The Removed(62)

He didn’t come after me or try to open the door. I tried to catch my breath. My mouth went dry, making it hard to swallow. A moment later I heard him leave, so I opened the door and went to the living room window. I saw him drive away. Then I went back to my room and packed my bag. How quickly everything had changed. I decided I hated Jackson Andrews, hated the Darkening Land and everything about it. I headed straight for the bathroom and opened his cabinets, looking for anything else, I didn’t know what, anything he had hidden. There were bottles of pills, laxatives, mouthwash. There were Q-tips and creams, gels.

I left the bathroom, kicked open the door to his bedroom, and went through his dresser drawers, his closet, looked under his bed. I searched the whole house, going through everything I could find. Then I went downstairs and climbed the ladder to his projector. I ripped the lid off and threw it to the ground. Coughing, I kicked it against the wall, then stomped on it, but none of this made me feel any better.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER I TOOK my bag and left the rotting house for good, thinking Jackson might as well stay there forever, trapped in the darkness and unwilling to change. I walked away still angry, fueled by an intense desire to confront anyone who glanced at me or mentioned my being Native. I quickened my step as I walked away. I wanted to find my way to the train station. Surely I could get a ride. I thought of the apparition of the woman with the basket I had seen in the middle of the night. She had talked about a trail lined with cherry-blossom trees.

Bulbous clouds assumed strange shapes. The mist hanging above the grass was dense. I remembered a time growing up when my family took a walk around our house. We took lots of walks together, and it was a way for me to gather my thoughts, a type of meditation. On this particular walk, my dad told Sonja and me that our ancestors had hunted only for food, not sport, and that once an animal had been killed, we should ask for forgiveness and explain that we needed the animal for food. Animals were not to be exploited, my dad explained. Neither were people. This had to do with our fundamental concern for harmony, and should always be followed. As I walked in the Darkening Land, I thought about my anger and how important it was to try to keep peace within myself. I thought about Ray-Ray’s death and how I avoided talking about him with Rae and my family. How all anyone ever wanted to do was talk about him when he was alive, and that for some reason I despised him a little for getting the attention. I was no longer angry about that attention, I realized, and telling myself this made me feel better about myself. Spending time away from my family had helped me, I felt.

The road I walked seemed to open up into a new world, with a brilliant sunlight that appeared from behind a cloud. For the first time since I came there, the sky was very blue, the humidity stifling and causing me to sweat. I heard gunshots from somewhere, which frightened me. I followed the road as it wound around and downhill. I walked until I saw the road dead-ended ahead, past a park with a swing set, merry-go-round, and monkey bars, on which I saw children playing. Looking farther ahead, past where the road ended, I saw tall trees towering over the horizon. I walked toward the playground, past plum trees and peach trees and pink cherry trees. It was a land of enchantment. A boy on a bicycle rode past me, ringing his bicycle bell as he passed, and I watched him ride down the hill toward the playground. He climbed off his bicycle and ran to the others. There was a small pond and an old house at the end of the road beside the playground.

Once I got closer, I saw an older man working in his yard. He wore overalls and had long white hair. He was down on his knees, digging through a trash bag. When I passed him, he stood and looked at me.

“Siyo,” he said.

I gave a slight wave and kept walking.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Come over here.”

I turned and looked at him. He waved me over. He was holding up sheets of notebook paper. “These are all my writings,” he said.

I approached him, and he handed them to me. “I think these are for you,” he said.

There were scribblings in blue and black ink. “It’s Cherokee,” I said. “I recognize the symbols, but I can’t read them.”

“I’m Tsala,” he said. His eyes held an intensity, full of years of pain and abandonment. I was struck by how intense and mysterious he appeared. “Maybe you should read my writings?”

“What for?”

“For help. There’s the road with the pink cherry blossoms down yonder.” He pointed toward the woods, and I saw swelled pink cherry blossoms in the distance. I felt overjoyed by this. In the blue-gray world, it was the brightest color I had seen.

“I need to leave this place,” I said. “Where does the road lead?”

He paused a moment, then asked if I would join him for coffee. He was too old and frail to be dangerous, so I agreed, and we walked along a little trail to the back of his house. He invited me into his kitchen. The walls were covered with wallpaper with flowery designs, and darker ovals and rectangles where pictures used to hang. I saw dishes piled in the sink, spilled coffee, vials and prescription bottles on the counter. There was a small kitchen table with two chairs. He sat in one and pointed for me to sit in the other across from him.

He offered me coffee and poured a cup for himself as well. I drank it black from a red coffee mug. It wasn’t too bad. I imagined him living alone, going to bed at night with no one to talk to or lie down with. I thought of him getting no help cooking or cleaning or washing his clothes. Tsala, poor old man, enduring the pain and loneliness of his old age. Still, I sensed a calm spirit about him.