Thirty years ago, while on summer break from college, I went to a small afternoon party at a high school friend’s apartment. I’ll call him Mark. It wasn’t a wild party. We just sat around drinking beers and listening to music—mostly hair metal.
A few hours into the party, a white woman stopped by for a surprise visit. I’ll call her Melissa. I didn’t know her but my friends did. She smelled of cigarette smoke. Her clothes were too big, like she was a twenty-something still dependent on her siblings’ hand-me-downs. I recognized her instantly as being a Hillyard Hippie—one of the poor white people who lived in Hillyard, a neighborhood in Spokane where most folks lived far below the poverty line. I had Indian cousins who’d married Hillyard Hippies so I was familiar with the type and gently pitied her, if pity can ever been seen as gentle. Imagine being a white person so poor that you inspire the sympathy of a poor reservation Indian. She looked lost and uncomfortable. I said hello and we briefly talked about the Motley Crue song that was playing. She said she couldn’t afford to buy their last album so she had to use her tape deck to record them off the radio.
“I’m always a little too slow,” she said. “The DJ says he’s playing Crue and I run over to my tape deck and always hit record too late. So I’m missing a few seconds from the beginning of every song.”
She smiled. Her teeth were chaotic, jagged and slanted at random angles, as if her mouth had been vandalized.
I mention her physical appearance only because she, a few days later, told Mark, the party host, that I was the ugliest guy she’d ever seen. And then Mark told me.
“Wow,” I said. “That hurts my feelings.”
I thought of a thousand insults that I’d fling her way if she’d happened to show up at that moment. I’d insult her face and teeth. Her clothes. Her nicotine-thick body odor. Most especially, I’d insult her education and intelligence. I’d brag about my summa cum laude college grades and prodigal poetry. She was white trash. I was an indigenous pauper on his way to becoming a literary prince.
“You okay?” Mark asked me. “You look pissed.”
“I am pissed,” I said.
“Yeah, that makes sense,” he said. “But she wants to date you now.”
“She wants to date the ugliest guy in the world?”
“She doesn’t think you’re so ugly anymore,” he said.
“Yeesh, that’s big of her. What changed her mind?”
“You were nice to her.”
Then my friend told me that Melissa used to date Ted, one of the other guys at the party.
“Ted destroyed her,” Mark said. “He cheated on Melissa with two of her best friends.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nope,” Mark said. “True story.”
“Damn, two of them. That’s about the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, it’s way high on the shit list.”
I wondered if I could still be friends with Ted after hearing about that cruelty. But Ted moved to Texas not long after that day and I haven’t seen or talked to him since.
“Okay,” I said to Mark. “He slept with her best friends. What does that have to do with me?”
“Melissa didn’t know Ted was going to be at the party,” Mark said. “And she said she freaked out when she saw him. She wanted to run away but she just froze. And then you said hello to her. She was so grateful to you for protecting her.”
“That’s it?” I asked, “She falls in love with the ugliest guy in the world because I was nice to her for about forty-five seconds?”
“That’s it,” Mark said.
I wasn’t sure then what to make of that moment. I was thinking more about my vanity than about other people’s broken hearts. But, all these years later, I wonder about Melissa’s poor white life. How badly had she been hurt? How lonesome was she? How hungry had she been? How forgotten? How ignored? How mistreated had she been that she’d seen my brief politeness as compelling kindness?
I doubt that Melissa has ever escaped Hillyard. That neighborhood is a social and economic trap. I hear it’s been somewhat gentrified but those forty or so square blocks have always been more of a state of mind than a physical location. I wonder if she’s still alive. There’s a certain probability that she’s a meth addict with a dramatically shortened lifespan.
And since she’s a poor white person from Spokane, I assume that she’s a Trump-supporter, whether or not she actually votes. I can see her wearing a MAGA hat. I doubt I’d recognize her if we passed on the street and I doubt she remembers the man she thought was the ugliest, if kindest, Indian in the world.
And, yes, I would take gentle pity on her again. I’d take pity of her homely face primarily because she thought I was homely. I’d pity her politics. I’d try to convince her that oppression is just as much about economic class as it is about race and gender. All the while, I’d assume that she voted out of ignorance and miseducation rather than deeply-held beliefs. I’d operate as if her Christianity were the wrong kind of Christianity—as if her spirituality was inferior to mine, as if her saints were racist, misogynistic, and homophobic monsters.
And, yes, I’m exaggerating about the combative and divisive nature of my politics. Because I grew up in small town Eastern Washington and still have friends and family who are conservatives, I think I’m far more moderate in my acceptance and tolerance of Republicans than a typical liberal/leftist. However, I also believe that I can be the same kind of condescending liberal asshole as all the other condescending liberal assholes.
Like everybody else, I think my politics are the best politics. I think every politician should govern like I would if elected.
Yes, I think every conservative white person should have the same politics as a liberal urban elite Indian like me.
So here’s the thing: I think Melissa might be more accurate about choosing her friends and enemies than I am about choosing mine.
The Patron Saints of Spokane, Washington