Then I came upon a clearing beside the lake where they were sitting together, Nora resting her head on Rosemary’s shoulder. For a moment I stayed back and watched them. I knelt down in the brush. The leaves curled dry at my feet, and a cold air hung around me as I watched. Rosemary picked up a tiny rock and threw it at the water. She turned and said something to Nora, who pointed to the spot where she threw it. I imagined them undressing and walking to the water. I imagined them entering the lake and splashing around until Rosemary became annoyed and accidentally held Nora underwater too long. I thought of the struggle, Rosemary’s laugh, then Nora’s body floating to the surface, dead. I dug my heels into the hard earth, into the dirty leaves and brush. The lake may as well have been frozen black. They weren’t moving or going anywhere. I wanted them to become consumed by anger, consumed by something, but nothing happened.
As I approached, the sky opened up. They both looked at me, and in that moment I felt an emptiness that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
I said, “It’s done. I buried him.”
Nora didn’t say anything. She didn’t thank me. I looked out toward the lake and started to walk away, my head buzzing from fatigue or something. I stepped down the hill, which was steep, but slipped and fell. When I fell I must’ve lost consciousness for a moment because I only remember Rosemary kneeling down to console me.
“Your head is bleeding a little,” she said.
But nothing brought me in touch with the moment, not seeing Rosemary as she tried to console me, not her hand touching my head, and certainly not Nora Drake, who wasn’t even concerned, Nora who hadn’t thanked me.
“It’s just a scrape,” Rosemary said, and helped me sit up. “Nora and I are walking down to the pavilion,” she said. “Maybe you should sit here and rest. We’ll be back in a bit.”
I was quiet. As they walked away I could feel my anger building. Certain situations bothered me to the point of feeling pressure in my chest, and this was one of them. I leaned back and looked to the sky, where a hawk soared in the clouds. For a while I lay there until I felt well enough to stand. Then I unzipped my pants and relieved myself freely in the wind, wavering my stream back and forth in the dirt the way I did when I was a little boy pissing in the yard. I zipped up and followed the trail back to the car to wait for them. Then I climbed up on the hood of the car. I lay back with my hands behind my head, staring into the sky. Clouds overhead were moving. I felt the sting of blood on my forehead, and when I touched it the pain only made me hate Nora worse. I spent ten minutes thinking of ways to hurt her. I made a decision to never forget that day, to never forget dumb Nora Drake, who later died on January 19, 2003 of strangulation.
Rosemary felt guilty about the way Nora had treated me, so she invited me to a movie the next Saturday afternoon in the old theatre downtown. One thing that always interested me about old theatres, I told her on the drive there, was how they felt so decayed and haunted, especially when only a few people were in the audience. As it turned out, we happened to see a slasher film, one of the Nightmare on Elm Street films, which Rosemary found particularly in sync with everything she loved about movies. “I need to be freaked out,” she said, referring to the movies, otherwise why go?
“Maybe to laugh or cry,” I said.
“No.”
“Maybe to see Tom Cruise.”
“Fuck him. No.”
“So to be freaked out.”
“To be scared out of your mind.”
The theatre itself was old and on the verge of closing down due to the construction of a newer five-screen cinema being built near the interstate, and the remaining employees who worked the ticket booth and concession stand were “drug heads,” as Rosemary called them, who either didn’t finish high school or had dropped out.
After the movie ended and the credits were rolling, she suggested we stay and wait for everyone to leave. The usher, a guy with a crew cut who wore a black and gold vest, walked down the aisle with a broom and dustpan. He walked all the way to the front and then back again, sweeping up candy wrappers and trash, walking by us but not acknowledging we were still there.
“That guy doesn’t give a shit,” she said.
“About what?” I asked.
She looked back and watched him turn to head back to the lobby, and suddenly we were alone in the theatre. “Come on,” she said, and headed down the aisle.
I followed her, silent, not knowing where we were going. We walked to the front of the theatre and up the stairs on the side, near the emergency exit. There was a big, heavy red curtain, and Rosemary told me to follow her behind it. I did so, not even reluctantly, because by then she could’ve told me to do anything and I would’ve done it. She could’ve told me to attack the usher and stab him to death, I would’ve done it, not to impress her, but because she had some unknown power over me.
There was a black door behind the curtain that she opened, and I followed her into the room it led to, which was an area behind the theatre screen. It was pitch dark in there, but a light blinked on and I saw that Rosemary had turned it on, which was surprising since she knew exactly where the switch was.
“We used to come back here after the late movies,” she said.
“Who?”
“We could do whatever we wanted. I’ve been coming back here for years.”
I saw a red velvet rope, empty boxes scattered around the room, and old movie posters stacked against the wall. There was a broken projector on the floor, and more boxes full of stacks of paper. As I walked around the room I saw something move to my left and realized it was my reflection in a cracked mirror. I looked at myself and barely recognized what I saw, my hair in my face, my skin looking sickly and pale. The walls were black, and I found myself staring at the pipes that ran along the walls to the ceiling.
“We did it back here,” Rosemary said. “That was a couple of years ago.”
“Who?” I asked.
She unhooked the red velvet rope and sat cross-legged on the floor, behind the giant screen. She ran her hand up and down on the rope, squeezing it. I waited, silent, for whatever she was going to do next.
She looked up at me then. “So what should we do?” she asked. “Do you want to hear all the details about what we did back here? Come over here. It’s sort of gruesome if you want the truth.”
“Who?” I said again.
But she looked away and I saw that the usher with the crew cut was suddenly standing slouched at the door, still holding his broom and dustpan, watching us. How long had he been there? What did he hear? I wondered: were we in trouble?
“The manager says you have to leave or he’s calling the police,” the usher said.
“How does he know I’m here?” Rosemary asked him. “Did you happen to tell him? Is that what happened? Are you going to tell on us, friend?”
The usher looked at his watch, slightly embarrassed. He looked like he was out of it, completely high, based on his bloodshot eyes and overall awkward demeanor.
“He’s serious this time,” the usher mumbled.
“Whatever.”
As we walked out she stared at him, very directly, as if she were trying to intimidate him with the look, which seemed to work, because the usher almost cowered as she walked by him. I knew then the influence she had over people, including me, was dangerous.
“We’ll go back again sometime and do it,” she told me on the drive home.
“Do what?” I asked, but she still didn’t answer me, turning down Rockland Road too fast, swerving around roadkill.
She started telling me to do things like make her bed, or remove the sheets so that she could sleep on the floor, or take all the trash from the upstairs bathroom and put it in the basement trash only to annoy Harold, who never grew angry or irritated enough to say anything about it. I never said anything; I did whatever she asked.
One Saturday morning
she put jars of peanut butter and loaves of bread into a paper sack and informed me we were going downtown to a parking lot where she knew some homeless people. The homeless shelter was overcrowded after the economy had tanked and some people were forced to fend for themselves and find shelter wherever they could until the cops ran them away. Sure enough, when we got there a man wearing a flowery dress and black army boots and carrying a red leather purse told us the camp had moved to a site near the river.
“You’ll find it on the east side,” he told us. “The cops raided last week, so everyone left.”
“I’m looking for Eunice,” Rosemary said. “Do you know her?”
“Eunice? Eunice who?”
“I don’t know her last name. She’s an older Indian woman from the Osage.”
The guy was digging through his purse. “Sorry,” he said.
We drove out of town, following a winding road that led through the trees and down to Black River. The area on the east side of the river was more secluded than the west side, with more trees and fewer campsites and picnic tables. From the car we could see the tents, the only ones in winter, so we knew it was the homeless community. When we parked, we saw a man poke his head out of his tent and look.
“They’re afraid of another raid,” Rosemary said, reaching over the seat for the paper sack. “I don’t blame them. But I think the cops patrol out here more in summer than winter.”
We got out of the car and she walked ahead of me. In the distance, past the river, I could see the bridge leading to the road with the pawn shops and welding supply stores, near the YWCA. On the other side of the tents, a few people were sitting on blankets and playing cards. The earth was hard and frozen, only dirt and dead grass. The area smelled of wet leaves and cigarette smoke. When people saw us they weren’t afraid or worried, and I wondered if others brought them food and such.
A man named Charlie came over and asked if we were looking for anyone. He was skinny and wore an old jean jacket with a frayed collar.
“We’re looking for Eunice,” Rosemary said.
He pointed toward a tent a little way farther down the path. “She’s in one of those tents down there,” he said. He looked at the sack. “You bring food?”
“We brought peanut butter and bread,” she said. She reached into the sack and gave him a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. He looked surprised and thanked us repeatedly. Another man, older with a beard and wearing a rain jacket too big for him, came over and introduced himself as Carl. He said he knew Eunice’s tent and led us down the path to where she was. We followed him until we reached a dark green tent, where Carl called for her. The tent pitched there was large enough to hold a small family. I smelled urine and looked around, and a moment later came the smell of marijuana, but I couldn’t see anyone smoking. I would’ve liked to smoke a little. I looked at Rosemary, but she was trying to look inside Eunice’s tent.
A moment later Eunice emerged, holding a small gray cat in her arms. She looked very happy to see Rosemary.
“We brought you some bread and peanut butter,” Rosemary said.
Eunice put the cat down and took the sack from Rosemary. Eunice was a sleek, white-haired woman with dark skin and beads around her neck. She was short and looked too frail to be living out there in the cold.
“Oh, sweetheart, I have something for you, too,” she said. “Give me just a minute.” She went back inside the tent, and Rosemary leaned in and told me that Eunice was a tough old woman, that she had family on the reservation but chose to struggle out here to show her sacrifice and compassion for God.
“Everyone thinks she’s crazy,” she said. “She covered herself in the woods with a blanket of leaves. She slept in the brush and fasted for thirty days. That’s when she saw the spirits. They were like ghostly figures that came to her. They told her to sacrifice everything.”
I looked at the tent. There was a garbage bag beside it, and past it, farther along the path, I could see a man dragging an inflatable mattress out of a tent. A moment later Eunice came out of the tent with beads and handed them to Rosemary. She put them around her neck.
“Beautiful,” Eunice said.
Carl waved me over and invited me to sit with him. He was happy when I offered him a cigarette. We sat in plastic folding chairs beside a tree and smoked. He told me about working on the railroad back in the sixties and seventies before it went under in 1980. For a while he worked maintenance at the high school until budget cuts forced him out. He gambled away all his retirement on horse races and found himself moving north to stay with friends.
“It got worse and worse,” he said. “My wife Darlene worked at the fried onion burger joint and then she left me,” he said. “I try to tell myself I have my health, but I’m worried about that.”
I turned and looked at Rosemary, who was talking very seriously to Eunice about something. Eunice placed her hand on Rosemary’s shoulder and patted it gently.
A man with long hair shambled toward us and sat in another folding chair. He wore a blue coat and work boots. In his hand he had a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I showed him my own pack and then lit his cigarette for him.
“I’m Jessie,” he said.
“I’m Sequoyah.”
He looked at Carl. “Any word from Sideshow?”
“Nothing.” Carl looked at me. “Sideshow’s a guy who was here with us,” he said. “He was eighty-sixed last week and we haven’t seen him since.”
“He spent a few days in detox,” Jessie said. “A few months ago he was selling himself for prescription codeine and benzos. He needs to come back.”
We could hear the roar of a train blaring through in the distance.
“How long do you plan on staying here?” I asked them.
“Until I can get back on my feet,” Carl said. “Hopefully the cops will leave us alone. It’s our goddamn fundamental right to be left alone.”
I counted twelve tents. The groups of people huddled around the fire, the garbage sacks piled beside tents, the woman sitting alone talking to herself, the bicycles turned over on their sides, the old mattresses and sleeping bags and rushing river—it was all so hard for me to comprehend people living this way. Their freedom was a freedom I couldn’t understand or appreciate despite my upbringing, despite my short time in youth shelters, foster homes, and time alone when my mother was out at night. These people were making a decision to live this way. What I liked most about them was how they never stared at my face, or asked me what had happened. It was as if they saw right through me.
Rosemary and I left. As we pulled away I could see Carl and Jessie looking out over the river, and Eunice walking back to her tent with her cat. “This was a good idea,” I said.
“I’m glad you came,” Rosemary said.
I was happy to spend all this time with only Rosemary. Doing so helped me draw closer to her, and hopefully helped her see me as an important part of her life. We went for a soda at the Sonic Drive-In, just the two of us. Then we went for coffee at the diner downtown.
One day she drove me to the home of Ruth Arviso, a woman who’d helped raise her when she was little. Ruth was like a grandmother to her, she told me. They took walks together in the mornings and picked blackberries. Ruth Arviso taught her how to sew. They often went to a park and played. Ruth Arviso, she said, was the only woman who held her when she was little and told her how smart she was. Rosemary said she needed me to go along because Ruth was in poor health and suffering from Alzheimer’s, barely able to talk, and now in home care and living with her daughter, a woman Rosemary said made her so livid she was afraid she would hurt her unless someone was there to calm her. And so I rode along as she drove to Ruth Arviso’s house. She lived on the outskirts of town, and late in the afternoon we drove north, past open fields sprawling in the distance. I saw geese flying low over a pond. Low clouds hung in the sky. We finally turned down a lon
g stretch of road leading to her house.
“She won’t recognize me,” Rosemary told me before we got out of the car. “She’s sick with Alzheimer’s, so she won’t recognize me. She won’t know anything. I just want you to know.”
“All right,” I said.
We got out of the car and walked to the front porch, and Rosemary knocked on the screen door. A moment later a woman appeared. She was petite, wearing a headscarf and dressed in a sweatshirt and blue jeans. She looked exhausted and didn’t appear to register who Rosemary was until she said her name, then the woman opened the door without saying anything.
We entered the house, which was warm with a furnace on as well as a fire going in the fireplace. Ruth Arviso was sitting in a recliner with a blanket over her. I thought she must’ve been cold natured because it was exceedingly warm in the house, but then I saw how thin and fragile she looked as we sat across from her on the couch. There was a small TV across the room with poor reception, some old movie was on. The walls were pale and covered with framed photographs of family members. There was also a large cross hanging above the fireplace, so I gathered they were religious. The woman who let us in asked if we wanted coffee or tea, which Rosemary wanted but I didn’t, and while she was in the kitchen Rosemary told me the woman’s name was Geraldine, Ruth’s daughter, and she was very rude and mean-spirited.
“Watch out for her,” she whispered, then looked at Ruth and said hello.
Ruth looked at her, then me, then back at Rosemary. Her face was pale and drawn, and I could tell she was confused.
“Someone went to fetch your brother,” she said.
Rosemary sat forward, and I could see the hurt on her face. Ruth touched her hair, patting it down. Her hands were fidgety, she sat with them in her lap, rubbing her knuckles like she had arthritis. From the light of the lamp beside her, I could see her hands were freckled, all bone. She wore no rings.
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