Shane presses a button that says: Click Here to Register for Campus Housing, and then enters in a series of numbers and letters when the site asks him for his student ID. A message pops up: Our system indicates that you have not yet paid your enrollment confirmation deposit. Please pay this amount in order to register for student housing. Shane looks back at the photo of smiling students from his email. You seem poor! Do they let poor kids go here? Shane closes the laptop and shoves it to the other side of the table.
chapter fourteen
I made the mistake of telling Ashley that Shane and I had sex for the first time. I thought she would laugh, but she got really quiet and then ripped into me because she said I had been lying to her this whole time. Which I guess I was. I never thought of it as lying, but she was really hurt. She said that the only reason she had sex with Kyle was because Shane and I looked so happy. She thought having sex would make them happy too. I wanted to laugh at that one, but I knew better. Ashley seems tough and she makes fun of me so much that it was hard to take her feelings seriously. I never thought she liked me enough that I would be able to hurt her, you know?
It seemed like she started to feel better when I told her Shane has ignored me since we had sex. That’s the way it goes, she said. I wish I had nodded my head and left it at that, but I had to go and read her the poem that I wrote about having sex the first time. She snatched the notebook out of my hands and ran around my room yelling out, Swallow me up! I want to be perfect! It made me want to die. When you’re a kid people tell you that if you go out in the world and show people who you really are, nothing can touch you. I call bullshit on that. If I had a kid I would tell her that most everyone in this world wants something from you. I would tell her to lock up everything that is good and real and only offer it to the ones who earn it. I would teach her to be impenetrable. A mountain of a woman with a heart of lava.
If You Were My Baby …
If you were my baby and I were your mother
I would rub you with sandpaper
Till you hardened to rock.
If you were my baby and I were your mother
I’d feed you fresh chilies
Until you breathed flames.
If you were my baby and I were your mother
I would hide you from men
Even your father.
If you were my baby and I were your mother
I would feed you whole cities
Until none were left.
If you were my baby and I were your mother
I would never be happy
And neither would you.
chapter fifteen
Shane feels the big drum vibrating even before his ears pick out the sound in the distance. As he gets closer, the pounding rhythm and the melody rise out of the shrieks of birds and the lapping of the lake. Tara is already at the community center, watching the men’s drum group practice. She stubs out her cigarette when Shane arrives.
“You don’t have to do that. I know you smoke.”
Tara shrugs. “I know.”
Shane knows he should say more—he should apologize for being out of touch and ask her how she is—but David is sitting so close, drumming with the circle of men, and he can’t stop looking at him.
Tara feels for Shane’s hand. “When do you want to talk about Toronto?”
“Anytime, I guess.” Talking to Tara while watching David is like having to sit in class in the middle of June when all he wants to do is run out into the sun.
David’s eyes drift over Shane without a flicker of recognition. Any hope Shane has for an easy reunion with David blows away like smoke.
“I think we should get an apartment way up high,” Tara says, “so we can see the whole city.” She slides her hand into his back pocket.
Shane nods, barely listening, his heart beating in time with the drum, willing David to look at him again, to give Shane a sign that he’ll forgive him.
“I’ll probably have to get a job down there too. Maybe waitressing or something?”
“Yeah, that’d be good. You’re pretty good with people.”
The drum keeps on. Shane’s niinag thickens, twitching to life with the drum. Some songs are like a heartbeat that fills up the dark, empty places inside you with light, but today this song feels like … sex. He hopes it’s not disrespectful for a powwow song to get him going like this. Shane shifts his weight to the other foot, using the opportunity to tuck himself into the waistband of his jeans.
David’s eyes connect with Shane’s and that’s it. He’s a goner. It’s one of the biggest mysteries of life that they can look at each other with a bunch of people around and no one sees or senses the fire between them. It feels like everyone for miles around should be blinded. Like the heat coming off the two of them should singe their hair and melt their faces. That’s not normal, right? Most couples don’t feel like that. I have to get him back. This is too good to walk away from without a fight.
The drummers come to the end of their song, but the inside of Shane’s body is still shaking. David glances over his shoulder at Shane before helping the drummers carry the chairs and the drum inside. Was his look supposed to say, “Follow me” or “Fuck off”?
“Holaaaaah! Where the party at?” Kyle and Ashley walk up the road toward Shane and Tara.
Shane glances to the door of the center, where David has disappeared with the other drummers. The drum is still beating in his blood. “I’ll see you guys in a bit, okay?” Shane gives Tara a peck on the cheek and jogs lazily toward the community center.
“See you at the circle?” Tara calls out.
*
Shane’s shoes squeak on the freshly waxed floor of the community center. The halls are lit with the same tired fluorescents that flicker in the school. David stands alone in front of the door to the boiler room. Shane slows his walk, scanning David to predict what’s likely to happen next. David opens the door to the boiler room and slips inside. Is this “Come in here so I can give you shit in private” or … ?
The room is lit by the glowing red exit sign above the door. David is at the other end of the room, a fuzzy shape standing in the shadows. Shane locks the door but he doesn’t move. Usually David would have said something by now. Shane takes a step deeper inside the room. The outline of David’s body becomes clear, like in the moments after a Drift when the melting mass of shapes and colors crystallize back into the real world: His house with its scent of wet wood and onion skins. His bed with the scratchy blankets and maps of all the places he wants to go. And here in front of him, David, who he loves beyond the point of fear. David, who carries him to a place that is more alive and humbling and dangerous than anything he has ever known.
Shane takes another step forward and reaches out for David. His heartbeat throbs under his cotton T-shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” Shane says.
“Shhh. I know.” Voices echo from the hallway. “You sure the door’s locked?” David asks.
Shane nods and leans in to kiss David. David opens his mouth and pulls Shane deeper. His mouth is full of slippery heat, sharp teeth, and a sweet-sour taste that he can never get enough of. Shane grabs a fistful of David’s hair and pushes him against the wall. They pull at each other’s clothes until they’re bare. Shane circles his arms around David’s chest, savoring the feel of skin on skin, of their eager niinagan pressed together. Shane closes his eyes and lets go. This is the only thing better than a Drift. It’s the same weightlessness, the same feeling of being completely unmoored, but instead of floating disconnected above his body, he is free inside it. Energy explodes within him, electrifying his lips, his skin, his tongue, fusing his whole body and spirit together the way they were meant to be.
Afterward, their tangled bodies cool on the grit of the concrete floor. Shane takes a slow inventory of his body, recognizing each part as separate from David’s. My arm. David’s
shoulder. My back. David’s hand. My scalp. David’s wrist. My stomach. David’s chest. My toes. David’s hips …
David points at a footprint on the ceiling. “How do you think that got there?”
“Prolly some kind of crazy sex moves.” Shane starts to laugh, but stops when he hears it ricochet back at him from the ceiling.
David strokes Shane’s chest. “So are you gonna tell me what’s going on with school?”
Shane shrugs. “I might be kinda screwed. I don’t know—Roberta told me I’m not even registered on this rez.” David waits for more. “Hopefully I’ll figure something out. There’s got to be options.”
“And if you can’t figure it out, you stay here?”
“You wish.” Shane smiles.
“I do.”
Shane doesn’t want to have this talk. He grabs his phone out of his jeans. It’s two o’clock. “Shit. We’ve got to go. The circle is starting.”
*
Shane looks through the glass panel in the door. Fifteen or so teenagers are scattered around a circle of blue folding chairs while Roberta moves from person to person with the smudge bowl. Shane glances behind him. The hallway is empty, no sign of David. He’s probably still in the bathroom trying to rinse the imaginary smell of sex off his skin. Shane slips inside and scans the circle until he finds a seat next to Tara.
Tara whispers, “I saved it for you,” and smiles.
Roberta fans the smudge. Thick smoke curls around Lyndahl’s head. He’s one of Ashley’s cousins, but he mostly hangs out with the gamers. Lyndahl says, “Miigwech,” and steps away. Ashley is next. She can barely be bothered to go through the motions, which is pretty standard for her. As though waving her floppy wrists through the smoke is doing the rest of us a huge favor. When she’s done, Ashley steps away and says, “Miigwech,” under her breath, like she’s throwing something embarrassing in the garbage.
When it’s Shane’s turn, he closes his eyes and breathes deeply, filling his lungs with the spicy medicine. It’s like clear skies, happy tears, wet leaves, and fresh kindling. If goodness had a smell this would be it. Shane waves the smoke around his feet and legs: so that I will walk in a good way. He presses it to his eyes: so that I will see in a good way, and to his mouth: so that I will speak good words. He washes his hands in the smoke: to help me do good work, and brushes it over his arms: so that I will love and support the people around me.
Shane opens his eyes. “Miigwech,” he says, and steps back to his place in the circle. David opens the squeaky door and grabs the closest seat. Roberta smiles at him and offers the smudge. Shane looks around the room to keep from making eye contact with David. Roberta has posted new inspirational messages and help-line numbers from the Aboriginal Suicide Prevention Strategy since the last time Shane was in here. Too little, too late, he thinks.
David sits back down on the other side of the circle. Tara fingers the zipper on her green hoodie. Kyle and Ashley hold hands a few seats away. Shane has a lifetime of memories with all the kids assembled around the circle. They might not all be friends or even like one another much, but it would be hard to find people who know one another better. They’ve pulled one another’s hair and slept in one another’s beds. They’ve gone ice fishing, played video games, and built forts in the bush. They’ve been bored in church and sweated out their pain in ceremony. They’ve seen puberty stretch out gangly bodies, and in a time before shyness they compared their first pubic hairs. Some of their moms were even pregnant together. How many times has he sat in circles like this? It’s a comfort and a cage.
“No one? Nobody has anything to say?” asks Roberta.
Shane snaps to attention. He hasn’t been listening. Roberta’s eyes scan over the faces around the circle. Most of the kids are looking at their shoes or their hands.
Roberta raises a beaded feather in her hand. “This is our last circle for Destiny, but we can end early if none of you want to talk.”
Shane and the others glance around the circle. No one wants to be the first to talk.
“And then what?” Shane asks.
Roberta leans forward and holds the feather out for Shane to take. The feather shivers in the air, just out of his reach. But he doesn’t have anything to say. Nothing that would make anyone feel better. Nothing that wouldn’t make everyone realize it was his fault, and definitely nothing that would bring Destiny back. Shane shakes his head and leans back in his chair.
“You sure? You haven’t had much to say during our circles.”
Shane tries to give her a look of encouragement, something that will show her he’s doing okay, but the best he can manage is a dead-eyed stare.
Roberta waits for a moment, then looks around the room. This is her weakness. If a kid says they want to do something, chances are Roberta and the others will be 100 percent behind them. But in times like this, when the fully broken reality of life is standing up in the middle of the room and making them feel like maybe the best they can hope for is to live a life just like that of their parents, that’s when Roberta and the others start to crack. It’s like watching the thick ice on the lake bust up in spring, except with Roberta there’s nothing underneath. No life-giving lake, just terror and good intentions. It makes some kids think that maybe it’s not worth trying at all. It makes them think that maybe the game is rigged and the only way to win is by giving up. It makes some kids believe in the deepest parts of themselves that suicide is the loudest and strongest statement they can make. The only one anyone will hear.
Roberta looks at Shane, pleading with him. The only difference between the adults and the kids is that the adults have been around longer so they’ve survived more loss. Which is something. But it’s not enough.
“What’s the point of this?” Kyle asks, addressing the tiles between his feet. Shane stiffens. Kyle is the last person he needs to hear right now. Roberta passes the feather to Kyle. Kyle hesitates for a moment, then takes it. “My cousin Jared killed himself last year. People kill themselves all the time. Nobody cares till they’re dead.” It’s true. Jared died just over a year ago, and here they are again. Kyle turned into a more or less decent person for six months after, but it didn’t last.
Roberta nods her head gravely. “Mmm. Sometimes it’s hard to know when people care. But let’s try to stay away from blame. We’re all here for each other.”
Kyle pushes on. “But, like, why are we here now? Why didn’t we have a circle for Destiny or Jared when they were still alive?”
Shane glowers at Kyle, willing him to shut up.
“Somebody had to know, right?” Kyle looks at Shane. “Normal sixteen-year-old girls don’t just—”
“Shut up, Kyle!” David says. Roberta puts out a hand, warning David against speaking when he doesn’t have the feather.
“But Shane’s right here!”
Roberta holds out her hands again. “David, Kyle is speaking now. You may not like what he has to say, but it’s his turn to talk.”
Kyle tilts back in his chair and glances over at Shane. By this point Shane’s whole body is sweating with the effort to stay in his seat. Blood rushes in his ears. The voices sound far away.
Kyle continues. “Yeah, well, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted … if Destiny was my little sister she would never have—”
Shane’s foot hooks the leg of Kyle’s chair and yanks it out from under him. Kyle cracks the back of his head against the linoleum. Shane jumps out of his chair and throws his fist at Kyle, stopping just millimeters away from his face. Shane holds his fist in place, vibrating on the edge of attack.
*
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack …
The sound of Shane’s feet digging into the gravel is like the blade of a boat’s motor, churning up the ground and blasting his way past the houses and shacks he’s seen every day for so long that even when he closes hi
s eyes to dream they’re still there, burned in like a brand. Tara’s cousin Harold moved to the city and got a brand on his arm that said: NDN PWR. It was red, angry, perfect. What would it be like to choose the pain that marks you? Some people say that before you’re born, when you’re still in the sky world, you pick the family you want to grow up with, the community you want to live in, and the things that will happen in your life. Shane liked that idea until he caught his fifth-grade teacher touching Annalise down by the water after school one day. Annalise never said a word to Shane and he never asked, even though he knew he should have. The teacher nearly fell apart trying to get Shane to stay quiet. But as much as the teacher hated himself, he must have hated Annalise more. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Maybe he saw her as nothing more than a stick of kindling to be burned. But if he had grown up here, he would know that even a stick of firewood is filled with a spirit that can’t be burned away.
So the next time Roberta or some other wet-eyed and well-intentioned person told Shane that everyone gets to choose the things that will happen in their lives while they're in the sky world, he remembered Annalise and the teacher and thought: Who in the fuck would choose any of this?
*
Shane isn’t running anymore, but his lungs are on fire and his head feels like it might float away. He looks around to get his bearings. Blue corrugated aluminum siding. An ad for Sago tobacco. Gas pumps. The Dumpster. The store. Okay. He’s outside the store. Now why am I here?
Shane takes a step into the back lot. In spite of his work the other day, it’s still a mess. His mom always says that things look worse before they start looking better. The problem is, you never know where the turning point is going to be. Is this the part when it gets better, or is it still going to get worse? When Shane left he thought he had made good headway, but the yard is definitely in the “looking worse” phase. Shane pulls on a pair of baggy work gloves and yanks at a ribbon of tough black plastic that the ground behind the store has been working at reclaiming. He leans back, using his weight to pull against it. The plastic comes out of the ground in jerks and pops, flipping up clods of dirt.
Fire Song Page 9