Slam, said a man.
Fuckin A.
Eight dollars, man. Nine dollars.
Good looks, good looks.
Well, it wasn’t your breath, said a woman.
It’s that Red Lake whammy.
Chippewa skunk oil, said the woman.
And you love it.
I don’t love it, but I might roll around in it.
Oooo, down girl.
The voices started laughing and laughing, whooping until they gasped. Something the woman must have done. Over the course of the next week, they learned that this special predawn hour was the only time they could hear the voices of the people in the camp. The city was still sleeping, the air hollow. The water gave off a fog that carried sound up to their ears. At all other times the voices could be heard only as a rising and falling mutter punctuated by blunt pops of laughter and, once, a flurry of screaming and shouting, a fight that seemed to have come to nothing as the members of the camp, always five and sometimes six, ate or slept on their carpet beds or in boxes, hidden in the weeds. Most of the people were Indians.
Romeo and Landreaux developed habits opposite those of the scraggly people in the camp. An hour or so after full daylight, when the bums were unconscious, the boys climbed down. They skirted the fire circle and the sleepers. Sometimes they swiped a bit of food, plundered a bread bag; once they took an open can of baked beans. They stepped onto a thin path that led along the river until it neared another camp, maybe a rival camp, maybe the source of the fight. The boys veered up the bank before they got too close. Once up on the street they crossed the river along a low parapet on an old bridge that was ready to be torn down. On the other side of the bridge there was a neighborhood where milk was delivered. Every so often they could lift a bottle. When the stores opened, they bought bread and a pound of baloney. In a park, an alley, or on the sunny steps of a decrepit church, they divided up the loaf and the baloney, ate it all. They never tired of this breakfast.
There were three separate movie theaters to walk to. Every afternoon they saw a matinee, gathered all the half-eaten boxes of popcorn afterward, and stowed them by their seats to eat during the next show. Sometimes if the movie was extremely good they hid behind the exit curtains until the evening shows came on. They saw: Bigfoot, The Aristocats, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Airport, House of Dark Shadows, Hercules in New York, Rio Lobo, A Man Called Horse (six times; it affected them deeply), Little Big Man (eight times; it affected them deeply), and Soldier Blue. (It affected them deeply but they were asked to leave. It was not for children because it featured a woman crying over an Indian’s severed arm. They became obsessed by this unspeakable scene.)
Because they had to see this movie again, they sneaked into Soldier Blue. While they were watching for the arm, a woman entered late and sat down a few rows in front of them. Her pale hair puffed out around her head. They slumped down in their chairs, peeked between the backrests in the row ahead. Suddenly she swiveled around. Her teeth lighted up in the dark. Her Bowl Head hair glowed and rose, detached from her body. Her hand went up. They thought she was going to crawl over the seats toward them. But another person came to sit beside her and she turned back to the screen. She hadn’t seen the boys. They crept out. Romeo’s pants were slightly peed in, but Landreaux was much worse and thought he might puke.
See, said Landreaux.
I know, said Romeo. But get hold of yourself. It looked like Bowl Head but it couldn’t have been her, man. Couldn’t have!
Still, they were disoriented and wandered sickly back to the river. They blundered into the camp, into the middle of the regulars they had been hiding from and stealing from for nearly two weeks.
A man put Landreaux into a headlock, but he smelled so bad that Landreaux puked for real and was let go.
A woman with long wild hair tackled Romeo around the ankles and pulled him down.
A man in sunglasses spoke.
Sit, he said.
He struck the ground with a long white stick propped on his shoulder. He gestured at the stomped grass around the dead fire.
Someone kicked Landreaux and he collapsed.
Romeo shrugged the woman off and sat too.
Mystery solved, said the sunglasses. He laughed. Don’t you little pricks know you can’t steal from stealers? We’re stealers and such. We steal people blind, get it? Blind!
The others laughed like people who had heard that joke before. The boys had never seen a blind person’s white stick, so they didn’t get the joke.
Now speak, the sunglasses ordered. Speak your business here.
We’re visiting our relatives, said Romeo.
This struck the stinky man as extremely funny. When he laughed, the boys could see he had two sets of teeth in his mouth, one behind the other. His mouth was so full of teeth that it seemed hard to open. He closed it carefully. In spite of nervous fear, Landreaux kept his eye on this man’s mouth, hoping he would open it again.
You’re runaways, said the sunglasses man.
Yes, said Landreaux.
You been here a while. We noticed stuff missing. But we thought it was the white bums at the other camp. Run from boarding school?
Yeah.
Sunglasses nodded. Then took off his glasses, rubbed his morning-glory blue eyes and put them back on. The rest of him looked Indian, so his eyes were startling. Very beautiful and startling. He was a lean, ropey, blue-eyed Indian with a kung fu mustache.
Okay, cool, he said.
You can stay, said the stenchy toothbound man who’d grabbed Landreaux. He built a fire with grasses, then twigs, then little branches. Immediately his fire spurted flames and made a comforting crackle. He pushed a circle of rocks just so, and added chunks of wood, tending fussily to their position while the shaggy woman painstakingly opened a #10 can of Dinty Moore beef stew with a short screwdriver. She stabbed the screwdriver viciously into the top of the can, over and over, trying to connect the holes so she could pry up the lid. The fire had blazed down to coals by the time she got it partway open, and the boys had told their story to the sunglasses. Another woman wandered quietly into the camp, two bags in her arms. She was tiny and birdlike, pitiful, with a face full of boils. There was also a silent Indian powerful in grease-slicked cowboy clothes. He sat apart watching the others with tiny, searching red eyes. He had a stomped-on-looking face.
This man spoke suddenly in a rasp-file croak and took out a long gleaming bowie knife.
You little fuckers steal my blanket?
Romeo and Landreaux surprised themselves by crumpling onto the ground. They slumped like puppets. Landreaux sobbed in sucking breaths and Romeo made tiny helpless irritating noises.
Oh shit, the man said, cleaning his nails with the knife, I killed ’em.
The others laughed, but not in a mean way.
Shut up, you, said the shaggy woman. They’re just kids. They sleep up there. She pointed up at the railroad bridge with her lips. It’s not even safe, she grouched. They should have somebody looking out for them.
The stomped-on-looking powerful Indian put away his knife. Sorry I scared you little fuckers, he said. Tomorrow I’ll get youse a nice box. You can sleep down here.
The shaggy woman threw the stick she’d been stirring the can of stew with into the weeds and took some small utensils from within her shirt. She dipped stew into old pie tins still crusted with piecrust and gave them to the boys.
You give me back my spoons once you finish, hear?
The boys nodded and ate, tears dripping into the stew.
They climbed up onto the piling that night and slept. Maybe the stew, the blue eyes, or the arm caused Landreaux to thrash and howl so hard he woke Romeo in the middle of the night. Landreaux was still asleep when he started rolling off the top of the piling. Romeo grabbed his arms and Landreaux suddenly woke up. There was a moon out, and they stared into each other’s eyes the way they had beneath the bus.
I got you, said Romeo.
Landreaux made a de
sperate noise.
Never fear, said Romeo as he skidded toward the edge.
He felt calm, loving, and powerful. That moment would endure in his memory. It was the last time in his life that he did a heroic thing. Romeo tried to stab his feet into the concrete and willed his arms to stop quivering. But Landreaux was heavier than Romeo. Every time Landreaux swung his leg to find a desperate foothold, Romeo was drawn closer to the edge. At last, with a wild jerk, Landreaux gained his balance. In doing so, he flipped Romeo over his head into space. Landreaux tried to cling but fell backward. They could have hit the water and waded to shore, or maybe drowned, or hit the base of the piling and died, but instead they hit the weedy earth. Romeo broke Landreaux’s fall, and Romeo started screaming. Landreaux went instantly to sleep. When he came to in the morning, with a headache, Landreaux crawled out of a piece of canvas to look for his friend. Romeo was wrapped in a bag by the cold fire and he looked dead. The shaggy woman came out of the grass and poured some whiskey into Romeo, plus she crushed up a pill and mashed it into a bit of stew. Stuffed it clumsily down his throat. Romeo fell quiet and looked dead again.
What’s wrong with him? asked Landreaux, touching the trussed bag gently.
We foun him like this.
The woman was extremely drunk. She tried to pat Romeo’s hair but kept missing his head.
We didn’t know what to do so we tied im in the bag. He says his arm and leg. Landreaux pulled the bag cautiously down Romeo’s leg. There was no blood, but the leg looked sickeningly wrong, even in his pants. And his arm was also crooked. His shoes were gone.
Let’s bring him to the doctor, said Landreaux, unnerved.
But Romeo’s head lurched up and he shrieked. No, no, no, no! Landreaux crab-scrabbled backward.
You were right. She’s here!
Romeo ground his teeth, eyes mystically flashing.
She come after us. Now I seen her.
Who?
Bowl Head, man, hissed Romeo.
See? The shaggy woman had also stepped back, impressed. What ya gonna do? She joggled the whiskey bottle.
Sonny knows where to get some more. We jus keep him here, loaded for the pain, eh? Until he’s better. We don want cops poke aroun here.
Landreaux crawled close to Romeo, touched his gray face. Romeo’s skin was cold, wet, and hard as rock. Landreaux waited, watched until he took a breath, then another. Landreaux’s eyes burned—he knew very well that Romeo had tried to save him. The sudden shame of having caused his friend’s injuries was unbearable.
I’m gonna find a way to haul you to the hospital. Wait here, he said, and ran off, his friend’s pain swelling his heart.
Landreaux bolted up the embankment. He stopped where they had fallen, and snatched Romeo’s shoes from weeds. Then he sprinted across the bridge in a panic. He slowed down, took the money from the inner soles of Romeo’s shoes, put the bills in his own shoes. He began to wander the neighborhoods they knew. He walked for hours, searching for a cop. He became so weary that he didn’t see the police car pull ahead of his path, or the officer who emerged, until he was close enough to be grabbed by a man who knew how to grab. Landreaux could feel that. It was reassuring that he could not get away, and Landreaux relaxed. He began to talk. He told the officer all about Romeo and the bums’ camp and how he needed help, how his friend looked dead.
The policeman put Landreaux carefully into the backseat of the car, which was hard plastic with a heavy mesh barrier. Someday there would be Plexiglas and Landreaux would know that too. There was a radio with a handheld microphone. The police used it, asked questions, relayed the information. Then they drove back across the river. An ambulance pulled up, and then another police car. Landreaux sat in the squad car while the others beat their way down the embankment. After some time passed the police came back.
They bugged out, said one officer.
Landreaux scrambled out of the car and sprinted into the brush, wormed through the loose links of a fence, dodged down an alley, across a street, and was caught trying to cross a parking lot. The officer tried to calm him.
You got to find him!
Landreaux yelled, blubbered, moaned, and finally fell silent. They drove him to the precinct headquarters and stuck him in a chair with a glass of water and a sandwich. He sat there for a day, then another half day. But even though he was tired of waiting, he scrambled up when the original Bowl Head walked into the station. His hair prickled up the back of his neck and his stomach tried to puke up the sandwich. He knew he had been right. Bowl Head was more than she appeared to be, even supernatural.
Much later on, when Landreaux first got high behind the water tower, he saw again that he was right, that she was the spirit of the boarding schools. She meant well and her intentions were to help him be a good boy, but a white boy.
When Landreaux begged the police for pity, she said that all the runaways acted like this. She signed some papers. A policeman walked him to the car, and he saw that Pits was riding in the passenger’s seat. The policeman put Landreaux in the backseat of the car and told him that he’d be all right now. Landreaux sat petrified, couldn’t even eat the lunch that Bowl Head bought him at a restaurant, though she urged him to and said he looked thin.
When they were almost halfway home, Pits said something and Bowl Head pulled the car over. Pits opened the back door and yanked Landreaux out, shoved him down the ditch and up the other side to a riffle of trees.
Go, he said.
Landreaux did not dare move. He heard Pits pull down his zipper. A moment later hot piss spattered the back of Landreaux’s pants.
That’s for losing Romeo; he was a good kid, said Pits.
Landreaux bolted away, down the ditch, back to the car. After they’d been driving for a while, Pits said something in a low voice to Bowl Head. She shook her springy white hair no, that he should not say what he said anyway.
Pew! Landreaux’s a pee boy now!
The emergency-room doctor at Hennepin County Medical Center thought that Romeo’s arm could be pinned together, but the leg had to come off. He stabilized Romeo and sent him to surgery. The surgeon there, Dr. Meyer Buell, had studied infectious diseases and was more conservative when it came to legs. He found out that Romeo was an American Indian. He knew that Romeo was descended of the one Indian in ten who had preternatural immunities, self-healing abilities, and had survived a thousand plagues.
I believe in this boy, he declared. Even though he is the scrawniest, stinkingest, maybe the ugliest kid I’ve ever seen, and in the worst shape, he is from a long line of survivors. He has the soul of a rat.
This was not an insult. Meyer knew rats, medical and feral. As a boy, he had been shipped from Poland to relatives here, right after the war. He respected rats. He admired their cunning will.
This will be a long operation, he said to his nurses as they helped him prepare. I will save this sad leg.
Every other morning for two months, Romeo waited for the all-seeing, stirringly kind brown eyes of Dr. Buell. He would enter the room, pause, and say with a slight accent, How goes the sad leg today? With his immaculate hands, his knowing hands, Dr. Buell unbandaged and peered at, even smelled the parts of Romeo’s arm and leg he could examine outside the cast.
One side of you will be weak as a baby when the cast comes off.
Everything hurts, it hurts so bad, said Romeo. Where are my shoes?
Don’t worry about your shoes, said Dr. Buell, for the hundredth time, in the kindest way possible.
He did not give Romeo pills anywhere near as powerful as he had known. It would be years before Romeo again tasted of the substances fed to him by the shaggy woman, but when he did, he felt reunited with the only mercy in this world.
WOLFRED & LAROSE
The Old One
IT WAS ANCIENT and had risen from the boiling earth. It had slept, falling dormant in the dust, rising in mist. Tuberculosis had flown in a dizzy rush to unite with warm life. It was in each new world, and every old world.
First it loved animals, then it loved people too. Sometimes it landed in a jailhouse of human tissue, walled off from the nourishing fronds of the body. Sometimes it bolted, ran free, tunneled through bones, or elaborated lungs into fancy lace. Sometimes it could go anywhere. Sometimes it came to nothing. Sometimes it made a home in a family, or commenced its restless touring in a school where children slept side by side.
One night after prayer at the mission school, where the first LaRose, the Flower, slept with other girls in rows, in a room coldly bitter except for their plumes of breath, tuberculosis flew suddenly from between a thin girl’s parted lips. In the icy wind that creaked through a bent window sash it drifted over Alice Anakwad. Hovered over her sister Mary. It dipped and spun toward the sloping bump of LaRose under a woolen blanket, but the current of air dropped it suddenly. The old being perished on the iron railing of her bed. Then a sister being tumbled explosively forward in a droplet of Alice’s cough, vaulted over the railing of LaRose’s bed, swooned downward in the intake of her breath.
WOLFRED WAS WAITING to greet her when she stepped off the wagon that brought her down to St. Anthony. She had left the missionary house for the mission school six years ago, wearing a shift and blanket.
Now behold!
A tight brown woolen traveling jacket, kid leather gloves, a swishing skirt, and underneath it stockings, pantaloons trimmed in lace she herself had knitted, bone corset, vest. She had been paid for years of hard labor with old clothes. She wore a shaped felt hat, also brown, decorated with a lilac bow and the iridescent wing of an indigo bunting. Her shoes had a fashionable curve to the heel that had nearly lamed the mistress of the house.
Exactly as she hoped, Wolfred did not recognize her. He gave her an appreciative glance, then looked down, disappointed. His gaze gradually returned to her. After a while, his look cleared to a stunned question and he stepped forward.