University of Northern Iowa

Living on HardscrabbleAuthor(s): Walter McDonaldSource: The North American Review, Vol. 268, No. 2 (Jun., 1983), p. 27Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25124401 .

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Self-Defense

"I'm glad I told you about my plans," Amanda con

tinues dreamily. "It's going to be so great when I go. I've

decided I'm going to move to the desert and write poetry there; at first I thought the beach but then I thought,

Nope, I don't want anyone seeing me in a bathing suit. In the desert you can wear a caftan and no one has to know

how fat you are."

"In the defense class you can wear a bra," I snap. "So

no one has to know how naked you are."

"Mom!" Amanda says, shocked.

"I think you dress like a tramp," I say, throwing caution to the wind. "And I'd like to know how you think

you're going to get to the desert or anyplace else without

me to drive you." "What's the matter with you?" Amanda says. "Getting

there is the least of my worries."

"Oddly enough," I tell her, "it's the very first worry of mine." I hand her the car keys.

"What are those for?"

"We're going to have a driving lesson. Here, in the

parking lot."

"I don't want to take a driving lesson now, Mom. I

flunked Driver's Ed. Remember? Besides, it's dark." "Get in."

"No. Come off it. Please. It's late. I'm hot. I'm really

tired, Mother."

"I'm tired too." I hear my voice rise, shrill in the

darkness, and I hear the truth of the words inside the shrillness?the truth I've been fighting off with moron

jokes and form letters and solicitude for Amanda. I'm

tired, and I'm depressed, and I'm lonely, and I'm mad,

and I'm scared to death of almost everything in the world?and I don't want to stay like this too much longer. I want to bloom, soon; I want to touch and be touched. I

turn my back on Amanda, open the car door, and sit down

hard in the passengers seat; it seems strange to sit here

again after all these years; it makes me feel vulnerable, it makes me feel small. I cross my arms and wait. At last

Amanda, silent, slips in beside me and grips the wheel.

"Okay," she says. "Since you want to die."

"I don't want to die," I assure her. The scent of sweat

and roses fills the car as I show her where the headlights are, and how the brakes release, and how to change the

radio to a rock and roll station. She grinds the key in the

ignition and we start off with a lurch. "This is going to take a long, long time," Amanda

warns. Arms crossed, tired to the bone, I tell her that's

fine; time means nothing to me.

WALTER MCDONALD

LIVING ON HARDSCRABBLE

Hunting on hardscrabble, a man keeps his

rifle steady, safety ready to flick off

and fire. You don't get many shots out here.

Long tubes of cactus, the flat flesh

of prickly pears, loose rocks that trip you up

every step of the way. No one but a fool

would hunt like this except for meat.

Six days a week punching holes in this stone.

I drill where they send me. My trailer house

squats on this desert like an old woman

taking a rock from her shoe. I saw my kids

invent a game after the schoolbus dropped them

by the side of the road and roared off

back to town, the first time I had seen them

in a week. He loves me, they said in turn, he

loves me not, snapping off thorns like pulling needles.

When I was their age my logger father

moved us near a forest, the thickest woods

I ever saw, the new pines trunk to trunk

for miles, stunted, their stubby branches snagged,

shoving for room. His crew cut through the trees

for weeks and never left our sight. He said the virgin woods where he grew up were like a circus tent, the trees massive, scattered,

only their top branches touching, a green roof

shutting off the light so no shrubs grew, the forest like the stillness before dawn.

He said a boy could ride a horse for hours at full gallop and easily avoid the trees, or

silently stalk bear or game downwind,

the layers of leaves soft as fur, the forest

like an aviary, the branches bright with song. He never found the time to take me hunting.

My only rides were moves to other woods.

He cut the trees because he had to live,

like me. But I forgave him years ago.

The pine that broke back into him, high branches

caught in a noose of limbs and swaying, cracked all his ribs like match sticks. I never saw him again, except chin up, in the coffin.

Climbing over these loose stones, I keep a tight balance between thorns, counting back to pine needles, like my daughters

squeezing a desert cactus in their hands,

their eyes pulling the sharp facts like petals.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW/June 1983 27

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