The Myth of Wile E

The Child/Adult Rosetta Stone

Mama asked the Indians at the souvenir stand if there was a pay phone she could use. They pointed her to a pink fiberglass teepee, which was apparently a phone booth. After warning us not to touch anything dangerous like fireworks—or worse, breakable—Mama ducked into the teepee to call Daddy.

Mama had left Daddy back in Kentucky because, as she'd been explaining to us for the whole car ride, he had no Prospects. I didn't know what Prospects were at the time, and for some reason I inferred they were a type of jacket. Who knows what I was thinking. I've long since lost the child/adult Rosetta Stone.

For two days Mama had been saying that Daddy would be perfectly welcome to join us in California—once he got some Prospects or once Gladys got famous, whichever came first. But now here we were in the middle of nowhere, with hostile-looking plants and mysterious Indians and practically no money, and me still in my pajamas, and Gladys not famous yet and in danger of developing at any minute. Mama had had enough. She wanted Daddy back, Prospects or not.

While Mama called Daddy, Gladys and Dougie and I looked at the Indian souvenirs and talked to the Indian craftspeople. I asked them if they lived in the phone booth, and they laughed. They said they were Pueblo, and didn't live in teepees, fiberglass or otherwise. Then I asked if it was true that any minute a door would snap shut and lock us inside? The Indians wanted to know whatever gave me that idea. I told them that Mama had called the place a "tourist trap." The Indians thought that was funny for some reason, but assured me I was safe.

The Indians weren't like shopkeepers back home who'd get panicky whenever I picked something up. In fact, they were very nice to all three of us kids, even Dougie. They didn't seem too happy with Mama, though. I figured it was because she'd asked to use their phone.

Now and then we could overhear Mama in the teepee. She kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and, "dear Lord, what are we going to do?" She also mentioned being "saddled with three kids" and "no Prospects." I whispered to Gladys that it was really hot in the desert, and definitely not jacket weather, and that Daddy would probably be warm enough in California too, even without Prospects. Gladys just shrugged. (Gladys was always tolerant with me, believing—as Dougie often put it—that I was "a few bolts short of an Erector set.")

Daddy told Mama he'd get on a plane right away. We were to wait for him at the airport in Santa Fe (or was it Albuquerque?). But first we had to wait at a car repair place for a mechanic to fix the car. And before that, we had to wait at the souvenir stand for a few hours until the tow truck came rumbling along, from some other place with its own hostile plants and possibly other horrors I'd never heard of.

It only took a few minutes for Mama to spend the last of her money buying things from the Indians, maybe to make up for using their phone. She bought us a lunch of prickly pear pie, which was delicious but later proved retaliatory. She also bought some prickly pear jelly, which Dougie said he would not eat. Mama told him to stop acting spoiled.

For Gladys, Mama bought a five-dollar turquoise-and-silver ring, to "bring out the blue in her eyes" (which were green). Mama spat on her hand and cleaned Gladys's cheeks and fussed with Gladys's hair. "Is this a face that ought to be in pictures?" Mama asked the Indians, as if one of them might have been a Hollywood agent in disguise. The Indians smiled politely and glanced at one another.

I looked up at Gladys, who stood limply in her ruffled dress. Her cheeks and nose were turning red. She looked like a wilted tulip. The expiration date for Gladys's childhood was coming up fast, and she could go bad at any moment.