Wabanaki Blues

by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel

  Near the end of the song, the cool scent of musky honey breezes my way. Del grabs my hand, solidly, like it’s an axe handle. “I believe it’s my turn to cut in.”

  “Whatever you say, fan boy.” Beetle ignores Del, flipping his bangs coolly, and strutting off.

  I lean in and latch on. Del strokes my arm. Every nerve ending comes alive.

  “I can’t believe I’m dancing with the woman who told the Hartford police my dad killed my mom,” he says. “I think you should be more suspect of the people attending this event. I’ll bet Mom’s killer lurks somewhere in this very gym.”

  I survey the alums in their thirties who knew Mia. “I see Paul Simon, Lionel Ritchie, The Pointer Sisters, Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Billy Ocean, Olivia Newton-John, and the Carpenters. None of them strike me as very lethal.”

  Del pulls my ear to his lips. “I admit I’m obsessing over my mom’s case. But so are you. I can see it in those beautiful maple eyes.”

  “Yes, I am,” I reply, wanting to hear more about my eyes. No one has ever complimented them before. But maple? Like my grandmother’s name? I’d laugh at how unappealing that sounds if it didn’t make my heart so full it feels it’s about to explode.

  Del clearly mistakes my self-conscious silence for disapproval. “I’m sorry I brought up the case,” he says. “I’m not here to discuss that. I’m here because it’s my twentieth birthday, and all I want is to be with you. Sorry I missed your eighteenth. My father got wind of it from your mom. But she said your boyfriend was celebrating it with you. He points to Beetle. “You don’t belong with that guy.”

  Beetle is playing with the golden streaks in Rasima’s raven hair and staring at her cone bra.

  Del’s eyes follow mine, my eyes that appear special to him, my eyes that remind him of maple, instead of mudwood.

  “Let’s go somewhere private and talk,” he says.

  I follow his scent of musky honey down the chessboard of the main hallway and into an empty science lab. You’d think the bumblebees would be buzzing about my mystery man and me. But no one even snaps our picture as we pass. They’re all watching Rasima and Beetle, the rightful king and queen of Colt High. Del and I move through the crowd like ghosts.

  He hoists me onto a lab table. It’s just like the time he lifted me onto the stool at band practice. I feel the same fiery tingling; nothing has changed.

  “How did you know I was here?” I sit tight beside him.

  He wraps his arm around my waist. “I told you, our parents talk. That’s what friends are supposed to do.”

  It occurs to me he may be sweet-talking me to get me off investigating his dad.

  Del lifts my chin, reading my mind. “Mona, I’m not here for my dad. I had to see you. We need to straighten things out between us, even though I know we both have complications.”

  Complications. That hurtful word can only mean one thing. My heart takes an unexpected plunge. He’s seeing someone else, and I think I know who. The jealousy I feel is a hundred times worse than how I feel about whatever’s going on between Rasima and Beetle. What I feel with Del is magic, not the phony kind created by rock posters, cheesy eighties’ costumes, and mood lighting. Del slides me onto his lap. I put my arms around his neck and melt into him, offering my lips, my arms, all of me. We blend together, like rhythm and blues.

  “I guess this means I shouldn’t give up on you,” he says, coming up for air. “I knew you were thinking about me when I heard you growl at the end of Great Bear Blues. I saw you perform it on YouTube. Pretty sexy. I wonder where you got the idea to growl?”

  I flush. “I credited the Blond Bear with that on the album.”

  “No worries. You can growl for me anytime.” He caresses my horrible hair as if it’s made of spun gold. We kiss hard and my head spins. I’m thinking I want to be somewhere more private, when the door to the lab bursts open. I’m terrified it’s Beetle. But it’s worse than that; it’s Worthy Dill.

  I hide my face in Del’s shirt but notice my top hat sits in plain sight.

  “Excuse me. My apologies for intruding.” Mr. Dill says. “I’m looking for my wife. The last time I saw her she was chatting with Millicent Dibble. Have you seen either of them?”

  Neither of us say a word. He gets the hint and leaves.

  “Let’s go, Del,” I say.

  Guilt washes over me as we slip out the back door. I ask him if we can drive his Saab the two blocks to my apartment. I can’t stand the thought of getting caught twice.

  He pulls in front of my parents’ building and smiles, like I’m all that matters. “I love you, Mona Lisa.” His words flow out and into one another. “I’m tired of living without you. I want us to be together, forever.”

  A minute ago he was talking about his complications. Now he’s talking about staying together forever. I’m wearing Beetle’s locket with his promise of forever. I think of my parents’ shaky promise of forever and how much better off they’d be if they’d forgone that promise.

  “I love you, Mona Lisa.” Del repeats, more urgently.

  I run my hand through his black spiky hair. It reminds me of the prickly pine trees of Indian Stream, that welcoming forest so far removed from here. He leans his head on my hand and kisses it.

  I can hear the unhappy spirits from my slaughterhouse apartment, the funeral parlor, and the orphanage wailing in my ear, “Say that you love him, Mona! Speak up!”

  I roll my fingers near my stomach, as if plucking Rosalita. Why didn’t I bring her with me tonight? I miss her. I can’t imagine life without her.

  Unexpected words fall out of my mouth. “I have to put my music first.”

  “That’s it? I tell you that I love you, and that’s all you say?” Del collapses against the driver’s seat like he’s been shot. He leans over me and pushes open my car door. “Good-bye, Mona Lisa.”

  I get out, and his tires squeal away. I didn’t even wish him Happy Birthday.

  Fourteen

  Solo

  Beetle swears he forgives me for deserting him at the Farewell Dance. He has to forgive me because our band tour starts in a week. For the sake of our music, I’ve tried to put aside my own curiousity about what happened between Rasima and him. Orpheus is calling this Bonepile’s “Haunted Fall” tour. The promotional tee shirts show an orange pumpkin-headed B.B., surrounded by dancing skeletons. Naturally, Mom had a fit. Bones are sacred to Indians.

  I told her, “Worry about taking care of yourself and allow me to focus on prepping for my tour.”

  What I don’t tell her is that I definitely know the dead are more than a bonepile. I’m hoping Mia skips the tour. But I wouldn’t mind if Bilki came along and visited Grumps. He agreed to attend our concert in Manchester, New Hampshire. I just hope someone else is driving him there.

  Beetle and I are working on a new song in my bedroom but neither of us is sitting on my bed. There’s an invisible wall between us since the dance. He’s on one side, pulling his bangs, trying to nail a B chord. I’m on the other, staring into the swirling vortex of leaves on Bilki’s wall mural, wondering if it leads to an alternate universe, when Mom bursts in and throws a balled-up printout of an email at my head.

  “Will sent this. Grumps is gone.” She storms out, wimpering.

  Grumps is gone. These words act like a hydrogen bomb. I realize I wanted my grandfather to see me on stage more than anything in the world. This may seem like a strange thing to think at a time like this. But who else do I care to impress? Who else actually cared about me and my music?

  “He can’t be gone!” I shout, at the place where Mom had been standing.

  Through the shattered racket inside my mind, I hear Beetle say, “I’m sorry, Mona.”

  I nuzzle my wet face into his lavender polo. He reads the crumpled email. “It was his heart…There will be no funeral or memorial service…Sadie tossed his ashes int
o the Connecticut River… The reading of the will is Friday…You have to be there. What do they mean ‘you have to be there.’?”

  “I want to be there.”

  “Why? Somebody can attend for you and mail you your cut of his estate. My parents expect you to come with us to Winnipesaukee this weekend. It’s a big deal. We never miss the annual Labor Day party. First, your parents make you miss graduation. Now this! Does your family make you miss everything in your life that matters? I’m sorry about your grandfather, really I am. But this is my family’s last outing before we go on tour together, maybe our last family outing, period.”

  “Consider this: this is definitely my last outing with Grumps.” I play with the log cabin charm on my bracelet and realize I need to say good-bye to him properly.

  I hear Bilki say, “Break the tie that binds him.” This tells me what I need to do for my grandfather. I remove a pair of scissors from my desk drawer and crawl into bed with them. Beetle gasps, obviously worried I’ll do something to harm myself. But I pull back my Beatles comforter and snip my bed sheet. He relaxes. I continue snipping and transform a piece of cotton sheeting into a star.

  I wait till his eyes drift away, before reaching for my head. I snip through a bunch of hair in front, creating hideously uneven bangs. Cutting my hair actually hurts. My head and hand both feel sore. Once Beetle sees what I’ve done, he snatches the scissors from me. I wish he hadn’t. This is what Indians do in mourning: we cut our hair to break ties with the past.

  He is pulsating with concern, trying to say something, but the words catch in his throat, like he has developed laryngitis.

  Even in the midst of my grief, I tell him, “Take care of your pipes. Go home and rest.”

  “You need time to yourself,” he manages to say, scuffling out of my room.

  I lay a hand on my Ikea headboard and picture Grumps’ homemade headboard wood burned with my first and middle name. It has never left our basement storage unit. I feel guilty about hiding it there but my middle name is not public knowledge, neither is a wood-burned North Country headboard exactly my style. The toy wigwam he made for me when I was a kid is another story. I rummage through my closet to find it. Aha! Here it is!

  This miniature structure is domed with a leather flap for a door, a bent spruce frame, and a papery white birch bark covering. That covering was surely Bilki’s touch. I’ve seen the poplar bark on the wigwams at our historic Mohegan village on the reservation. This is different. It’s a model of an Indian house from way up north; it’s more Abenaki-style. I drag this northern wigwam, with all its accessories, from my closet to the bed. When other kids fussed over Victorian dollhouses filled with velvet furniture and porcelain tea sets, I preferred this wigwam with its tiny black kettle hanging over a pebble-stone fire pit. I love the little wooden dolls Grumps carved to go with it, not to mention the thimble-sized clay pots, splint baskets, wooden bowls, bows, arrows, fishing spears the size of toothpicks, and cots made from matchsticks and rawhide scraps.

  I retrieve my scissors and clip squares of sheeting to make tiny funeral shawls for the wooden mother and daughter of the little wigwam family. The wooden father serves as a stand-in for Grumps’ corpse. I cut out a star and place it over him as a funeral blanket. I shuffle into the kitchen and grab a chipped yellow rose teacup from Mom’s misfit china collection and fill it with sweetgrass, sage, and matches, building a funeral fire inside. I place the cup on my nightstand and sprinkle loose tobacco in the flames. This is the only way I can hold a traditional funeral fire for Grumps, here in our Hartford apartment.

  I whisper to Bilki in the stars above, “I’m improvising a ceremony, like you did for my thirteenth birthday.”

  In my tiny teacup fire, I watch visions flicker against the porcelain. A grandfather teaches me how to drive a pickup through the wooded wilderness. A grimy Santa Claus greets me outside a lamp-lit log cabin that’s trapped in the past. A talented carver demonstrates how to make funny images of black bears on antlers. A tribal elder dances me through the dusty steps of a powwow Grand Entry. An experienced woodsman shows me how to protect maple trees. A mournful widower enjoys my baked beans. A caring friend speaks to a handsome young man on my behalf. A blind fool protects a villainous murderer because he’s his friend. A delusional father thinks his daughter killed a black bear on purpose.

  The fire dies out. I want to write some death letter blues for Grumps, to offer him a good send-off, but I fall asleep beside the smoldering teacup. Mom shows up at breakfast wearing a self-inflicted pixie haircut and a peaceful glow. We don’t speak. I point to my uneven bangs, signaling that I tried to cut my own hair. She flutters her hands, indicating that the time for such things has passed. Beetle calls to check on me, his voice barely audible. I whisper I’m fine. He wishes me a safe journey and says he’ll text me his plans.

  I’ve nearly finished packing when my phone buzzes, breaking the crushing stillness of our apartment. The text says, “I’ll be at Lake Winnie. Mom invited the Joneses to spend a few days with us before Rasima joins the army. I’d rather be with you.”

  This information returns my focus to the land of the living. Everyone knows Lake Winnipesaukee is a romantic place. Look what happened on Worthy Dill’s trip there with Cricket after his high school graduation. I want to text Beetle a warning about what Rasima might do to get out of joining the army. But sanity and caution grab me, just in time. I remember it was Will’s unfounded jealousy that provoked Mia Delaney’s murder. The scratched-out yearbook picture I found at his house told me he wound up killing her because he thought she loved Worthy. Even though, according to Worthy, Mia hardly knew he existed. Maybe there’s nothing between Beetle and Rasima, either. I try and calm down and not let history repeat itself.

  I feel the weight of being eighteen. I need to adopt a broader perspective on the world. I will start by acknowledging the suffering of the Dill family. Worthy struggled to keep Beetle away from musicians because Mia disappeared with one. Cricket hid her pregnant teenage shame by showing headshot-only photos of her wedding. The Dills forced their son to attend a lousy high school because they romanticized their last years of teenage freedom. Cricket and Worthy are simply a couple of dumb kids who were forced to grow up too soon and resent it.

  Struggles have also molded how Beetle and I see the world and each other. We keep secrets that divide us. I see how he looks at Rasima. It isn’t her hands he stares at. I know another secret we both hate to admit: Bonepile is toast. It’s not that we never should have gotten together as a duo. We blended well for a while. The ability to create beautiful music is usually fleeting. Hence the many one-hit wonders in this world.

  I remember reading an old interview with John Lennon in Rolling Stone in which he talked about his band, THE band, after they broke up. John wasn’t nostalgic or bitter. He simply said, “We all had roles to play.” Each one of the Beatles played a part in making their music, but they only made magic when they played well together. And Beetle and I have never really been together.

  The last time Orpheus stopped by, he revealed something that compounded my concern. “Shankdaddy should have gone solo,” he said. “He had more talent than the rest of the Hoodoo Chickens combined. But he wasn’t willing to sacrifice his buddies for his art. Art requires sacrifice, and music is the most fragile of all the arts. Personalities can make or break a composition in a flash; people are musical notes that sometimes blend beautifully and other times twang in discordant tones. It’s time for you to quit, or go solo. Remember that. I know a club in St. Louis that would love to book you as a solo act, whenever you’re ready, Mona.”

  Whenever you’re ready, Mona.

  I’m feeling pretty ready.

  My musical taste leans toward songs about ugly lies, dirty streets, and long-dead bones. Beetle prefers songs about sparkling sapphire lakes lined with sunbathing beauties wearing lockets shaped like golden hearts. That’s why he feels it neccessary
to keep a part of himself from me, no matter how much he claims to care for me. People always guard their most interesting secrets. My grandfather is an extreme case in point. What’s behind all those hidden doors in his cabin? What’s this “Secret of Wabanaki” that he never shared with me? Now that he is gone, I may never find out.

  Fifteen

  Secret Doors

  It’s early September and the leaves look the same as they did when I first arrived in June. But everything else has changed. I can’t smell Grumps’ musty blue jeans or hear him calling me City Gal like it’s the worst name on earth. I can’t drive with him in his mismatched Ford pickup to his useless excuse for a general store and listen to him bicker with his idiot friends. I can’t hear him call my crazy snake of a great aunt “a witch,” or argue with me about whether or not ghosts are real. I miss all that.

  Overgrown vines seal the front door to Grumps’ cabin. Mom gives the door handle a few useless yanks. I ponder the purpose of these impenetrable plants. Are they protecting the cabin from us, or us from the cabin? I consider this to be a warning from the woods and take it to heart. Mom doesn’t; she scoots around to the back door and barges in. I pause beside Grumps’ woodpile, sensing a peaceful, out-of-body stillness. The woods are in mourning. A silent robin redbreast rests on a split log with its head bowed. I wonder what this robin charm on my bracelet meant to Bilki. A sign of spring perhaps? A southwest wind rustles the maples, and their leaves wave gently, fanning my sorrow.

  Mom shouts my name like I’m a tardy student. I tiptoe inside the muggy cabin, not wanting to disturb the dust in the air. It contains microscopic bits of Grumps. A small pile of carved antlers lies on the floor, and my throat closes. I picture Grumps carving them, antler bits flying into his bundled white hair. None of them shows a hockey-playing bear or a bear riding a snowmobile. Those fantastical ones sold out first. All that remain are antlers carved with scenes from the real woods. A mother bear leading her baby toward a loaded blueberry bush. Two young bears playing in a pile of fall leaves. I don’t see any antlers depicting an ancient bear with flabby haunches, a cracked bulbous nose, and rows of loose, sloppy flesh drooping beneath his eyes. That’s because The Great Bear isn’t real.