LaRose

I’m blubbering! I’m having trouble absorbing this. You’ve always been here and you’ve done so much. Priests blow through here, but you’ve stayed. People love you . . .

  She looks down at the balled-up tissues in her hand, not knowing how the clump got from her purse to her hand, stunned that this wave of language poured out of her and what did she say?

  What did I say?

  I don’t know, but I’ve fallen in love with you, says Father Travis.

  She sits down hard in the plastic chair.

  Behind them, LaRose is still practicing his forms. Punching air with increasing ferocity, so he doesn’t hear. Everyone else is gone, so nobody sees the priest kneeling before her, offering the large white handkerchief he keeps on his person for out-of-office emergencies. Emmaline puts the square of white cloth on her face, holds it to her temples, and cries beneath it. There is no question now. She is really crying beneath the handkerchief. Father Travis waits for a sign. This is what he began doing when he was a soldier. This is what he has been doing ever since he became a priest. Kneeling, waiting for a sign, comes so naturally to him now that he hardly notices. He focuses on not taking back or apologizing for what he just said. He leaves it all with Emmaline.

  That’s not fair, says Emmaline from beneath the cloth.

  LaRose is still fighting invisible foes. Kicking the practice dummy so hard it tips and rolls. This one’s for Tyler, then Curtains Peace, another donkey kick for Brad. LaRose whirls to punch Buggy. They blast backward from the force of his attack. They land stunned, writhing on the mats, try to bumble away. One sneaks up from behind. LaRose can see behind his back! Wham. Cronk. Lights out.

  HOW DOES AN eight-year-old boy find out where high school boys hang out? White ones? In an off-reservation town? There is a long highway between them, and a lack of access deep as a ravine. He asks Coochy, but his brother doesn’t know who they are at all. He asks Josette, but she doesn’t care to answer. Or, is there some reason she raises her eyebrows? As does Snow. They keep their eyebrows up together, staring at him in a creepy way like they are frozen, until he backs out of the room.

  He asks Hollis.

  Those assholes? Why?

  LaRose doesn’t have an answer.

  Did one of those guys do something to you?

  No.

  Sounds like maybe something happened.

  No.

  Come on. You can tell me.

  Nothing happened.

  So why’re you asking?

  I just wondered.

  Okay, so nothing happened. Then there’s nothing you need to know about those guys except avoid their asses.

  Sure.

  I mean it. Hollis watches LaRose closely as he walks out of their bedroom. It’s weird that a little boy would ask about those guys—about Curtains, that freakin’ jerk who tried to hit on Snow by asking if she wanted to go for a drive in his rusted-out conversion van. Or Buggy, that Indian-hating blackout who walked by Waylon after they trashed the Pluto team in football and called Waylon blackout and Waylon laughed and put the hammer on Buggy and Buggy yelped to his friends, He’s scalpin’ me! Blanket Ass is scalpin’ me! And, because he might have killed Buggy and gone to jail, Waylon slung him away and got into his car.

  And so on. Tyler, or was it Buggy, one of those guys once called Josette a squaw, so Josette is already intent on killing him, or them, any one of them, but Hollis wants to get there first.

  GETTING A BLOCK or spiking from anywhere was all about jumping, crucial if you were not tall.

  That’s what Coach Duke told Maggie.

  Out in the barn, Peter marked a stall post with chalk. In the beginning, the height she could jump, reaching up with her arms, took her only a couple of inches above an imaginary net. But every week, she gained a tiny fraction. Coach Duke noticed.

  Hey, Ravich, come over here, he said after practice. You’ve put a few inches on your jump. Are you practicing?

  She told him about her chalked post. He gave her jumping exercises.

  He showed her squats, ankle bounces, step-ups, and his favorite, the four-star-box drill. Coach Duke’s heart beat to inspire. It tuned him up when kids worked at getting better. That Maggie had set herself these personal goals, improving her jump to make up for height, got Coach Duke so happy that he called her parents that same night.

  Peter answered, and when the coach said who he was Peter’s stomach clutched, sure that Maggie was getting kicked off the team. But no, this was a good call. The first good call about Maggie that her parents had ever received.

  Every night after school, now, she got a pass from setting the table. Peter and LaRose set the table as long as Maggie went out to the barn to do her exercises and jumps. The dog sat in the doorway concentrating on her pogo leaps. At first it was hard to jump for five minutes. Then hard to jump for ten. Then fifteen, twenty. Dark came early. She turned on the barn light and massaged her legs. It got cold. She wore a parka and sweatpants to keep her legs warm, so they wouldn’t seize with cramps. Her muscles became hard springs. She practiced serves—running, leaping, at the height of her leap punching the ball just so, at the dog, who politely stepped aside and never got beaned.

  Once, as she vaulted toward the dog, she thought that if she’d had a knife sharp enough, and with the height she could now achieve, she could have jumped up and cut the rope. Her mother falls, gagging. Maggie kicks her in despair. Maggie saw it all happen. Then she heard her mother call.

  Turn out the barn light. Come in. Come in now, Maggie. It’s dinnertime. Your food is getting cold.

  Old Story 2

  MEWINZHA, MEWINZHA, SAID Ignatia, right after the first soft snow securely blanketed off the living from the dead. Long time ago. This was before the beginning of time. In those days everything could talk and people had powers. At that time, there was a man living in the woods with his wife and his two little boys. They lived good on what they had; they were doing okay. But then the man noticed, when he was getting ready to go out and hunt, his wife was putting on her whitest skin dress, her quill and bone earrings, all her beautiful things. The first time he thought that she was preparing herself for him, but when he returned with meat on his toboggan, he saw that she was wearing her old clothes again. He was jealous. The next time he prepared to go hunting, she put on her finery the same way. But he doubled back. He hid himself, and when she left their boys behind and went out into the woods, in her fancy clothing, he followed her secretly.

  This man’s wife goes up to a tree. He watches her. She strikes the tree three times. Out of the tree comes a snake. A big one. Yes, a big snake. The wife and the snake begin to love each other up then. The man sees his woman and the snake together and oh my, she loves that snake better than she ever loved her husband.

  Don’t talk bad!

  Oh, shut up, Malvern.

  The two women frowned at each other, and at last Malvern nicked her head at LaRose, made some motions with her lips that Ignatia interpreted.

  See here, LaRose, the snake and woman they want to hold hands but the snake don’t have any hands. They want to kiss but the snake don’t have any lips. They just have to twine around together.

  Ignatia moved her arms around to show LaRose how this could happen.

  What kind of story is this? asks LaRose

  A sacred one, Ignatia says.

  Ohhhh-kayyyyy . . . LaRose has learned the okay of a skeptical eight-year-old from wise-ass sitcom eight-year-old boys.

  I know this story, said Malvern. It is a frightful story. Not a good story to tell a young boy.

  Maybe, said Ignatia. But it is a story of existence. This boy can know it; he is brave enough.

  She went on telling the story.

  The man was very jealous of the snake. So the next day he went hunting, and when he came back he said to his wife that he had killed a bear. He told her to go and fetch the meat. When she was gone, he put on a skirt and went to the serpent tree. He struck the tree three times, and the serpent appeared. Then he stuck his sp
ear through the serpent, killing it dead. He brought the snake back to his lodge, cut that snake into pieces, and made that snake into snake soup.

  Snake soup?

  Yes, my boy.

  They ate snake soup in the olden times?

  The old women frowned at each other.

  Ignatia said that in the olden times the kids had no TVs. They just shut up and listened to stories and didn’t interrupt.

  Malvern said that his question was good and she would answer it.

  They ate the snake soup just this one time, she said.

  Okay, said LaRose. I mean, I had to ask. It’s unusual.

  So moving on with the story, said Ignatia. When the woman finally returned, she said that there was no dead bear in the place he’d told her to go. There was no meat. She had searched, but found nothing. Her husband told her not to worry because he’d made soup.

  Wait, said LaRose. Made soup out of the snake she . . .

  Loved, yes, said Ignatia.

  That’s like . . .

  Point of the story, said Malvern.

  Did she eat it? LaRose stared at them, pained.

  Ignatia nodded.

  Oh, said LaRose. This just gets worse.

  IT’S NOT MUCH of a life, said Ottie in the car. But it’s something.

  This dialysis makes people crazy, Landreaux said, but you’re holding up good.

  I’da checked out if it wasn’t for Bap.

  She loves you.

  People who were chronically ill either dulled out and watched TV or cut to the chase in surprising ways, Landreaux found. The dulled-out ones were easier. But Ottie had been asking these questions and was so pleasant and forgiving that it was, almost, possible to tell the truth.

  We’re in love. The good stuff lasted, said Landreaux. For me.

  I get it, said Ottie.

  I’m like you, Ottie. Probably check out if not for her. That don’t go both ways. He laughed, but it was a heart-worn laugh.

  Emmaline would not check out if he did; she would survive for the kids. For herself. Also, the good stuff was in question. Emmaline had put a wall up, Landreaux thought. He even pictured it—brick but at least there were gaps, maybe windows. Sometimes she reached both hands through, unclenched, and Landreaux hurriedly clasped her from the lonely side. He understood the wall as blame for what happened. He did not understand when she said he was asleep. His eyes were open. He was driving. He was pulling up in Ottie’s driveway.

  Landreaux got Ottie into the house and settled by the window, where Bap had put a bird feeder. Landreaux went out and refilled the empty feeder. He could hear winter in the sharper scolding of the chickadees. After he got into the car, he thought of the two oxycodones in his pocket. He’d skimmed them off one of the new prescriptions he’d filled for Ottie. Only two. He’d throw them out. But he didn’t. He drove home. Was this a night he had to drive anybody anyplace? No. He plucked out the one pill. Swallowed. Only one, hardly anything. This would barely mellow him, still.

  You resist and resist and resist and wear yourself down. For all these years he had been substance free, but lately, well, this summer, the deterioration of his clients and the helplessness of waiting for Emmaline’s touch further diminished him. That was an excuse. He should be stronger. He’d made the Stations of the Cross last spring and wondered why Christ’s torture was called his passion. Jesus suffered drug free. He’d seen Emmaline go through drugless childbirth. She wanted drugs but only got lucky with Josette. Twice the trusted, competent anesthetist was not on duty at the IHS hospital. She didn’t want a bad spinal, an everlasting epidural or headache. Without one, the pain took up everything, she said. When she went to visit friends in the maternity ward, the smell of the place made her blood pressure shoot up, her hands shake. Light-headed, she had to sit. Some physical memory. But all worth it, she said, as women always did.

  Maybe Jesus thought so too, Landreaux thought as he walked toward the house. Or maybe he looked at all the sorry-ass fuckups he saved, like Landreaux, who couldn’t stand the pain, and said, Why?

  Landreaux resolved to flush the other pill down the toilet. He heard shouts. When he walked in the door, Snow and Josette were slapping open-handed, blocking each other. At least they weren’t punching or pulling each other’s hair. He kicked his boots off and stepped between them.

  He grabbed each girl by one wrist but they reached around him with their flapping hands. Finally they quit, sullenly ripped their arms free, and agreed to talk from opposite corners of the room. Josette stuck her lower lip out, slumped, arms crossed. Her foot jiggled. Snow sat knock-kneed looking at her orange-glow fingernails.

  What’s the deal? said Landreaux.

  Snow says I like Hollis.

  Well he likes you, said Snow.

  So?

  He’s my brother. It’s gross.

  Josette drew her arm back and made a fist. There was a face drawn on her fist. Lips where her thumb met her crooked forefinger. A nose and eyes, too. Snow lifted her arm and made a fist. A face was also on her fist. She kept her teeth clenched and barely moved her lips.

  You have no DNA in common. You grew up together and he still likes you—bedhead, bad breath, gray old underwear in the laundry—it’s a miracle.

  I have never let my underwear be seen, said Josette, with considerable dignity. And it is not gray.

  Stop, begged Landreaux. His head was softly ringing.

  Josette collected herself.

  I suppose we can talk about this like mature adults? she said.

  There’s only one in the room, said Landreaux.

  In the first place, said Josette, I know Hollis has a crush on me. That’s immaterial.

  I’m gonna go nuts, said Landreaux.

  Because I don’t have a crush on him, Josette said. Who knows, I might be a lesbian.

  Like you’d even know, said Snow.

  Landreaux’s heart muttered. Lesbian?

  You guys don’t KNOW me, said Josette.

  Okay, said Snow. Nobody KNOWS you. You’re SO mysterious.

  You know me, said Josette to her balled-up hand. I can tell you everything!

  I love you for yourself, said her smeared fist.

  Get outta here, said Landreaux. You’re making me loco. I want to make myself some coffee and read my paper.

  Like you always do! Josette and Snow, a team again, jumped up and rushed him. You’re so predictable. Why can’t you bust loose? Drink tea? Read a comic! C’mon, Daddy, be creative!

  They knew they could make him laugh, and when he did they attacked him, jumping on him, pretending to fling him on the floor. He fake fell, cowered in a dramatic I-give-up, hands in the air.

  Mercy! He begs for mercy! Show him no mercy, growled Snow and began to fake punch him so he fake reeled back, holding his stomach, laughing until the girls left him on the floor.

  Okay, Daddy, try to pull yourself together. Go do your wander. Or here’s a newspaper full of want ads. Or boring news. Just don’t TELL us about every boring thing that happens in the tristate area. We’ll go make you that weak coffee you like to guzzle. We’re gonna cook, too. We got some meatball meat. Noodles. Mushroom soup. You’ll flip.

  Landreaux sat back in his chair. His back ached from lifting Ottie, rolling, bathing, seating Ottie. Then it didn’t ache. The pain left. His heart rate slowed. He didn’t mind anything now. This was the first time in a long time he’d goofed off, let the girls wrestle him down. He felt lighter, almost happy, and he didn’t need the other pill, but after Snow brought him a cup of coffee, he felt his fingers tease it from his pocket. Then it slipped from his fingers, onto the floor. Some better person tried to crush it with his heel. But the heel was in a sock and the pill was coated with a hardening agent, which resisted until Landreaux walked over to the entry, got his boot, and hammered the thing to powder. Even then, on the vinyl tiling, there was a perfect little patch of whiteness, which, if he went down in a yoga crouch, nose to the floor, he could inhale. But how would that look to his g
irls, ass in the air? He sat down again and swirled his foot around on the powder until it was absorbed into the floor so that the desperate man would have to put his nose to the ball of the foot of the sock and sniff the powder out with mighty whiffs and he was safe, yes safe, because Landreaux had taken this process down too far a level even for himself.

  ONE DAY LAROSE closed in. He had written down the last names of the Fearsomes and narrowed down their probable locations from a telephone book. He lied again, got a ride from Peter, who dropped him off in Pluto to visit a friend whom LaRose ditched after an hour. The town was small, some blocks now bulldozed clear of houses that had collapsed. Empty. It wasn’t hard to find the various houses after all, but he was looking for the one with the garage that Maggie had once described. When he saw the Veddars’ garage, and looked in the window, he knew that was the place. He walked in the side door. Nobody was there, so he decided to wait. He fell asleep on the broken couch. When he opened his eyes, it was Tyler shaking him.

  LaRose lets his punch fly—he’s been dreaming of it.

  Ow! Tyler steps back, puzzled, rubbing his jaw. Why’d you do that?

  LaRose leaps up on the couch. They are all there! He channels Maggie’s claw hand moves, hears Father Travis’s shout in class: Loud kiap! Loud kiap. To strike fear into the enemy.

  LaRose gives his choking war cry. Kiap! Then another, more confident. Ready stance! Heart rammed in his throat, pulses thudding.

  Why’d you do that? Tyler turns to the others. He socked me!

  For Maggie!

  Buggy has snapped a beer open. Maggie! Hatred warps his face. He’s the meanest. Brad Morrissey is the biggest, but he isn’t mean at all anymore, except in football. He has certain codes of honor now, because of Jesus and football. He only kills people in football. And Curtains is just confused.

  What’s your name, little kid?

  LaRose launches himself onto Curtains’s back, climbs his shirt, tries a choke hold.

  Get him off me!

  Accidentally, but on purpose, Buggy slaps LaRose so hard that he flies off Curtains and lands on his back. When LaRose hits the floor with a violent smack, he bounces out of his body. His lungs squeeze shut. He is hovering above, looking down at himself in wonder.