Page 38 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

too much red!”); he heard her yelling at his father for never
having enough money (“How am I supposed to feed a family
on this?); he heard the lonely call of the rag man singing out-
side his bedroom window (“I cash clothes! I cash clothes!”);
and he heard the creaking of bed springs from across a tiny
room where he slept alongside his parents.

Standing on the threshold of his past, it seemed to Harry
as if the calendar had been turned back to 1949. He’s six years
old again, a first grader with a dog tag around his neck and
wide glasses covering his eyes. He is seated in his public-school
classroom, behind an aging desk made of oak and cherry. The
desk is near the front of the room, adjacent to the window. It
is a beautiful morning, but the window is covered by a dark
shade to eliminate any outside distractions that might hinder
learning. Unperturbed, Harry peeks through the crack in the
shade every chance he gets. (Was that the sun peeking through
the clouds or a flash of light?)

His reverie is broken when a stranger walks into the room
and, in a stern voice, orders everyone to “take cover”. As prac-
ticed many times before, dozens of children scramble beneath
desks. In the minutes that follow, there is silence: deathly si-
lence. There is to be ABSOLUTELY NO TALKING during
shelter drills; that much everyone has learned. But Harry has
to pee, badly. In a whisper that he believes only his dog could
hear, Harry signals to his buddy huddled under the desk beside
him. But before his friend has time to answer, the sound of
footsteps grows closer and stops. Harry sees the shoes, shiny
and black, practically in his face. He is too frightened to look
up. A menacing voice attached to the body of a giant warns
Harry that if he talks again, he will be expelled and quite possi-

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