LITMIR.BIZ

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a freshman?”

      “Yes. Do I have to fill out some papers or something to take the test?”

      “Well.” He moved more papers around, pulled a drawer open and brought more papers out. “This is the form to request the test.”

      Cash reached for the paper. Dean LeRoy put it down on his desk. “You sure you want to do this?”

      “What happens if I fail it?” Cash asked.

      “You would have to continue in Mr. Horace’s class. Did you talk to him about this? Does he know you want to test out?”

      “No. I talked to Mrs. Kills Horses. She gave me your name and sent me over here.”

      “Well, I don’t know that it’s such a good idea, but if you have your mind set on it, I suppose you can give it a try. You can fill out the form and then schedule a time to take the test. You would have to sit in my classroom and take it. Take it under observation.”

      “Today?”

      “No, no, no. Fill out the form, sleep on it. Come back tomorrow and let me know if you still want to do it.”

      Cash put out her cigarette and reached across his desk for the form. She picked a pen up off his desk and began to fill it out. LeRoy stood up and opened the window behind his desk to let some of the smoke out. He sat back down and shuffled more papers. Cash pushed the filled-out form toward him. “I’ll stop back tomorrow for you to tell me what day I can take the test.” She turned and almost ran out of the building, taking big gulps of air.

      She walked at a fast clip all the way to her Ranchero three blocks away. She jumped in, turned the key in the ignition and drove away. She used the cigarette lighter to light up. She drove straight to the Casbah, her home away from home. It was too early in the day for the brothers, Ole and Carl, to be there. None of the other regulars were there either, except ol’ man Willie.

      Cash realized she had never been at the bar in the morning. She usually arrived later in the evening when Willie, more often than not, was passed out in the farthest back oak booth. This early in the morning, he was sitting up at the bar, hunched over a glass of 3.2 tap beer. He looked at Cash, tipped his glass at her and said, “Oh, what is the world coming to when the young ones show up for breakfast?” He took a big gulp.

      Shorty Nelson, owner and bartender, stood behind the bar, a white towel slung over his shoulder. His shirt actually looked ironed. He looked neat and put together. Not how he normally looked at the end of the night. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you s’posed to be in school?”

      “Give me a Bud.” Cash pushed money across the polished counter. “Those folks drive me crazy.”

      “You drive me crazy,” Willie slurred, wrapping a gray-haired arm around Cash’s waist and pulling her against his side. The smell of stale armpits mixed with morning-after beer almost made Cash gag as she pushed away and jerked out of his arms.

      “Creep!”

      Willie rubbed his thigh, close to his crotch, with the hand that wasn’t holding his beer glass. He grinned, yellow tobacco-stained teeth appeared beneath his Hitler-style mustache. For a split second Cash wondered how, in his constantly drunken state, he managed to maintain the perfect square above his upper lip, but then an involuntary shudder shook her body as she noticed the bulge in his pants, the pants still stained from last night’s drunk.

      “Jeezus,” she said, grabbing the Bud, taking a big drink and heading to the coin-operated pool table. She dug four quarters out of her jeans pocket, put them in the coin slot and listened to the comforting sound of billiard balls dropping. She grabbed a house cue because she hadn’t even thought to bring her own, rolled it across the green felt, saw that it was warped a bit, put that one back and grabbed another. That one was a bit straighter, if a tad lighter. But it would work. She racked the balls into the familiar triangle. In one fluid movement she removed the wooden triangle, grabbed the cue stick, leaned over the table and sent the cue ball flying into the racked balls, causing three of them to drop into separate pockets.

      Shorty leaned on his forearms across the bar, watching Cash play against herself. “You know, Cash, Willie here used to be one of the richest farmers in the Valley.”

      “Still am,” interrupted Willie.

      “Until he took to coming in here mornings. Soon he was spending more time drinking than plowing.”

      “I can still plow.” He leered for Shorty’s benefit, rubbing his thigh again, tipping his glass in Cash’s direction before killing it off. He wiped the beer foam from his mustache with his forearm and pointed the glass at Shorty. “Another. That’s why I had sons. They run the farm for me since my arthritis kicked in. They don’t need a college degree to farm.”

      Shorty refilled his glass saying, “Just shut up and drink, old man. Cash, you got a good thing going, kid. What are you doing here instead of at class?”

      Cash leaned on her cue stick. She stared hard at Shorty, willing him to shut up.

      “Don’t you know Ole and Carl are in here every night bragging to anyone who will listen about how you are going to college. Everyone’s proud of you.”

      “Damn straight,” said Willie, lifting his refilled glass.

      “Shut up,” Cash said under her breath, sending the 9-ball into a side pocket. To Shorty, she said, “I just don’t know, Shorty. It’s a whole different world.”

      “You’re smart, Cash.”

      “I don’t think smart is the issue,” said Cash, lining up the cue ball on the 2-ball, sitting three inches off a corner pocket. “These folks talk a different language. Dress different. Sit inside brick buildings all day and think of fancy ways to string words together instead of just saying things plain out. And I think the teachers all think I’m stupid just because I’m Indian. I’m not used to folks treating me like I’m stupid. Being mean, or calling me names or being disgusting,” she said pointing her cue stick towards Willie, “that, I’m used to, but being thought of as stupid just because I’m Indian? Pisses me off.” She dropped the 8-ball into the same corner as the 2. With the table cleared, she put four more quarters into the table and racked the balls.

      As she broke and started shooting, she said, “And these beginner classes are dumb. I learned all this stuff in high school. I don’t see why I have to take it all over again. I heard that students can test out of these baby classes, but when I asked, everyone treats me like I’m just a dumb Indian.”

      “Are they gonna let you though?” asked Shorty, flicking his rag across the counter again.

      Cash stood up from the table and looked at him across the bar. She took a drink of her Bud and a drag of her cigarette. “I filled out the form to test out of English this morning,” she said, with heavy sarcasm. “I’m going to go talk to the chair again tomorrow to find out when he’ll let me take the test.” She shot a couple more balls into the table before continuing.

      “Then I’ll go talk to the chair of the science department about trying to test out of his class too. I can already recite the periodic table frontwards and backwards. I know photosynthesis is what makes us rich here in the Bread Basket of the World.” Cash waved her cue stick and beer bottle in a wide arc. “I don’t think I need to be in a classroom, getting a sore ass sitting on hard chairs, smelling some strange oil these hippies wear to cover the smell of the marijuana they smoke, just to have some old guy tell me that corn and sugar beets need sun to grow.” Cash started furiously shooting balls into pockets. “If I test out, I can just take my psychology and judo classes. Classes I might actually learn something in.”

      “Can you do that? I mean, do they let students just test out of classes?” asked Shorty.

      “That’s what it says in the student handbook,” answered Cash. “If I can test out, I’ll be free for the rest of the quarter.” She swung her cue over the pool table. “And I can get my game back.

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