The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher Page B

conversation, like that person matters as much as Dan Moeltke. When she talks to you, you just light up.
    But pick a conversation, any conversation, between Montana and Maxwell, and you get something like this.
    â€œYou’re not going out like that, young lady.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œDressed like the devil himself.”
    â€œThe devil doesn’t look like this, Maxwell. The devil wears a red suit and has horns and a three-pronged pitchfork. I’m dressed more like your standard small-time cult follower. Or a school shooter.”
    â€œDon’t you be disrespectful with me, young lady. I am your father, not ‘Maxwell.’ You will address me as such.”
    â€œI won’t be disrespectful if you won’t be disrespectful.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean? What have you done lately that deserves respect?”
    â€œWell, let’s see. I have a three-point-seven-nine grade point average. I made the debate team last year. I got my driver’s license and I haven’t wrecked the car hardly at all—”
    â€œWhat?!”
    â€œJust kidding, Maxwell. I haven’t wrecked it at all.”
    â€œAnd you do nothing but embarrass me. You are not going out with all those piercings, looking like some lady of the evening.”
    â€œYou mean like a prostitute?”
    â€œYes, I mean like a prostitute.”
    Montana goes to the living-room mirror and strikes a pose. “You really think so, Maxwell? How much do you think I’d go for?”
    â€œYou little trollop. You get to your room, you’re not going anywhere tonight. You will learn to respect the rules in my house, or you will suffer the consequences.”
    Montana keeps baiting him, and Mr. West gets madder and madder until he’s ready to strike her, and then she moves right into his face and says, “Go ahead, Maxwell. Then I’ll turn the other cheek and you can hit that one, too,” and it usually stops. One time it didn’t, which is why Montana is able to get away with it. Maxwell West was so horrified that he struck his daughter in the face, albeit with an open hand, that she sometimes gets away with murder. It was the day after that incident that she got the worm tattoo. A good whack carries with it a lot of capital.
    They love each other; I mean, if one of them died, the other one would be way sorry, but neither expects the other one to do that soon, so they fight like gladiators. Tell you what, Maxwell West is a smart guy, but if I were he (dead guys know good grammar), the one person I’d stay out of a verbal squabble with is his daughter.
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    â€œOkay, time to get down to the truth. Billy Bartholomew, is this really you?
    â€œO ye of little faith. You need to hear more Russian?”
    â€œHow crazy does this make me?”
    â€œNo crazier than you already were.”
    â€œI need to know all I can know,” Eddie says.
    â€œAsk and ye shall receive.”
    â€œWas that you on the courthouse lawn telling me to come in out of the rain?
    â€œIn the flesh,” I tell him. “Well, in the spirit.”
    â€œSo I wasn’t crazy.”
    â€œWell, you did run out into the stormy night in your pajama bottoms with no shoes on.”
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    He runs, letting me sink in, allowing himself to believe a little, then a little more. And I feel the moment his faith kicks in. He’s been close before, but now he simply decides it doesn’t matter if I’m “real” or not. I’m there, he’s talking to me, case closed. He says, “Why did you come back?”
    â€œActually, I never left, but I’m here because of you. You’re my friend, and you’ll always be my friend. We’re connected into eternity. Dead or alive. I didn’t want you to waste the rest of your teenage years brooding and grieving and wondering why just because two of the people you cared about most were too