UnDivided

by Neal Shusterman

  “A pig rolls in the mud for a reason,” he points out. “I have a reason too.” She knows that reason, but Lev knows she’s also worried for him. “You are one boy. You can’t expect yourself to move heaven and earth.”

  Maybe not. But he still dreams he can bring down the moon.

  • • •

  Morton Fretwell is convicted in a trial that lasts only one day, peopled by a jury that is hard-pressed to conceal its rancor. He is found guilty of kidnapping, conspiring to commit murder, and as an accessory to murder—for by Arápache law, unwinding and murder are one and the same. Then, in a move that is no surprise to anyone, rather than pronouncing a life sentence, the judge falls back on an old tradition.

  “Let the aggrieved levy punishment on the convicted,” the judge announces, which opens the door to whatever the Tashi’ne family wants to do to him, including putting his life to a most painful end.

  “This is justice?” Fretwell cries as he’s led back to the jailhouse after the verdict. “This is justice?” There are no ears sympathetic to his pleas.

  The following day, Elina, Chal, and Pivane Tashi’ne come to face Fretwell, along with Una and Lev. While they were there in the courthouse, never once did Lev see them make eye contact, or even look directly at Fretwell. Perhaps because they were so sickened by him, or perhaps because it would make this moment today all the more meaningful.

  Fretwell looks pathetic in his cell. Dirty, even in the clean beige jumpsuit of Arápache convicts.

  While Pivane, Chal, and even Una stand back, Elina comes forward to look at him. Her face is a study of the true Arápache heroine. Lev is in awe of her presence as she regards Fretwell. It’s enough to make the man stand in quivering respect.

  “Are you being treated well?” Elina asks, always the doctor.

  Fretwell nods.

  She regards him for a good long time before she speaks again. “We have discussed the various options of your punishment for the kidnapping and murdering of our son.”

  “He ain’t dead!” Fretwell insists. “All his parts is still alive—I can prove it.”

  Elina ignores him. “We have discussed it and have decided that your death at our hands would be meaningless.”

  Fretwell breathes a sigh of relief.

  “Therefore,” she continues, “you will be remanded to the Central Tribal Penitentiary. You will, for the rest of your life, be given nothing but bread and water. The minimum required for survival. You will be allowed nothing to entertain yourself. No contact with other human beings—so that you will be left with nothing but your thoughts until the end of your days.”

  Fretwell’s eyes swell with horror. “Nothing? But you have to give me something. A Bible at least. Or a TV.”

  “You will have one thing,” Elina says, then Chal reaches behind him and pulls out the object he has been concealing.

  It’s a rope.

  He hands it to the guard in attendance, who then passes it through the bars of the cell to Fretwell.

  “We offer you this mercy,” Elina tells him, “that when your existence becomes too awful to bear, with this rope, you may end it.”

  Fretwell grips the rope tightly in his hands and, looking down on it, bursts into tears. Satisfied, Lev, Una, and the Tashi’nes leave the room.

  The following morning Fretwell is found dead, having hung himself from the ceiling light fixture in his cell. His question is finally answered. This is justice.

  Lev has no idea if anyone in the outside world will mourn the man. He finds his own heart hardened. Fretwell’s capture, conviction, and sorry demise mean only one thing to Lev. An opportunity.

  That very afternoon, Lev petitions the Tribal Council for an audience. He receives his summons a week later. Elina is surprised that they responded to him at all, but Chal is not.

  “Legally, they have to respond to every petitioner,” Chal points out.

  “Yes, and they don’t get to some petitioners for years,” says Elina.

  “Perhaps Lev’s a little too large a public figure to keep on their plate.”

  The idea of Lev being a large public figure in spite of his size both tickles Lev and makes him uncomfortable.

  Elina and Chal accompany him, although Lev would have preferred to go alone.

  “No one should face the council without a lawyer and a doctor,” Chal says as they make the drive to Council Square. Then he gives Lev a mischievous smile. “Besides, irritating the Tribal Council is part of my basic job description.”

  “Yes,” says Elina, feigning irritation, “and it’s kept you from being the tribe’s attorney general.”

  “Thank God!” says Chal. “I’d rather be representing the tribe’s interests out there in the world than be stuck handling the tribe’s piddling internal affairs.”

  Lev shifts the heavy backpack he holds on his lap. The Tashi’nes haven’t asked what’s inside. He’d tell them if they asked, but he knows they won’t, if he hasn’t offered to share it. They do know the nature of his petition, however.

  “You don’t need to do this,” Elina tells him. “As long as you don’t bring trouble on us, you can stay.”

  And that’s the problem. Because trouble is exactly what Lev means to bring to the Arápache. Their minds and souls need to be as troubled as his.

  • • •

  The Arápache council chamber consists of chairs around a huge donut-shaped table made of fine reservation-grown oak. On the outside rim of the table sit the chief, several representatives from key clans of the tribe, and the elected tribal officials. Twice a week they meet for public forum to hear the suggestions, complaints, and petitions of the people.

  The circular setting was designed to reflect tradition, but somewhere along the way it was decided that petitioners stand in the table’s ten-foot donut hole, thus making it an intimidating process, because with eyes on you from every direction, one begins to feel like an ant beneath a magnifying glass.

  According to Chal and Elina, the Tribal Council was unofficially aware of Lev’s presence on the reservation long before he left to apprehend Wil’s kidnappers, and they had unofficially chosen to look the other way. At the Tribal Council table, however, there will be no “other way” to look. Today Lev puts himself beneath the heat of the magnifying glass.

  “I can’t say this is wise,” Elina tells him as they enter Tribal Hall, “but we’ll stand with you because what you’re doing is noble.”

  They can’t stand with him, however. Each petitioner must make his or her case alone. When it’s his turn, Lev leaves Elina and Chal to watch from the gallery above, striding alone through a small gap in the O-shaped table, and into the center of scrutiny.

  As he steps into the circle, the elder members of the council posture and grunt in disapproval. Others are merely curious, and a few smirk at the prospect of being amused by the sparks that will surely fly. Clearly they all recognize him and know who he is. His reputation sails before him like his spirit animal through the forest canopy.

  The Arápache chief, while just a symbolic position these days, is the voice of the council, and Dji Quanah, the reigning chief, has mastered the wielding of imaginary power. He has also embraced his traditional role. His clothes are carefully chosen to be reminiscent of old-school tribal garb. His hair is split into two long gray braids that fall on either side of his face, framing a square jaw. If modern Arápache culture is a marriage of the old and the new, Chief Quanah is the ancestral bridegroom.

  Chal warned Lev that in spite of the circle, he should always address the chief. “He may not have the true power of the elected officials, but things never go smoothly if you don’t pay the respect that’s due him.”

  Lev holds eye contact with the chief for a solid five seconds, waiting for the chief to begin the proceedings.

  “First, let me congratulate you on your role in bringing the parts pirate to justice,” Chief Quanah says. And with that formality out of the way, he says, “Now state your purpose here,” already sounding
put off.

  “If it pleases the council, I have a petition.” Lev hands a single page to the chief, then gives copies to the others assembled. He’s a little clumsy and awkward about it, finding it hard to overcome the intimidating petition process. There are eighteen seats in total around the table, although only a dozen people are present today.

  The chief puts on a pair of reading glasses and looks over the petition. “Who is this ‘Mahpee Kinkajou’?” he asks. It’s rhetorical—he knows, but wants Lev to say it.

  “It’s the name I’ve been given as an Arápache foster-fugitive. The kinkajou is my spirit animal.”

  The chief puts down the petition, having only skimmed it. “Never heard of it.”

  “Neither did I, until it found me.”

  “Your name is Levi,” the chief states. “That is the name by which you will be addressed.”

  Lev doesn’t argue, even though no one ever called him Levi but his parents. And now his parents don’t call him anything. He clears his throat. “My petition is—”

  But the chief doesn’t let him finish. “Your petition is foolishness, and a waste of our time. We have important business here.”

  “Like what?” Lev says before he can filter himself. “A petition to name fire hydrants, and a noise complaint about a karaoke bar? I saw the list of today’s ‘important business.’ ”

  That brings forth a half-stifled guffaw from one of the elected council members. The chief throws the councilman a glare, but seems a bit embarrassed himself by some of today’s other petitions.

  Lev takes the moment to forge forward, hoping he can get it out with only a minimum of verbal bumbling. He’s certainly practiced it enough. “The Arápache nation is a powerful force, not just among Chancefolk, but in the larger world too. Your policy has been to look the other way when people take on a foster-fugitive AWOL. But looking the other way isn’t good enough anymore. This petition urges the tribe to openly and officially accept kids trying to escape being unwound.”

  “Toward what end?” asks a woman to his right. He turns to see a council member about Elina’s age but with more worry lines in her forehead. “If we open our gates to AWOLs officially, we’ll be inundated. It will be a nightmare!”

  “No,” says Lev, happy for the unintentional setup. “This is the nightmare.” Then he reaches into his backpack and pulls out sets of bound printouts. Reams and reams of paper as heavy as phone books. He quickly hands them out to Chief Quanah and the council members all around him. “The names of the unwound are public record, so I was able to access them. In these pages are the names of everyone subjected to ‘summary division’ since the Unwind Accord was signed. You can’t look at all of those names and not feel something.”

  “We never signed the Unwind Accord, and never will,” says one of the elders. “Our consciences are clear—which is more than I can say for you.” He points a crooked finger. “We took you in two years ago, and then what did you do? You became a clapper!”

  “Only after this council cast me out!” Lev reminds him. It gives everyone pause for thought. Some of the council members leaf through the pages, shaking their hands sadly at the sheer volume of names. Others won’t even look.

  To his credit, the chief takes some time to flip through the pages before he says, “The tragedy of unwinding is beyond this council’s control. And our relations with Washington are already strained, isn’t that true, Chal?” The chief looks up to the gallery.

  Chal stands to respond. “Tense, not strained,” he offers.

  “So why add even more tension by throwing down a gauntlet to the Juvenile Authority?”

  And then from a councilman behind Lev, “If we do, other tribes might follow.”

  “And they might not,” says the chief with a finality that leaves no room for contradiction.

  “There are plenty of people who are against unwinding,” Lev tells the council, no longer addressing just the chief as he was instructed, but turning a slow pirouette, making sure to make eye contact with every council member around him. “But a lot of people won’t speak out because they’re afraid to. What they need is something to rally behind. If the Arápache make a stand against unwinding by giving official sanctuary to AWOLs, you’ll be amazed the friends you’ll find out there.”

  “We’re not looking for friends,” shouts one of the elders, angry to the point of spraying spittle as he speaks. “After generations of being abused, all we want is to be left alone!”

  “Enough!” shouts Chief Quanah. “We’ll put it to a vote and end this once and for all.”

  “No!” Lev shouts. He knows this is too soon for a vote, but the chief, offended by this show of disrespect, leans forward and locks eyes with him.

  “It is being put to a vote, and you shall abide by the result, boy. Is that understood?”

  Lev casts his eyes downward, humbling himself, giving the chief the respect due him. “Yes, sir.”

  The chief raises his voice to a commanding volume. “All in favor of adopting the petition to publicly and officially open the reservation to all Unwinds seeking asylum, affirm with a show of hands.”

  Three hands go up. Then a fourth.

  “All those opposed?”

  Eight hands rise in opposition. And just like that, AWOL hope among the Arápache is lost.

  “The petition fails,” the chief says. “However, in light of extenuating circumstances, I move that we officially and publicly accept Levi Jedediah Calder-Garrity as a full-fledged child of the Arápache Nation.”

  “That’s not what I asked for, sir.”

  “But it’s what you’ve received, so be thankful for it.”

  Lev is admitted to the tribe by a unanimous show of hands. Then Chief Quanah instructs the council members to return the books of Unwind names to Lev.

  “No, keep them,” Lev says. “When the Cap-17 law falls, and when the Juvenile Authority starts unwinding kids without their parents’ permission, you can add the new names by hand.”

  “We will do no such thing,” says the chief, insisting on the last word, “because those things will never happen.” Then he calls for the next petitioner.

  • • •

  The walls of Lev’s room are undecorated. The furniture is well crafted but understated. The bedroom is just as it was when Lev came to the Tashi’ne home the first time, the same as when he returned six weeks ago. He now knows why he feels so at home here: His soul is a lot like these Spartan walls. He tried to fill the emptiness with the angry graffiti of the clapper, but it washed clean. He accepted being a shining god for the ex-tithes in the Cavenaugh mansion, but that chalky portrait wiped away. He tried to draw himself a hero by saving Connor’s life, but even after he succeeded, he felt no glory, no sense of honorable completion. And he curses his parents for raising him to be a tithe—for no matter how he runs from that destiny, it is imprinted so deep in his psyche that he will never be free of it. He will never feel complete, for there will always be that unwanted, uncomprehending part of himself that can only be completed in his demise. Far worse than his parents disowning him was that: raising him to only find satisfaction in the negation of his own existence.

  On the evening of the day Lev fails to change the world in council, Elina comes to his room. She rarely does that, for she is a woman who respects privacy and contemplative solitude. She finds him lying on his stomach atop his tightly made bed. His pillow is on the floor because he doesn’t care enough to pick it up.

  “Are you all right?” she asks. “You ate very little at dinner.”

  “I just want to sleep tonight,” he tells her. “I’ll eat tomorrow.”

  She lingers, sitting down in the desk chair. She picks up the pillow and puts it on the bed, and he turns to face the wall, hoping she’ll just go away, but she doesn’t.

  “There were four votes for your petition,” Elina reminds him. “A single vote would have been surprising, considering the council’s resistance to taking a stand on unwinding. You may not realiz
e it, but four votes is a veritable coup!”

  “It doesn’t change a thing. The petition failed. Period.”

  Elina sighs. “You’re not yet fifteen, Lev, and you came within three votes of changing tribal policy. Surely that counts for something.”

  He turns to look at her now. “Horseshoes and hand grenades.” And off her confused expression, he explains, “It’s something Pastor Dan used to say. Those are the only two situations where being close counts.”

  She chuckles her understanding, and Lev turns away from her again.

  “Perhaps in the morning you can go out with Pivane, and he can teach you to hunt. Or maybe you could help Una in the shop. If you asked, I’m sure she’d let you work with her to build her instruments.”

  “Is that it for me then? I go out hunting, or I become a luthier’s apprentice?”

  Now Elina’s voice becomes chastising, and a little cold. “You came here because you longed for a simpler, safer way of living. Now you resent us for giving it to you?”

  “I don’t resent anyone . . . I just feel . . . I don’t know . . . unfulfilled.”

  “Welcome to the human race,” she tells him with a bit of rueful condescension. “You should learn to relish the hunger more than the feast, lest you become a glutton.”

  Lev groans, not having the strength or even the desire to parse the poignancy from yet another of Elina’s pithy Arápache metaphors.

  “A great man knows not only when he’s called upon, but also when he’s not,” says Elina. “The truly great know how to accept and embrace a common life, just as much as the call to duty.”

  “Then I will never be great, will I?”

  “Listen to you! You posture like a man, but you pout like a child.” It’s a scolding, but she says it with such warmth in her voice that Lev both appreciates it and finds it embarrassing.

  “I’ve never been a child,” he tells her with a sadness no one but he will ever truly understand. “I’ve been a tithe, a clapper, and a fugitive, but never a child.”