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ONE
W
hen my brother, Chase, was twelve and I was elevenhe built a tepee in the ravine behind our house.He ollowed the instructions in an old book romthe
1930
s that he’d ound at my grandmother’s. It wascalled
How to Survive in the Woods
or something like that.It covered everything rom skinning a deer and tanningthe hide to constructing dierent types o shelters.Every day or two weeks during the summer holi-days, Chase hoisted an ax onto his shoulder and walkeddown into the ravine. I went with him or the rstcouple o hours on the rst day, but it was boring, andI ended up coming home and playing with my riends.Every night at dinner, Dad would ask Chase how hisproject was going.Chase told him it was going very well. Until, on theFriday evening o the second week he answered, “I needto get some unbleached Egyptian cotton.”Dad laughed. “Unbleached Egyptian cotton, okay.omorrow I’ll take you to a abric store.”
 
kathEriNE hOlubitsky
2
Mom told us which store would likely have whatChase wanted and so, on the Saturday morning, thethree o us guys drove o. Dad was not particularly comortable in the abric store. He had no idea whathe was looking or, but the clerk was very helpul. Aerasking what the unbleached Egyptian cotton was or,she ound a bolt o creamy white abric.“Can I paint it?” Chase asked.“Paint it?” she repeated as she ipped several yardso cloth onto the cutting table.“Yes, it’s going to be authentic. I’m going to paintthe designs and symbols that are in the book.”Te clerk winked at Dad who smiled. “Why, yes,we have abric paints that will work just ne.”Chase seemed satised with this.“Now, how much do you need?” she asked.Chase reerred to the scrap o paper that he pulledrom his pocket. “wo hundred and y yards.”Dad looked at Chase and laughed while the clerk smiled. She then gently told him that he must bemistaken, and anyhow there were only twenty yardson the bolt. But Chase was insistent. Finally Dad toldthe clerk we’d be back once he’d calculated the correctamount himsel, and we le the store.Once at home, I ran ahead o Chase while Dadollowed us into the ravine. I jumped the dried-upcreek bed twenty yards into the woods and headed
 
tWEakED
3
up the hill. Standing at the top, looking down intothe little valley where all o us kids in the neighbor-hood played and built orts, I couldn’t believe my eyes.A amily o beavers couldn’t have destroyed so many trees in two weeks. Stripped o their bark, twenty or sotrees stood lashed together around a central tripod in anew clearing. Chase was building the real thing.Dad was urious. He marched back to the housewith Chase in tow while I ran in and around the rameo the tepee.Later that night our neighbor, Mrs. Goodman,knocked on the door. She’d been walking her dogdown in the ravine and she’d come across the destruc-tion. She’d also seen Chase and me leave the house withan ax, and she demanded to know what on earth wasgoing on.I am remembering all o this as I sit on the bus on my way to the hospital to visit a man I’ve never met. My brother, Chase, put him in the hospital. Chase hasbeen arrested or aggravated assault. I have been tryingto gure out how things got so out o control. Teremust be a reason why Chase turned out the way he did.I wonder i someone crushed his dreams, or perhapshis dreams were just so big and outrageous they wereimpossible to achieve and so he simply gave up.
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