't really thought it would be. She knew she wasn't really in love with Cat, but with her grounding. She wanted to have roots she was comfortable with too.

"We wouldn't be together now except for all the nights Chick and Donny sat and listened to me, used up boxes of tissues on me, and helped me see my way. If I'd let her go," Cat said, slowly shaking her head, eyes closed, "it would have been the biggest mistake of my life. This isn't just an attraction. We were born to be together."

Cat definitely had a girlfriend then. Yet Jeep had never seen her with anyone. She couldn't help but say, "You fell for the invisible woman? No. Wait. For Ellen, and she lives in southern Cal. Of course! Why didn't I figure that out before?" She pretended to smack herself on the forehead with the heel of her hand. "Does she fly in for holidays or what?"

Cat laughed. "I must sound crazy to you. It's nothing like that. She's got this job where either she has to be totally closeted, or totally out. And if she's out, there's going to be a big hullabaloo, and if that happened, I'd probably lose my job."

"Okay, so you're both in the closet. Sounds like a match to me."

"Jeep, this isn't a closet, it's deep cover. We can't live together, be seen together, even go to a restaurant together."

"Vacations? Long weekends?"

"It'd be noticed if we always left town at the same time, though now and then we do."

"There's someone with that high a profile in this town? No, I know, she's the resident FBI agent and needs to live like a mole so she can spy on the white separatist community living in an isolated enclave just over the mountain."

Cat sat up and looked her in the eyes. "No guessing games. We agreed we wouldn't say who we are aloud to anyone. If we don't say anything, we can't be quoted. Our closest friends will figure it out over time, and that's okay. You can't quote a guess, even if it's right."

"She must have a hell of a good job."

"It's not that so much as the fact that she believes in her job. It's who she is. I would never do anything to interfere with it." Cat laughed quietly. "It's one of those jobs that keeps her away half the time anyway. At least this way I won't worry so much."

Jeep was feeling a warm glow that Cat had kind of called her a close friend. Maybe she really was checking her out as a roomie. But, sorry, Dory. I don't have any kids to fill your house. "Me neither," she pledged. "I wouldn't want you to suffer over my big mouth. I don't even want to know who it is."

"At the same time, I need you to know that you shouldn't hesitate to trust Chick and Donny and let them help you out. That's what they're about."

Immediately, Jeep was plunged back into her own situation. "Right. But for what? So I can get arthritis freezing my fiddling fingers at the car wash? I used to know what I wanted to do with my life, Cat. Or I thought I did." She looked out at the row of trailers and the mountain behind them. "Maybe I was a little vague about what exactly, but for sure I was going to support myself playing some kind of music. That's not something I'll ever be able to do here." She looked back at the appealing mix of sultry and athletic that was Cat. "Why am I still here? There's really nothing to keep me."

Cat gave Jeep a long-suffering smirk. "Okay, fiddler-woman. Let's change the channel. While you're figuring it all out, there's an opening at Waterfall School where I teach for a preschool teacher's aide. The class is for kids with disabilities."

"Right. Me and kindergartners?" What a bogus idea, she'd thought to herself. "I can see the personnel recruiter banging on my door- we want a dyke musician with funny hair and piercings teaching our defenseless kids how to-what the hell can you teach disabled rug rats anyway? How to use a wheelchair?"

Cat looked at her with one eyebrow raised and she heard herself.

"Ah geez, I'm sorry. That was one of the most inane questions I've ever asked. Can you pretend you never heard it?"

"No problem, Jeep. I actually think you'd be good at it. That's why I'm telling you about the job. Muriel would kill me if she knew. She wants her nephew to get work and stay here. He's this genius kid who flunked out of his freshman year back East, and she thinks Oregon will fix him up."

"What is it with you and Muriel? You're kind of mismatched friends, don't you think?"

"I think I'm learning that no one's an unlikely friend," Cat replied with another smile. "It's true, I've never known anyone like Muriel. We connected because she started the band. I like that she's so totally self-involved. It means she doesn't pry. She knows lots about worlds I want to learn more about-music and art and good books. She used to teach

music history and culture at Berkeley."

"Muriel?"

Cat nodded. "Her specialty was American music history."

"So that's why a bluegrass band. But you want me to try for the job, not her nephew?"

"You're a natural, Jeep."

"I am?"

"You are. I see in the band how playful you are, and focused too, open to anything unless it doesn't contribute to the session. And you're patient. Most professionals would have walked out on us really fast. I'm not the only beginner."

"It's about having fun," Jeep objected. "Why should the audience get to have all of it?"

"That's exactly what I mean. It's the attitude you need to have with kids. Girls in my classes who hate to play volleyball may love modern dance or running laps. As much as time and equipment allow, I encourage them to do what feels like fun. You could be trying to cram serious music lessons down our throats, but instead you're just being a band member. I'm learning a lot more following your lead than I would in some stuffy music class." Cat stopped, took a quick breath, and said, "Plus it'd be great for you."

Cat had really been thinking about her. "Wow. I didn't know all that about me." She admitted, "I guess a steady paycheck does have its appeal."

"You're going to love these kids. They don't let a little thing like non-functional legs or rejecting families or blindness stop them. They use what they've been given, no questions asked. They are wild on the playground, let me tell you."

"You think I need the inspiration, is that it?"

"I don't know, Jeep. Something's holding you back, isn't that what you were telling me? I'm having trouble believing it's the end of your relationship with Katie. Do you really think that was a match made in heaven?"

"It doesn't much matter what I think. She was just fun and exciting and-"

"A great lover? I've heard that line before. I've said it. That's not a formula for anything lasting. It's a formula for a love affair. Hell, my horse is fun and exciting. Plus she's never left me for another woman."

"And the sex?" teased Jeep.

"My horse is celibate."

"I knew that."

"So, will you at least apply for the aide job? These are kids that are being prepped to mainstream into kindergarten, then first grade. Not all of them will make it, but with the right help, a lot will."

Jeep hung the last of her socks. Could she help them? She dropped onto the bench across from Cat and felt the trailer shudder. "You're really wacked, Cat, you know that? Me and kids. I'd probably trip over a tiny tot and break it-day one."

"Afternoons only, five days a week, $9.25 an hour, pro-rated bennies. They have separate funding for classes in the summer too, so you could work year-round. No experience required."

"Oh, I have a little experience," Jeep said, remembering her sister's classmates. "But they'll never hire a queer."

"Am I the gym teacher there or what? In education it's don't ask, don't tell, and if they find out they may or may not fire you, like in the military. But I have to warn you, if there are more budget cuts this year, your class would be one of the first to go. You could claim unemployment though."

"You think? They denied me this time around because I didn't work last quarter. Teacher's aide. It must be the last open job in town."

The next week, Jeep went for the interview and tryout day. Dottie, a plain flabby woman in her thirties with twinkling eyes behind Coke-bottle glasses, liked her. Jeep had figured she could endure a lot for one-eighty-five a week. Indoors and dry.

And just like that, here she was, watching Luke feel his way on the toy piano. Another little guy snapped her attention back to the classroom when he bolted into the hallway. Jeep went after him and, as he opened his mouth to give his usual piercing screech, caught him under the arms and swung him around until they faced the classroom door.

"Left," she commanded. "Right! Left! Right!" It worked, as always, and they marched back in together. Jeep was awed that she was actually good with the Barney set.

Dottie clapped her hands. "Time to go see The Magic Show! Come on, the magician is waiting!"

The kids made their awkward way through the halls to a special assembly. The other pupils stared or averted their eyes.

In the auditorium, Jeep sat with her charges. Cat, unattached to a specific class, but a frequent visitor to Jeep's, leaned against the paneled wall. She wore red nylon running pants with a white stripe down the side, and a school football shirt that couldn't hide her breasts.

Okay, Jeep thought, so the babe had a girlfriend. She guessed she could use a few more friends like Cat.

Luke took Jeep's hand, patted it, and beamed. Cat was watching, her smile as big as Luke's. He just kept patting.

Jeep sighed and thought, look at me-no girlfriend, I live in a tin can, have rug rats on the brain, transplanted myself from the desert to mushroom country-and I'm so content I could sit here and cry. What am I going to do without this if they ever lay me off?

CHAPTER ELEVEN