Even though there’s no one here to see me, I am smiling all the way down the hall, every step of the way, right past the cafeteria, past the gym and past the portrait of President Kennedy, who is smiling, too. Like he just touched the moon.
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Our Uncle’s Gun
JUNE 6, 1963
LUKE
—
Th
e dream ebbs away like water melting into sand, but even with his eyes wide open, Luke feels the pain. It was a dream of bright fl ashes and shadowy shapes and the kind of hurt that makes it hard to breathe, like something bad is happening. Something very bad, with people knowing what it is but not saying, refusing to even look at you. Th
e kind of dream
that feels signifi cant—more substantial than the army cot or the sunny window or the smell of the hair grease that Bunna is combing into his hair, like an artist applying paint to a canvas.
Today is the day they’re going home for summer break, and the air is thick with anticipation.
Bunna stands before the mirror, examining his hair with a look of satisfaction.
“I had this dream,” Luke says to Bunna’s back. But suddenly the dream details get all mixed up, and the words forming themselves in Luke’s mouth don’t make any sense.
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“Mmm?” says Bunna, turning sideways to examine the
side of his neck in the mirror.
“We were living in an ice cellar,” Luke says. But he isn’t sure who he means by we—not him and Bunna alone—and he doesn’t think ice cellar is the right word, either. Th e right
word is an Iñupiaq word, trapped in between his tongue and his teeth. Voiceless.
“Hope Uncle’s ice cellar is full of maktak, ” Bunna says, regarding his refl ection sideways. “Th
at’s the fi rst place I’m
going when we get home.”
Suddenly something inside Luke snaps into clarity. Something important.
“We’re not going home,” he says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up. “We’re staying here.”
Because all of a sudden Luke knows with absolute cer-tainty that he and Bunna can’t go home. He doesn’t know how or why he knows this, he just does. Th
ey’ve been planning to
go home forever and can’t wait to get there, but now there’s something inside him that says they can’t go. Th
e dream. It
came from the dream, somehow. Even if the plane fl ew down to Sacred Heart School and landed right outside their window, singing their names like rock songs, they could not go.
Th
is is what Luke suddenly knows.
“What? ”
Bunna has turned around and is now staring at Luke, dumbstruck.
“We aren’t going anywhere. We’re staying here.”
“Like hell!” Bunna turns away again and starts shoving 150
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things into his duffl
e bag.
Luke scowls out at the birch tree, trying to ignore him, which is impossible because Bunna is wadding up stray socks and shorts and punching them into his duffl
e with a force
so fi erce even the birch tree seems to feel it, tapping its black branch against the window like a warning.
Luke looks at the gun on the wall—the one Uncle Joe gave him—and all he wants to do, right now, is go home. He wants this so bad it takes his breath away.
Bunna snaps his duffl
e shut, his eyes following Luke’s.
Th
en he reaches for the gun.
“You aren’t taking that gun,” Luke says. His voice feels cold and steely.
Suddenly the gun is the most important thing in the world.
Bunna scowls. “Uncle Joe says you gotta bring it home for summer.”
“I’m not going home this summer.”
Bunna pulls the gun closer. “Yeah, well, I am.”
Luke takes a step forward. Just one step. Even though they’re about the same height, Luke’s shoulders are broader than Bunna’s.
“Not with my gun,” he says. He wants, desperately, to say something else, something powerful. He isn’t sure what—he only knows for certain that it has nothing to do with the gun.
Nothing at all.
“I’m listening to Uncle Joe, not you,” Bunna says, setting the gun down by his duffl
e like a dare, like he’s daring Luke
to do something. Luke wants to do something, all right. He 151
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wants to do something real bad.
“You’re not listening to what I’m saying.” Th
e words taste
like tough old meat. He tears them off with his teeth, strand by strand. “You’re. Just. Being. Stupid.”
“I’m not stupid. What the heck you wanna stay at this stupid place for when you could be home hunting with Uncle?
Stupid! ”
“Quit being a damn baby.”
Luke wanted to say something stronger, something that would shake Bunna awake. Maybe the words he needed were Iñupiaq words, and maybe he had spoken English so long he no longer knew them. Or maybe there were just some things words couldn’t say. Th
ings nobody could say.
“We could make money this summer,” he says. “Go to
Fairbanks like Amiq . . .”
Amiq was going to have a job in Fairbanks this summer, live with a family—they could, too, Luke thinks, him and Bunna.
“Forget it,” Bunna snaps.
“Grow up, man, it’s—”
“Forget it!” Bunna’s mouth is like some kind of slingshot, shooting rock-hard words. Bing, bing, bing. And his ears seem plugged shut with those same rocks.
More than anything, Luke wants to shake him, shake the rocks right out of his head. Shake and shake and shake.
“Why don’t you just—.” His voice rises perilously.
“Forget it!” Bunnna barks.
“Hell, if you can’t even—”
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“FORGET IT!”
“LISTEN!” Luke hollers, using the side of his fi st to open Bunna’s ears, shoving him right up against the bed, slamming him hard. Shoving him into the wall. “Damn it! What’s the matter with you?” Luke’s been gritting his teeth so hard, his jaw aches. “We could make some money, staying here!”
He slams Bunna into the wall with a perfect uppercut, trying to follow the rules, just like Father Mullen taught them, but suddenly both of them are on the fl oor, lunging at each other’s throats, not following any rules to any game either of them ever played. Making for themselves a new game, danger-ous as thin ice.
And Bunna’s strong, too—as strong as Luke, maybe even stronger. But Luke weighs more, and he has Bunna pinned against the fl oor, pinned hard enough to leave marks. Glaring down at him. Bunna glares right back, without a sound.
Fierce as a wolverine. Fierce and a little desperate, Luke realizes suddenly. Like an animal caught in a trap. Th e thought
scares him.
“Look,” he says, letting up, “it just don’t feel right, us going home this time. Okay? Something’s not right. It’s just a feeling I have.”
Bunna looks at him. All of a sudden he understands what Luke is trying to say—you can see it in his eyes—but there’s nothing he can do about it. You can see that, too.
“I gotta go home.” He says it so slow and low, it sounds like each word is sucking the breath right out of him.
“I just . . . have to.”
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Luke has no choice: he has to let go. Th
ere isn’t anything
more he can do. He sees it in Bunna’s eyes. Bunna is going home because he has to, and Luke isn’t because he can’t. And all because of a bunch of dumb feelings nobody in their right mind would want to feel.
Th
ey’d never ever been apart before. Th
is thought hits
Luke like lightning. In their whole lives, they’ve never spent a single day apart.
Bunna stands up, rubbing his shoulder. Luke stands up, too, scared and confused. Th
e whole world is spinning out of
control, like a wounded animal running, and there is nothing left to hold onto. Nothing except that gun, standing next to Bunna. Uncle Joe’s gun.
“You’re not taking the gun.”
Bunna shoves it at him. “So keep it.”
And then they just stand there, the gun in between the two them like the ghost of the fi ght, still beating in their hearts.
And there is nothing else to be said.
Nothing at all.
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Eskimo Kiss
JUNE 7, 1963
CHICKIE
—
We earned enough Betty Crocker coupons for a new bus, but it was time for summer vacation, and the bus wouldn’t come until fall, so we had to ride the old military bus one more time, all the way to Fairbanks. Bunna was going home for the summer, but Luke wasn’t, which was weird. Th
ose two are like
Mutt and Jeff , and I couldn’t fi gure out why Luke would stay at school when Bunna wasn’t going to. Or why Bunna would go when Luke was staying.
I climbed up into the bus and sat down on a squeaky seat by a window on the school side, watching everybody fi le in. Donna and Sonny stood outside by the wall, watching us. Th ey weren’t
going home either, and they looked really small and lonely, standing there all by themselves. Bunna climbed onboard and sat down right smack in front of me, staring out the window at Sonny and Donna, only he wasn’t really looking at them, I could tell. He was staring at the spot right next to them, where Luke should have been but wasn’t—an empty stretch of wall, 155
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gray as smoke. Bunna glared at that spot like he was trying to ignite it with his eyes, staring so hard I bet he didn’t see the fl icker of movement in one of the windows of the boys’ dorm, didn’t even see Luke’s face hover there for just a second.
Rose and Evelyn came bursting out of the door, late as usual. Rose was dragging a duffl
e almost as big as she was,
and Sonny grabbed it from her like he was John Wayne or something.
Th
en, before anybody knew what had happened, there
was Luke, marching toward the bus with his gun at his side, the barrel pointed down. He was frowning—not looking at anyone in particular—just frowning at everyone and everything, I guess. He walked over to the back of the bus, where all the luggage was stacked, and slid that gun right in on top of all the duffl
e bags, very carefully. We all were watching him,
but nobody said a thing.
I turned around, without even thinking about it, to see Bunna’s reaction. But at the exact same moment I turned, Bunna leaned his head over the seat, and we collided midturn, his nose against my cheek. He hollered “ow,” and I turned beet red.
“Ooo,” said Evelyn, “Eskimo kiss,” and everyone laughed.
Everyone but me and Bunna.
Stupid Evelyn.
I stared straight out the side window, burning with embarrassment. Not wanting to face anyone.
Luke was walking back into the school real slow, and I envied the way he walked, so straight and sure, like he didn’t 156
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give a fi ddle what anyone thought. He never looked back. Not once.
When Father Flanagan turned the key in the ignition and let up on the brake and that old bus started to creak along on its rusty gears, Bunna turned to look out the window, quick, looking back at the school like he expected to see Luke come running after us. But Luke was gone, and in half a breath, so were we.
I just sat there, one hand clutching the other, still feeling embarrassed. Michael O’Shay was sitting all alone, directly across from me, and he kept looking at me like he thought we should feel some special kind of bond, us both being white; like maybe we’re family or something, which we most certainly were not.
“Where you from, again?” he asked.
“Kotzebue,” I told him. We’d had this conversation before, the two of us. Which Michael O’Shay should have remembered. But Michael O’Shay was from Fairbanks, and he was under the impression that the whole state, with the possible exception of Anchorage, was just some sort of big shadow Fairbanks made.
“I mean where are you really from?” he said, like Kotzebue was just some sort of excuse I always made.
“Kotzebue,” I said, turning away from him to watch the Sacred Heart trees sweeping by the window.
“But where’s your family from?” he persisted.
“Where’s yours from?”
“Fairbanks,” he said. “First generation.”
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All of a sudden Bunna turned around, glaring. “What the heck’s that supposed to mean?” Bunna said. But he was looking at me when he said it, not O’Shay. And he was looking with a protective sort of look, too, looking me right straight in the eye. I looked right back, very glad for the fact that it was starting to get dark and nobody could see me blush. Michael O’Shay never said another word.
When Father stopped for gas, I got off the bus and went over to the edge of the woods and just stood there, breathing in all the warm, starry darkness. And I don’t mean the air was warm, because it wasn’t. Th
e warmth came from someplace
inside me, someplace so deep and private, it made me feel like I was sparkling, too.
“You like that guy?”
Bunna’s voice came out of nowhere, and his words were just as surprising. He had walked over, away from the others, and now he was standing right next to me. His voice made his words sound more like an accusation than a question.
I was so surprised I said, “What guy?” which was a dumb thing to say because I knew perfectly well who he was talking about.
“O’Shay.”
Did I like O’Shay? Skinny know-it-all Michael O’Shay?
“No. I don’t like him.”
I guess I was supposed to say something else, something smart and funny, but everything smart and funny dried up in my mouth with surprise. Bunna was jealous!
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All of a sudden it felt like I’d grown extra limbs and didn’t know what to do with them. I shoved my hands into my pockets and stared up at the night sky. It was like I was seeing it for the fi rst time ever. Th
ere were so many stars! Where did
they all come from?
Bunna was watching them, too, now.
“What do you call that one, the one with the three stars right there in a row?�
�� he said.
“Orion’s Belt,” I said. Swede taught me that one ages ago.
“Tuvaurat,” Bunna said softly. “Th
at’s three hunters, return-
ing from caribou hunting.” He waved his arms off vaguely into the direction where those star hunters might have been hunting.
“See the horns over there?”
All of a sudden I did. I really did. A pile of horns. And before I even knew what was happening, Bunna leaned down close and kissed me. Kissed me right there on the edge of the sparkling black woods halfway to Fairbanks, beneath stars that looked like caribou horns. And I kissed him back, too, kissed him for a long, long time.
Bunna’s lips were soft and warm, and he smelled like Palmolive soap and laundry detergent and hair grease, and right then and there I decided that mixture of Palmolive soap, laundry detergent, and hair grease was probably the best smell in the whole wide world.
Eskimo kiss, I thought, and that thought made me smile, walking back to the bus with Bunna, our arms touching in a way that felt totally natural, like it was the way things were supposed to be.
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“Next year we gonna have a new bus,” Bunna said as
he slid into the seat beside me. He was talking to Michael O’Shay, like it was some kind of challenge, but Michael didn’t respond—he just stared out the window into the darkness.
“And that bus is gonna have real soft seats, too,” he whispered to me.
But I didn’t care anything at all about our new bus anymore. And I didn’t care about the old one, either, bouncing along in its rickety old way. All I cared about was Bunna’s hand holding mine, our fi ngers lacing together, back and forth, learning a new language all the way to Fairbanks. It was a language about love—holding on and letting go, holding on and letting go.
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My Name Is Not Easy Page 14