Your friend’s here.
Cappy came in the door and I handed him a sandwich.
The three of us went back outside and ate sitting in the lawn chairs.
Uncle, I said, we could use a little something.
He ate his whole sandwich. I don’t wonder, he said when it was gone. But if you tell Geraldine or Doe, it is my saggy old red ass on the line here. Plus any future supply of stuff for you. And you have to drink it out back behind the station in those shade trees where I can keep on my eye on the botha youse.
We’ll abide by your conditions, said Cappy in a formal tone. His face was expressionless.
Handle the trade, said Whitey. There was no one in sight. He went back to open the safe, where he kept his booze. He brought out half a quart of Four Roses and pointed it toward the trees. Cappy took the bottle and put it underneath his shirt. A customer pulled up. Whitey waved and walked over to the car.
Does he know?
I think so, I said. I puked when he told me about Lark.
I puked riding over here, said Cappy.
It’s just the summer flu, I said.
Is that a medical opinion, Joe?
We looked at each other and tried to smile, but instead our mouths dropped open. Our faces fell into our real expressions.
What are we? asked Cappy. What are we now?
I don’t know, man. I don’t know.
Let’s sterilize our insides.
Right on.
Beneath the trees there were four or five cement blocks, a litter of crushed cans, a circle of ash. We sat down on the blocks and opened the bottle. Cappy took a cautious drink, then handed it to me. I took a fiery mouthful and let it trickle down. The burning mellowed as the stuff reached inside of me, loosening my chest with a slow warmth and easing my gut. After the next sip I felt better. Everything looked amber. I took my first deep breath.
Oh, I said, bowing my head and passing the bottle back to Cappy. Oh, oh, oh.
Yes? said Cappy.
Oh.
He drank more deeply. I picked up a branch and scraped the bits of charred wood and speckled gravel away from the ash, destroying the circle. Cappy watched the movements of my branch and I kept moving the branch until we’d finished the bottle. Then we lay down in the weeds.
Brother, I said, what made you come to the overlook?
I was always there, said Cappy. Every morning. I always had your back.
I thought so, I said. And then we slept.
After we woke up, Whitey made us rinse out our mouths, gargle with mouthwash, and eat another sandwich.
Gimme your shirt, Joe, he said. Leave it here. Touch the bottle again. You, too, Cappy.
I gave him my shirt and walked home. Cappy coasted beside me. We did not feel particularly drunk. We did not feel anything. But we wove from side to side on the road, unable to keep on a straight course. We thought that Angus and Zack would be looking for us.
We should all four be hanging out all the time, now, together, said Cappy.
We’ll keep training for cross-country in the morning.
That’s right.
Pearl came out from beneath her bush and walked with me up to the house. Before I went in the door, I played with her and made myself laugh. I took her inside with me because I was afraid that my parents would be sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me, as indeed they were. When I opened the door and saw them, I bent over and rubbed Pearl’s neck and talked to her. I stood up to greet them and let the smile drop off my face.
What? I said.
Whitey’s booze had settled inside of me by then, separating me from who I was, say, when I’d dug those seedlings out of the foundation, when I had wept outside my mother’s bedroom door, when I had watched the angel, my doodem, cross the sun-grazed walls of my bedroom. I knelt down with my arm around Pearl’s neck and disregarded my parents’ endless stare. I stayed across the room hoping that they would not smell me, but I felt my mother look at my father.
Where were you? asked my mother.
Running.
All day?
At Whitey’s, too.
Some small thing eased between them.
Doing what?
Just hanging around. Whitey fed us lunch. Me and Cappy.
They wanted to believe me so much that I saw they’d make every effort to believe. All I had to do was stay plausible. Not break. Not puke.
Sit down, son, said my father. But although I drew a step closer, I did not take a chair. He told me Lark was dead. I let all my feelings cross my face.
That’s good, I finally said.
Joe, said my father, his hand on his chin, his eyes on me, the weight intolerable. Joe, do you know anything, even the slightest thing, about this?
This? This what?
He was murdered, Joe.
But I’d used the word before. I’d hardened myself. I’d used it with Cappy and I’d used it in my head. I had prepared to answer this question and to answer it the way the old Joe from before this summer would answer. I spoke childishly, in a sudden fury of excitement that wasn’t fake.
Dead? I wanted him dead, okay? In my thoughts. If you’re telling me he’s murdered, then I’m happy. He deserved it. Mom is free now. You’re free. The guy who killed him should get a medal.
All right, my father said. Enough. He pushed back his chair. My mother’s eyes did not leave my face. She was intent on believing anything I said. But she shuddered all over, suddenly. A ripple passed over her body. The shock of it reached me.
She sees the murderer in me, I thought.
Dizzy, I reached down for Pearl, but she had crept to my father’s leg. I sat back up.
I won’t lie. I’m glad he’s dead. Can I go now?
I walked past them and continued until I reached the stairs. I carefully took the steps. As I went up, drawn in my weariness as if by a rope, I felt their eyes on me. I recalled this happening before at some time and me watching. I was halfway to my room before I remembered my mother climbing to that place of loneliness from which we feared she never would descend.
No, I thought, as I crept into my bed, I’ve got Cappy and the others. I’ve done what I had to do. There is no going back. And whatever happens, I can take.
I was down. I was sick for real now, with the summer flu, just as I had pretended. Whitey vouched for us. When first Vince Madwesin, then another tribal police officer, then finally Agent Bjerke, pressed him, Whitey gave up that we’d gotten into his booze stash and passed out behind the station. He showed them our hideout in the weeds, the bottle, which was fingerprinted, and my shirt. My mother identified it as the one she’d washed for me to wear that day. But the rifle. Doe’s 30.06. I was running a fever of alternating sweats and chills and my sheets were sodden. While I was ill, I watched the golden light pass across my walls. I could feel nothing, but my thoughts ran wild. Always I kept going back to the day I dug the trees out of the foundation of our house. How tough those roots had clung. Maybe they had pulled out the blocks that held our house up. And how funny, strange, that a thing can grow so powerful even when planted in the wrong place. Ideas too, I muttered. Ideas. Dad’s case law, the Cohen, and then that hot dish. I’d think of the black noodles. The noodles became a
