There There(30)

“What are you gonna say to him?” Jacquie said.

“About what?”

“About where you been.”

“I didn’t know. Listen, Jacquie, I think you should think about coming back with me. To Oakland.”

“We don’t even know each other.”

“It’s a free ride. We’ll drive all day and then through the night ’til we get there.”

“You got all the answers then?”

“I wanna do something to help. There’s no way to take back what I done to you. But I gotta try.”

“How long you been sober?” Jacquie said.

“Since 1982.”

“Well shit.”

“Those boys need their grandma.”

“I don’t know. And you sure as hell don’t know a goddamned thing about my life.”

“We might be able to find her.”

“No.”

“There are ways of—”

“God, shut the fuck up. Stop acting like you know me, like we even have anything to say to each other, like we wanted to find each other, like we didn’t just—” Jacquie stopped herself, then stood up and walked out of the room.

    Harvey caught up with her at the elevator.

“Jacquie, I’m sorry, please,” he said.

“Please what? I’m going now,” she said, and pushed the already lit call button.

“You don’t wanna be sorry about this later,” Harvey said. “You don’t want to keep going that same way you been going.”

“You can’t really think you’re gonna be the one who finally turns it all around for me. I would fucking kill myself if you were the one to finally help. Do you understand that?” The elevator came and Jacquie got on.

“There’s gotta be some reason for all this. That we would meet like this,” Harvey said, holding the elevator by putting his arm across the threshold.

“The reason is we’re both fuckups and the Indian world is small.”

“Don’t come with me then, that’s fine. Don’t even listen to me. But you said it in the circle. You know what you want. You said it. You wanna go back.”

“Okay,” Jacquie said.

“Okay,” Harvey said. “Okay you’ll come back?”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

Harvey let go of the elevator doors.



* * *



—

Back in her room, Jacquie lay down on the bed. She put a pillow over her face. Then, without even thinking about it, she got up and went to the minifridge. She opened it. It was full of shots, beer, little bottles of wine. At first this made her happy. The idea of feeling good and comfortable, safe, and all the first few, the first six could do, and then the inevitable home stretch to twelve, sixteen, because the web stuck to you everywhere you reached once you were trapped, once you started. Jacquie closed the fridge, then reached behind it and unplugged it. She slid the fridge out from under the TV, then using all of her strength, she walked the thing to the door. The bottles clanged as if in protest. Slowly, corner to corner, she made her way. She left the minifridge outside in the hallway, then came back in and called the front desk to tell them to come get it. She was sweating. She still wanted a drink. There was still time before they’d be up to get it. She needed to leave. She put on her swimsuit.



* * *



—

    Jacquie stepped around the minifridge, walked down the hall, realized she forgot her cigarettes, then turned around and went back for them. When she came back out of her room, the fridge caught her shin.

“Fuck,” she said, looking down at the fridge, “you.” She looked to see if anyone was coming, then opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle. Then another. She rolled six of them into her towel. Then ten. In the elevator she held the bundle of bottles with both arms.

She walked back to the empty pool, climbed in, and stayed under until it hurt. Every time she came up, she checked on the towel bundle. There’s an ache when you keep yourself from breathing. A relief when you come up for air. It was the same when you drank after telling yourself you wouldn’t. Both broke at a point. Both gave and took. Jacquie went under and swam back and forth taking breaths when she needed them. She thought about her grandsons. That picture of them with Opal, Opal’s face, her eyes saying to Jacquie, Come get them.

    Jacquie got out of the pool and went to the towel. She heaved the bundle back, then threw it high into the air, into the water. She watched the white towel slowly float down to the water, then lay flat. She watched the bottles sink to the bottom. She turned around, went out the gate and back up to her room.

The text she sent Opal was just this: If i come to oakland can i stay?





Orvil Red Feather





ORVIL STANDS in front of Opal’s bedroom mirror with his regalia on all wrong. It isn’t backward, and actually he doesn’t know what he did wrong, but it’s off. He moves in front of the mirror and his feathers shake. He catches the hesitation, the worry in his eyes, there in the mirror. He worries suddenly that Opal might come into her room, where Orvil is doing…what? There would be too much to explain. He wonders what she would do if she caught him. Ever since they were in her care, Opal had been openly against any of them doing anything Indian. She treated it all like it was something they could decide for themselves when they were old enough. Like drinking or driving or smoking or voting. Indianing.