Heathen

by Morganne Howell

I stay because God is in these hills. The Valley isn’t cheaper than Jackson, but He blessed us with an apartment with a view.

Our apartment sits above Huck’s Candy Store. In his display window, a mechanical girl waves her hand back and forth, holding a giant, swirling lollipop. Her hair is big and plastic. During the day, tinkering music floats up through our floor, like a constant reminder of the unseriousness of life.

Here, a hallway runs the length of the wall to a door that opens to nowhere. It swings out and you can fall off the first story—you could break your neck on Main Street. Huck told us the setup is a defensive vestige of the cowboys, who would perch with shotguns in a squatted stance, surveying their piece of the West. I imagine them like me, saying prayers and desperately defending this good thing. The cowboys weren’t born here either, but they saw grace in the land.

When we got to town at the end of June, Beau found the apartment, and the shotgun doorway. That was the first time I forgave him.

Everyone said finding a long-term rental is impossible. There’s only vacation housing anymore. Finding something we could afford was even harder. We had left everything behind in Jackson.

The first weeks, I found peace watching the July monsoons, and the brown flooded rivers in August. In that Big Weather, my thoughts quieted. I let go of why Beau had actually asked us to leave Jackson. The real reason.

I sat in the shotgun doorway, above the tourists laughing on the sidewalk below. I had a front row seat to the rain. The storms relaxed my anger. Beau didn't tell me Mississippi was after him for money. He said, let’s run away, like it was for love. He held my hand while we planned.

I forgave Beau again in September. Morning and night, he looked red in the face all the time. The bar owners let him stay on too long. By then, we could have opened our own saloon with all the bottles he brought home.

Beau is a sleepy drunk, but he wasn’t too sleepy to find more work. He knew I wanted to stay. The weather got colder. The aspen leaves changed on the hills, golden and red in the shoulder season. Finally, the tourists left town. Beau set pins in the bowling alley.

Evenings in October, I watched the mist come in with the orange lowlight on the amphitheater. The streets were empty, until Beau parked his truck and waved at me. He danced a few steps on the pavement until I laughed. Then he came inside and we’d play cards in the kitchen. I shouted gin rummy and began to feel at home.

The changing seasons carried us forward. Their constant, tumbling momentum caught me in a new orbit of life. Before the solstice, snow swiftly muted the town. The twilights fell flat in the November gray. As the Valley got quieter, I got louder.

I didn’t find Beau’s gaming slips until after the roads began to close for avalanches and the town was cut off for weeks. Scared by my new reality, I yelled at Brenda at the market. I hit my fist on the counter and told her to stop selling him tickets. I wasn’t going to forgive him a third time.

In my panic, I took a job with Huck downstairs. He’s got a Louisiana twang that feels like home but isn’t. I told Beau, all the money I make is mine.

I can’t leave.

I said, when the Winter breaks, Spring will be born into this Valley like the second coming. Beau called me a heathen, but I can’t remember knowing God outside the Western sun in the late days of Summer.

I have forgiven Beau, but it will be these high meadows that restore me.

Morganne Howell lives in Oakland, California. She is a graduate of the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her writing draws on her experience growing up in the contemporary West.