Wanda, the Wicked Writer of the Northwest

pumpkin

Happy Halloween to all of my writer friends!

This is a story about Wanda the Writer…          

            Wanda never went to the mailbox without her baseball bat. For every rejection she found, she gave the box one whack. Of course, this scared the bats that lived in the box’s belfry silly, but Wanda was always so angry she didn’t notice.

          Back inside her house, Wanda meticulously filed away each rejection. The rejected stories about gardening she kept neatly stacked under a leaky flowerpot. The children’s stories she filed in the bottom of her bird’s cage, and the novel rejections she filled at the bottom of her cat’s litter box.

          Wanda was especially chagrined at the rejection of her latest 500,000-word novel. What were they thinking? It had a plot and everything! Actually, it had several plots—it was about a gravedigger who was afraid of dirt.

          Other stories were rejected because they didn’t follow the required format. Format, smormat! So what if the stories weren’t double-spaced? So what if she used the Rave font instead of Times Roman? So what if she didn’t include a SASE? One story was returned because she didn’t put any postage on it. The nerve.

          They had to be punished. The whole lot. Publishers. Agents. Newspaper editors. All of them.

          The ticked witch went to her kitchen and whipped up a batch of special candy for the rejecters. She’d show them to have a little respect. She filled her black kettle with a recipe of special hard candies that turned into wiggling slugs when they were sucked on. After the candies were wrapped in Halloween paper, she put them into a tote bag and took off for New York. Thanks to her new 300 high-speed broom, she was able to zip in and out of each office without being seen.

          Back home, Wanda poured a glass of wine and lit the candle in her Halloween pumpkin. Then she turned on CNN and waited patiently for the story to break. Soon, all over the city, there were reports of people in the publishing businesses choking on slugs. Oh, they just choked a little—they didn’t die. And how those slugs loved to sing! When they were spat out, they stood up and sang in a perfect imitation of Aretha Franklin:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T! (Find out what it means to me…take care of TCB!)

          Wanda put out the cat and turned out the lights. Tomorrow, she’d start a new novel. This one would be really big.

Happy Halloween!

Janelle Meraz Hooper: Substack, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Amazon, Barnes & Noble


 

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© 2007, Janelle Meraz Hooper.

Originally published in Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories

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Boogie, Boots, & Cherry Pie

9-9-14 Boogie front cover

New cover!
Boogie, Boots & Cherry Pie
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Janelle Meraz Hooper
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When the great guy that Lily meets at her company’s St. Patrick’s Day party takes her home he discovers she lives at the Zoo, an apartment building that caters to tenants who have exotic pets. Unfortunately, one of the animals is missing and when Mike drops her off the first thing he sees is a sign on the front door:

Please Don’t Let Out The Snake!

While Lily is trying to figure out how Boogie, a big boa constrictor, is getting into her room, Mike, her new boyfriend, has his own problems. He’s a jewelry designer who is in danger of defaulting on a contract because all of his workers live on a flood plain and the river is rising. When it finally floods, everyone, including their pets, disappear without a trace. Suddenly, Mike isn’t worried about his business anymore. He’s worried about his workers and their families. Are they okay? Where could they be?

Filled with lively characters including: a Jamaican landlady, Reggae, whose traditional headdress holds her phone, iPod, and assorted office supplies; her boyfriend Mingo who thinks he doesn’t fit in; and Velma, a woman who collects snakes—big ones. Tension rises when Reggae and Lily begin to fear that Boogie is stalking Boots, Reggae’s pet iguana. 


Reader’s comment on Amazon

5.0 out of 5 starsBest Yet!
September 16, 2011
Format: Kindle Edition
A romantic ribbon weaves its way through a latticework of exotic pets, jewelry, and Northwest cuisine including cherry pie! All of this against the backdrop of urban Seattle. Janelle Meraz Hooper’s sense of humor and descriptive dialogue keeps you smiling. Reggae describes what hapens to snakes in Jamaica. ” …but whenever anyone finds one over deh, dem beat it until it’s so flat it’s halfway to being a belt.” The author also adds drama based on a Washington State natural disaster, making this love story her best yet!

______________________________________________________________________

Kindle and others. Also in paperback. Suitable for NA (New Adult) and up.

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Janelle Meraz Hooper is an award-winning writer originally from Oklahoma who now lives in Washington State.

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Thanks for stopping by! Janelle

 

Wanda, the Witless Witch of Boo! Cul-de-sac

wanda the witch hoardstrom illustration

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Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories

Amazon and others-Paperback and Kindle. Suitable for New Adults and up. Published by iUniverse.

Janelle Meraz Hooper
See my other books and short stories: Janelle Meraz Hooper

Wanda, the Witless Witch of Boo! Cul-de-sac circled twice around her split-level home in an expensive neighborhood before she landed her broom on the roof. As always, she slid into her home through the air duct to the kitchen fan.
“Darn!” she cried as the blades sliced her black hat and ripped her hair. “I forgot to turn the fan off again.”
See why they call her witless?
Okay, she was a little addled. But beautiful. Blond, and petite, she bought all of her clothes at Hoardstrom’s and flew to LA every week to have her hair done at Chez Cher-Fawcett’s.
Stopping only to check her makeup in the mirror, she opened the sliding French doors and threw out the pot full of frogs, slugs, and spiders left over from her morning spells.
“Darn crows!” she cried as the black birds flew down from the trees and covered her yard. “Why is it all the crows in the neighborhood end up at my house?”
Trust me. She’ll never figure it out.
“Who’s at the door?” she’d call toward the front of the house whenever she heard a scratching noise on the porch. But no one was ever there. She’d been glad when her husband had agreed to fix the doorbell and had left one morning for the hardware store. That was over three years ago. He’d been working so hard on it that she hadn’t seen him since.
Each day she noticed the hole by the front door was a little bigger and the red and green wires from the doorbell were all over the porch, so she hoped he was getting close to finishing.
Each night, she tried to wait up for Clyde, but about twelve o’clock every night she’d get tired, so she’d put his supper on the table and go to bed without him. The next morning, his plate would be empty. The cat, that grew fatter and fatter, never seemed to miss Clyde. Wanda didn’t know why.
While Clyde was off at the hardware store buying a new doorbell, she kept plenty busy. All day long she ran back and forth, chasing the crows off the back deck, and answering the front door whenever she heard scratching. No one was ever there.
Wanda was getting lonely. Maybe, when she saw Clyde again, she’d tell him to forget the doorbell, board the hole up, and put up a doorknocker. Of course, then he would have to go to the hardware store to buy the knocker, so she was reticent to do that.
The beautiful witch got lonelier and lonelier. And witlesser and witlesser.
Wanda decided that she was too slow, and that was the reason she never saw anyone when she heard noises on the porch, so she began riding her broom down the seven steps to the front door. The problem with that was her broom was too fast, and she could never stop in time. Over and over, Wanda had to peel herself off the inside of her front door.
And so her life went. Year after year. The crows got noisier and noisier. She didn’t know why. The cat got fatter and fatter. The hole by the front door got bigger and bigger.
“When is that man going to finish?” she asked her fellow witches. “I swear, he’s slower than a dead June bug.”
Did I tell you yet that she was totally without wit? I think I did.
Finally, Wanda was at the end of her broom. She’d fix the doorbell herself. She knew nothing about electricity, but how hard could it be? The first thing to do was go to the hardware store and pick up some doorbell stuff. Maybe the women there had seen Clyde. Maybe they could tell him to come home and change clothes. He must be getting pretty ripe.
The women at the store pretended not to know Clyde, but Wanda wasn’t fooled. She knew they were trying to keep him all to themselves. After all, he was quite a catch, and a heck of a doorbell-fixer.
When she got back she got right to work. It started to rain so she decided to work from the inside (witches melt in the rain, you know). With her brand new sledgehammer she broke a hole in the inside wall. That’s when she discovered that, all those years, it wasn’t company at her front door. It was birds, nesting between the walls; they came and went through the hole left by the broken doorbell. The house quickly filled with black birds of all sizes. Flying. Diving. Squeaking. And making a mess on her orange wall-to-wall carpet.
Wanda closed the doors and windows and opened the fireplace insert doors so they could find their way out, but they were very comfortable inside and showed no inclination to leave. That’s because the birds were bats, and it was still light outside. Bats hate sunlight as much as witches hate rain.
Not that Wanda knew they were bats.
Say it with me: witless!
Finally, Wanda called a fellow witch for help. “Esmerelda? Get over here right away and help me get rid of some birds, will you? Somehow, they’ve gotten into the house.”
After Wanda cleared the house of bats she was a happy Witless Witch, and she knew things would be perfect once Clyde got home. And he would come home. After all, she was Wanda, the Witless Witch of Boo! Cul-de-sac. And quite a looker. How could he live without her?
And where was Clyde? At the hardware store, wandering around the parking lot, looking for his car. He’d completely forgotten that Wanda had dropped him off on her broom years ago.
Turns out, he was the perfect match for Wanda. Zero wit. None.

The end


Wanda, The Witless Witch of Boo! Cul-de-sac, is one of the stories in my Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories  mixed genre book. Published by iUniverse.

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How to Fight Big Hair

Short stories suitable for all.

7-15-14 photos for big hair blog 2

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How To Fight Big Hair
from Free Pecan Pie and Other Chick Stories
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When our children were young, I had a friend who told me it was time for her five-year-old son to go to school—she had taught him everything she could.
I looked at it this way: the teachers could teach my daughter all of that 3-R stuff—I was never good at it anyway. I could teach her about fine literature, art, the history of oriental carpets—and how to make tiny guest soaps in little plastic muffin pans with a microwave.
Okay, so all we did was buy the book with the soap recipes. We never actually got around to making the soap. The book is probably still on a bookshelf somewhere next to the ones on One Hundred Ways to Braid Your Hair and How to Have an Archaeological Dig in Your Own Basement.
When she was about eleven, we reached a point where she had her own ideas, so her father and I invented “mini-scholarships” that we tucked into her Christmas stocking. I think that most of the money went for sheet music, extra flute lessons, and Judy Blume books. Even with the scholarships, she still had plenty of time leftover for camping and fishing trips, cooking lessons, and documentaries on the educational television channels.
There did come a day, when she was a senior in high school, she said she’d learned all she could from me. It was time for her to move on. From what I could tell, she’d moved on to big hair, frosted eye shadow, and boys.
No! She couldn’t quit on me now, I still had so much to share with her! I was already looking into opera tickets, museum passes, and jazz concerts.
I was on the county art commission at the time. Each day, my mailbox was filled with colorful brochures from art galleries. I wanted to share them with her, but she was too busy curling her hair and talking to boys on the phone. Stacks of colorful pamphlets stacked up on the windowsill of her room. Unread. I knew they were unread because they were covered with dust. Any parent who knows her stuff can tell you that printed materials in a teenager’s room that are actually being read are covered in food crumbs.
Something had to be done fast. The stacks of art brochures were beginning to block out the light in her bedroom. Since the bedroom was already facing north, it got too little light to begin with. If one of us didn’t back down, she could be facing a health problem. Maybe I should start slipping vitamin D into her colas?
I noticed that, each morning, she got up early and sat cross-legged on the bathroom cabinet for at least thirty-minutes while she tortured and sprayed those straight locks into curls tight enough to last through outdoor gym class in the rain. There was only one curling iron, one electrical outlet, and one mirror. Desperation spawned inspiration. Maybe I could make that big hair work for me!
That night, I sat down and cut out each little picture from the brochures and taped them to the mirror right in front of where she sat to curl her hair. Some were beautiful. Some were funny. Some were just plain weird. Each day, after she went to bed, I put up new pictures. Each morning, she’d go into the bathroom and while the curling iron heated up, she’d take down the pictures—one by one. Over and over she asked me to put them someplace else. She never did catch on that they were just where I wanted them: in her way. Soon, the stack of art brochures on her windowsill was gone. Only the dust was left.
She’s older now. Styles have changed. The hair is much shorter and less time consuming. The garish eye shadow has been replaced with more subtle colors, and the boys have been narrowed down to two: a husband and a young son.
She really has moved on, but I’ve kept those pictures in a file. Someday I might use them again—when my grandson decides  he’s learned all he needs to know from me. I’m thinking I’ll glue them all over the backboard on his basketball hoop. Now if I can just figure out how to get up there—and back down without breaking my neck!


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The Fourth of July chapter from Custer & His Naked Ladies

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Custer & His Naked Ladies
A modern-day Western
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Soap, a Comanche Indian, is fighting the mob to keep a casino off the reservation. Things are starting to get ugly…

15. Soap on a Box

“Mom, why did this resort fold?” Glory asked as they neared the picnic grounds in the old deserted resort not far from Pete’s. “It looks like it must have been a great place at one time.”

“I think there wasn’t a need for it after the war. Ft. Sill shrunk to almost nothing,” Grace answered as she sulked because she lost the race to the driver’s seat to Vera. Scrunched in the back with her feet straddled over a picnic basket, she shared the seat with Maxine and Glory. In the front seat, Pauline was afraid to look at her because she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep from laughing.

“I think it was also bad luck,” Vera said from the driver’s seat that she’d beaten Grace to. “On opening day, the swings that hung out over the lake were full of kids. Then one of them apparently jumped into the water and onto a snake. He lived, but after that, no one would go in the water.”

“Grace, did you know that Howard and Pete started their resorts at the same time?” Maxine asked. “The land was on the reservation, so it was free, and the two had great plans to build until they met in the middle, forming one big resort.”

“I didn’t know that,” Grace answered. She asked, “Why didn’t Pete expand on his own?”

“Well, again, there were no customers after the war. There was no use in trying to add rides and other attractions.”

“Mom! You could have been like another Epcot Center! Who owns this place now?”

“The bank, I guess,” Maxine said. “Howard disappeared. He owed everyone a lot of money. Some people think that he’s at the bottom of the lake. Vera, park over there next to Soap and Kiowa. It’s getting crowded and we don’t want to get boxed in. I’m so stressed, that right after the fireworks, I want to go back to the cabins and go to bed. Besides, if you get a call about Dan, we might want to leave early.”

“Have you heard anything lately?” Pauline asked her sister.

“Not a thing,” Vera answered.

The women set up their picnic at a table close to where the soapbox was. Every year, the city raised money for charities by letting citizens give speeches for a fee. In the past, speakers had good naturedly made fun of the city council, crabbed about the poor roads, and threatened to stop paying taxes if Washington didn’t stop wasting money on doo-dads like peanut subsidies. Since Oklahoma didn’t have a peanut crop, there wasn’t any support for the goober goodies, as they were known to the Oklahoma farmers.

This year promised to be a lot more interesting. Everyone expected a heated debate over the proposed Indian casino.

Vera and Maxine set up the picnic for the first meal. They’d be there until the fireworks were over later that night, so food would be shuffled in and out of the ice chests all day. Grace had invited Kiowa and Marshall to eat with them; naturally, Maxine was glad they were going to stay near their table to protect Soap. No one around them seemed to notice the guests that Grace and her table had were wearing uniforms. The men had been around town for so many years that everyone just accepted them as a natural part of the crowd at any community event. They did notice the mobsters. Glory wasn’t surprised that everyone gave them a wide berth, even with Kiowa and Marshall there.

The mobsters just sneered when they saw Soap, as if the fact that they’d failed to kill him was unsurprising and inconsequential. Glory’s hope of seeing them squirm was not to be fulfilled. At least, they weren’t two-faced enough to smile at Soap and the women as they set up their picnic table. Glory gave them credit for that. They would look at the women and Soap and shift their gun holsters under their suits with their arms. Their demeanor said that they had everything under control, and that Soap’s presence made no difference to them. Had they planned for Soap to be rescued before he drowned? No one would ever know, but Glory didn’t think so.

Right next to them, sat Frieda in a lawn chair. By her purse was a disposable ice chest and a grocery sack that looked like it was full of hastily purchased snacks. “Oh, dear, it looks like she’s brought enough food for the mobsters too,” Grace said, “how did she ever meet them?”

“I don’t know, but her being close to them is no accident,” Vera observed, “One of the mob’s cowboy hats is under her chair.”

“Mom, I’ve told you for years that woman is nuts. She’s going to fool around and get herself hurt,” Glory said. “I can’t believe she was greedy enough to hook up with the mob. If something bad happens, she has it coming.”

The speeches wouldn’t start until nightfall when it cooled off, but groups for and against the casino were already forming around tubs of iced beer. Although it was hot, the adult men wore shirts; only the young boys were shirtless. Glory smiled at the sight of the men in their pressed, short sleeved cotton shirts. There was something respectful about their not sitting shirtless at the tables, as if they’d been raised by a Southern nanny. By contrast, the mafia formed an uncomfortable, over-dressed third group in striped suits and western shirts, and stood cockily around the soapbox. They’d mumble at each other, then sneer.
Mumble, sneer.

Mumble, sneer.

Vera casually observed the tribe from New York, “They look awfully smug, don’t they? I wonder what they’re up to?”

“I think they’re trying to intimidate us. And, you know, this is the first time they’ve seen us up close. Maybe they’re sizing us up,” Maxine said.

The women all put their purses on top of the table and raised their eyebrows at the men. The men looked at the flowered purses, then at each other. Puzzled, they shrugged their shoulders. Lordy, Glory thought, this could get ugly. These women had no idea what they would be getting into if a fight started. Glory did. She’d seen the fights between the students and policemen during the peace rallies when she was in college. Many times, she feared the police force might lose it and start firing at the students. It had happened before, at other colleges. If she could have thrown all the women into the car and headed back to Pete’s, she would have. As if they’d go and leave Soap. Well, then, she thought, if she could get Soap to leave, the women would follow.

“Soap, this doesn’t look good. Help me get the girls back to the resort, okay?”

“I can’t leave now, Glory. I could get Kiowa to run you girls home, but I think that we’re safer here, out in the open.”

“Fine. Let’s have a good old-fashioned gunfight and kill everybody.” Glory ignored Soap’s hurt look and turned to join the women.

She looked around and saw the tension rise like stink in the bottom of a boat. More and more people were showing up and Glory tried to guess which camp they’d fall into: pro or con casino?

Soap was looking over the crowd too, most likely trying to gage which way it would go after he spoke on the soapbox. Then he went over to a young Indian woman that Glory figured must be Pony On Fire. Wow! She’s stacked! Glory couldn’t help but notice. She looked down at her own modest bust line and almost groaned out loud. The man next to Pony on Fire had to be Charlie Breaks His Foot. Glory noticed he was nervous and kept pulling handwritten notes out of his pocket to study them.

“Mom, this is looking dangerous. Let’s get you and the girls out of here. Kiowa and I will take care of Soap.”

The women were stunned. “Leave Soap?” Maxine asked.

“Glory, I can’t help Dan,” Vera said. “I have no control over his well-being. But I sure as hell can support Soap. I’m so angry with these hoodlums that I’d pull out my gun and shoot them all at the drop of a tortilla.”

“Glory, have a glass of wine and relax,” Grace said.

“Oh, good, Mom. Let’s all get drunk. That’ll improve our aim.”

“I said you have a glass of wine. We’re okay. Aren’t we girls?”

“I’m okay, but a glass of wine might improve my disposition. Pass it over, Glory. Shall I pour you one?” Vera said as she picked up her glass.

“No thanks, Auntie. Maybe later.”

Lunch looked good, if a little eclectic. Vera brought her taco salad and Chex mix. Maxine had fried chicken and made cornbread. Grace had made a fresh fruit salad and cookies made with the wild pecans the women had swiped from the trees surrounding the church parking lot. Pauline brought a fresh stack of flour tortillas and homemade salsa. Soap put hamburger patties and kielbasa on the grill. Glory, who’d never been much of a cook, had swung by the grocery store and bought everyone’s favorite chips: Cheetos for Grace, potato chips for Vera, and Chili Fritos for Pauline. The women viewed the chips as expensive, and seldom purchased them for themselves, so they looked upon them as a real treat. Glory supposed their frugal shopping habits had to be a throwback to the times when they had little, before Grace’s shirt factory, because money hadn’t been tight for any of them for years. Every inch of table space was filled with plates of food. The empty spaces between the plates were filled in with deviled eggs and jars of watermelon pickles. Even so, no one at their table was eating very much.

Glory noticed that when Grace walked down to look at the water, one of the policemen just happened to be going in the same direction. When she came back, he came back.

Crowds formed for pie and watermelon contests, but no one at the women’s table was really in the mood. Glory didn’t even bother to go over when they sliced the watermelons. The women must have missed the buffalo-chip throwing contest because there was no activity in that area at all.

A group arrived and started arranging folding chairs into a circle. Glory hadn’t remembered the paper saying anything about a powwow, but they were often spontaneous.

She looked around the crowd to see if any of her old friends were there. She noticed the VFW table that was dressed in a red and white-checkered tablecloth with a canopy over it and little American flags running down the center. The sign hanging from the canopy said, “Our Comanche Veterans.” All of the men were wearing new straw hats with little American flags sticking out of the headbands. She spotted Marguerite, in her big straw hat, sitting at the next table. She was chatting with Charles Chibitty, one of the last remaining Comanche Code Talkers. Glory waved at Marguerite, grabbed a can of pop, and headed toward her table.

Glory wondered why more people didn’t know that the area had earthquakes, some of them had measured 5.0 on the Richter scale. It was every bit as likely that the cracked foundations in the area were due to tremors of a natural kind. But every time the ground shook, Lawtonians sent the bill for their foundation repairs to Ft. Sill.

The last speaker before the speeches addressed the casino issue was Pony on Fire. She told the crowd about the new Our Comanche Dictionary that was on sale by the tribe and urged that everyone buy at least one copy for each household. Pointing to a table stacked high with books, she urged Comanches to learn their tribe’s language and teach it to their children. It could start with just one word at a time at the breakfast table each morning, she suggested. As she stepped off the soapbox, she said she was off in search of a piece of ohape. Then she leaned back into the microphone and said, “In case you don’t have your dictionary yet, that’s yellow watermelon.” The crowd laughed as she melted into the crowd.

Chuck picked up the microphone and said, “Folks, I’ve been looking at that dictionary, and the Comanches have a word for just about everything. For instance, they have a word for Republican that means eagle white man, and a word for Democrat that means rooster-white-man. I think we could all use a copy, especially this time of year with elections coming up in the state. The crowd laughed, and more than a few looked over at the table stacked with books. “Now folks, Riding Wagon has a few words to say,” Chuck handed him the microphone and the crowd grew closer. Glory didn’t know which man to watch, Riding Wagon or Soap.

Suddenly, Soap turned and walked back to stand by Glory.

“What’s up?” Glory asked.

“They warned me that I should be thinking about my family, not just myself.”

“That’s pretty blunt. Did they say what they’ll do if you do speak?”

“No, but I’m going to alert Kiowa to get all of you out of here as soon as the speeches are over.”

“If you can find him. He’s gone.”

They both looked around, but couldn’t see either one of the law enforcement officers. Soap just shrugged, as if he didn’t need them anyway.

Riding Wagon began to speak with a shaking voice, “Ha maruawe.” The man said as he raised his hand in the traditional Indian greeting. “I am Walter. Some people call me Riding Wagon. I am Comanche. I am also the Comanche Tribal Chairman. I’m here to say a few words about the casino.” He looked around at the crowd and, hesitantly, started talking. “I’ve been a big disappointment to the white man. First, I refused to farm and fought for the right to hunt buffalo. So they killed all the buffalo.”

War whoops pierced the night air and chills ran up and down Glory’s spine. She had never gotten used to the war whoops that punctuated the air whenever Indians got together.

“Next, I refused to send my children away to a white school. I kept my kids at home and kept our language and traditions.”

More war whoops. Some of the Indian women joined in with their calls.
“Some of the white women were shocked when I decided to leave the reservation and move my wife and kids to town, next door to them, so I could enroll my children in the local whites’ school.” He shrugged his shoulders. “What else was I to do? I wanted the best for my children.”
The war whoops grew louder. Indians were moving towards the soapbox, mumbling agreement with every utterance from Riding Wagon.

“Like I say, I’ve been a big disappointment. I want to feed and clothe my family the same as the white man next door. I want to be able to take my kids to the doctor when they get sick. This is what a man does. What a good husband and father does.

“But how can I do these things? How do I pay for the things my family needs when there are no jobs for me here?” Riding Wagon turned toward the mob members. “Now, here comes an opportunity to make a little money, and the city fathers say, ‘No. Don’t build a casino. It’s not the right way to go.’ Which is the right way to go? A casino would make jobs and give us security. It would make us proud again.” His voice cracked and he swallowed his tears. He looked at Soap and pleaded, “All I want to do, Soap, is feed and clothe my family. I’m not looking for a fancy car or a swimming pool in my backyard.” He repeated tearfully, “A man has to be able to take care of his family.” Riding Wagon was so upset he almost crumbled when he stepped off the soapbox. Chuck was so busy wiping his leaky eyes that he forgot to tell him how much money he owed, and the tearful man melted back into the crowd. The mobsters were grinning at each other.

Chuck called, “Soap?”

“That’s a tough act to follow, Soap,” Glory said.

“Damn it to hell,” Soap said under his breath as he walked to the soapbox.

When he stepped up to the box, he reached into his pocket and gave Chuck a twenty dollar bill. “Chuck, you forgot to collect for that last speech, and it was a twenty dollar speech if I ever heard one.”

Soap stepped up on the soapbox and took a breath as he looked around at the crowd. “Ha Maruawe,” Soap said as he halfheartedly raised his hand. “Folks, I’m a Comanche and a lawyer. Everyone calls me Soap. A lot of you know by now that I’m running for tribal chairman. Riding Wagon is a friend of mine. He’ll always be a friend of mine even though we happen to disagree right now.

“I know we need a lot of things. We need food, jobs, education, medical care. A lot of things. Maybe we can get all that with a casino. That would be good.

“But if we did get all of those things, we’d also get a lot more. We’d get the crime syndicate. That could be bad. There are some of them over there,” he pointed to the mob. “You’ve probably seen them in their black limousine with the black windows riding around town. I hope you didn’t think that was me!” There was only a slight, nervous laughter in the crowd. Soap’s joke had bombed. He took a quick breath and pressed on, “The problem with the casino is that, along with the syndicate, comes crime, drugs, and other illegal activities. I’ve researched other casinos on tribal lands and I’ve found that when the syndicate moves in, drug use and alcoholism goes up. Taxes go up in the surrounding towns, including property taxes. They have to, to support the extra law enforcement and fire protection that a casino requires. Somebody has to pay for those extra services.” The crowd became quiet, and Soap continued, “I’ve seen the contract they want us to sign. They’re loaning us the money to build the casino at forty percent interest, plus a big piece of our monthly take. The contract says we have to pay back that money every month right on time, or there will be heavy penalties. What happens if there’s some trouble and Fort Sill and the Altus Air Force Base put our casino off-limits to soldiers and airmen?” The crowd gasped. “It could happen. The government could make our casino off-limits if just one soldier complained about losing money. We’ve seen that happen before to local watering holes. The loss of military customers makes a big impact on the bottom line of any business around here. If it happened to us, we’d still have to make that payment on the building loan even if we weren’t bringing in the money. Our tribes could be bankrupt in a matter of months. Then the mob would own the casino outright. On our land. So when it’s all said and done, will we be better off? I don’t think so.” Soap began making eye contact with the Indian women in the crowd. “And what kind of an example will we be setting for our youth? We’ll be showing them that the end justifies the means. That by turning our backs on what’s right, we condone what’s wrong.

“Mabel,” Soap said, picking a Comanche woman out of the crowd, “how will you feel when your grandchildren start drinking? Maybe start taking drugs? Is any amount of money worth that?” Soap pointed out another woman in the crowd. “Washka! You’re raising three boys. Do you want them working in a casino?” Soap called out, looking in another direction, “Cynthia Lyn, you have two girls. Do you want them selling drinks in a cocktail lounge? Is this the kind of life we want them to have? There’s a lot to be done to improve the lives of our tribal members, but this isn’t the way to go, my friends.

“Before I step down, I’d like to introduce our distinguished tribe from the East Coast so you can get to know them: “Harry Stone. Wave Harry, so the folks will see you. Harry did ten years for a bank robbery. Two tellers were killed. Now, Harry didn’t kill them. Some other guy did that, but he was there.

“Mel Stanley. You spent time for being caught with a lot of money and a car full of drugs—three doors down from an elementary school. Wave, Mel, the crowd wants to get to know you.

“And Monk, I haven’t forgotten you, you’re such a sweetheart. You fire-bombed a hamburger joint where some of your rivals were eating. Problem was, there was also a little league baseball team in there having a celebration dinner. Some celebration huh?

“Thanks for shooting up the cars in our apartment building,” Soap continued, “some of those bullets almost pierced Grace’s living room.” He turned again to the crowd, “You all remember Grace? She gave a lot of you jobs when she had her shirt factory. Now, the mob wants to force her to put the casino on her land.” A murmur ran through the crowd and a lot of hands shot up to wave at Grace.

“We don’t need these guys. And we don’t need their casino. We can take care of our families another way. Okay,” Soap admitted, “we’ve been passive too long. Let’s elect an aggressive tribal council and go for government grants, scholarships, health care, and more jobs. Now, we’re not voting tonight, but we can make ourselves heard.

“Do we have any Chippewa here?” he asked. A group hollered. “Any Cherokee?” another holler. Any Kickapoo?” It was silent. “Come on now, this is the end of the Trail of Tears, we must have 113 tribes here. There’s bound to be a few Kickapoos left.” Still silence. “Okay, maybe they’re all out on a buffalo hunt. How about Kiowas?” A loud holler went up. “Comanches?” The loudest, most bloodthirsty war whoops erupted from the crowd.

Glory looked around. Accustomed to war whoops at parades and in bars, the locals didn’t flinch, but the mob was shaken. They’d obviously grown up on the same Western movies that every American had. Movies that portrayed Indians as being bloodthirsty killers.

“My fellow Indians, we urge our children to make us proud of them. It’s time we made them proud! We are all tribes, but we are one—Indian!” With that Soap let out a chilling war whoop that was answered in kind.
As Soap left, the crowd stood and clapped. He put several bills in the kitty. As he left the soapbox area, a protective circle of state police came out of the crowd and formed a circle around him. That’s where Kiowa went, Glory thought. To call in reinforcements.

The rest of the speeches were forgotten. The crowd turned to go back to their tables, but they were pulled back to the soapbox by Monk, who swaggered up to the front of the crowd and grabbed the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the man sneered as he took some papers out of his inside suit pocket. Startled, the crowd turned to look at the surprise speaker. The crowd gasped when they heard him read, “You are on private property. Please vacate the new building site of the Silver Buffalo Casino immediately.” As he stepped down from the box, he sarcastically threw a quarter in the pot.

Glory looked around for the local banker, but he wasn’t anywhere in the crowd. He had unloaded a piece of property that had been a yoke around the bank’s neck for years but hadn’t had the balls to come to the picnic and face the townspeople. The coward.

The state and local police stood by helplessly as the crowd hastily packed their picnic gear and headed for their cars. As Glory and the rest of the women followed the crowd to the parking area, she took one look back at the empty soapbox. It looked sad, as if knew it had been used inappropriately. The red, white, and blue holiday bunting that had decorated it was tattered and sagging onto the dirt. The last thing she saw before she turned toward the car was Frieda playfully wearing one of the mob’s cowboy hats.

“Somebody needs to be slapped,” Glory muttered underneath her breath.


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