Shutter(13)

One day, after Gloria had been at Grandma’s house for a couple of weeks, I came home from kindergarten with a swollen and scraped cheek, my pride hurt from a schoolyard scuffle.

“Who did that to you?” Gloria pulled me closer, examining the wound.

“Just some boy at school.”

“You need to point him out to me. Understand?” She moved us toward the bathroom, her hands guiding my shoulder. The pain kept me silent. Gloria pulled Grandma’s iodine from the top shelf, along with a bright white tuft of cotton. The brown liquid seeped into my open skin and stung me through to the bone. Just thinking of that kid’s rotten face sent the smell of iodine to my brain.

During lunch the next day, Gloria found me in the playground as I hung upside down like a bat on the monkey bars.

“Where is he?” She was smoking a cigarette and chewing bright pink gum at the same time.

I pulled myself upright and identified the boy, Felix, who stood with his friends, pushing the smaller kids from the moving and swaying seats. He was seven and older than all of us—a fact he never let us forget.

When Gloria walked over to the group, they scattered, leaving Felix alone in the shadow of my cousin as her cigarette smoke loomed above his head. He stood defiant, his feet cemented to the moving sand. She punched him in the eye before he had a chance to say a word. He lay on the sand in shock, holding his cheek and covering his tears.

“Next time you’ll think twice about hitting little girls,” she warned. “I’ll be watching you.”

With that, she jumped over the chain-link fence and ran into the hills, one chubby, huffing security guard trying to give chase.

She waited for me every day when I got off the bus. We would play basketball in the setting sun. Sometimes she would spin me in circles—fast enough that my feet would hover above the swirling earth while her hands held on like smooth and gentle clasps—until I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard.

One afternoon, Gloria and her friend Bertha were waiting for me at the bus stop. Bertha was taller than Gloria and twice as big. She wore lots of makeup and had a devil tattoo on her arm, but she was quick with a smile. As I walked off the bus, a huge flash of light came toward me. I rubbed my eyes, then saw the camera spit out a sheet from its mouth. Bertha grabbed the sheet and shook it in her hand like a one-winged bird.

“Grandma told me that you’re into cameras and stuff, so I told Bertha to bring hers over.” Gloria pulled on the camera strap. “Show her.”

It was amazing. Just a few seconds ago Bertha had taken my picture, and now, here was proof. I was smiling in the photograph, the bus driver obscured, a boy waving through the window. I rubbed my fingers on the edge of the photo, wondering if the color would come off in my hands.

“Let her try it,” Gloria demanded.

“Okay, okay.” Bertha handed the camera to me. “Don’t drop it though. It’s my mom’s. She’d kill me.”

Gloria grabbed Bertha around the shoulder and smiled.

“Take the picture, kiddo.”

I put my eye to the viewfinder and pressed the button, feeling the electric gears moving inside. The photo came out a white square on a white surface, shapes and colors coming to life with the burst of light and air. Gloria and Bertha both looked so happy and bright in the picture; their hands pressed into each other’s arms.

IT WAS ONLY seven months before the older kids found Gloria and pulled her from me. She began to go to school less and less, coming home with the boys my grandma always complained about. By early summer, I was alone in an empty house. I watched television by myself until Grandma came home from work.

I always tiptoed to Gloria’s bed when I heard her come in late at night, after Grandma was asleep. Her room smelled of cigarettes and sour juice.

“Where did you go, Gloria?” I’d ask.

“Places I never want you to go.”

On my sixth birthday, Gloria didn’t come home. Two days later, she finally did, but only to grab a jacket and a handful of crackers from the kitchen while Grandma was still at work.

“Where are you going, Gloria?” I sat in the kitchen watching her.

“We’re just heading out to a friend’s house out in Coyote Canyon. I should be back tonight.” Gloria scanned the fridge.

“Grandma was worried when you didn’t come home.”

“I stayed at Bertha’s. Her mom’s car wasn’t working, so I got stuck out there.” Gloria opened the front door to leave.

“Take me too,” I begged. I could see someone sitting in a red junkyard truck waiting for her. Sparkling, furry dice hung from the mirror. “Who’s that?”

“We’re going up to the top of the mesa. I’ll be back late. So you better stay here.” Gloria walked out and I ran after her, jumping into the back of the truck.

“I’m going.” I wrapped my arms around the spare tire in the back.

Gloria just stared at me, then shouted to the guy in the driver’s seat. “Move over. I’m driving.”

Up on the mesa, in the Chuska Housing Project, government homes stood like stones above the community of Tohatchi. They were all the same—four walls and a roof and nothing more. Many of them were abandoned, their sparse yards overgrown with tumbleweeds and empty dog houses.

Gloria pulled into a deserted driveway and parked. We were at the house at the end of the road, where the backyard overlooked the Chuska Mountains. Aside from the graffiti all over the house, it was still in one piece, the door and windows intact. Gloria and her boyfriend sat on the tailgate and smoked and passed a can between them while I went to look at all the stuff inside. There was a busted television, wire hangers, and outdated calendars. There was even a radio sitting in the kitchen among some broken plates. I turned the knob and a scratchy radio signal came through. The light from the setting sun made the whole house look orange, and when I put my hand in the air, I made an impressive shadow.