Sweet Land of Bigamy by Miah Arnold

Author:Miah Arnold [Arnold, Miah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Humorous, FICTION / General
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4161-2
Publisher: Tyrus Books, Inc.
Published: 2012-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

June 4, 2004

It was the first day she saw Chakor. Or saw what she thought was a Mexican worker sitting in the middle of a row of a dozen white plastic chairs on Main Street, in Franklin, and holding up a Bush Lies, People Die sign. She thought: he’s going to get killed.

“Nah,” he’d said, when she’d got up the courage to walk over from the counter at Marion’s Diner to warn him—and what made her do it? She’d never done something so forward in her life. “Nah, they just scream obscenities at me and flip me off,” he’d said, and grinned.

A boy in a yellow Mustang vroomed past, screaming something as if on cue. And Chakor had thrown his head back and laughed. He wasn’t screaming out anything himself, he wasn’t even standing. This boy’s idea of protest was lounging back in a cheap lawn chair, holding up his handmade sign, and drinking an iced tea from Marion’s.

“Sit down,” he told her, and she did. Just like that she had changed the course of her life, which she knew now, but not then. Then it was just curiosity that held her. She’d wanted the story about this thin, bright-eyed, happy protester with the shock of shining black hair that reached out toward the world, in every direction, all at once.

On TV activists were insane, wild-eyed, and so certain of their points of view they looked mean. They yelled, their voices screeching the will of the mobs they faced, even when they spoke of peace. It was the primary reason she’d never sought out a protest herself, though she felt sure nobody wanted the war to end as much as she did.

A teenage boy in a gray T-shirt and tight, worn jeans was walking by on the sidewalk between Chakor and Helen and the abandoned storefront of Erma’s Office Necessities. His short hair and wide freckled face reminded Helen of a lot of the guys she had grown up with: a farmer’s son (but not Billy’s, and not hers—there was no resemblance). When this kid stopped in his tracks, Helen winced, ready for the ensuing fight.

“Mr. ChaCha! Mr. ChaCha!”

“Scotty!” Chakor said, smiling back at the boy. “Sit down, sit down! I’ve been thinking about you. How’s your summer been?”

“Uh. No, thanks,” the boy had said, eyeing the sign in his teacher’s hand.

“Did you hear back from the U?”

“Still waiting,” the boy said, looking at his boots for courage he now found. “You know, my brother’s in Iraq and we’re proud of him for it. It’s an honor to serve.”

“We published the poem you wrote about that,” Chakor said, nodding seriously. “I still think about it.”

“Yeah,” the boy said. “Well, we’re all proud.”

Helen could see the boy liked Chakor, and she was impressed that Chakor had taken the kid seriously. Impressed more, perhaps, that the kid had taken a man like Chakor seriously: this was no small feat in a city like Chipeta.

Ida and Herman and a group of about ten other people crossed the street from the empty bowling alley’s parking lot.

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