Orphan Love

by Nadia Bozak

  Morning came on fuller now, filtered through the depression of that cold-cracked northern sky. By the light of absent sun I saw that the Indian was some kind of a rocker. A kind we didn’t have in Black Dew Seat, more of a thrasher. And he was not like the Indians I knew from there either. This one, he was all lone wolf and no regret. Thought, he probably prays to Slayer and thinks anyone who doesn’t is an enemy and an asshole. Christ, I knew all about that shit because I was always the asshole of some rocker’s eye. Into the hard stuff, some bits of hardcore punk even, had seen pictures of them in the pullouts from some of Slava’s tapes and in the magazines he loaned me. He was dressed in army pants and black boots that were dirtier than mine, the laces left undone to snake about as if he were trying on purpose to trip himself up. A jacket of black leather too, studded shoulders, peeled away at the elbows and along the seams. Hair that was shiny and smooth and black as dirty motor oil, long enough that it touched his elbows the way he was hunched up. His hair was his pride, I saw, and why not, for it was glossy like horsehair, wet asphalt, fresh black liquorice. Saw too, even from where I was sitting, the outline of a plastic comb in the back pocket of his pants. The shoulders on him, so wide they were as to probably outdo the width of his crazy rough-hewn canoe. Chucked down on the shore were a pair of paddles—slick new ones made of hardwood. Beside him was an army pack, and there was something else too, some other piece of duffel on the cold stone shore. But it was not duffel so much as it was luggage. A fucked-up suitcase is what he had out there in the bush. Hard-sided, covered in black chapped-up leather, a big brass clasp kept it shut.

  That goddamn suitcase got me to thinking that maybe he was crazy and all right, so maybe I could go on with him. Nothing wrong with him as an Indian, except that he’d remind me of Pickles. But maybe I deserved that, the punishment of constant remembering. Thought, together we two could defy law and circumstance, both nature and nurture combined. Thought, we two will get the fuck out of here and not look back the whole way there. Looking at the back of him, I imagined a face with scarred lips, red eyes, and an open gash on the jut of his chin. An appalling motherfucker to be sure, just the way people ought to look out there where there’s little sun or shine to heal you, and so the whole story of yourself is told in the scars of your skin.

  Finally the boy moved, though he didn’t do much. Just reached into his pocket, pulled out tobacco and papers. He bent his head, rolled a smoke, and lit it with a wooden match. Downwind, I caught a whiff of his tobacco. He smoked with his right hand and with his left pushed his hair behind his ears. When he turned a little and looked up shore, I saw the cut of cheekbone and the hook of nose. That long and glossy hair he had, wasn’t sure if he kept it that way because he was a rocker or because he was an Indian. Fuck it. I’d get farther faster in that boat and with that boy than I ever could with my own two boots. Pack onto my back, fists tight, I went on down toward him.

  The rock was wet with dew, each step was slippery bone. Went slow, therefore. Slid a bit and my spurs went clitter-clatter, and I said “Shit” and “Fuck” out loud to the earth and also to myself. He should have by then turned to see who was coming, but he did not so much as give a twitch. A cold breeze of northern discomfort blew in off the lake, and he stayed as silent as he was still and the morning went that way with him. Getting closer I could finally make out why he did not hear me—he was listening to his goddamn Walkman. Don’t know how I’d missed that, it being the waterproof kind, made of rubber. And seeing it I sort of knew what he had in the suitcase were likely the cassettes to go with it—his whole goddamn collection. He was out there for the long haul.

  And then he stood. Picked up the case first, then his pack and paddles. At the lake’s edge he flipped the canoe onto its rib-caged belly and tossed his gear inside. Heard the canoe scrape the granite shore as he pushed it in, then came the hollow thud of him jumping inside the boat. He was off and gone. Me, I just stood there and watched him paddling off, kneeling amidships, shoulders squared, as he leaned into the gunwale, stroked starboard, and so kept that canoe on a straight and easy course.

  “Hey,” I called out. “Hey, fella, wait.” Lifted my hands in the air, as if he might feel them somehow, waving around, breaking the air.

  But he kept going, and he paddled fast, as if he knew I was back there and was desperate to get away. Me, I was scorned, shunted, damaged again. Fucking heavy metal rocker fuck. Ran to the edge of the lake, slip-sliding, my eyes went all to water.

  “Fucking rocker fuck!” Shouted that once, twice, and again, but the Indian was gone now. Swallowed deep, for something sad inside was rising up to choke me. Invisible and silent, the whole world felt lost to me, and me to it.

  Rain cloud by now was turning the world to something closer to dusk. He wouldn’t get far before the sky opened up, and when it did, he’d be forced to the shore. Walked toward the treeline and there gathered dead wood and pieces of birchbark, and also I cut three thick sticks of green maple to make a trivet. A fire I built up on the shore. Hung a pot of lake water to boil, and when it did, I cooked oatmeal and ate the stuff right out of the pot. Coffee I boiled up too, then sat back and sipped it. Watched the lake and fed the flames and wondered what to do next. Smoked. Drank the last of my coffee. The black cloud had drifted on after the canoe. My part of the morning was drained of all time and colour, but his part, to the south beyond the peninsula he’d rounded maybe two kilometres away, was black and ripe with the coming of rain.

  Firewood used up and the flames burned out. Washed the pots, hands and face in the frozen lake water, then shouldered my gear and went off in the direction that Indian kid had taken, due south, straight down the shore. Stopped to look at Bellyache’s aeronautical chart. Pretty goddamn useless, showing not where I was or where I’d been, and neither did it show how far I was going. Instead of naming all those remote settlements, lakes, and rivers, that messy thing was a ripe old disaster of circles and degrees, arrows and these criss-crossing black lines. Where I’d been was all blue and green, where I was going, on the other side of the map, had nice black stars and the looping lines of highways and roadways, boatways and airways too. And that proved what I thought to be true: south was where everyone headed sooner or later.

  The map ended before it got to New York City, though. Montreal was there, Ottawa too, and across the border New York state as far as Lake Champlain. Right around Ottawa I had made a big black circle with my marker indicating the whereabouts of Slava O’Right. And in that circle I made an X, like to mark a grave, or show a dead person’s eyes, a wrong that I was going to make right. That done, I’d get back on the road. But for now, between where I thought I was and where Lake Temiscaming began, there was nothing—no names, no black stars, no highways. So, I’d make it up as I went along—from Black Dew Seat to Temiscaming, then to Ottawa and on to Montreal. And from there to Champlain and to the island of Manhattan—an eyeballed, rough-hewn journey to Central Park, to be exact, where I’d bury those big old boots that were weighing down my bag and killing my back all the way. And so too I’d put to rest the ghost I’d left behind, in a grave so shamefully shallow there’d be nothing left of him by then but maybe some scraps of denim, some leathered skin, a splinter of jawbone.

  Walked on, head down, and then the icy rain came on and though maybe I thought it impossible, the whole world got so much worse. The rain washed my face, and the skin it touched froze red, raw, chapped. Rain had the world by the throat, forcing it to choke down its cold and raw goodness, driving ponds and rivers to fill and flow, swelling lakes until they burst their ancient seams. And the world, it just stood there and took it. To the sound of rain, I sang a song by Bob Crater and the Goddamns. Out loud, out there, it sounded so lost and terrible and out of place, like it had no business in the bush. Knew all the words to all the songs Slava O’Right gave me, forever branded on both sides of my battered Bozak brain. That’s how come I could leave it all in Black Dew Seat, all those records and
tapes. With those songs I whispered myself to sleep and I shouted them to stay awake, but what I needed them for most was to gas up and motor on, to remind me what it was I was going for and to keep from looking back.

  A few kilometres into the downpour I caught sight of the Indian’s red canoe, a spot of bright blood in the dark, wet forest. Cutting across the slippery granite shore, I followed it, had no thought or choice in that, and so I entered that bush, peeling back the wet branches that twisted in my way. Was certain I’d come upon him, holed up in the shadows, homeless and shipwrecked, his face wet with rain and sweat. Went fast, moving deeper into the thick of the forest, and then I slowed down. Finally I stopped. The boat I was following was not there any more. It was just gone, moved on, and I was getting all spun out, tripping over my bootsteps, stumbling down the lay of my own pathetic path. It was a ghost, almost, that I was chasing.

  Heard a rustle and thought I saw the sodden firs around me give a wrinkle of movement.

  “Hey.” The word came out of me only as loud as a whisper was allowed to be.

  But the bush was blank. Broken only by the grey glass of the rain that was getting in. That smell out there—the cold, wet sap of bursting earth—so ripe that it almost hurt to breathe it. And then again there came the rustle, and I knew I was not alone, so I decided to move out, get on, away from that piece of haunted bush. Head down, pushing on from where I thought I’d come, I saw again the burst-blood vessel of the bashed-up boat.

  And right then I got jumped. The Indian.

  He came up behind me, kicked out my boots, and pushed me down. Christ, but I went over so easy from the weight on the back. Mouth full of raw earth, a leather arm looped around my neck, snapping back my head so that something inside burst and went hot.

  “Dumb little cocksucker.”

  His voice in my ear was on fire and its breath smelled like old thirst and his long, wet hair hung drooling in my face kept me from seeing him. Getting off me, he gave my neck an extra twist. My ass, he stepped on. Laid out, spitting grit, trapped under my backpack, front of my jeans getting wet, face throbbing and burned up from where I’d stubbed out my fall on the right-side cheekbone. He was above me and around me. Heard him kick the toe of his boot into the damp earth. Then he came over, spat nearby, grabbed me by the right arm and pulled me hard and rough to my feet. He stood back to watch while I got free of the pack and brushed the wet dirt and leaves from knees, chest, face. On the mitts I saw blood, my cheek being all cut up and scraped.

  “Goddamn prick.”

  Looking up, he’d assumed this crazy old karate stance, right hand shoved inside his jacket, going like a bandito for whatever weapon he had concealed, but the left one was held out stiff, ready to give me a chop. Right leg back twitching to deliver a swift high kick to my face, my throat, my chest. And his eyes, Christ, they were bladed, holding onto me like they saw standing there not a fucked-up girl but some kind of blood-hot warrior, weaponed and cruel, looking through the bush for a showdown and a last stand.

  My hands went up to say I had no ill intentions.

  “Sorry,” I said, snot dripping. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He said nothing, just stood and took me in, hatred painted onto the blacks of his eyes. Saw finally that I was fuck-all. Left hand came down and relaxed, but he kept his back up and his hand inside his jacket. A gun, I thought. Wanted to hear the sound of it, out there in all that silence. The frozen air would smash like glass, and this wide world would go to pieces right along with it.

  Saw the Indian’s shoulders begin to soften. He lost the karate stance and pulled himself together. “Thought you were . . . ,” he shook his head, sucked in his breath. “Fuck, well, just someone else.”

  Taller than me by a full foot, and though his wet hair was plastered to his face, I could still make out that his forehead was high, that the bones that held his face together were strong and smooth, especially the one that hooked his nose in place. Saw too how his jaw had this sort of overbite, how behind his lips his teeth were gapped, gnashed, and tobacco-stained. But his eyes were what mattered the most, blacker than tar and pitch and the empty space of no-gravity. He was a rocker to be sure, but still I felt myself sort of sweating and nervous like I wanted to show him a good side, if I had one to show. His leather jacket had thick silver zippers at the cuffs and one down the front that was left undone even though he was soaked and it was frigid cold. The front of his T-shirt, faded black, said in peeling white script: Kill ’Em All. Fuck, I knew that record. Slava O’Right had lent it to me, and I’d played “Search and Destroy” over and over until it lost the grooves and warped out of shape, and Slava was mad because I’d never have the cash to buy him a new one. But I wasn’t going to tell that to him or any rocker. Wasn’t going to say how I liked Metallica a whole lot, and that I’d like them even more if they took out all those goddamn guitar solos.

  “I was back there. On the shore.” Gestured with my thumb. “I shouted at you. Guess you didn’t hear me.” And then I asked what his name was.

  “Dave,” he said. His feet were spread wide. Shoulders thrown back. Starting at the toes of my boots, he worked his way up my body until his eyes met mine and then we both looked away. His hard look gave way to a smirk that made me shiver, as if standing there all naked, a big pile of nothing. He did not want me around.

  Through low-hung bush behind him was the rattletrap canoe. On the bow I saw a patch that had come undone. All curled up, sprung staples stuck out like the teeth of a dead dog.

  “You heading south in that rattletrap canoe?”

  He looked over at the boat, jaw twitching.

  “It doesn’t matter which way I’m going ’cause I’m getting there solo.”

  Then I said something like, “Oh, yeah, ’cause I wasn’t necessarily asking for a ride, you know.”

  And he said that I sure looked like I could use one. He spat then and asked if I was out there on foot.

  “Am,” I said.

  He looked down at my boots. Then up at my body, my face and hair. Knew I looked like I didn’t really belong in that there bush. Scratching the back of his head, he looked me over again.

  “No. I’m going solo. Can’t take you, kid.”

  “Have plenty of provisions,” I lied. “Plus,” I said, “I’m real strong.”

  The Indian shook his head. “You just wait, kid. Some other paddler’ll be along you can hitch a ride with.”

  “You’re the first body I’ve seen in five days now. This land is empty for certain, emptiest on Planet Earth.”

  It was sad, the way that was said. And I made it that way on purpose.

  He looked up into the bush from where I’d come, squinting as if expecting to make out someone’s shape or else a shadow.

  “No, not empty. Others are out here too.”

  “Like whoever you thought I was,” I said, brushing needles and dirt off the knees of my jeans. “Seems you need someone to watch your back. Should take me with you. I’ll be a good lookout. Can help scout.”

  Saw dark blue circles beneath his eyes and also in those eyes so much gloom there was almost no room for all that hatred he had for me. Face pale, the flesh pulled tight, zipped his leather jacket, and then shrunk up inside like he was trying to suck out drops of warmth. He looked so desperado just then, enough that if I’d been just a little bit less desperado myself, I might have gotten scared and walked off.

  “Sympathy’s a luxury I just can’t spare.”

  “Well, I don’t want that. Just a ride is all, only as far south as you happen to be going.”

  “You’ll get your goddamn rag, and I don’t need any bears coming around.”

  “You think I’m dumb? I just finished with it,” I lied to him again.

  With his eyes he took a stab at me, then he pulled them away, shaking his head. “A goddamn girl,” he said. He ducked back into the bushes, near
where the boat was hidden.

  * * *

  The bush was thick and so kept the rain from getting in, save one steady drip that fell like a regular old jackhammer and as time went on, it bore a neat little hole deep into the thawing black earth. Took off my mitts and I touched the raw part on my cheek and when I looked, my fingertips came away all bloody. Whether that blood came more from the cheek or from where the fingernails were now getting real cut down and almost gone, I couldn’t say. Put my mitts back on because I didn’t want this boy Dave to see them. From my pack I got out some peanut butter and a spoon and this old canteen filled with musty Tang, and I turned to Dave beside me and offered him some of what I had. He shook his head to say no. So I rolled my eyes at him for being so stubborn, and shrugged my shoulders. Ate and drank, and Dave sat beside me smoking.

  “Where’d you pick up that karate shit?” I asked. “An Indian knowing tricks like that, kind of rare I guess.”

  Dave stared, deaf or mute or both.

  “Must come in handy, though.”

  “I don’t talk much,” Dave said after a minute, stubbing out his cigarette in the mud.

  “I noticed as such.”

  “And neither will you. Carry your own weight and don’t ask questions, I’ll take you as far as the Muskrat. There’s hunters down there, so you’ll be able to catch a ride. But if I say you go, that means you do it. I say go this way or do that, means you gotta listen. The only thing I care about is getting south.”

  “South where? ’Cause I’m going to New York.”

  He kept on. “And I go by night mostly, or early morning.” His eyes held hard on the watery horizon.

  “Who’re you running from?”

  Dave paused and looked over.

  “Not running. Never running. And I’ll fill you in on what you need to know, and right now that’s nothing. Got that, kid?”