The School on Heart's Content Road

by Carolyn Chute

  Okay, so here is Mickey’s tree house right where they said it would be. Looks like a fort. Nobody here because, like I say, Mickey is working on the radio studio. Sometimes he goes with guys and girls (the big women-girls) to bring meat or furniture or wood and they get money or trade. They take trucks when they go. Mickey is so grown up.

  A very cute ladder. Mickey probably made it himself. He is so good at stuff. Everybody says. Mickey. Mickey. Mickey.

  It is very scary sneaking up here, but here I am. I don’t have my secret glasses, which was a mistake. But I remembered to bring the letter, which is full of all my love.

  Smells cigarettish here. Sleeping bag and blanket and pillow all have got that smell. Two paper bags with some shirts, some socks. All Mickey’s.

  God. I am going to die touching his stuff; it is really his stuff. And all his magazines in a pile. And a Bible. So much boring word stuff, all Mickey’s. Mickey’s very own. A cute window with real glass but very small and cute.

  Now here is a long thing of cigarette packages, three packages missing. Yes, these are HIS cigarettes. What’s this? Under this shirt which is a maroon nice one . . . it’s a gun.

  Out comes my hand fast. Jeepers. I actually did touch it a little second.

  In this other bag is YESSSSS potato chips and YESSSSS cheese curls! And candy. The store kind! And yes, really a Coke. Boxes of Little Debbie pastries. Mickey gets to have this stuff? He is so lucky!!!

  I eat just one thing. Fast.

  And then, a noise.

  What’s that? It’s feet on the way here. I’m trapped! Really trapped! Omigod. Yes, it is feet and crunching leaves underneath. The feet are getting on the ladder.

  I hold my head together, squeeze my fingers on my face. A head comes inside the door thing. It’s HIM. I open my fingers and see HE is looking at me with his gorgeous eyes, and how can I tell if he’s mad with a face that never shows expression, which is the face he’s got. He crawls over to the middle and he says, “They are looking for you,” and he doesn’t look at me when he says it and his voice is so soft and sexy I am going to die before I breathe.

  “I’m not going to pick up any more trash with them,” I say, in a sexy way. “I’ve done it already for two days.”

  He is breathing in a way of having walked a lot in a fast way. He looks at me quick and then looks away. He looks down at his stuff.

  “I didn’t touch anything,” I say, pretty quick. But there’s the Little Debbie wrapper on top of the bag. “Well, I’ll pay you back. I was starved.”

  “That’s okay,” he says. He looks at me again, but quick. Now he looks back at his stuff some more, kind of at one spot. Then he looks at his hands.

  I have breathed only three times since he came in. His eyes are so gorgeous. He is a gorgeous person. I can’t believe this is happening to me. It is even more powerful at this moment than when we were in the sole car, for some reason. It is good to be sexy right now and get him to have me in his heart and stuff, but I can hardly move, hardly breathe. My neck is hard. I swallow and it makes my neck squeak. I am so embarrassed!

  He looks really only at his stuff and his hands, and once at my foot, and then he says, “Gordon’s dying.”

  I laugh. “Not really,” I say. He can see I’m not stupid. I laugh again.

  He blinks a few times, like five times, then looks at his hands. Wiggles his fingers.

  I laugh again.

  He looks at me kind of meanish. “It’s not funny,” he says, meanish.

  I do just one small laugh and wiggle my foot. He looks at my foot. I wiggle the other foot. He says, “They took him down to Portland ’cause they can do brains. He might need to have a brain operation.”

  “Brains?”

  He pulls his sleeping bag out to the middle and makes himself a seat. He looks over at his stuff. “You been in those bags?”

  I say, “No.” Then my hard neck swallows again. “Just a little, maybe.”

  “What did you look at?”

  I smile as sexy as I can. “Your pretty gun.”

  He says, real quiet, “You know anything about guns?” He looks right at me and his eyes are beautiful ice and I am so paralyzed and a little scared that I might have did something.

  I shrug and my face has a stupid expression of a mental retard.

  He says, “Well, if you don’t know about ’em, don’t touch ’em. They could be loaded.”

  I look at the bag, then back at him, and he says, with a little twiggle of a smile, “That one ain’t loaded.”

  Then I do the next stupid thing. I make a big sigh, but it makes my lips vibrate like a small fart. Oh, gawd, I am ruining this. “I love guns,” I say.

  He looks at me hard, then feels his pockets and gets out his cigarettes. He puts one in his mouth and then he wants a match but can’t find one. He gets up on his feet but squattish and then he feels around in his bags and in a little box but no matches.

  I say, “I’m freezing. Don’t you have a heater?”

  “Nope.”

  I says, “It’s nice up here. Pretty and nature-ish.”

  He looks at me. His cigarette is in his mouth, hanging down but not lit. He looks in a couple more places but no matches in those places.

  I say, “I like your sister, Erika. She wants me to do her hair.”

  “Sister-in- law,” he says. He picks his cigarette out of his mouth.

  “She told me about your little brother.”

  “Nephew.”

  “Oh. And who was the man? The one that just died by making exhaust in himself.”

  He looks at me. “My brother.”

  “That’s awful. Is he ashes now? She said he was ashes.”

  He looks at me and nods. And says, “Something’s weird. Everybody’s dying. Or going to jail.”

  “My mum’s in jail.”

  He nods. He hangs his head in a beautiful way. “Everybody’s in jail.” He looks up and he has eyes of tears. He goes looking around all through his bags some more. He goes faster and faster through the bags. He says shit a couple of times.

  I say, “If we eat here, we won’t have to eat with them.”

  He says, “They’re having a bird. They think you’re gone or something. Gone to the troublemaking schoolteachers’ house . . . or fell in a well. You oughta go down there and make ’em feel better.”

  “If I had a nice tree house like this, I’d live in it,” I say, with a nice smile.

  “Well, you can have this one. I’m moving in with Evan and them in a couple days.” He sits down, then scoots backward on his bum till he’s sitting back on the sleeping bag.

  “Oh, but this is so pretty.”

  “Yuh. Pretty. It’s all yours.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  He hugs his head now so his face doesn’t show. His pretty hair, the little ponytail, sticks up so cute between his fingers. It is the cutest hair. And pretty. Yellow and brown streaks, like Mum’s. In the movies there would be beautiful love music playing every time they show him. Now he holds his head forever.

  I say, “Tired?”

  He doesn’t move, except to squeeze down on his head harder.

  “Is this ’cause your matches are lost somewheres?”

  He doesn’t answer me.

  I say, “I’ll go get you some matches, okay?”

  He looks. His face is squeezed and red which makes his eyes look wicked pale, like white eyes. “There’s some here somewhere. I’ll look again in a minute.” He stretches his legs out in front of him.

  “Mind if I stay awhile?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t care.” He points his thumb at the wall. “But first go tell them you’re okay.”

  “No way. They just want me to be their slave. It’s going to take a hundred years to get all that trash up.”

  “Nobody’s picking up trash. They’re all meeting in the kitchens. Everybody. Even them that went to Madison on that science thing. They’re coming back ’cause of Gordon being in the fight. Some’s at the
hospital with him. He’ll probably die, or turn out brain-damaged.”

  “Don’t keep saying that. You think I’m stupid.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  I get nice and comfortable. I can breathe pretty good now. I’m getting used to being with the world’s most cutest boy. “I can sing. Want me to sing?”

  He makes his eyes roll funny.

  “I can tell stories good. Want to hear?”

  He looks over toward his stuff. “Can you read?”

  “Yes. It’s easy.”

  He crawls over to his bags like a cat or dog walking and he shows me a magazine which has big pictures of guns. He finds a page—with a gun, of course—and he says, “What’s this say?”

  I read all of it easy. It’s like school, the real kind.

  He pulls the magazine away and looks at the page a minute, thinking and feeling his lip. Then he sticks his cigarette in his lips again and goes over to the pile again on his arms and legs and it’s that Bible this time. “Some words are hard,” he says, with his cigarette in the middle of his mouth. “Especially in this.” He gets on his knees beside me. There’s a bookmark made of cloth with a real tassel. He fixes the Bible open on the floor by my leg and one of his hands bumps my arm and my veins turn to blue lightning inside my arm and this is the biggest fattest moment of all time. He says, “What’s that word?”

  I look close at the word, which begins with R. “Well . . .”

  “You think it’s Revelation?”

  “Yuh, probably. It looks like probably it is Relations.”

  “Rev-el-a-tion. It’s got a V, see?”

  He smells funny, like a million cigarettes. And butter or something. He has a scary smell. My heart is going to kill me with fast beats. After the R word, I read a few easy words. But most of these words are very strange, too long or too short. I skip over those. I do just the easy ones. I sneak a look at him and he’s holding his head again but with just one hand, and he is kind of rocking just a little, and I can see his face, his eyes staring at the floor ’cause he’s listening really good or else thinking about something and he looks sorta sad. I pick the book up and hold it in my lap so I can see better. The words get harder. One begins with a Z and there’s another R one and weirdness.

  I shut the book nice and soft and polite-ish. And I say, “I’ll just tell some Bible stuff, okay? Once a lady had a donkey and a baby and Joseph. And other animals. Baby was named Jesus. He was the same one who got big later and did all those things, the tree branches and stuff. Anyways, the donkey—I don’t know the donkey’s name . . . probably Skip—he was always carrying somebody who was too huge. Jesus was a very nice baby. Never cried. Never messed hisself. Everybody in those days wore funny head things. Jesus was very nice to everybody and never did anything stupid and he was completely gorgeous, probably Jewish—but somehow it happened that the bad people who were like cops an’ stuff did this thing with nails.”

  I hate this story so I switch it and Mickey hardly notices. “The only reason Alix wanted summer camp was to ride Kukkaberra, but she falls off. She always loves horses, but they are so big and—whoosh—throw some people off them on the road and step on them. And Alix—” I hear a scratchish sound and then smoke all around. Mickey is still staring down but how did his cigarette get lit? Somehow he had a match. Smoke shoots out of his teeth and his nose.

  I tell him all about how a nice man helps Alix get interested in horses again and she wins a horse show and wears a little hat.

  When his cigarette is short, he asks, “Want some chips?”

  Of course.

  So we eat chips. TOGETHER. Like we are married. And he takes the Coke bottle and gives the cover a twist and it poofs and he says, “You first.” And we take turns. Yes, my lips then his lips then my lips then his lips.

  “I’m cold,” I tell him. I really am. All bumps.

  He pulls a shirt from the bag, the maroon one. Takes the gun out first, puts it in something else. “You can borrow this, but I need it back.”

  I really wear HIS shirt. It’s right on my skin. It is so soft and cozy. And has the scary smell.

  He says, “I’ll walk you back if you want.”

  I scrinch up my face. “Why don’t I stay here with you until you move.”

  “I don’t think so,” he says. “They want you back down there.” He picks at his socks and looks at me a couple times.

  I say, “I’ve been to Bev and Barbara’s house. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “I went in their bedroom. They have got just one bed.”

  “So?”

  I say, “Some people like one bed.”

  “Bev and Barbara are lesbians.”

  “That’s the sex thing, isn’t it?”

  He makes a face like a little smile is about to happen, then looks away. He gets out another cigarette.

  “You don’t have a real bed here,” I point out.

  He laughs. He thinks this is so funny. I can actually see his teeth, even though his laugh isn’t very loudish.

  I say, “You’re poor, aren’t you?”

  He looks at me, right at me. “You are too.”

  “I am not.”

  He laughs again, teeth and everything. He lights his cigarette. Big smoke pours out of his face.

  I ask, “What else is there to do here?”

  He says, “I told them if I found you, I’d bring you back.”

  I laugh. “I’m not going back.”

  He smokes a minute. Very quiet.

  I say, “I brought you a letter from somebody. It’s in my pocket, ha-ha.”

  “Who?”

  “A very nice girl. But it’s a stupid letter. Maybe I’ll get you a better letter next time.”

  He snorts funny. “The very nice girl is you, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  He smokes and smokes, slow and sexy. The smoke is as pretty as snow-ish air but you gotta love the stink. Phew! He smokes a lot of this smoke around and then I think he looks very nervous. “Come on.” He says this pleadishly. “I promised them. They are pretty upset down there. You’ve got to go back. Play runaway some other time. When things are better.”

  I laugh.

  He gets up on his knees.

  I cross my arms to show who’s boss. But I’m smiling. “I’m staying here.”

  He starts walking toward me funnyish on his knees.

  I get ahold of one of the wood tree things that goes up the wall. “You can’t make me.” I laugh very sexy-ish.

  His cigarette hops around in his mouth and his eyes are sqwinched in the smoke. He pulls my fingers off the wood. He gets my arm and pulls and I laugh and grab things and things fall over and his magazines slide around and he tries to get me out the door that’s made in the floor and down the ladder and we almost fall and the big Coke bottle falls out the door hole and bounces on the ground.

  He doesn’t yell. He’s very quiet but for grunt noises, pushing me and squeezing my arm. He is very strong. Like Gordie. I try to pull away but I can’t. He has a wicked grip. I laugh, laugh, laugh. We go along the path and his cigarette has got bent and fire and ashes keep going all over his neck and arm. I fall against him and make my hair push in his face against the cigarette. “Ow, ow! Help!” I squeal, in a very sexy way.

  He says, “You’ve got to go back. It ain’t me, it’s them. They want you.”

  “Tough!” I giggle and make myself heavy like I’m asleep. But he is so strong, he just drags me. I can’t believe this.

  He says, with little gasps, “They are trying to figure out what to do about Gordon. Everyone is scared and bawling. Help them out a little. Don’t be a brat. Gordon might be already dead.”

  I laugh.

  “It’s not funny,” he says.

  “It izzzzzz. Yooooo are funny.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “It izzzzz.”

  “It’s not.”

  “You are funny. And cute.” I laugh like a crazy witch.

  He s
queezes my arm a little harder and I walk all wobblish. And I fall against him some more and he is like the strongest person I ever felt and it is the best day of my life.

  On the doorstep of Marian St. Onge’s home in Wiscasset.

  They look like two soldiers with chins high, machine-like eyes. Even Aurel Soucier’s eyes, that dark fierce gutsy gleam all gone.

  The cedar shrubberies on either side of the brick steps seem unusually green. The late-day sun gives their old pickup truck parked in the driveway a white-hot look, although the truck is tan. Leaves spiral down from the tall maples. Marian’s voice takes on a soft edge of fear. Something is wrong. She looks into the dark Passamaquoddy eyes of the other, the tall boy, her grandson. “Cory?”

  Neither visitor looks too ready to speak. They both just swallow. Aurel takes off his olive-drab bush hat.

  Gordon St. Onge’s long dream.

  He dreams that he sees a head, hovering in the stuffy air. No body. No neck, even. It is just a floating, bulging, burning head. The mouth suddenly opens, a hole in the fire. There is a stink from the mouth. And inside the mouth is black and endless.

  Evening. Bonny Loo St. Onge.

  There are no chairs in intensive care. When you are visiting your loved one, you just stand there. And there is no privacy. There is a nurses’ station across the room. The beds of the broken people are positioned in a crescent with their accompanying dripping bottles and monitor screens. The little hopping zigzagging spot of light on the screen that is Gordon’s great big heart looks so cheerful, it could almost make you smile. His heart. Nothing is wrong with that heart, they say. It’s the brain they are watching, the swollen brain inside that mostly shaved head, the brain behind the face, the face a thing that looks like a ripe, purply-black, tight, eyeless, mouthless rubber bag. Yeh, that’s his face.

  On the sheet, one to each side, his hands. One bandaged, one good. The one that is good is closer to where I stand. His thick fingers and short nails are as familiar as his voice would be if it spoke, but there is no voice.

  Standing on the other side of the bed across from me is Bree, in her usual old jeans and work shirt, tall, tightly laced work boots. She was working with her brothers at noontime today when Rick Crosman went to tell her the news. I was with my mother at her house.