Remember the Weilands

Dear Willa,

Remember the Weilands? They lived in a shotgun house on the street behind the school. The place had maybe two bedrooms for two parents and five kids. One of the rooms had a rotting floor, and they were poor. Appalachian poor. The youngest was in my class, and she was quiet, but sharp. She didn't say much, but she saw everything. And when we were little, she wanted to have a slumber party. Her big sister warned her against it. She didn't want her little sister bringing in girls who would go home and gossip about how the Weilands lived. She kind of threw a fit about it, but the mother was determined to give her little girl what all the other girls had - a childhood. 

Her name was Stephanie, but her siblings all called her "Step-fanie." They added a hard "P" before the "fuh" sound in her name. She invited five of us over. Her mother and older sister had cleared the living room and filled it with blankets. We were supposed to make blanket beds on the floor. The father and the boys were gone - someone said they were camping. The next morning we'd learned that by "camping," Stephanie meant that they were sleeping in the woods up on the hill.

I thought of them today, those boys, stringing makeshift hammocks up between the trees. They simply grabbed old sheets and ripped where they needed to and braided the strips when they needed to make them sturdier. They didn't hang them high, just enough off the ground that they wouldn't get too wet with dew. I remember sitting on the back step with Stephanie once the other girls had gone home. She told me that they did that sometimes. That sometimes the house was just too crowded, so they'd go stay in what the father called their "country home." 

Last night, there was a boy who had some sort of fancy hammock, one you'd buy at a sporting goods store. It was orange and light and he tied it high up in the trees. I stood underneath him at the camp for a minute. He didn't know I was there. I just looked up at him in his hammock and I resented the Hell out of him. He didn't put that thing together, he didn't learn to make do. He bought his gear and started his adventure. Anyone who can afford a hammock like that must not need to be out here. Then again, how many of us need to be out here. Or what need are we fulfilling?