Curious Katie-May 2001

an, that Chick's a lot of woman," M.C. loudly confided to Katie, eyes following as Chick left with an emptied coffeepot.

He had arrived two hours earlier, reeking of weed, and removed his denim jacket to reveal a black T-shirt adorned with a Day-Glo image of Jim Morrison. Oh, retch, Katie thought. M.C., legs stretched across the booth, was almost supine now. He'd been calling to Chick regularly for coffee refills, especially, as his high wore off, when she had a clump of customers or was in the middle of some messy chore.

Pissed, Katie thought about punching the stop button on the Sony when what she really wanted was to punch out his lights. This was good stuff though. She had a feeling she might have more here than she'd anticipated. She was imagining the music she'd use on M.C.'s segments, maybe some old Led Zep. No, early Pink Floyd might display the interior of his mind better.

She'd done hundreds of interviews before coming to Waterfall Falls, but they'd all been to a formula, done more to make a neat package for couch potatoes than to extract anything deep. Now, though, she felt like she was hitting her stride. Even Spruce had talked her head off while hammering tar paper and shingles to the roof of the lodge. Katie had filmed her from the top of a ten-foot ladder that leaned against the flimsy aluminum rain gutter. This dude talked too, but it was all bad news, some of the most paranoid, judgmental, twisted thinking she'd encountered in her career.

"What's your prob, M.C.?" She took off her sunglasses and used them like a sword, feinting toward the man. "You came on like the gentle new-age man when we first talked. Am I getting Mr. Cro-Magnon on tape here or what?"

M.C. yawned widely and balanced a dental plate on his tongue, revealing threads of saliva. He snapped the plate back into place and asked, "Gross you out? I do that to my littlest girl sometimes. Scares the crap out of her."

Katie panned the store to chill, but couldn't obscure the memory of those dark nights. What was it about Waterfall Falls that took her so far back?

Her mom had dated a man for a while when Katie was seven. When Mom decided he was bad news, he hadn't agreed to meekly disappear. Had it been days or weeks that Mom woke her every night? They sat in the frigging dark and listened to him rattle the knob of the trailer's flimsy front door, bellowing threats and endearments and pleas until the neighbors called the police. She'd counted each blow of his fist on the door. She'd counted to thirty-seven one night. Eventually, Mom had gotten a restraining order, but she remembered standing night after night in her flimsy shortie pjs, hiding out of sight in the narrow hallway to her mom's bedroom, and trying to stop her mother, who sat on the floor, from shaking so badly. Mom's head was the height of Katie's chest, and she held it tight, her only comfort that she could comfort her mother. It was too frightening to see her mom shaking and helpless; she needed to make her strong enough to be Mom again, but it hadn't worked. From that day on, and maybe long before that (how could a little kid know) her mom had leaned on her.

Well, it had grown her up fast, and added some emotional muscle and sinew to her she might not otherwise have had.

She set the Sony down on the table and looked M.C. in the eye. "You've been so rude to Chick all morning. What's your problem?" She hated herself for it, but knew even as she tried to protect Chick, she was digging for more of a story. Expose the conflict, she'd been taught in a journalism course. What makes the subject tick, what makes him vulnerable, what's going to get the reader hooked? It was all about selling stories. Strip the subject naked and film him freezing to death, counseled one instructor. That's the real story.

Or was Chick the real story here? She'd never seen her so jangled and huffy. Chick was infamous for taking care of absolutely everyone around her, from old men smelling of cow manure to clueless baby dykes to gaggles of mothers with strollers and pooked-out bellies. She'd never seen Chick rattled before. It was a little scary around the edges to see her lose it.

M.C. was answering her, but he sounded like he was speaking from inside a fish tank, his mouth pouted like a fish's, the words rolling out slowly. Definitely Pink Floyd. She didn't want to feel afraid. She'd rather not feel at all than feel scared like this. When the crash came, she picked up her Sony without thinking and turned with it at her eye. A sense of invulnerability and invincibility, of being at one with this recording device came over her. It was the one time in her life, other than making love, that she had a sense of serenity. I'm in slo mo! She loved when she was nada but an extension of the camera. She counted to sixty, then to sixty again as she filmed.

Chick had dropped a glass coffeepot, smashing it. She grasped the plastic handle, a sharp edge of glass attached to it. "Get out!" she shouted. The customers at the counter stepped back from her. "Get out!" she yelled again, eyes fastened on M.C.

Katie wanted to go to Chick, to ask what was wrong, to sit her down and hold her until she calmed down. As she came toward them, Katie was aware of the great fear rising again within herself. She slowly followed Chick's progress with the Sony, panning the overhanging quilts for contrast, while she held her breath and struggled to kill the fear. Fifty-three, she heard herself counting, fifty-four, fifty-five seconds of tape. Chick was rushing M.C., but it was taking her forever to reach him. Chick's long jumper hugged the front of her legs as if pressed there by howling winds. Her cushiony face, a smile its normal resting position, looked stripped almost to the bone, and not red with anger, but pale with rage.

Again the Sony shifted as if on its own, back to the cluster of customers, shock and concern on their faces, holding very still as if they also feared to breathe. Where was Donny?

Fina, who had the clothing shop up the hill, shouted, "Madre de Dios, Chick, no!" Katie followed her with a steady lens as Fina rushed Chick and held her arm.

"Get out of here, M.C.," growled Chick. "I'm not taking your crap one more minute."

"Aw, Chick. I was goofing on you. You used to laugh at shit like that. Remember how it used to be-tripping all night down at the Marina, the old mob at Airplane and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young concerts. We were so happening. I dealt you breaks, gave you Sunshine. Remember that trip down at the beach? I told you what I wanted, had you pressed up close. Your knee about killed me. How could you do that to me in front of them all?" His voice was now angry instead of cajoling. "You walked out into the water like I was such a gross-out, you were never coming back. And you laughed at me with every step you took into that water; all the way out you were laughing at me. It took three of the other chicks to turn you around. Things were never the same after that. You took away my fucking manhood in their eyes, bitch, kicking me like you did. The other freaks were never tight with me again. They bought my dope, but they acted like I wasn't cool enough to be around. Me and my old lady blew town after that. Traveled a couple of years, bought my spread here. Nobody ever even looked us up."

Katie's arms were tired, and she rested the Sony on a shelf, still filming. Her whole being trembled with excitement, like a gong vibrating under its hammer. She'd never felt like this on a story before. So this sleaze came from Chick's past. Did she have a right to record this? She'd film now, think out the ethics later. This was too perfect- the micro town, the old hippies, the vigilantes, the merchants and the retirees in the background, and all the facets of the dyke-straight clash being enacted in front of her Sony. Her fear had been replaced by the concentration she needed to get this story. The Melissa Etheridge song "My Beloved," Katie's personal anthem, was loud in her head. Etheridge had a way of singing about love and politics that had turned Katie on to the connection between the two. Through Etheridge's music she'd come to see ways to make statements with her own work.

"You're one sick flashback," Chick was saying, but real low. Stealthily, Katie checked the sound level. "I know about your 'wives.' I know about your dope factory up in the hills and your Mr. Vigilante act in town. I don't know why you're still obsessed by me, but," Chick waved the sharp glass at him, "you're going to get over it starting now. Get out. Don't come back."

Katie watched through her camera, every bit of her focused on the scene. Fina grabbed Chick's arm, her other hand prying the coffeepot away. "Come over here, Chick. I'll find Donny."

"No!" Chick cried.

"Okay," Fina said, voice still calm, "Then I'll call Sheriff Sweet for you."

M.C. had scuttled backwards on his chair toward the window with an abruptness that acknowledged Chick's fury. Now he feigned calm, stretching as he slowly got his feet on the ground. "Chick is a good person," he told Fina, as if to apologize for her. He smirked. "We rub each other the wrong way. I get the funny feeling it's time for me to split."

"Let him pass, Chick," Fina instructed, pulling at Chick's arm. She took the broken pot and held it behind her. Hector White grabbed it. "Get him out of here," Fina told Hector.

"No sheriff, no Donny," Chick hissed.

M.C. whirled to the camera and growled. "I could give a crap about owls or loggers, but I have a message for Uncle Sam. Stay off my land. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of my happiness-women, highs, and carrying a gun-I want that guaranteed."

Earlier the man had put on a bashful country-boy smile. He'd been playing to the camera the whole time, and Katie had hated giving him a stage.

Chick lunged, dragging Fina with her. Katie heard a screech. She shoved boxes of granola bars off a shelf as she secured her Sony, then ran to encircle Chick's waist from behind.

M.C. slipped past them, white cowboy hat in hand, and sauntered out the door. She felt like hurting the arrogant shit herself.

Chick was crying now, bent over, her back rising and falling with sobs. Fina put her arms around her. Katie brought a chair. She couldn't stand to see Chick like this, felt completely hopeless that anything would ever be right again. The man must have been tormenting her a long time for this to build up. Had Chick told anyone? Why hadn't Donny intervened?

Katie was shaking, damp with a chilly sweat. The room lurched like a ship over a storm wave, like a small trailer house being stormed, a man launching himself at it with his shoulder over and over until she thought it would tip. She felt her stomach roll and heave. She ran to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet until she was weak and her throat felt ragged. She flushed again and again as if the memories were swirling down with the water. God, she'd wanted to forget her mom's ex-boyfriend, that enraged stupid bull charging them.

Someone had swept up the broken glass when Katie, sweaty, legs unsteady, returned. Chick was replacing the granola bars on the shelf. Everyone else was gone. She looked around for the Sony.

"Your camera is behind the counter," Chick told her. Chick picked up a green goddess figurine and studied it. "I'm sorry I'm not more serene. More like R."

Katie had been going for her Sony, but turned back, a flash of anger shooting through her. "Don't wish that on yourself, Chick. You have a fire in you she never had." Chick looked at her and she realized how she sounded. "I can't believe I said that." She shook her head. "I love R. She's so intense."

But it was true. Upset as she'd gotten over Chick's rage, Chick came by it honestly. R's passion felt cold, drawn from some intellectual or political premise.

"Intensity and passion don't equal love, do they?" Chick said, watching her as if for signs that Katie finally got it, whatever it was.

If she and R made love tonight-and that had seldom happened after the first few weeks-she would watch for real passion. But she already knew it wasn't there. R sought an orgasm like she ate an apple; both were pleasant experiences and nourished her. Casting R back into the darkness and steadying herself against a shelving unit, she asked Chick, "What was that all about? I never heard you bitch out a living soul before."

Chick reached to enfold Katie in a hug. She could feel Chick trembling too. In a voice hoarse with crying Chick said, "Being nice to some people is like offering a treat to a dog. It doesn't make them go away. It only teaches them to come back for more. Once upon a time I tolerated that man, because he was central to a group of women I dug and because he sold us drugs. My mistake. You're smart to keep that camera between you and the world, Katie Delgado."

It segues me out into the world, she thought. Then she switched into automatic interview mode. "Is he an old squeeze? This isn't the first time he's bugged you, is it? What's the story?"

Chick pulled away. "On the other hand, curious Katie, because of your camera, baring my soul doesn't feel cool. For your information, though, I've been a woman's woman since day one."

"Truth? You're not safe period around that guy, Chick. I've interviewed convicts less spooky than him."

"I've never lost it like this before. I wanted to maim that troubled man."

"Troubled! He's a live bomb." Katie shuddered, though she felt steadier now.

"But if you tell Donny," warned Chick, "I'll have to break a coffeepot on you."

"Never! I'm not looking to expose my friends."

Or was she? Damn, why had she been so quick to pledge silence? She was the mirror to this little world, and Chick was reflected like everyone else. She was a mirror wherever she went. A reporter's job was to watch and never take on what she reflected, but look how she'd reacted today. On the job she'd always arrived on scene after the violence, as part of the cleanup, to try to give a sense of, even make sense of what had happened. Today she'd seen her first real violence and she'd been catapulted back inside the fragile skin of metal that had sheltered her and her mom.

Watching Chick defend herself against M.C., where had the objective journalist gone? She'd held the Sony, but essentially wasted the film. This really wasn't something she could show the world, she thought with regret, except for M.C.'s mocking words. But she knew she'd play the Chick scene in her mind many times over. Had it mirrored her and her mom? No. Chick had gone on the attack, had altered Katie's reality. It was in Katie's memory bank differently now, right next to Mom and herself cowering.

"Katie?" Chick asked, taking both her hands. Chick's hands were warm, her own embarrassingly clammy. "Give me your word this will stay between us. Donny would lose it over something like this."

"I'd never use it," she said, wrestling with the need to use such great footage for the story she wanted to tell.

"Not just the film, Katie. I'm serious about not wanting Donny to know. She's up at Dawn Farm again today working."

Chick sounded unsure of her. Well, du-uh, she thought. Chick had good reason. So Donny was up at Dawn Farm. Did she need to know Chick was in danger-from M.C. and from her own fury? She followed Chick to the counter. Did she need to tell Donny? No. It wasn't her job to protect Chick, just like it hadn't been her job to protect her mom. Why in hell had her mother wanted a seven-year-old to protect her? Hadn't that been asking a bit much? If Chick needed someone to take care of her, she could decide that for herself.

"Your secret's safe with moi," she said. "There are things I want to use on this tape or I'd give it to you to destroy."

Chick had taken the camera out from under the counter, but only now did she pass it over. As Katie accepted it, she knew she would keep Chick's trust. She didn't quite understand what had happened inside herself today, but earth-mother Chick-she wanted to call her Mama Chick-was totally central to it.

"I want to crack open the secrets of this little town in the worst way. Scratch the women's land story. I can do a docu-drama about the heart and soul of a small town." She felt so alive talking about this, but switched into her Chatty Cathy newscaster voice. "Waterfall Falls, afraid of corruption by the new casino, seethes with its own selfdestruction. The druggies, the retirees, the farmers and loggers and jobless mill workers, the gays, the Native Americans, the Mexicans, the welfare-to-work families, redneck hippies, professionals, tourist-gamblers. America's melting pot is at meltdown in Waterfall Falls."

Chick gave her another quicker hug. "Save the world with your journalism, sweetie, but make sure you edit me out."

CHAPTER NINETEEN