LaRose(49)

Mrs. Peace’s home had a yard with a knotted rope dangling from a tall tree. The boys took turns clinging to the ball of rags at the end of the rope. They twisted each other up tight and then swung out, untwisting in great loops, until they got sick. After their stomachs settled, they ate meat soup and frybread, corn on the cob. Mrs. Peace made them read The Hardy Boys, which she’d taken from the library just for them, sometimes out loud. Romeo was a better reader than Landreaux, but he hid that. He listened to Landreaux strain along, his whole body tilting as if each sentence was an uphill walk. The friends were contented all fall, all winter, all spring. They stayed two summers, and were best friends. Around year three, however, Landreaux began to talk about his mother and father. They had never visited. He talked about them in fall, then winter. In spring he began to talk about going to find them.

That’s running away, said Romeo.

I know it, said Landreaux.

This one girl? She run away by crawling under the school bus, hanging on somewhere under there. She sneaked out when it got to the reservation. She run back home. Her mom and dad kept her because of how she taken the chance. They were afraid of what she might do next if they sent her back.

The boys were talking back and forth in their bunk beds, hissing and whispering after lights-out.

I dunno, said Landreaux. You could fall out. Get dragged.

Flattened like Wile E. Coyote.

Ain’t worth it, said Sharlo St. Claire.

You’re too big anyway. Gotta be small.

I could do it, said Landreaux. This was before he started eating and got his growth.

I could do it too, said Romeo.

Couldn’t.

Could.

We should do it quick then. School bus going back in a week. Nobody else gonna take us, said Landreaux.

Isn’t so bad here in summer, said Romeo. His heart hammered. What if he got “home” and there was nobody for him? Yet there would be no Landreaux, here, if Landreaux left. That was unthinkable. Romeo knew how his life was saved and knew the scars along the insides of his arms represented something unspeakable that he could not remember. He didn’t want to leave the school and didn’t want to hang beneath the bus.

Look, Landreaux. In summer, we go to the lake and swim and stuff? Right? That’s fun.

They watch you alla time.

Yeah, said Romeo.

Well, said Landreaux. I am sick of their eyes on me.

Even Romeo knew that Pits was after Landreaux, cuffed him around, so it was more than the seeing eyes.

Next day on the playground, Romeo looked at Landreaux.

Whatcha think?

Landreaux nodded.

Romeo saw the dullness behind his eyes. This opacity of spirit—well, Romeo would never have called it that, but many years later Father Travis was to call it exactly that as he considered the man hanging his head before him. Romeo knew only that when Landreaux shut that spark off behind his eyes, it meant he was asleep and would do anything no matter how dangerous. It made Landreaux look extremely cool, and Romeo felt sick.

During the weekend, they got in good with Bowl Head, who let them deliver a broken step stool to the woodworking shop. The buses were parked just beyond. After they dropped the stool off, they sneaked behind the corner of the building and then crept to a school bus, rolled beneath. They could see immediately where you might hang on.

Maybe, said Landreaux, if you were shit-ass crazy. Maybe a few minutes. Not for hours and hours.

Though you might hol’ on longer if you knew falling off would kill you.

Don’ look like much fun, said Romeo.

Don’ you believe ’bout that girl? said Landreaux.

But there was something irresistible in Landreaux’s intense planning. He could not stop thinking, talking, how they might strap themselves on with belts or ropes. How it might get hot or might get cold. Need a jacket either way.



THE DAY CAME. Romeo and Landreaux ambled into the go-home line and lingered at the very end. Bowl Head stood by the open bus door, scanning her checklist. Each student in the line held a sack of clothing. Romeo and Landreaux had sacks too. At the last moment, they ditched, sneaked around the tail end of the bus, rolled into shadow, then wormed into the guts of the machine. There was a flat foot-wide bar they could hang on that ran down the center, and beside it two catch pans that could help them balance. They put their bags in the pans and fixed themselves in place on their stomachs, feet up, ankles curled around the bar, face-to-face.

A thousand years passed before the bus roared violently to life. It bumbled along through the town streets. The boys could feel the gears locking together, changing shape, transferring power. As they pulled onto the highway the bus lurched, then socked smoothly into high gear.

They lifted their heads, dazzled, in the vast rumble of the engine. Their ears hurt. Occasionally bits of stone or gravel kicked up and stung like buckshot. Seams in the asphalt jarred their bones. Their bodies were pumped on adrenaline and a dreamlike terror also gripped them. On their stomachs, feet up, ankles curled around the bar, face-to-face, they clung fear-locked to their perch.

The pain burrowed into Romeo’s eardrums, but he knew if he lifted his hands to his ears he’d die falling off. The pain got worse and worse, then something exploded softly in his head and the noise diminished. The boys tried very hard not to look down at the highway. But it was all around them in a smooth fierce blur and the only other place to look was at each other.

Landreaux shut his eyes. The dark seized and dizzied him. He had to focus on Romeo, who didn’t like to be looked at and did not ever meet another person’s eyes, unless a teacher held his head and forced him. It wasn’t done in Landreaux’s family. It wasn’t done among their friends. It drove white teachers crazy. In those days, Indians rarely looked people in the eye. Even now, it’s an uneasy thing, not honest but invasive. Under the bus, there was no other place for the two boys to look but into each other’s eyes. Even when the two got old and remembered the whole experience, this forced gaze was perhaps the worst of it.