Standing up as tall as I could, I whispered, “Skeggǫld, skálmǫld, skildir ro klofnir,” a Viking battle cry, and told Tyr, the Viking god of war, that I needed strength and courage.
* * *
I went into the house, through the back door, and then down the hallway, toward the living room where Toucan and AK47 were arguing. I passed through the kitchen with the empty brown beer bottles and cigarettes in the sink and pot in bags and playing cards spread out on the table.
As I got closer I could hear Toucan and AK47 talking. Then I saw them. AK47 was standing across from Toucan.
She was holding Gert’s gun in her hand.
“Where’s Zelda?” AK47 was yelling.
Toucan did not have his arms up. He was still smoking and said he had no idea where I was.
That was when AK47 saw me and said my name, lowering the gun so that it was not pointing right at Toucan anymore.
That was enough time for him to attack.
Toucan was very fast and before AK47 could protect herself he hit her the way he had hit me, and then he took the gun away from her. My brain started speeding and I picked up the ashtray and threw it at him. It bounced off his arm and fell to the ground.
“Get away from her!” I shouted.
Now he was distracted by me, and AK47 tackled Toucan just like Gert tackled other players in football. She threw herself into his stomach, and the air went out of his mouth and he fell like a tree.
“Go!” AK47 said, crashing on top of Toucan.
It did not take long for Toucan to push her off. He held her down by her wrists and then punched her again and called her a dyke and a slut.
I did not run. My feet had become glue.
AK47 made a sound like an animal that was being squeezed too hard.
“Bitch,” Toucan said, and then hit her again. He pushed AK47’s head into the carpet and then there was blood. He hit her again and then he picked up the ashtray and hit her with that too.
Her eyes closed and her mouth opened at the same time like a fish.
The Grendels were scratching from under the carpet and inside the walls. The whole house was becoming a Grendel.
I saw the Viking sword. It was under the couch. I don’t know how it had got there.
Maybe Odin had put it there for me, to use to save AK47, who was being hit again and again, and then Toucan had the gun and was using it to hit her face. He was hitting and the Grendels were shouting louder, and then I blinked and Toucan had turned into a Grendel who was going to devour AK47 inside of his giant mouth.
The Grendels were the voice of Uncle Richard hitting Gert and yelling, the voice of his fingers on my skin, the voice of Hendo saying I was ugly and stupid and retarded, the voice of the cancer cells in Mom taking over everywhere inside of her body until there was nothing but cancer and death.
The voice of the Grendel said that I was not going to be a hero, that there are no more Vikings anymore, and that AK47 was being hurt and it was my fault. Everything was my fault.
Then I heard the voice of Dr. Laird. He said that it was not my fault. And the voice of Dr. Kepple, saying that sometimes life finds us, and when it does we have to rise to the occasion, even when we are scared.
“You are a hero,” his voice said. And then AK47 tried to punch Toucan, even though she was small and bleeding underneath him, and that was the most heroic thing I ever saw.
I took the Viking sword and yelled a Viking battle cry with the sword in front of me.
I did one of the attacks I had practiced, which is called the slash, and I made the sword cut into his skin on his arm, the one that was holding the gun.
“You’re going to stop,” I shouted, louder than all the Grendels in the world.
His arm was bleeding and he held it up and said, “Motherfucker.”
He started walking toward me and then stopped, as if he had hit a wall in front of him that was invisible. His eyes became very big and wide.
“Ah,” Toucan said, and behind him I saw that AK47 had the gun and had shot Toucan through his back and into his stomach.
I waited for a very long time, not able to move, before taking AK47’s cell phone and calling 9-1-1.
chapter thirty-five
At the police station they asked me lots of questions about what had happened. The police officer who gave me the card was there and asked if I was the one who had put the Viking sword into Toucan’s arm. I was having trouble speaking. Inside me things were exploding, but none of the words wanted to come out. They stayed stuck. Every time I thought something the thought would stick to the words already stuck in me, creating a big ball that got bigger and bigger until I thought I was going to throw up.
My heart felt like it had stopped working. But when I put my finger to my neck to feel, it was still beating.
The policewoman told another police officer to take me to the hospital and to stay with me. They were worried that Toucan’s friends were going to get mad and then try to hurt me, or try to hurt AK47, who was asleep and not waking up.
“It’s just precautionary,” the police officer said.
I sat in a waiting room in the hospital, with a police officer standing at the other end of the room, reading a magazine. AK47 had been taken to the emergency room by an ambulance while I was at the police station. When Dr. Laird showed up in the hospital, it was the first time I had seen him outside of the office. He was wearing a brown overcoat that went to his knees.
He saw me and said something to the police officer, showing him an ID from his wallet. Dr. Laird walked over to me and before saying anything he handed me the stress ball. I didn’t want it.
I stared at the wall behind him, where there was a picture of a beach and the summer. More than anything in the world I wanted to be there with Gert and AK47 on the beach and under the palm tree.
“I know how you must be feeling,” Dr. Laird said. “I came as soon as I heard.”
I also wanted to continue being mad at him, for calling the police and getting Gert in trouble. But I could not be mad. He was not only my doctor, he was also my friend and a part of my tribe and the Wise Man in my legend. Sometimes people in tribes have to do things that hurt at first in order to help the greater good.
“I feel like a shit-heel,” I said.
Dr. Laird held out the stress ball. “You sure you don’t want this?”
This time I took it and squeezed.
He stayed for an hour, listening to me, letting me cry. He did not write anything down and had a package of tissues that he gave me so I could blow my nose. I told him all about Toucan, how he had died before the police arrived. I was supposed to feel mighty and heroic. But I did not feel either of those things. Toucan had tried to talk to me while he was dying and bleeding from the hole where the bullet had gone. He put out his hand and I had held on to it and it reminded me of Hendo’s baby, Artem, wrapping his baby fingers around my one big finger.
Toucan could not hold on to my hand for very long. It became me holding his hand, until his hand let go and I let go and he was a corpse, not a person anymore.
“I forgot that he was a villain,” I said. “He was a person who was dying, and AK47 was trying to pull me away from him and then she started dying too, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“Sometimes life isn’t as simple as heroes and villains.” Dr. Laird came close to me, until I could see into his eyes, which were green, even though I thought they were blue. “But I want you to know that you were very brave, and that you are heroic. You could have run away from your problems. A lot of people do that.”
“He made a noise,” I said, and thought of the way Toucan’s mouth had opened and then words didn’t come out. Just the noise.
And then I started crying again.
“Okay,” he said. “I know.” And he put his hand, with his big wedding ring and hairy knuckles, on my arm.
We sat in the chairs in the waiting room, Dr. Laird with his hand on my shoulder, and I made myself into a little ball on t
he chair.
“Can we talk about something?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Anything but what is happening.”
He smelled like shampoo and like laundry right out of the machine, and he told me stories about all the interesting things his daughter was learning in school, like how butterflies taste with their feet, and how starfish are one of the only animals who have two stomachs, one that they can shoot out of their bodies.
“Gross,” I said.
“Very gross. They use it to eat oysters like that.”
He had never talked about his family before. I did not even know he had a daughter. It was part of our rules that we did not talk about him or his life or family. I asked him why he was okay talking about his daughter now.
“I guess this is different.”
“Yeah.”
Dr. Laird looked at his hands. “I don’t think I’ve been helping you as much as I could. And I feel responsible for a lot of this.”
I did not understand what he meant. He kept squishing his hands and starting to breathe like he was going to say something, and then stopping.
“I should have been more prepared, with your personal history.”
“My personal history.”
“Your family history, I mean. With your uncle.”
“Oh.” I played with my hands, since it was easier to talk to my hands than to Dr. Laird. “Uncle Fuck-dick.”
“Yeah. Uncle Fuck-dick.”
The doctor came out and said I could see AK47 if I wanted. Dr. Laird and I both stood up.
“Well,” Dr. Laird said. He put out his hand. I took it and gave it a shake.
“Can we hug one more time?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “We can hug.” And I hugged him. I tried to give him back the stress ball but he told me I should keep it. “Whenever you feel like you’re going to burst, just give it a good squeeze.”
* * *
AK47 did not share the room with anybody. The policeman who was watching me went with me and the doctor to her room. The doctor pulled back a blue curtain that hung from the ceiling and wrapped around AK47’s bed.
The person in the bed didn’t look like AK47. She looked like a dead person on the crime shows on TV. Her skin didn’t have the glow it usually did, and you could see the little pink veins on her eyelids. A tube went into her mouth and the computer next to her bed made bleeping noises that reminded me of videos games—like AK47 had become a video game that the computer turned into sound.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
The doctor cleared his throat. “We’re not entirely sure. She sustained a lot of neurological trauma and lost a good bit of blood.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we’ll need to do more tests.”
The doctor said I could sit with her until Gert arrived. He was still at the police station. I asked the police officer how long it would take.
“I’m not sure,” the officer said. “Shouldn’t be too long now.”
There was a chair by her bed and so I sat down in it. AK47’s hand was turned up and had tape holding a tube going into it. I put my head on it.
* * *
I stayed with AK47 for an entire hour, talking to her like she was awake. Sometimes she talked back in my brain, or at least words I thought she would say came to me. The words asked me to pray for her.
“I know you are still in there,” I told AK47. “I will find a way to make everyone see.”
Normally I would have prayed the way Hamsa and I prayed together, him to the Muslim god, me to Odin and the rest of the warriors in Valhalla and to the Norn sisters, asking them to make a different day for AK47 to die. But I was not sure I believed in any of that anymore. I was not sure whether to believe in Odin, and I was not sure I believed that good people could go to a place like Valhalla after they died. AK47 was a good person and it had turned out very badly for her, just like it had turned out very badly for Toucan, who would never be alive again.
Maybe it was worth it to pray, even if I didn’t believe it anymore.
“Odin,” I said, and closed my eyes. “PLEASE HELP AK47 TO WAKE UP. I PROMISE I WILL BRING HONOR TO YOU AND TO HER AND TO EVERYONE IN VALHALLA.”
I must have been saying it very loud because the nurse came in and asked if everything was okay.
“I heard shouting,” she said.
“I was shouting my praise for AK47,” I said, and since the nurse probably didn’t know I called her that, pointed to AK47 to show that it was her that I was shouting praise for.
“Okay,” the nurse said. “Maybe we can keep the praise to a level below shouting. We have other patients who need rest.” She smiled and I said that was fine, I already did my praise shouting for the day.
* * *
AK47 did not have any family, and she had chosen Gert as the person to say when it was okay to take her off the machine that was helping her breathe and eat. We were in the hospital, standing all around her. Gert was not arrested. But he had to go back to the police station after, because he was a very important part of their plans for other people like Toucan.
Gert was talking to the doctor, who was saying that AK47 might not wake up. The tests they had run came back and the results were not good. Her brain had been hit very hard by Toucan, and blood had gone into it and that was very bad.
“But her body is alive,” I said.
The doctor said he would leave us alone to talk, closing the door behind him. AK47’s machine blipped and bleeped. Gert and I stood side by side, watching over her. Just outside the window, beside AK47’s bed, was a tall office building. I could see a lot of people moving around in it. They reminded me of ants. I wondered if they were looking out and seeing us and asking themselves what we were doing that made us look so sad and depressed.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Gert walked to the window and pressed his face against the glass.
One of AK47’s feet stuck out from under the sheet. Her toes still had bits of silver nail polish. I had brought a nail clipper with me, since in Kepple’s Guide to the Vikings when a warrior dies, the nails need to be clipped off so that they can’t be used to build a ship called Naglfar to bring Ragnarok, the end of the world.
I went toe to toe. “What are you doing?” Gert asked
“Saving the world by ending it,” I said.
AK47’s nails weren’t long anymore. The nurse must have cut them. But there was enough to cut, and I kept the pieces of nail in my hand. When I got to her hands I felt her fingers. They moved whatever way I wanted them to. There was no AK47 telling the fingers to go one way or the other.
He came over. “Can I do some too?”
I handed him the nail clippers. “Be careful,” I said. “She doesn’t like them too short.”
Gert went around AK47, very carefully. There were five fingers for him to do, and he kept her nails in his hand.
I thought about Toucan, how now he was a corpse, with horse eyes. The thing that scared me most was the way his mouth had opened and it was like he was screaming, only nothing came out. There was no more soul inside of him.
All at once Gert jumped back. “Holy shit,” he said.
AK47 was blinking.
“What are you freaks doing?” she said. Her voice was not her normal voice, but it was the voice of a person who was alive.
chapter thirty-six
Gert stopped going to summer school. He said that it was impossible to concentrate on making up the credits that he’d missed with AK47 in the hospital, and he came to visit her. Sometimes they fought and I waited outside, and when I came back in they were in the hospital bed together, holding hands, Gert’s head on her shoulder with his eyes closed.
I visited AK47 as much as I could, which was not every day since I was working more and more at the library.
At first she had to use a wheelchair, because her brain didn’t know how to talk to her legs anymore. Then she taught the brain to speak, with the help of a physiotherapi
st who made her practice first moving her toes and then her legs.
“You ever hear people speaking Japanese?” AK47 said. “Well, that’s what it’s like. My brain’s speaking Japanese and my legs can’t listen.”
One day she was able to walk with a walker, one foot at a time, very slowly.
Gert and I cheered when she showed off her walker, which folded up, and then when she could take steps without the walker, with just a cane made of metal, I sung her praise.
She was able to go back to her own apartment. Gert wanted her to stay with us. She said that it was important that she do things on her own, which made Gert mad at first.
Then he started going back to summer school. “You should be worrying about that, not me,” AK47 told him.
One day she phoned the library while I was at work and said she needed to talk to me.
“Come alone,” she said, and I thought that Gert’s birthday was in less than one month, and she wanted to plan a gargantuan birthday party for him. Maybe we could order the Viking stripper for Gert again, as a joke. I said I would be over after work, and took the bus and walked across the park from the bus stop to her apartment building.
AK47 buzzed me in and when I came to her door she yelled that it was open. I came inside and saw that there were suitcases, black ones with wheels, sitting by the door.
She came out of her room with a backpack over her shoulder, using her cane and moving one foot at a time.
“You want to help me with this?” she asked, and I ran to take the backpack. She told me to put it with the suitcases.
“Are you going back to the hospital?” I asked, because sometimes she had to go back to spend the night and had to bring a bag filled with things she’d need.
“Not exactly.” She sat down on the couch, very slowly, and began massaging her leg.
“What does that mean?”
“Sit,” she said, pointing her cane at the chair across from her. “I want to talk to you.”
I sat down. AK47 set her cane between her legs, leaning her chin on the end, where you hold on with your hand.
When We Were Vikings Page 27