I was sitting out in the field perched on the old tree stump. Drinking an amber beer under a night layered with the peppery darkness of a city-glow sky. I was listening to the trains roll across the 1700 South crossing.Inside my head a black & white silent movie on the history of the railroad played to a packed theater of one. My favorite part is the history of the curve at Grants Tower.
I suppose it wouldn't be too much of stretch to say I followed 1700 South all way the down from the high east benches to be nearer to the trains. Turned up a river so damaged, so abused, I couldn't help but to fall madly in love with it. Found land near by with a small block house on it, put up low fences, and planted roots.
There is so much life here. Stories seem to spring from the ground like thistles. And it was there in the field that I knew I had a job to do. Tucked in between the tracks and the river are a thousand stories waiting to be told. What I couldn't have know was how quickly a story would come through my front door...
We had spent most of the day working the farm part of our land cleaning up the winter that never was.
By the time we went in it was late in the afternoon. I put on a fresh pot of coffee intending to turn up some whiskey to accompany it when the front door flew open. Attached to the door knob a hysterically crying 10 yr girl.
The basic facts: trouble was brewing inside her house and she was the one who got away.I listened to her words as she sobbed them out. I paused long enough to pass her care to Fisher and I was out the front door.
As I crossed the fence line dividing our houses I remember thinking 3 things:
1) I can handle being stabbed.
2) I hope my kids will know that I fully understood the choice I am making.
3) Damn, I'm glad I am in these thick ass Carhartt overalls.
The irony of me, or all people, taking this role in my neighborhood is not lost on me.
I am well known for this sort of rashness.
I am the one who followed the meth dealer home. Refused to let him shut the door in my face by kicking back open the door of his apartment and wedging myself in the doorway so he might fully understand he was no longer welcome to drive up and down 10th.
I tap on the windows of cars suspiciously tag-team parked, classic drug deal hook-ups. Blatantly snap photos of them & their plates. Rarely do I have to suggest they move along. They seem to get the idea themselves rather quickly.
I have loads of these stories: Irish girl goes rogue.
I crossed their yard. The front door standing wide open bouncing in the wind, the screaming and crying spilling out. As I stepped inside the mom was balancing a baby and attempting to hush a young child who was bleeding from her nose. The blood oozed into her gaping mouth as she welled.
The woman suddenly was forced to turn her attention on me. I could hear her telling me it was all okay he was gone now but her words were lost to the buzzing in my head as I made eye contact with the man standing at the top of the stairs.
He stared down at me, stared down our shared history. His strong hands, now clenched tight in fists, had once saved my life. I was his mother's best friend before she was arrested and deported then arrested again. I watched him decide what to do about me standing there. He slowly back out of sight. I heard a door slam.
The woman backed me out of the house and closed the door on me. I returned home. The little girl sitting on the sofa shaking uncontrollably and Fish on the phone frowning at me for going over there alone.
I was too focused on the phone is his hand to care...shit, did we call 911?
Turns out after I had left my house the little girl had grabbed our house phone and called 911 herself. But she hadn't been able to calm down enough to speak to them.
The phone was handed off to me along with the first real twinges of fear. I'm screwed and I really hope he remembers we are friends, I thought as I gave my information to dispatch. I hung up and returned to their house to try again.
Collecting the empty beer bottles lined up on the fence and throwing them away. My Re-approach was not subtle. The front door flew open and the little girl no longer bleeding was pushed out to deal with me.
"I have to get my sister. She has to come home." she said, "He's gone it's all okay." "Good," I lie back, "Come with me, we can get her together."
I successfully lead a second child to the edge of safety but it wouldn't last. She wouldn't stay. However, between pleading with her sister to return home with her she did tell me the truth. He was still there, which I already knew, and she had been assaulted by him, which I hoped had not been the case.
As soon as she stepped off my front porch I called dispatch and suggested they come sooner rather than later.
With officers on the way the first young girl began to cry loudly again. This time about the safety of her mom and siblings still in the house. She started to build a case for her to return too. Eventually her sister showed back up telling her again, "You need to come now." She finally agreed.
I walked the 2 of them home slowing them down, buying time, stalling. At the gate I suggest they might have forgotten something at my house, suggest we go back. I almost won that one, but their mom standing in the open doorway waiting for them was a much stronger force.
The girls slipped out of my reach and through the front door. It closed behind them.
It is all silent like the black white history of the trains, the police politely knocking, asking to come in but being turned away.
When interviewed outside in the grass in place of the truth, the girls give an account of a fight between the 2 of them. The officers knew they were coached to lie but had no choice but to let it go.
So that is how three officers came to stand on my porch shrugging. I told them what they already knew: now all of us are in danger but thanks for coming by and making it worse.
I told them I understand it is not their fault but I added, this how women die.
And as I looked from each of their holstered guns to their faces I thought about how glad I am I was never stupid enough to call them on my own behalf.
They let me know I am always welcome to call them back at anytime. The look I gave back said: If I have any say in the matter they will never be called again.
They stood around for awhile and slowly drifted off.
Later, I saw my neighbor to the other side of me pull in. I crossed my yard drinking whiskey from one of my favorite blue coffee cups. I hung my arms over the fence. He leaned low and I quietly explained what had happened and if he won't mind....
"I am always looking out for you, Guera." He said. He leaned more of himself over the fence, pulled up his shirt to show me 2 hand guns securely tucked into the waist band of his pants.
Once upon a time I lived in Sugar House where only backyards were fenced. I knew all my neighbors and they all knew us, or so it seemed on the surface.
One day I got this idea and I moved us to the valley floor so we could stretch out and have room to grow things.
On 10th all the yards, front and back, are well fenced. We all pretend not to know each other but nothing could be further from the truth.
"In a valley settled by Mormon Pioneers, I was raised on the upper east side. The only diversity I knew was an occasional variation in the length of mower settings for the front lawns. In my bed at night, when the desert air was wet enough to carry the sound of the trains off the valley floor, I could hear them calling out to me. I would fall asleep dreaming of being big enough to run among them." ~The Most Beautiful Season, mlb~
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