When We Were Vikings

by Andrew David MacDonald

  We started walking out of the Dean’s office, down the hallway and past the line of people.

  “I was,” I said. “Part of being legendary is proving that you can pick up the sword and stand up for what is good and right.”

  Gert raised his eyebrow. “That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?”

  I stopped walking. “I’m talking about how you are not dumb or a thug and should start believing in yourself and your own legend, which involves kicking ass in your classes.” Being legendary was about taking all of the power that the gods have given you and making the most out of them, I said.

  Gert put his big arms around our shoulders as we left the ugly air-conditioned building. “My tribe,” he said, practically pulling us along with him.

  I stopped and said I had to go to the bathroom, and told AK47 and Gert I would meet them at the door of the building.

  Instead of going to the bathroom, I ran back to the Dean’s office and knocked on the door. The Dean opened it.

  “Did you forget something?” she asked, and I said yes and she asked me to come inside.

  I stood in front of her desk and took a deep breath while the Dean sat down. She looked up. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  I held out my fist.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It’s called a dab. It is a sign of respect within my tribe.”

  She waited for a second before standing up and straightening out her skirt.

  “Your brother was right,” she said, dabbing me back. “You are a brave girl.”

  “He said that?”

  She said that I was her favorite part of Gert’s scholarship letter. She shook her head. “What you two have been through. My God.”

  “Can I read it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The letter. Gert won’t let me read it because he says it’s none of my business and—”

  The Dean held up her hand. “Stop right there. That’s something you’ll need to sort out with him.” She walked me to the door. “You are the first person I have ever dabbed,” she said, opening it for me. “And I’m honored to have earned your respect.”

  chapter seventeen

  Sundays were very serious days at the library because of the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour. Parents brought their young children to come listen to a woman with bunny ears play a small guitar and read from books. When I found out that the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour was why everyone at the library hated working on Sundays, I did not understand. Reading is good for making your brain stronger, and guitars and music are good to listen to.

  For the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour we had to put pillows around the Rumpus Room for parents to sit on, and then the babies would sit on their laps.

  I learned that the babies threw up a lot and yelled and cried, and after they left the library smelled like shit and dirty diapers. The babies who came with their parents to the library, for the programs there, were loud and smelled, but for some reason they did not bother me.

  Carol did not like babies at all.

  “You think the Vikings were savages? Wait until you see these kids.”

  “It is a common myth that the Vikings were savages,” I said. “They actually had very well-developed agriculture.”

  Carol took off her glasses and cleaned them on the sleeve of her blouse.

  “Either way. Get ready.”

  The parents and their children did not come in like other people of the library. They did not “trickle,” like a stream that moves very slowly. They came all at once like a flood. I did not know where they all came from.

  “See?” Carol said. She was smiling a big fake smile to all the people coming in.

  The strollers were sometimes big and looked like they came from the future. Most of them were not very nice. This is because the people who came to our library didn’t have a lot of money. Carol said that the other library had “higher-end clientele,” but that rich parents were usually way more annoying.

  “They want to protect their kids from everything. These parents just want to survive.”

  My job was to show the parents where to go during the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour, and also to clean up any messes. It was not very hard to do that. There was a sign at the front, and another sign once you got past the detectors that went off if you ever tried to steal a book without checking it out first. The parents were usually loud. The regulars who came to do their crossword puzzles and to play chess or read books shook their heads at the loud parents.

  I also had to check to see that the right people were going in and that the wrong people were not allowed inside. People had to sign up for the Bunny Hour, but people were always coming without signing up.

  Sometimes we had to tell them they couldn’t come in, since too many people in the Rumpus Room, which was upstairs on the second floor, was a Fire Hazard. Carol said if one or two people and their children came in over the limit, then it was okay.

  “But no more than that.”

  I stood at the front of the Rumpus Room and waved and pointed to the door. “Hello, have a nice day, hi there, howdy, góðan dag!” I said.

  Most of the parents did not even act like I was there. They just walked by holding crying babies. All of the people looked very tired, and all of them were women and girls who I thought couldn’t be parents because they were so young.

  “The walking good-luck charm,” a voice said, and it was a man and also someone I recognized. He held on to a baby with one arm so the baby looked like it was growing out of his shoulder. “You’re Gert’s sister, right? Zelda? Remember me?”

  “I remember,” I said. “We played poker together.”

  The baby spit up some yellow stuff. Hendo saw me looking at the baby.

  “Shit. Easy, little man,” he said, and wiped the yellow spit with a napkin.

  I was surprised that I remembered his name, since names were something I was not very good at. Not as bad as Marxy, who had to write the names down on cards he kept with him, and when he couldn’t remember the name of someone important he would pull the card out and then read it and get the name. Except when situations are special. When we first met, he remembered my name and I remembered his. That was how we knew we were in love the first time.

  Hendo held up the baby and said his name was Artem.

  “My grandfather was this old-school Russian dude. Doesn’t Artem look old-school?”

  I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  Artem and I had a standoff with our eyes. Then he smiled and spit again. He was wearing a small basketball jersey and didn’t have very much hair, but the hair he did have was very light-colored brown, almost blond, and his eyes were blue.

  “Almost a year old,” Hendo said.

  “Is he your baby?”

  “I mean, I’m the dad, yeah.”

  We did not say anything for a while. People with strollers pushed past. Artem looked at me again and made a baby noise and then he stuck out his hand. It was a very small hand.

  Hendo laughed. “I think he wants your finger.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s into this phase where he just likes to hold things. Watch.”

  Hendo stuck out his finger and put it in front of Artem, who took his small fingers and wrapped them all around Hendo’s one finger, which was gargantuan.

  “See?”

  I stuck my finger out and Artem held on to it. The feeling was weird. The baby did not have a tight grip, but it felt like Artem was holding on as tight as he could.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “Right?”

  Artem pulled my finger and because I was way more powerful than him I didn’t try to stop him, since I didn’t know how to stop him with the right power. Out of nowhere he put my finger in his mouth.

  His mouth was wet around my finger. Inside his mouth the tongue poked.

  “Whoa,” I said again.

  “Think he likes you,” Hendo said.

  A woman came up to us. “You know
where her finger’s been?” she asked.

  She was very skinny and had a lot of makeup on. She smelled like smoke and did not look happy that I was playing with Artem. She grabbed the baby away from Hendo. My finger left his mouth.

  Artem clapped his hands together.

  “Relax. You see the hand sanitizers everywhere? It’s like a hospital in here.”

  “I don’t want a stranger’s finger in my baby’s mouth.” She turned and asked Hendo who I was.

  “Zelda,” Hendo said. “You work here, right?”

  I nodded. “I am contributing to the tribe. Since Gert is not in school anymore.”

  The Rumpus Room was almost full. The woman with the bunny ears, who read to everyone and sang during Sunday Bunny Reading Hour, had taken out her little guitar.

  “It’s starting,” I said.

  “Cool,” Hendo said. The woman took the baby past him inside the Rumpus Room. Hendo took a deep breath. “And away we go,” he said.

  * * *

  While all the parents and children listened to the Bunny Lady playing guitar, I went around and started reshelving books. I could do that whenever I didn’t have anything else to do.

  I was surprised that Hendo had remembered me. I had almost forgotten about him, but now I remembered the way we played poker and how he made me feel like part of his tribe. I pushed the cart and thought about the woman who was Artem’s mother and how she seemed like a fuck-dick, and how someone as cool as Hendo should have a girlfriend or a wife who was just as cool.

  He and the woman and Artem were in the corner of the Rumpus Room. I could see them from the window in the door. Hendo bounced Artem on his knee while the woman chewed gum and did not act like she cared very much about the songs. All she did was look at her phone. But Hendo sang along and lifted Artem up when the Sunday Bunny woman raised her arms, and the other parents all raised their arms too.

  After a while he handed Artem back to the woman. He came out. Since I had parked my cart in front of the door I had to move it quickly and spilled some books.

  Hendo bent over to help me. “Shit, sorry,” he said. “Here.” He picked up a bunch of the books and put them on the cart, stacking them not the perfect way, which was spines up so I could see the numbers.

  “You have to make sure the numbers are up, like this,” I said, and started moving the books.

  Hendo laughed and fixed them. “How’s that?”

  “Good.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “I can only take so much of that shit. I need a smoke like fucking crazy.” He asked if there was a place he could have a cigarette.

  I told him that you could only smoke outside of the building, “But not within fifteen feet.” He gave me a military salute and held up a cigarette.

  “You want one?”

  It was almost time for my break. I nodded. I told Carol I was going on a break and as I went out with Hendo she said, “I didn’t know you smoked,” and I gave her THE LOOK so she’d be quiet.

  * * *

  I learned that Artem was Hendo’s baby but he lived with the Baby Mama, which is what Hendo called the mother. They were not a couple.

  “We never really were,” Hendo said.

  “You don’t want to have the baby live with you?”

  “Don’t have much of a place yet. I’d like to get some more money, you know. Get a pretty nice place. Get him in a nice school.”

  We were sitting on the curb watching cars. A bright-red one went by and Hendo flicked ash off his cigarette and pointed. “Now, that’s a fine car. You see it?”

  I nodded.

  “Mustang. Man.”

  Since I had never smoked before, except once when AK47 put her cigarette down and forgot to crush it all the way, I tried to copy everything Hendo was doing. He tapped his finger onto the end of the cigarette again, so I tapped, and then I sucked the smoke like I was slurping spaghetti. He laughed when I coughed.

  “You don’t really smoke, do you?”

  “I’ve smoked before,” I said.

  “You look like you’re having an aneurysm in slow motion,” Hendo said.

  “What’s that?”

  He stubbed the cigarette on the concrete. “Nevermind.” He stood up and wiped his pants off. “I guess I should be getting back in there.”

  “Yes. Sunday Bunny Reading Hour is only an hour.”

  * * *

  When the Sunday Bunny Reading Hour ended Hendo left with his Baby Mama and Artem. They were arguing loudly. He did not wave to me. His Baby Mama was giving him shit about money.

  “You think he can live on macaroni and cheese?” she was saying.

  She was so angry I did not want to have our eyes meet. When they walked by I turned and pretended to be looking at a book.

  The Bunny Lady took her guitar and said she’d see us next week. Her name was really Martine, and when she wasn’t a bunny, Carol said, she worked as a lawyer for some big company that was actually evil.

  That was called being a hypocrite, Carol said, who smiled and said under her breath, “Bitch,” when Martine walked by.

  Once everyone left, Carol and I went into the Rumpus Room and started cleaning up.

  We picked up crumpled paper, and candy bar wrappers, and small baby-food jars. I held the garbage bag for Carol and she put all the garbage inside it. “You want kids?” she asked.

  “I think maybe. I don’t know if it’s okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  I told her about the articles that were about people who were like me having babies, and how nobody knew if we should be allowed to, because some people just aren’t smart enough or powerful enough at being parents to have a baby.

  Carol took the bag of diapers and garbage to the back door, opened it, and threw it in the big metal dumpster.

  I held the door for her so she wouldn’t get locked out.

  “That’s stupid,” she said. “You’re ten times more responsible than ninety percent of the men I’ve been with.”

  * * *

  That night I had a dream about Hendo. The library was empty. We were talking about books and Vikings in the dream. And then he leaned over and kissed me. We were sitting beside each other and he put his hand on my cheek. I put my hands on his arms and felt the muscles there.

  That was when I woke up, and felt bad. I looked around my room in the dark. In my dream, I was kissing Hendo, not Marxy.

  I lay in bed, my heart beating, my head full of Hendo. I tried to go back to sleep and couldn’t, because I was afraid of what would happen if I did—if I would dream-cheat on Marxy.

  I decided to send Dr. Kepple another letter.

  Dear Dr. Kepple,

  It’s Zelda.

  Whenever Viking heroes win the love of their fair maidens, they end up marrying them and having children. I don’t know if I want to have children, but I definitely want to have sex with Marxy, who is my boyfriend and fair maiden.

  Something in your book confused me.

  In the Friðþjófs saga hins frœkna, Frithiof and Ingeborg got married and their love was eternal, even when Ingebord was married to an old king because Frithiof had been sent away by people who were jealous of him.

  How did Frithiof know that he was in love with Ingeborg, and why didn’t Ingeborg refuse to marry the old king?

  Also, how do Vikings tell the difference between dreams that are serious and sent from the gods, and draumskrök, which are dreams that don’t mean anything?

  Skál,

  Zelda

  chapter eighteen

  The most famous Viking love story in Viking sagas is about Gudrun and Kjartan. A beautiful woman named Gudrun falls in love with Kjartan, who is very “charismatic,” meaning people like him and not just for his looks. But Gudrun is bad luck, since one of her husbands died and the other one divorced her when she was young. Kjartan likes Gudrun too. But her dad doesn’t like Kjartan and he sends Kjartan away. Which is when Bolli, Kjartan’s cousin, tries to convince Gudrun to marry him instea
d. Kjartan’s gone a long time, so Gudrun agrees to marry Bolli, and then when Kjartan returns Gudrun realizes that she messed up.

  It is a very complicated story, because love is very complicated.

  I reviewed my THINGS LEGENDS NEED list, and while Marxy was my “fair maiden,” I needed to win his love in the face of danger. Fair maidens are usually people who are not strong, who cannot protect themselves and need someone powerful to help them, and then they fall in love with the hero, who shows bravery and strength. I also believed that part of my legend was to show the world that people like Marxy and me can be powerful together, the way that Gert and AK47 are powerful, and that we can create a tribe of our own one day.

  To make a tribe involved having sex, and many people do not like the idea of people like Marxy and me having sex. I told Marxy that it is not our problem that fuck-dicks do not want us to have sex. We are making our own legend.

  The problem was Viking legends never talked about actual sex. They talked about love.

  For a person who liked to have sex, Gert did not want to talk to me about how it worked. He would begin talking and then pick at his nail, which wasn’t even really much of a nail, since he kept his nails short.

  Whenever people in TV shows and movies talked about sex, they said “the birds and the bees.” That was a way of talking about sex without actually talking about sex.

  One night when AK47 and I were alone, I asked if she could tell me about sex.

  “Gert hates talking about it,” I said.

  She laughed and said that’s Gert for you. “Sometimes it’s easier for someone not in the family to explain how these things work,” she said. “I get it.”

  She asked if I knew what it was like to have an orgasm, which means you feel really good inside yourself. I told her that I did know what an orgasm was like. She asked me if I had ever had sex.

  “I won’t tell Gert,” she said, her voice going quiet.

  I shook my head. “Marxy and I haven’t gone past kissing,” I said.

  I asked AK47 how she knew she was in love with Gert and how she knew Gert was in love with her. She put her hands in her pockets and said that the first part was easier to answer than the second part.