SE Hinton owns Tim Shepard and The Outsiders. If anyone wants to correct/expand my Cherokee language, I wholeheartedly welcome it.
Female Lead
If you could only see me,
and know exactly where I am.
You wouldn't want to be me.
Oh, I can assure you of that.
I'm not the guy to run with
'cos I'll throw you off the line.
I'll break you and destroy you
given time.
The Hollies, "King Midas in Reverse"
Three-
The ride back to Tulsa from the Indian Hospital in Claremore should take 40 minutes tops, but Tim's mother likes to make things take time. Tim suspects she's stalling to keep from being stuck in the house with his step-father, a man Tim knows married his mother for the oil money and then- when he found out she was the wrong kind of Indian and didn't have jack shit- proceeded to take out his own inability to do his research on Mary Ida Shepard, ne' Mary Ida McDaniel by calling her names and spending whatever money she does have on other women and booze.
"Why don't you leave him, Ma?" Tim has asked her a million times.
"He's your father, Tim," she will say.
"No, he ain't. You left my father. Nothing stopping you from leaving this sonofabitch too."
She never has an answer for that other than: "I didn't leave your father," and then doesn't explain it any further. Tim was given his mother's last name at birth and had it changed to her new husband's when he was four. He has no idea what his birth father's last name is, but whenever he drives his mother to the hospital in Claremore or back to her family's land in Going Snake District, he gets the feeling everyone else knows his story.
"Ma, what are we doing?"
What they are doing, to the casual observer, is just standing around on the shoulder of 66 overlooking the construction on the west side of the Verdigris. The welded storage tanks for a new refinery are up, and the water from the river is now being allowed to flow back into the port where the barges load.
"Unegihldi," his mother says in Tsalagi.
"I coulda told you that from the car," Tim replies. "It's all fucking ugly. It's just going to get uglier going back into Tulsa. Why didn't you ask me to pull over before we got past the packing house, where there's trees?"
His mother makes a sound like she is shooing a cat to indicate that she disapproves of his cursing. Then she says:
"I don't want you out on no oil rig or working for a refinery."
"Don't lose any sleep over that, Ma. I don't intend to. I got other irons in the fire."
Mary Ida shakes her head as if she doesn't want to know about his so-called irons.
"Don't let your brother neither," She tells him.
Tim smirks. "What about Angel?"
"Her father should look after her."
"He's Curly's father, too. Why do I have to look after Curly? Why you putting the shit work on me?"
She makes the noise again, but she is smiling down at the river now. She shakes her head and then motions for him to get back in the car. Before he does, Tim opens the passenger door for her. She looks up at him before he closes the door, her brow furrowed.
"See? I know you're a good boy, baby," she says. "How come you don't act like that when you're out in the world?"
"What do you know about what I do out in the world, Ma?"
"I know you got to turn yourself in on Monday to sit three days. We got a telephone call, Tim. This morning. The County. You caught a bench warrant. They don't tell me why."
"Christ," Tim mumbles. "Why didn't you tell me before, Mama? Now I got to get things squared away before I go in. I could've been doing that."
"Then who would have driven me to the clinic? Curly drives like he's chasing a butterfly. All over the road. What things? What do you got to get squared away?"
"Well, Curly, according to you. That old man of yours going to keep a line on Curly while I'm inside? Are you?"
"Curly listens."
"The hell you say," Tim tells her, but he lets it drop. He gets back in the car and turns the key in the ignition. He punches the lighter in, and fishes a cigarette out of the pack he's stuffed between the seats, dawdling it between his lips while he waits on the lighter. When it pops, he lights the cigarette, takes the first drag, and then hands the cigarette to his mother.
"Wado," she says.
"Don't thank me yet, Ama," Tim tells her and pulls back onto the highway.
The ceiling in the lobby of the Mayo Hotel is so high, it makes Honey dizzy. A glittering chandelier hangs from it. It must be the size of a car. She can't figure out how the roof supports it. Light bounces off the marble and the sound of her footsteps echo. There are paintings on the walls that are taller than she is.
Two-Bit had offered to walk Corrine in. Cars were being taken by valets in front of the hotel, and there was no place just to park. It seemed wrong somehow to let the girl off in the dark down the block. It also seemed wrong, though, to have Two-Bit walk her inside the building. When Corrine had hesitated at the offer, Two-Bit had volunteered Honey.
They don't say a word to each other until they get inside. Then, Corrine stops and says:
"Dad's going to hit the roof. He hates my boyfriend."
Honey looks up at the spinning ceiling and can't imagine that anything could hit it.
"I think I kind of hate your boyfriend," she says. "I wasn't impressed with the way he handled you. Physically, I mean."
"It's not like that all the time," Corrine insists.
Honey would have put her paycheck on that reply.
"I know it's not," she tells Corrine. "If it was like that all the time, you'd have been gone a long time ago. That's how guys like that work: they treat you good just enough to make it easy for you to say, 'it's not like that all the time'."
Corrine frowns down at the gleaming floor. She's taller than Honey, but she stands like a kid, turning her ankle back and forth. Anyone walking by would think she was being scolded for a misdeed of some kind. Her skirt is a pale plaid and hits her right at the knee. The boyfriend had made a mess of her hair when he grabbed her, but she fixed it back into a ponytail.
Honey looks around the lobby and feels like she's spinning. The desk clerk keeps making glances in their direction, like he's contemplating calling someone. Honey hasn't forgotten that her open coat reveals her wilted clothes from the diner. Her skirt is too short, and her boots are scuffed at the toes.
"Is it going to be better or worse if your dad sees you with me?" She asks.
"I don't think it's going to make a difference."
"Alright, then I'm going to take off."
She pauses, feeling like she ought to say something brilliant to Corrine that will have her rethinking her whole approach to relationships, but she comes up empty. She forces a smile and says, "See you later."
"Thanks for the ride, Honey. Thanks for stopping."
"Anytime."
Honey trots past the doorman and back to Two-Bit's car. He's pushed the door open for her again. He's waiting for her with the engine running and the radio on. She can hear Roy Orbison before she's made it to the rear fender. She hops back inside singing:
"Ask the girls and they'll tell you so. They dig that cat…" And then she tells Two-Bit, "Thank you."
"For what?"
"You know for what. For stepping in." she says. She lays her head back against the seat and grins at him. "You always were an asshole, but you never did hit me."
"Wow, thanks. He hadn't hit her."
"Yet," Honey says. "Or not that we saw. She's going to go back to him. Most likely, it'll happen eventually."
"Then I should've cleaned his clock."
Honey shakes her head. "No, then she'd feel sorry for him. Or he'd take it out on her because you made him look like a bitch."
Two-Bit smiles at Honey's language.
"You seem to think he's going to take it out on her anyway. I should've beat him into the ground while I had the chance."
"No reason to hurry it along. Besides, what are the odds- do you think- that she'd call the cops on you? And all we saw was him jerking her by the arm. She knew who we were. She's seen you at school. They both saw the car and probably the plates. You'd get thrown in for assault, and he'd...if he got arrested at all, she'd drop charges."
"Shit, you've thought this through."
"Seen it happen."
Two-Bit frowns. He'd like to know where and with whom Honey has seen it happen, but he'd prefer to change the subject even more.
"So, I believe I was promised a drink."
Honey nods. She waves her hand, signaling him to drive on.
Two-Bit asks her, "You want to go out to Buck's?"
"You got any gas left after that last little adventure? Just go to the closest bar."
"That's the Encore. You really want to have a drink with that crowd?"
Honey shrugs. "I'm not exactly dressed for the nightlife. I won't even be a blip on their radar."
"I doubt that," Two-Bit says under his breath.
Brown coat and boots be damned, Honey still has a swing to her walk. Sure, she'd be set to stun wearing some heels and showing a little shoulder, but Two-Bit knows she isn't going to fly under any radar with the guys at the Encore Bar. Two-Bit knows these guys, and Honey does too. They're the kind who will have your back in a fight without you even having to ask, and then will turn around and steal your girl- or your former girlfriend turned drinking buddy- like she was a pack of Kools at the drugstore.
