“Maisie, you were always the strong one. You always found a way to make us laugh.”
“Yeah, and who takes care of me? Fuck this, Lucy. I give up. I just don’t care about anything anymore.” I caught my reflection in the vanity mirror and wiped my stained face on the corner of my pillowcase. “What does it matter, anyway?” I picked up the ashtray and headed for the kitchen, plugged in the kettle and pulled the instant coffee out of the cupboard. “You better get to work, Lucy, or Harlan will dock your pay. Tell him I have the flu.”
“You gonna be okay, Maisie? I’ll be home right after work.”
“Just go, Lucy. We been through worse than this, innit.”
Lucy left me with my coffee, closing the door quietly behind her. I sipped and smoked and thought about Jimmy and the poison that would always set me apart from the Jimmies of the world. I stubbed the life out of my smoke and headed for the bathroom. I drew a hot, steamy bath, undressed and threw those shameful clothes in the garbage. I submerged myself in the soothing, soapy water and closed my eyes. I thought of the little picture of my mom in my wallet, abandoned on a Kingsway bench, and wept. I thought of her and how she would take me walking with her on the rocky shore, looking for shells and listening to the seagulls. I thought of the one birthday party I remembered, my mom and dad so happy. I thought of the strangers I went home to. There was no violence, no rage to the tears that melted into the bubble bath.
I sat in front of the vanity mirror, looking at the reflection, this stranger. I looked close into my own eyes and saw a truth there I knew I would never be rid of. I towel-dried my hair and pinned it back with one blue barrette. I slipped into a pair of jeans and the old checkered work shirt Jimmy had lent me a while back. I left my face naked, stuck my Indian Card and my last fifty bucks in my back pocket, my smokes and lighter in the front pocket, and headed out the door, not bothering to lock it behind me.
I walked, my feet still sore from those stupid boots but bearable in my runners. I found myself down at Victory Square, sat on one of the benches and smoked. I watched the winos and the hookers wander through, looking for a drink or a john. I watched the straights leaving their offices, walking in a hurry, looking directly through the people who made this place their own, vanishing them into thin air with their indifference. I smoked some more, flicking the lit remains at their heels, making them look at me.
As late afternoon bled into evening, I walked across the square to the pay phone and called the Old Man. Could he send Steve to Victory Square. Tell him I want my own rig, too. Not a problem, he told me. I didn’t think it would be. I walked back to my bench and pulled the second-last smoke from my pack and waited. It wasn’t long. Steve ambled across the park and sat down beside me.
“Give it to me.” I pulled the money from my pocket but held it tight.
“I’ll shoot you up. Come on. We’ll sit behind that hedge.”
“Fuck that. I want the rig and the horse. I got the money. Give it to me and leave me alone.”
“No need to give me the money, honey. You can work it off with that nice ass of yours.”
“Whatever. Just give me the stuff and leave me alone. I want enough for tomorrow too. Give me four packets. You’ll get your payback later.”
“Okay, but no funny stuff. I’ll be looking for you.”
“No doubt.” I watched him saunter away, his long-fingered hand wiping his limp hair out of his eyes.
The park, a study in darkness, was richly golden, briefly glorified in the light of transition from day to dusk. I stood to greet a nameless, toothless woman, her black hair shot with grey. Weariness etched the lines of her face as she pulled her laundry cart packed high with all she owned. She smiled at me, confused, as I pressed the fifty into her palm, hugged her and gave her my last smoke. I felt her eyes on me as I wandered over to the short rock wall. I slipped between the wall and the boxwood hedge where no one could see me. I sat there and emptied all four packets into the spoon. I slid my left arm out of Jimmy’s sleeve and tightened the tubing.
I looked, one last time, at the skyline.
4
Kenny
The packed dirt floor of the pickers’ shack seemed darker than usual, even with the thin shafts of light pressing their way through the gaps in the raw plank siding. Kenny didn’t need a watch to know how late he was. Instead of the early morning clatter and chatter that filled the air around the shacks, there was a heavy silence broken only by the sound of the rain in the trees.
“Shit.” Kenny rolled out of bed and dressed quickly, shirt unbuttoned, boots tightly laced. He took a long draw of water from the barrel outside the front door, the spillage from the dipper cold on his chest. He filled the dipper once more and splashed water on his face, gasping at the chill. He could see the other pickers in the trees already, almost like fruit themselves. Kenny ran across the meadow, the lazy rain the promise of a cold day in the trees. The bone-deep warmth of the August sun was now completely replaced by an early September chill. His head throbbed with every stride.
“You’re late.” The foreman stood leaning alongside an apple bin. Kenny would not have seen him had he not called out.
“Sorry, boss.” Kenny slowed his pace to a walk, stopping in front of the foreman.
“And you stink, too.” The foreman took a step away from Kenny. “Gonna have to dock your pay.”
The sickly sweet smell of last night’s cinnamon whisky rose from his skin, and he looked away. “Long night, boss, but you know I’m never late. One chance. Please. I need the money.”
“You gotta do the job to get paid. What is it with you people? You’re your own worst enemy.” The foreman turned to walk away, shaking his head. “There’re ten guys just like you lined up for that job. Get to work or get lost.”
Kenny watched him walk away into the orchard. The foreman’s fresh khakis felt, for some reason, like a further insult. He shook his head and wandered over to a row of trees with the fewest pickers. Yesterday’s ladders remained in place. He looked for an empty one in the least populated row. The closest picker was old Rosa, the Mexican mamacita of the camp. She was a small, quiet woman, deceptively strong. “Small mercies,” he muttered to himself, thankful for at least a couple hours of peace and quiet as he picked in the orchard. He grabbed his bucket and climbed to a good picking level.
“Hey, Kenny! Guess we’re picking together today.”
“Shit.” It was Wilfred. He’d been a newcomer on the orchard circuit, showing up in the pickers’ camp during the plum season, and stayed on right through peaches, pears and now, the last crop of the year, apples. Kenny kept his own company, but Wilfred was always friendly when their paths crossed. “Not today,” Kenny muttered to himself.
“Let’s kick the shit out of this row, Ken. Bet you we can get it done before lunch break. Double that by the end of the day. Maybe even get a bonus for extra bins.”
Kenny sighed, wishing only for a quiet morning to get over his hangover. Wilfred’s exuberance was like salt in the wound. But since Wilfred was not going anywhere, and with a shrunken pay packet fresh in his mind, Kenny relented. “All right, man, let’s do it.”
Silent for the most part, stopping only at the hottest part of the day to strip off a shirt or for a hastily downed drink of water, the two young men picked into the late afternoon, the occasional careless insult the only words between them.
Kenny felt better and better with the exertion, and easily kept up with Wilfred’s pace, even though Wilfred was a much taller and bigger man. It seemed like no time had passed when the end-of-day siren rang. The sun sat poised to slip behind the stalwart hills, set perfectly to protect Washington’s primary crop, the apples of the Wenatchee valley. Kenny and Wilfred walked to the foreman’s shack to collect their daily pay packet.
The whistle finally blew, and Wilfred fell into line behind Kenny, waiting their turn with the paymaster. Storm clouds gathered, the wind giving them force, readying themselves for a full-on downpour. The young men raised t
he collars of their jean jackets.
“Well, we should get a bonus. We filled two extra bins beyond the quota.” Wilfred rubbed his hands together. “You want to go for a beer with me? That was some thirsty work.”
“Hmmph.” Kenny kicked a casualty McIntosh missed by some picker’s hand. It split in three pieces, white flesh lush, juice spraying in its wake. “You might be getting a bonus. I might be just breaking even.”
“Late, huh?”
“Once. I ain’t never been late. Not once, till today. You think that greedy fucker would give me a break?”
Wilfred laughed. “What does he care about you? It’s all just money.”
“Yeah, I guess. Trying to save. Hard to do when the thirst is on ya.”
“What are you saving for? A car?”
“Naw. The bus is good enough for me. Or this.” Kenny stuck his thumb out in an exaggerated hitchhiker’s pose.
Wilfred laughed. “What, then?”
“Probably never happen, but one day I would like my own little place. Someplace no one can tell me what to do.”
“Yeah. No bells.”
“Bells?” Kenny looked closer at Wilfred.
Wilfred walked a little slower, as if to claim his time as his own. “Indian School. When I get sick of people telling me what to do, I think of those bells. Man, if you didn’t get where you were supposed to be when those bells rang, shit, there was hell to pay.”
Kenny stopped next to the truck where the day’s bins were being loaded. He looked at Wilfred as though seeing him for the first time. The seconds felt like hours as the familiarity of a long-ago face emerged.
“What school?” Kenny tried to sound casual, but Wilfred was now giving him a funny look too.
“Kenny? Are you that Kenny?”
“Arrowhead Bay?” Kenny knew it before Wilfred could answer.
“Kenny!” Wilfred charged his old friend, laughing and shoving playfully like in those old days at the Mission.
“Holy shit, Wilfred, man, it’s been years since I saw you. You sure bulked up. With all that long hair, no wonder I didn’t recognize you. You ain’t that little boy no more!”
“They told us you drowned.”
“Naw, I made it. All the way home.”
“We talked about you for years. At night, after Brother went to sleep. We imagined you free while we ran for those bells.”
“Yeah, well, we’re back in the same place again, aren’t we?” Kenny motioned toward the foreman, his khakis still spotless, blowing on a whistle and yelling for everyone to hurry up. “Come on. Better get this done or he’ll keep it himself.” Kenny nudged Wilfred. “I’ll join you for that beer, for sure.”
“Hey, you shorted me.” Kenny had already started to walk away, counting the bills in his pay envelope.
“Two basket penalty. You know the rules. You were late.” The foreman picked up an apple from his makeshift table, took a bite, wiped the juice from his chin and set it back down on the table, rifling again through the pay envelopes.
A rush of rage ran up Kenny’s spine like a monster, pressing against him for release. Kenny turned to face the foreman. “Yeah, but me and Wilfred, we picked two whole extra bins above quota. Where is the bonus for that?”
“You know the rules. No bonus unless you meet quota. After the penalty, you didn’t reach quota. No bonus.”
“What?” Kenny could feel the monster rising even closer to the surface.
“You heard me. You know the rules. If you don’t like it, move on. Lots of guys are happy to follow the rules.”
“Once.” The monster writhed. “I been working in this orchard for three seasons. I always pick more than the quota. Once. Just once I’m late, and you take from me like this?”
“Move on.” The foreman waved him aside. “The line is backing up.”
Kenny took a step closer to the foreman instead. The orchard seemed to disappear. All he could see was this impeccably dressed man standing next to his little table with the basket of pay packets. The rage buzzed in his ears, his focus now entirely on the apple—round, red, fresh. The voices around him were muted and distant. Another colour seemed to bleed into the apple and in a second Kenny was sure it had transformed into an orange, horribly familiar. The bright-blue label pasted on the wooden crate of oranges Brother always kept in his room filled his eyes as though he were there, here, now. The smell of Brother filled his nostrils, the foreman’s hand waving him off now Brother’s fat, pale hand, handing him an orange every time, counting on his hunger. And then, in a heartbeat, it was raining money, notes floating like feathers around him, and it was like he had been thrown back to earth, hard and fast, the foreman lying under him, his lip and nose pouring blood. The workers swirled around them, yelling and grabbing at the money that had taken flight after Kenny kicked the table sky-high. Someone was pulling on his shoulder. Wilfred.
“Kenny! For chrissakes, snap out of it.”
Kenny looked around him, almost as dazed as the semi-conscious foreman flat out under him. He looked at the bloodied face and his own fist and jumped up, surprised as anyone else to find himself assaulting the boss.
Kenny staggered back from the melee. Pickers were still scrambling for the bills that had flown and fallen from the air like snowflakes. Arguments were breaking out among them, one faction saying to return the money and let it be recounted, the other ready to run for it. Rosa walked quietly over to Kenny, took his lacerated fist in her hand and gently pulled his fingers open. She placed four crumpled ten-dollar bills she’d harvested from the money storm in his hand and looked up at him.
“Go. Now. He will call the police. Go.”
Her gentleness brought Kenny back to earth. He knew she was right. “Wilfred, I’m outta here. You coming?”
Rosa pulled a blue cotton handkerchief from her pocket and walked toward the foreman where he sat on the ground dazed, surveying the chaos. She reached to clean up his face, but he brushed her arm away and staggered to his feet. “Where is he? Someone hold him while I call the police. There’s fifty bucks in it for you.” Just then he seemed to realize what had happened to the payroll. “You all bring that money back!”
The crowd of workers dissipated, everyone fading into the orchard. Soon it was just the foreman wandering around the clearing, grasping at the few bills still left on the ground, Rosa walking behind him, handkerchief outstretched.
Kenny and Wilfred ran back to the pickers’ shacks and bundled up their few possessions. Kenny kicked the door open as he left, the legs of his extra pair of jeans hanging out of his sleeping bag. The door hung off its last remaining hinge, crying out a rusty complaint as the wind threatened to finish it. “Hurry up!” He looked over his shoulder as he ran, Wilfred trying to catch up.
“Head for the creek. We can hide there for a day or two.” Wilfred tried to tighten his bundle of blankets and clothes as they ran.
Red willows grew all along the banks of this nameless creek, a tributary of the mighty Wenatchee River. It was not unusual to find the deserted camps of the many itinerant workers who took refuge along her banks while moving through the picking season. During the down times, between hiring for the different crops, the pickers would just fish and snare for a few days, and laze alongside the easy-running creek, happy even for a few days with family, or a few days alone. When Kenny and Wilfred ran to her banks, the occasional leaf had already begun to turn and they felt the chill of fall in the evening. They found a good spot, a camp that looked long abandoned. Someone had taken the time to dig a bit of a firepit and surround it with stones from the creek rather than just making fire on flat ground. The fugitives threw their belongings down and dropped onto their respective piles of blankets and clothes, breathless and wary.
“Man, you went nuts!” Wilfred shook his head, laughing.
“Well, fuck him. Geez, a guy should get paid what he’s owed. This’s why I want a place away from people. No bullshit.” Kenny shook his head. “Now what the hell am I gonna do? No pay and
no doubt he’s blacklisted me. I won’t get any more work this year, around here anyway.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about the pay part of it.” Wilfred started emptying his pockets. He pulled a big wad of crumpled bills from his jeans pocket and then reached for his jacket pockets.
Kenny did a double take and laughed. “What the hell, man!”
“It was raining money. Thought I best get our share.” Smiling, Wilfred handed a couple of wads to Kenny. “Come on, let’s count it.”
They counted, making neat piles of the ones and fives, tens and twenties. Kenny pulled out the forty Rosa had given him and added it to the pile.
“Remind you of anything?” Kenny nudged Wilfred with his elbow and smiled.
Wilfred looked up and burst out laughing. “Yeah, the raids. Man, we sure made out. The staff leftovers. They had such good food. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.”
Kenny nodded. “Yep. Between the raids and the fiddleheads in the bush, we survived. Okay, I got two hundred and twenty-seven dollars in this pile.”
Wilfred laid down the last of his bills. “One hundred and ninety-three. We’re rich!”
Kenny massaged his scraped knuckles. “Well, we got enough to lay low for a couple of days while we figure out what to do.” He handed his pile of bills to Wilfred, who quietly counted and divided the total in two, handing Kenny half.
Wilfred stood and stretched. “I’m going to walk into town and get some food and a few supplies. See if I can steal some ass-wipe from the café.” They both laughed. “They won’t be looking for me. I’ll see ya in a couple of hours.”
“Sounds good.” Kenny took his boots off and stretched out on his sleeping bag, arms crossed behind his head. He closed his eyes as Wilfred headed for town.
He slept longer than planned, the sun already behind the horizon when the knock and shuffle of Wilfred making a fire woke him. Kenny had dreamed of her again, as he often had in the years since he’d left the Mission: Lucy and her almost smile, passing him a note and then she was gone.
Five Little Indians Page 8