Winter Loon(54)

“Why are you being like this?”

I could hear Ruby’s voice in my head telling me how I stuck out like a sore thumb with the Indians, how Mona Hightower probably figured she’d get a leg up around Loma having a white boy hanging around her rundown house, how, in the end, when those Indians had taken everything they wanted from us white folk, they’d discard me like their shitty cars and their shitty dogs and everything else in their shitty lives. I threw my arms up and laughed. I felt an urge to strip off my clothes and disappear into the waxing moonlight.

“Like what, Jo? Like what?” I said, and ran off. I could hear her calling my name, but she didn’t say to come back, so I didn’t.





CHAPTER 17

I DID GO to the Idle Hour and I did find Kathryn Rook there with her friends. I tucked Jolene away, promising myself to forget about her, and let Kathryn feel sorry for me. When she said they were leaving the pool hall and invited me to go with them, I did. I got in the back of someone’s dad’s car and sat next to Kathryn. When the beer was passed around, I took one. When Kathryn’s hand crept up my thigh, I let it. We drove out of town, crossing that bridge over the same river I’d dragged Jolene out of the summer before. I tossed empty beer can after empty beer can out the window, silently damning that crying Indian with each one. Images of Jolene and Lester together became real in my drunken fog. I turned to Kathryn and her open mouth and her darting tongue. She tasted like beer and pepperoni and longing, and I devoured her. When the car stopped under a grove of trees, Kathryn was on me, her hands working quickly at the buttons on my jeans. I’d have been embarrassed, but the same sort of thing was going on in the front seat. I put my hand on the top of her head as she sank into my lap. I leaned back and closed my eyes and floated down a green river.

I was drunk as hell when they dropped me off. I fell out of the back seat onto the ground and Kathryn giggled, slouching over so her head was hanging out the door close to mine. The headlights came straight for the car, and I put my hand up to shield my drooping eyes. Gip’s car jumped the curb and he cut the engine. I could see him behind the wheel, his head swirling in a figure eight.

“Oh shit,” Kathryn said, pulling herself back into the car. “Come over tomorrow night. My parents won’t be home. I’ll pick you up.”

“Go,” I said. “Get out of here.”

Gip picked me up off the sidewalk. We leaned into each other, struggled up the stairs, pushed through the front door. The two of us, wasted and worthless, stumbled down the long hallway. I collapsed into bed, splayed my arms to counter the spinning. The last thing I remember was Gip sitting on the end of the bed, his back to me, the mattress sloping toward the girth of him.



I ROLLED OUT OF BED at noon, head throbbing, bile surging up my throat. My jeans were wadded up on the floor, which reminded me that I’d had them down around my hips the night before, reminded me of what I’d done with Kathryn. What I’d done to Jolene. I pulled them on, slipped a T-shirt over my head, though lifting my arms made my head pulse. I walked into the kitchen, braced for the shit I’d catch from Gip for coming in drunk.

They were eating boiled hot dogs and beans at the table.

“That coffee still warm?” I asked.

“Should be,” Ruby said.

“Boy was fucked up when he come home,” Gip offered. “I waited up for him. Had to help him into the house.”

What’s the point, I thought. Why does he even bother to make up a story when most nights he came in drunk anyway? “Yeah, alright,” I said.

“That the Rook girl you were with?” Gip asked.

I poured coffee into a stained mug and gulped it like it might flush the poison out of my system. “Yup.”

“About time you wised up, got rid of that Indian. You play your cards right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let me put it this way,” he said. “Burt Rook don’t give me the time of day. Barely knows my name despite the fact I been paying rent to him almost thirteen years. Always looking down his nose at people, that one. Quick to take what don’t belong to him. Like this house here. We used to own it. I missed a few payments years back, hit a rough patch. Rook was still wet behind the ears then, not much older than Valerie. Him and his banker buddies, they seized it. Said it belonged to them. Yeah, you stick it to the daughter and we all stick it to Burt Rook.”

Laughter wheezed out of him from some clamped-down place in his belly. “Can’t wait to see Burt Rook’s face when I tell him.” He faked a boastful, earnest expression, puffing up his chest and tucking in his chin. “Well, hey there, Burt. Looks like our kids are something of an item again. Isn’t that swell?” Gip could hardly contain himself as he continued. “Maybe I’ll invite him and the missus and their girl over to the house for dinner. What you think about that, Ruby?”

“Keep your big mouth shut, is what I think. We don’t want trouble. I don’t like this one bit. Why’s it so hard for you to find your own, Wes? Going between a whore and a squaw like that.”

I slammed my cup on the counter. “Would you two shut up? None of this is your business. None of it. I don’t know what sort of trailer trash you think would suit me, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out.”

I shut myself in the bedroom, where everything closed in on me. I should have stayed in Brookings, should have gone with Topeka, should have sat down next to Jolene, shouldn’t have gone to the Idle Hour. I shouldn’t have gotten out of the cot at the cabin, should have stopped her from going out onto the ice in the first place. Shouldn’t have let go of her hand, should never have let him leave my hospital room, shouldn’t have come to Loma. I shouldn’t have been so greedy to get with Kathryn in the first place, should have been more worthy of Jolene from the start. Should have told Lester I loved the girl. Should have told the girl. Shouldn’t have started drinking. Should have been less like my father, less like my grandfather. Should have been more like . . . I had no one. All doors were shut. Before I knew it, the old knife was in my hand, the knobby bone rippling my palm when I gripped it. Nightfall swept across the ceiling while I stared at it and thought of ways I could make things right with that knife. What it could fix and what it could damage. I heard a familiar horn and remembered Kathryn saying she was coming to get me. I strapped the knife to my belt, threw on my jacket, and left the house in a trance. She was waiting behind the wheel. I got in.