Turf Wars

Stephanie was my “best friend forever” from 1989 to 1992. She was one of those girls whose permed hair was always perfectly hair sprayed into place and whose wardrobe included an endless supply of teal green and navy blue colored clothes that she bought from Maurice’s at the Columbia Center. In retrospect, we were unlikely friends: she was the oldest of three children; I was the youngest of six. She was a devout Mormon; I was a reluctant Catholic. She pulled straight A’s; I squeaked by with a solid C-average. She received diamond tennis bracelets, expensive electronic devices, and all the teal and navy blue clothes a girl could dream of for Christmas; I usually received one big gift with a hodge-podge of little ones that, combined, cost a fraction of one of hers.

With all of her perfections and privileges, Stephanie could have easily been that girl that other kids loved to hate, but she wasn’t. Or at least not by most kids. The truth is, she was difficult to relate to because her world was so unlike that of most of the other kids in Hermiston, a town where many people's jobs require hairnets and rubber gloves. But she was so damned un-obnoxious about, or maybe oblivious to, her good fortune that it was hard to hold it against her.

In addition to being my ‘89-‘92 bff, Stephanie was also my neighbor. She moved into the Ohngrens’ old house when we were both 11 years old and, despite our differences, we became fast friends. As a third generation resident of the Minnehaha District, I knew things about the neighbors, either by reputation or by first hand experience, and I considered it my duty to school my friend on these matters.

Most of my cautionary tales involved the Lynches, a family that can only be likened to feral cats, who also lived on Echols Road. The Lynches weren’t your average banjo-picking, white trash nut jobs; they were the criminal-minded type who lacked consciences and showed early signs of futures that would include multiple babies’ daddies and probation officers. They were notorious bad seeds – assholes, if you will –who were routinely kicked off the bus for cussing out Jan, the driver, and walled at recess for worse offenses. It didn’t take a C average to realize that these were people you didn’t want to fuck with.

Stephanie, like many good people before her, hadn’t experienced enough hard knocks or disappointments in her 12 years to be jaded enough to understand that there were inherently bad people in the world. I, on the other hand, had received enough shitty Christmas gifts to see the world more negatively and, in my opinion a little more clearly. I tried to warn my friend about the Lynches, and other people like them, and while she would listen to me, she couldn’t really comprehend until an incident that took place on one May day in 1990.

Stephanie and I agreed while we were on the bus that day that we would go home and change clothes before meeting at the wooden bridge that separated our homes to go for a walk. It was an ordinary late spring afternoon in Hermiston when we met at the bridge: the ditch had recently been filled with water that would be used to irrigate the fields that summer; the temperature had climbed into the 90s but felt like 120 degrees; and the sagebrush, which would be crunchy and brittle by summer’s end, was still plant-like. Everything in sight was changing and there was a distinct feeling that one season was ending and another one beginning.

As we walked down our dirt road, Stephanie and I talked about our impending graduation from the 6th grade. When we passed by the Lynches’ house our conversation was interrupted by their barking Dalmatian, Spot. It wasn’t a friendly “please pet me” bark; instead it was in a tone that suggested that, if given the opportunity, Spot would make a meal out of my thigh and maim me for life. It was Spot’s barking that made me notice Tiah, the nine year old and most brazen of all the Lynches, playing in the yard. She had a look of defiance on her face when she saw us, a look that implied she had a huge fucking problem with us and was about to settle it Tupac style. I watched on curiously as she lifted her thumb and pointer finger up to her mouth and let out a loud whistle. Out of what seemed to be nowhere, Brandi, who was a year older than Stephanie and me, and Dustin, a year younger, appeared.

Neither Stephanie nor I uttered a word to each other and instead kept walking forward, hoping that what we both thought would happen wouldn’t. But our hopes were quickly dashed when we heard the sound of people running behind us, followed by Brandi’s voice yelling, “hey, bitches. Where do you think you’re going?” My heart raced and my breathing became shallow. I wanted to look at Stephanie for her reaction but I couldn’t because I knew that by doing so I would be acknowledging the fact that we were about to get our asses jumped by these scumbags, and I wasn’t quite ready to accept that. So, without talking or looking at each other, we soldiered on the best we knew how, not out of bravery but because we didn’t know how to turn around and run home without falling into their custody.

“You both are the biggest fucking snobs I’ve ever met.” Brandi chided. “You think you’re hot shits with your clothes and jewelry, but you’re not.” I desperately wanted to plead for our safety and set the record straight that I only owned a Swatch, not a diamond tennis bracelet, and that most of my clothes came from Burnham’s, not Maurice’s, but I couldn’t without putting the focus on Stephanie and her sparkling wrist. And as much as I didn’t want to get beat up, I still had a shred of dignity and loyalty that prevented me from selling my friend down the ditch like that.

Then I heard Brandi make a threat that scared me the most: “You guys are going to be no ones in junior high next year and I’m going to make sure that your ugly faces are plastered all over the locker walls." I had always hoped that I would be cool in my teen years like Kelly or Lisa from Saved by the Bell, or even nerdy but respected like Jessie, but Brandi’s threat made me realize that that I might have to find solace from the tormented Screech types, not the hot and athletic Zach and Slater types as I had always envisioned.

I was pondering the possibility of a hot-boy-less future when I felt a rock hit the small of my back. The introduction of that rock to my lumbar region marked the first time in my life that I ever wanted to pound the living shit out of another human being. I was so pissed and so humiliated that I wanted to make those mofos pay dearly for what they were doing to me. Unfortunately, Stephanie and I were outnumbered, and I understood that if the Lynches were like feral cats, then we were like Siamese cats, and there was no competition between the two when it came to ferocity or strength.

At some point in the middle of getting stoned by the Lynches I realized that I couldn’t keep walking away from these bullies forever, because, to do so, would give them even more power over me. I knew, as did Stephanie, that we could be undignified and take our bruises in the back or we could be dignified and take them in the face.

We continued to take them in the back until we mustered enough courage to turn around and face the Lynches. In all the years I had known them, they had never looked uglier or dirtier or more Appalachian-like as they did to me in that moment. If I’d possessed the time or the ability to feel sorry for them, I think I would have. But I possessed neither – just the good sense to book it past them and get the hell out of there. I didn’t stop running until I reached the bridge, which was the Switzerland of Echols Road, and it was then that Stephanie and I cried and started to compare our already-forming bruises.

For various reasons my life never really included the Lynches after that day. Brandi wasn’t able to fulfill her dream of plastering my ugly face across the locker walls because she got pregnant the next year and dropped out of junior high school. And Dustin got into a bit of trouble with the law and now has to register as a sexual offender. As for Tiah, I occasionally see her drive a miniature motorcycle on the ditch bank in front of my parents’ house to a neighboring field where she cavorts with her boyfriend du jour. But that's all I know, and care to know, about the Lynches.