Give Me Some Truth

by Eric Gansworth

  “Thanks, Lewis,” Marie said. “Nyah-wheh. Sweet, but we couldn’t bring that much stuff. Look at the size of our dad’s place. Our place. I’m pretty sure we’ll be done before, when you do get out?” She did the quick hour math in her head. “Two thirty?”

  “Besides, they got me to help them,” I said, throwing the Chevelle into drive as soon as Gloomis shut the door, his lips dropping to the ground from wanting to stay so bad. We left the garage and a minute later pulled into the school’s visitors’ loop. “Turn right when you walk in,” I said to Marie. “The office is second door on the right.”

  “You still getting sent there on a regular basis?” she said, laughing. I joined—she had me there. In elementary school, I got sent to the office for being a pain in the ass almost once a week, before the teachers and principal realized I enjoyed the challenge.

  I sat and spun the dial, catching only obnoxious drive-time DJs, and I half expected Lewis to ditch work and sprint across the school lawn after us. A few minutes later, application in hand, Marie ran out and, hopping in, agreed that she probably did have time for a coffee. I took her down to the not-very-swanky Sanborn Shop and Dine. I got us some stuff and bought Maggi a coffee to go, fixing it to what Marie said were her sister’s preferences.

  “So why are you back?” I asked as Marie bit into the doughnut I’d bought her.

  “Well, that was direct.”

  “Did you want me to ask a bunch of fake questions before getting to the real one?”

  “I wanted to graduate with you guys. You know, we’re almost adults. I’ll be deciding where I’m going to live on my own soon. I wanted to refresh my memory about what it’s like living here so I can make a clear choice.” She stared at me earnestly as she said this. It was a little too polished. She knew she was going to get this question.

  “Bullshit. So what is it? Trouble with white girls? Black girls? Tough being one of the only Indians in that whole high school. Any Skins besides you three?”

  “Yeah, there’s a few City Indian kids around. It’s not that. It’s … I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now anyway.”

  “Can you tell me if it’s about you or your sister?”

  “You weren’t kidding? You really think Maggi’s cute?” She was relieved I took the focus off of her, which I was guessing meant Marie was the reason for the move, herself.

  “Yeah, why not?” I said. “Look, I know you see her as your kid sister. Trust me, my brother and sister are never going to see me as anything but their punk brother, and they both still live at home even though they’re supposedly grown-ups! And Gloomis gets the same shit from his. He at least has an uncle who likes to hang around with him, but how sad is that?” Someone had left a newspaper on the Table at our booth. I was tempted to snag it to see if there were any late-resurrection Hamburglar stories. Sometimes, if there were slow news days, they ran No-New-Leads articles about unsolved cases.

  “That’s not sad. I think it’s kind of nice.”

  “Well, whatever. Guys are going to notice your sister pretty quick. I mean, they’re going to notice you too.”

  “That’s bullshit. I know how things work out here. The name you gave me when we were kids is going to stick. But that’s fine. I don’t want any scroungers chasing after me all summer.”

  “Sorry about that. How did I know that a name like Stinkpot was going to stick?”

  “You knew it as much as I did.”

  “And about not wanting Rez guys chasing after you? Too late. You just left your first Dog Street Puppy Dog at the garage. And it didn’t even seem like you were trying.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “I like Lewis. I don’t want to hurt him, but …” Here it came. The real reason. It hadn’t even taken much prying. “With moving back? I’m just not ready to start thinking about that.” I was wrong after all. There was a reason they were back, but I wasn’t getting it out of Marie this morning. “Are you really going to help us move boxes and unpack?”

  “Treaty’s a treaty. I said I’d do it, and so I’ll do it. Even if my treaty’s with a Stinkpot.”

  “You’re such a jerk,” she said, laughing, and then she punched me in the shoulder, knuckles out, almost as hard as any guy who’d done that.

  “Okay, new treaty. I promise not to ever call you that again. To make it up to you, I’ll let you drive back to the Rez.” Her parents had never owned a car, so I had my doubts about letting her take the Chevelle’s wheel, but I figured she could maybe scrape by. “Assuming of course that you know how.”

  “Of course I know how,” she said, draining her coffee and holding out her hand for my keys. Marie swung the key ring on her fingers like a pro as we headed out. She hopped in the driver’s seat, revved it, and squealed out of the parking lot. Not only could she drive, but she knew how to finesse the specific powers of a sweet muscle car. She glanced at me, read the panic in my face, and laughed, slowing to normal speeds. The Chevelle was my baby. “That’s for calling me Stinkpot. Now we’re even.”

  We got back to their shack/camper combo. Maggi sat on the couch on their front lawn, looking at the TV in front of it, even though it wasn’t plugged in. Every box had been moved to the shack door, and at a quick glance, it seemed like she’d stacked them logically for the order they needed to go in. Even more amazing, she looked as if she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  Marie might not know it, but her sister was a very intriguing girl.

  When I pulled into the garage lot that afternoon, Lewis held up a just-a-second finger and yelled inside, thanking someone for the offer of a ride. Weird, how easy a thanks rolled off his tongue. Saying it always felt embarrassing to me.

  “So, let me guess,” he said, climbing in and wedging his backpack on the floor between his legs. “You gotta pick up some repair stuff from Zach.” Still didn’t trust me.

  “I told you I’d get you,” I said, pulling out. “But yeah, I cut out early and told my ma Zach had some jerseys that needed mending.” Lewis didn’t say anything. I was just gonna use the ripping-off-the-Band-Aid method for this next part. “And I got something else to tell you.”

  “All right. What’s the scam?” he asked. “I have stuff to do.”

  “Like practice?” I asked, and he narrowed his eyes. He knew. “We can practice together, later. That’s one reason I came. We can talk about what we’re gonna play at The Bug’s shindig.”

  I put it out there as casually as I could. The Bug had left it up to me to tell Lewis that he wanted a third guitarist for his Fourth of July bash.

  “Are you serious?” Lewis asked. I indeed was. Maybe Albert had put the original spark of an idea in The Bug’s buzzing head one afternoon, but my dad could bring in the crowd that was prepared for a BYOB with some extra B to share. We’d have to split the fifty bucks The Bug was offering, but I was the better player anyway. Lewis should consider himself lucky to get paid at all.

  “Maybe word got around about our Memorial Day performance,” I suggested. “Albert is all about Eee-ogg.” Lewis gave a small machine-gun laugh, knowing I was lying. “Come on. We could go cruising too, see if Maggi and Marie are around, maybe hit a drive-in I want to check out.” He stared fierce, but his faced sagged, like Frybread dough before you drop it in hot grease.

  “Look, I’ll even teach you the finger-picking for ‘Julia’ so you can do something beyond chords in the future. If you’re good, I’ll throw in the hammering for ‘Working Class Hero.’ ”

  “You got your guitar with you?” he asked finally, leaning back in the seat. I had won. An offer of the Beatles always closed the deal, but that was way easier than I thought. He didn’t want to give the gig up. I pulled away from the garage, trying not to grin too widely.

  “So what the heck?” Lewis said once we got on the road. It was the Rezziest he had ever sounded, his family’s fake New York City sophisticated accent knocked right out of him. As crazy vulgar as the Rez was in some ways, in others, it had a straight-up lightning line of the Protestant C
hurch running right through it. Most of the Rez used “hell” instead of “heck” only if they were talking about the place the “unsaved” went.

  “I didn’t do it. My dad came home and said—”

  “What? That I’m not good enough? I’m good enough for those booze hounds.”

  “I know,” I jumped in. “You didn’t seem to have any problem cutting me out.”

  “I didn’t cut you out. You don’t even go to his place anymore for lessons or practice. I do! Albert set it up. I could really use that fifty bucks, so—”

  “You think I’d handle your brother’s scuzzy uniform if I couldn’t use fifty bucks?” I was glad that in his heart, cash trumped fear of performing. It was gonna be easier to introduce the idea of the Battle of the Bands if he thought there was major cash involved. If he could get his shit together for fifty bucks, his head might explode at his cut of a thousand-dollar grand prize.

  “I guess not. I sure wouldn’t. Even I have higher standards than you this time,” he said, laughing. “I won’t touch Zach’s uniforms.” We were good. Not great, but good, and that was good enough … for now.

  Just when city life was getting interesting, when I could stay out later, and learn the city on my own, suddenly we were back in a tar-paper Rez Shack. I hadn’t loved Science Project life, but this didn’t feel like home either. Unlike that time-tripping guy in Slaughterhouse-Five, I was instead a girl unstuck in place.

  Marie would be starting senior year, a homecoming. But Marvin and I were eight when we’d moved to the Science Projects. This place was like a fill-in-the-blank test for a book we hadn’t read. Our Rez cousins had friends, but we were City Indian Cousins, Back to the Bush.

  Our dad had modified the Rez Shack to the limits of his imagination and wallet. Our “room” was an old Airstream trailer, attached by an enclosed gangplank to a hole cut in the wall. The Airstream had two bunks, a little table, and even a toilet and a shower, which we could use, if we took care of it. Small price for a First World bathroom. We had a skylight too—a little plastic dome. From outside, our Airstream looked a bit like the Chariot those Robinsons cruised around in on Lost in Space (one of Marvin’s TV favorites). But our dad took the wheels off this Chariot when he nailed it to the Shack. If a one-eyed giant showed up, it would be curtains.

  Despite Marvin’s optimism, he got a shabbier mirror of his old apartment life (hard as that is to believe). This couch’s pullout mechanism was busted. And in truth, Marvin missed cable. His TV channels had been curtailed, but lately, he was happy that a local channel had expanded into late-night programming. He’d shaped his whole identity and vocabulary from watching lame reruns of old shows on USA and channels from New York City like PIX or WOR in the middle of the night. He had Times Square Dreams in a Dog Street World.

  Unlike him, I at least had gotten out of the Shack and met two people from out here, Carson and Lewis. Marie came home that first morning with plans and a job application for me. And by some voodoo of Marie’s, my mom signed, but of course, Dark Deanna had to take the wheel for part of it, latching on one condition.

  “I need her beadwork skills,” Dark Deanna said to Marie, even though it was my life at play here. “Face it, Marie. Your sister’s better with the Double-Heart Canoes. Faster.” I could see the hurt in my sister’s face, but she didn’t deny it. She would never be great with a needle, but mostly because she wasn’t truly interested. I got good because I had an interest. I’d recently started making more of my own projects, moving beyond my Virgin Girl Diary Sketchbook, even though our mom still dismissed my conceptual art pieces as too stupid and weird to put out for customers whenever she caught me working on one.

  “You got two weeks,” our mom said, finally turning to me. “If this fails, you quit and you come back to the Table. No argument.”

  “Fine with me,” I said, pretending like my sister had not just dispersed the Dark Deanna cloud like she’d had some kind of magic blow-dryer, blasting kindness into our mom’s head.

  A couple of weeks later, it was weird to be excited about my first day of garage work, but I awoke with lightning under my skin. It felt decent to finally take some control over my life. No more life like Billy’s in Slaughterhouse-Five, getting slammed through memories and experiences and expected to cope. Trying to find something to grab for lunch, I heard bike tires popping on our driveway’s crushed stone. “Lewis?” I yelled out the window.

  “You want to ride bikes to work together today?” he asked, wandering in through the kitchen door, leaving it open. I could see his bike behind him. It was pretty decent for a Poor Kid Bike, one of those ten-speeds, with curled handlebars like rams’ horns.

  “Do you see a bike here, anywhere?” I perused the kitchen fruit bowl, but no luck. Just unripe bananas. I was thankful I had dinky jelly packets to help choke down the Commod PB.

  “No, I guess not,” he said, pretending to look around (as if one might magically appear). “I thought maybe you just locked it up inside,” he added. The Shack barely fit us, let alone transportation storage. “Or maybe you and Marie shared a bike and it might be your turn or something?” It always came to Marie. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about her Mystery Man.

  “She up yet?” he asked. I shook my head, and escorted him back out the door. She’d gotten in late again and probably wouldn’t get up until my mom dragged her butt out of bed to lug their Vendor Table totes to the driveway end. I grabbed my beadwork bag, and at the last second, slid my favorite water drum inside. I raised it up so Lewis could see, but he just shrugged (still thinking about Marie snoozing, just a few yards away from him, no doubt). I had to speculate as to whether that meant it was okay to take or not.

  Our mom called me Slutty Mouth, but Marie was the one who seemed to want our mom to catch her sneaking out (dumbest Plan A I’ve ever heard). Mystery Man didn’t seem like the type to move her in with him if they threw her out. (If the crappy little car I’d seen him leave the park in was all he could afford—a weird box with wheels, farting black clouds every couple of feet—there was no way he could support my lazy, high-maintenance sister.)

  “I don’t think it’s really advisable for you to ride on my handlebars,” Lewis said as we stared at the top bar, its metal gearshifts sticking up at sharp angles. He smiled.

  “No, not advisable,” I agreed, touching the spiky shift handles. He didn’t smile often. You never know what’s behind someone else’s closed doors, that’s for sure, but he was as buttoned-up as they come. His personal life was like those stores that had gone out of business, plate-glass windows all covered in soap. “I don’t think I can fit on your crossbar either, but we could walk together? If you don’t mind walking a bike.”

  “Sure,” he said, getting off. “Never had a reason to do it before.”

  “You have a reason now. You get to walk with me.”

  “Color me excited,” he said, and laughed when I slapped his arm, another rarity.

  “So how come you got here so early if you were planning to ride?”

  “Well, you went to orientation with that job counselor, right? Checkered-pants guy?”

  “Yeah, Friday. All the other bosses were there in the library with us.” It had been my first time inside the school. “But the garage boss wasn’t there, so Mr. Checkers brought me over there to meet that woman who works in the office, the one with the big voice.”

  “Anna. She’s nice. Even takes us to the bank so we can cash our checks. She cosigns.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Um, do you have a bank account?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I don’t either. Anna has an account, and she signs our checks with us. So we can get the money right away.” We were making steady progress down Clarksville Pass. The garage was starting to come into view.

  It’s amazing how a building can be there your whole life and you never see it until you have to. The garage was a series of interlocking concrete cubes, with a trailer out front, fi
ve thousand buses (an exaggeration) parked three deep, a bunch of utility trucks and vans in the back, all surrounded by barbed wire fence. Seemed like a prison for delinquent transportation.

  “What’s gotta cross this Anna’s palm?” I asked. There’s always a catch. Like when you live on the Rez with no car and you ask someone for a ride—you always lead with how much “gas money” you have.

  “Um, nothing. She’s just nice. She does it for free.”

  “No one’s that nice,” I said as we reached the massive fence gates. “Catch?”

  “I’m telling you, she is,” he said, weaving a crazy giant chain in the fence and through his bike, locking it there. “But not everyone here is. You’re gonna find that out soon enough.”

  “Well, what’s gonna happen?” No one had mentioned that part.

  “Don’t know. It’s like relationships anywhere. We each find our own way, but I thought I could bring you in while they’re still drinking coffee so everyone knows you. You’re not going to remember all them at first.” Sunlight gleamed off the dewy bus roofs as we neared the garage.

  Only the one regular door was open. Grimy windows on the giant garage doors reflected the sun coming over the buses, tiny balls of flame all in a row. We walked into the building and he showed me the time clock where we punched in and out (proof of our hours), the table where we’d eat, the office, the ladies’ room, and, oddly, the fridge in there where our lunches went. He pointed to a couple lockers, near the fridge, like teeth pulled from a perfect smile, and he told me I could hang my stuff up in one of them. Then we headed deeper inside.

  “This is their break room,” Lewis whispered before we got close. “But we only get to take ours with them if they invite us. Otherwise, that table I showed you.”

  “What’s the secret?” I stage-whispered back. The little room at the back was crowded with people around a table, reading the paper and drinking coffee.

  “I don’t want them to think I’m talking shit about them.”