End of Winter (Rewrite & Expansions into Book Four)

The Rat Chewing

Rochester, Washington
May, 1977

It was raining, but it was spring in Washington State so that was to be expected. I was wearing my favorite shirt, a hand me down, but my favorite all the same. It was alternating stripes, red, white, and blue, each stripe across me and as wide as my palm. It was bought for my brother Logan during the Bicentennial Celebration at the Fair Grounds in Centralia, across from Black Bird Shopping Mall, but Logan didn't like it so momma had given it to me and bought him some new shirts at K-Mart. It was stained on the collar where dad had busted my mouth for smarting back when I asked him if I could get his beer at the commercial because I was watching Superfriends on Saturday morning, but it was almost faded away so it didn't bother me. Sometimes I wished that I had a Superfriends shirt like Logan, or maybe even that cool shirt dad had bought him after he had taken Logan and Ineda to see Star Wars, but I was happy with my red, white, and blue shirt.

I had been cutting wood all morning, as best as I could. I was getting bigger, so it was getting easier. Long practice helped, dad had been sending me out to cut wood since I had been six, and now that I was ten I was able to more before I tired. So I had cut armload after armload with the hatchet, carrying it in and piling it next to the wood stove in the frontroom. I knew better than to ask mamma if it was enough, knowing that I was to carry it in until she told me otherwise.

Chores didn't bother me. Work was clean, no emotion attached to it, no anger or yelling or drunken smacks or screams with kicking.

Two of my fingers were held to one another by what momma always told Logan and Ineda were 'bunny bandages', where the cloth was wrapped around then tied twice with a bow on top and another knot. It looked like a bunny, and momma usually drew smiling whiskered bunny faces on the bandage for sissy and Logan.

The bunny on my bandage I'd drawn on myself.

My fingers had swollen up when momma had stomped on them because I wasn't washing the floor fast enough. It was OK, though, because pain went away if you were quiet enough and waited long enough. I could tell by the itching under the dirty bandage that the pain was almost done and soon I'd be able to use the fingers better. I would try to make a fist under the blankets at night, and it was doing better then last week. I was able to make a fist good enough to hold the hatchet.

Eight chunks, enough to take back in. I stuck the hatchet into the top of the stump and loaded up my arms with the wood. Dry cottonwood that dad had gotten from one of his friends, two cords worth, enough to last the year. Now there was only a small pile, not much bigger than me, but momma liked it warm, so we still cut wood even though it was getting close to summer. I could see Mount Rainer over the tops of the trees, the snowpack still covering a lot of the top, and smiled.

I liked the commercial with the guy driving the motorcycle toward that mountain. It sounded like he was making the motorcycle say 'Rainer Beer' and it made me laugh. I stopped laughing after the second time dad had smacked me across the back of the head hard enough to throw me face first into the carpet. I liked the mountain too, and when I got bigger I was going to climb all the way to top and play in the snow. I liked snow, liked making snowmen and snowforts and having snowball fights with Ineda. Logan liked to put rocks or ice in his, so I didn't like having snowball fights with him. He had cut Ineda's forehead and laughed about it, then laughed harder when dad pushed me face down in the snow and beat my butt after Logan told him I had done it. I still liked snow, though. There had been snow that winter and I liked walking in the woods with the quiet snow on the ground.

I opened the door, moved into the kitchen, and quietly bumped it closed with my shoulder. Momma hated it when doors were slammed because it was disrespectful to her house, so I always made sure that I closed it quietly so I didn't disrespect her house.