The Dance Boots

by Linda L Grover

  “We should go pick her up one of these days and take her to Mesabi for lunch. Alice hardly ever gets out by herself anymore. He’s just got to go everyplace she does; she never gets to go anyplace without him.” Sis fumbled, wondering if she missed a G there and, “Let’s see now, are we on the picture frame set, or the letter X?”

  “Well, you know it’s always been like that with the both of them. I guess they just got that close with each other, you know, with not having any children … bingo!”

  Ai! Five bingos that woman had, and all Sis had was the coffee shakes.

  At break time Sis and Beryl walked arm in arm (Sis had a bad knee and needed help moving around till she walked out the kinks) around and past the pull tab counter to look over the display of pictures and papers from the students of the Mozhay Point Reservation School. Sissy didn’t say a word, of course; how could she without looking like she was bragging? Her grandchildren’s pictures were so much better than the other students’ that it was almost an embarrassment. Look at the colors, and look how little Fawn, just in kindergarten, drew that picture of herself with those four little dogs all on leashes, and those tulips, and the clouds up above, and the sun, too, all with smiling faces. And look how neat she printed her name! Sis maneuvered Beryl over toward the wall by the kindergarten room so that she would be sure to see it. Next to it was a picture with Beryl’s grandson Howie’s name in the lower corner, scratched so hard that the pencil had made holes in the paper. What crooked letters, and what in the Sam Hill was the picture supposed to be of? A potato? “Here’s a nice one,” she commented to Beryl. “That little kid sure must have worked hard on it.”

  “It’s Howie Junior’s,” Beryl cooed. “He is such a sweetheart.”

  “Oh, my!” Sis started at the beauty of the picture of the four little dogs all on leashes, and the tulips, and the clouds up above, and the sun, too, all with smiling faces. “Will you look at this one!” She peered at the neatly written name. “Why, it’s Fawn’s!”

  “The little sweetie,” Beryl cooed in exactly the same voice, “bless her heart.”

  Little Bud didn’t go back to his table after the break, and the Dommage girl was nowhere to be seen after she went outside to empty ashtrays. All the ladies at the table noticed but out of consideration to Beryl nobody said a word. Instead, they so obviously ignored Bud’s empty chair that it became the blind spot that the entire table unfocused on. Sis, loyal and feeling generous toward her friend because of the magnificence of her own grandchildren’s school papers, turned the attention to a joke on herself.

  “I never look for patterns or lucky numbers when I pick out my bingo cards. My system is, I pick the top six cards off the pile, and those are the ones I play.”

  “Do you change them, then, when they don’t pay?”

  “Gaawiin, I stick with the ones I pick out when I get here, and those are the ones I play all night; that’s my system.”

  “Oh. So, do you win much?”

  “I never win!”

  The table laughed.

  “Bingo!” called Beryl.

  When he tapped twice on the trunk it was the signal for her to step on the gas, step … step … while Earl, shoulder to the rear fender, pushed to rock the Falcon out of the mud. Alice watched Earl reversed in the driver’s side mirror, feeling the terror she imagined a mother must feel for a child in danger. His stocking hat had fallen off and lay in the mud, and in the moonlight the top of his skull shone through his fine hair (remember how soft his hair had always been, like a baby’s, silky against her tender fingers when she stroked it), thinned and such a light gray it was almost transparent. His shirt was so caked with mud she couldn’t see the plaid; he had torn some of the buttons off when he caught it on the rear fender, so that it hung off his shoulder and swung as he pushed. His mouth hung open as he gasped and gulped in air, and she thought, he can’t do this, can’t keep on; he looks so old, and so frail.

  He tapped once, the signal to stop, and Alice took her foot off the gas pedal. She got out of the car and stepped to the rear of the car, where he leaned against the trunk. “We’re gonna try it one more time,” he said, then just like that Earl was sitting in the mud, his legs bent in front of him, head hitting the trunk before he lay humiliated in the mud, an old man exhausted and weak and unable to take care of his wife. “Just a minute, just a minute,” he said when she took his arm to help him up, “let me get my breath a minute.”

  He looked so small, and so helpless. Like a baby, she thought, a small and helpless baby. She stroked him as she would to soothe a baby, her special calming way of passing one hand, then another, down from throat to ribs, and felt his heart pound quickly and unevenly, an uneven gallop almost heard. She blinked away a horse galloping toward the car, red eyes, open mouth full of teeth and ears streaming smoke. “Alice,” he whispered in near sleep, “do you know where we are?”

  Alice knelt in the mud and looked down at her husband, then up at the sky full of open space and stars.

  She never saw the baby, never knew if it was a boy or a girl, if it lived or died. She remembered a hand and arm folding her head immobile, a folded white cloth brushing her nose and lips, pressing tightly when she resisted, easing once she stepped willingly into the darkness of that sweet and thick smell. The last thing she heard, those thousands of times she remembered back to what she thought of as her nine months as a mother, “Gaawiin, gego gitaaji ken,” came from the boarding school matron, who sat on the side of the infirmary bed, next to where Alice lay, facing the foot of the bed, turned from that ancient young suffering face. The matron had been holding Alice’s belly in the circle of her strong arms, pressing her own rib cage down against the top of Alice’s belly to help her push that baby out, while her scrubbed hands held Alice’s ankles apart and drawn up to her buttocks. “Does she dream?” the matron wondered, and hoped not.

  Her baby, born while she lay unmoving and unaware, silent for the birth (how could the doctor and the matron not hear the screaming and weeping inside her soul, the tearing of hair and clutching of robbed belly, the keening that would follow in her wake every day for the rest of her life?), disappeared and was never seen, although she would look for it in the face of every baby, then child, then young person, adult, and finally grandparent, every person she saw from that day who looked to be about sixteen years younger than Alice.

  It was at Maggie’s house in Duluth where she met Earl, who was down from Mozhay to visit and see how everybody was doing. He walked in the kitchen door without knocking, which was the custom up north, and as little Biik expected at each visit, lifted him to touch the ceiling.

  “I’m flying, I’m flying,” Biik sang as always.

  “N’madabin, nisaye; here, take the rocking chair.” Henen rose to rinse and dry a cup, to pour tea. “Alice, this is our brother Earl.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Earl.”

  “Mmmhmm, likewise.” He was so shy that for the rest of the afternoon he looked in every direction and at everything else in the kitchen except for Alice. He returned every afternoon for a week with gifts for the family: a bag of oranges, a small brown paper sack of white sugar, a pocketful of licorice babies, a half-pound of coffee, a cherry pie from the bakery, and at last a bouquet of chenille violets just for Alice.

  They married the following week.

  There was no explanation for Earl beyond what she had had to memorize from the catechism at St. Veronique’s: God was the Supreme Being who made all things, including the mistake of letting Alice have her beloved Earl. Since the day she married Earl, she had known that one day the Supreme Being would realize this and correct the error.

  He spoke softly, as always, in his faraway and wondering voice. “Alice.” Earl, looking so small and helpless. “Alice. I think I’m going to die.”

  Earl, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me here. “You’re getting cold; I’ll get you a blanket.” She took her coat from the backseat and the blanket off the front seat, tucked the blanket under and
around Earl, her coat over his chest and arms. She found his hat, brushed off some of the mud, and pulled it down to cover his ears.

  His heart slowed in its gallop, and Earl looked up at his wife. It was Alice all right, though bent over him like that she reminded him of his grandma. What was missing? Oh, yes, her pipe; she kept that little clay pipe between her teeth when it wasn’t in that little pocket bag hanging off her waist. Remember how she would smile when she got a smoke, and how she used to suck on it unlit during Mass, when they were supposed to be praying before Communion, bent over with her hands folded together under her nose so the priest wouldn’t see her sucking on that unlit pipe. Except for that one thing she raised him the way the priest and the sisters told her to, didn’t let him around any of those old devil Indians, sent him to boarding school, made sure he went to Mass every day in the summer and confession on Saturday. And took care of his sinning, too—caught him lying once and yanked him by the arm over to the woodstove, where she held his hand over the burner so he’d get a taste of the hot blue fires of hell and remember for next time so he wouldn’t end up burning for eternity.

  Because Earl’s lips didn’t move and no sound came from his throat, Alice couldn’t hear him ask, “Who will look for us?” which was probably a good thing, because that would make her think how no matter how much she had wanted babies that hadn’t been meant to be. Who would look for them? No children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren would be waiting for them at home wondering what was keeping them, why they weren’t back from Early Bird yet. Nobody would be saying, “Maybe they’re having trouble with the Falcon. Let’s drive out to ChiWaabik to see. You take the Res Road and I’ll take the cutoff.”

  His wife looked frightened. “Kwesens,” Earl whispered, “Gaawiin, gego gotaaji ken. Don’t be scared, now.” He tried to smile encouragement.

  Behind Alice, the bushes next to the car parted and the little girl memegawens, the one in the blue-striped ticking work dress like the ones Alice had worn at boarding school, slipped through, followed by several other small children, some wearing boarding school uniforms, some in deer hide, one in bib overalls, moccasins, and a man’s cast-off hat. They murmured to each other the sound of leaves falling onto the dry grass of an early autumn and hung back, timid of the large and aging Alice kneeling clumsily in the mud and begging the stars.

  Her feet above the wet grass, little Alice tiptoed to the kneeling Alice grown old and knelt beside her. “Niijii kwesens, gaawiin, gego gotaaji ken,” she began the song, and waved ambe, ambe, to the other children. As the children joined her, they began to dance, their feet above the ground, while from behind the brush more of the little people emerged from the woods. A young man in an army uniform with hair the color of chokecherries parted the brush with his hands and walked softly on beaded moccasins toward the car, his head on a level with the taillights. He was followed by a woman in a long dark skirt with her hair bound in a white turban, who stood behind the children. More memegwesiwag, parents and grandparents, and people much older than that, stood at the side of the road, watching the dance and listening as the children sang to comfort their playmate Alice.

  Joining the song in her reedy old woman’s voice, old Alice sank to her heels then rolled onto her side to lie with her head on her arm, next to Earl, her other hand on his chest, her eyes slowly closing as her song ended.

  Earl lay unmoving, his eyes reflecting the night sky of open spaces and stars.

  Down the cutoff road two white lights swayed and danced in unison, growing larger and brighter as Little Bud’s truck jumped and bucked toward Earl and Alice and the little people. Angie saw them first.

  “Bud, look out! Stop!” Bud hit the brakes and leaned on the horn.

  Startled, the small boy memegawens in overalls and moccasins ran into the brush, diving under leaves. The adults took the children by the hands and hurried them back into the woods. The last to disappear, little Alice nodded toward Angie, said, “Giigawaabamin; nagatch,” put her finger to her lips, and stepped through a stand of quack grass.

  When Bud got out of the truck there were only Earl and Alice lying by the back of their car. The young man and girl knelt, touched them softly. Were they alive? The old man was so cold.

  “Aunt Alice,” said Angie, her breath warm on the old woman’s face.

  “Auntie … Uncle?” the young man said in his soft and distant voice, irresistible to Angie and now perhaps irresistible to two old spirits about to fly. “It’s me, Bud. Come to help. I’m gonna carry you to the truck.”

  Alice opened her eyes. “Where’s your uncle Earl?”

  Angie couldn’t speak. Bud said gently, “He’s right next to you, Auntie.”

  Alice sat up. “Earl,” she said. “Earl, wake up.” The old man’s eyes stared at the moon, reflecting the possibilities of the starry night sky.

  Bud placed a warm hand on her forearm. “Don’t frighten her,” he thought. “Auntie,” he began.

  “Earl!” Alice shook her husband’s shoulder. “It’s time to get up!”

  The old man blinked. “Was I snoring?” he asked.

  “Earl. Let’s get in the truck. Time to go home.”

  THE FLANNERY O’CONNOR AWARD FOR SHORT FICTION

  David Walton, Evening Out

  Leigh Allison Wilson, From the Bottom Up

  Sandra Thompson, Close-Ups

  Susan Neville, The Invention of Flight

  Mary Hood, How Far She Went

  François Camoin, Why Men Are Afraid of Women

  Molly Giles, Rough Translations

  Daniel Curley, Living with Snakes

  Peter Meinke, The Piano Tuner

  Tony Ardizzone, The Evening News

  Salvatore La Puma, The Boys of Bensonhurst

  Melissa Pritchard, Spirit Seizures

  Philip F. Deaver, Silent Retreats

  Gail Galloway Adams, The Purchase of Order

  Carole L. Glickfeld, Useful Gifts

  Antonya Nelson, The Expendables

  Nancy Zafris, The People I Know

  Debra Monroe, The Source of Trouble

  Robert H. Abel, Ghost Traps

  T. M. McNally, Low Flying Aircraft

  Alfred DePew, The Melancholy of Departure

  Dennis Hathaway, The Consequences of Desire

  Rita Ciresi, Mother Rocket

  Dianne Nelson, A Brief History of Male Nudes in America

  Christopher McIlroy, All My Relations

  Alyce Miller, The Nature of Longing

  Carol Lee Lorenzo, Nervous Dancer

  C. M. Mayo, Sky over El Nido

  Wendy Brenner, Large Animals in Everyday Life

  Paul Rawlins, No Lie Like Love

  Harvey Grossinger, The Quarry

  Ha Jin, Under the Red Flag

  Andy Plattner, Winter Money

  Frank Soos, Unified Field Theory

  Mary Clyde, Survival Rates

  Hester Kaplan, The Edge of Marriage

  Darrell Spencer, CAUTION Men in Trees

  Robert Anderson, Ice Age

  Bill Roorbach, Big Bend

  Dana Johnson, Break Any Woman Down

  Gina Ochsner, The Necessary Grace to Fall

  Kellie Wells, Compression Scars

  Eric Shade, Eyesores

  Catherine Brady, Curled in the Bed of Love

  Ed Allen, Ate It Anyway

  Gary Fincke, Sorry I Worried You

  Barbara Sutton, The Send-Away Girl

  David Crouse, Copy Cats

  Randy F. Nelson, The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men

  Greg Downs, Spit Baths

  Peter LaSalle, Tell Borges If You See Him: Tales of Contemporary Somnambulism

  Anne Panning, Super America

  Margot Singer, The Pale of Settlement

  Andrew Porter, The Theory of Light and Matter

  Peter Selgin, Drowning Lessons

  Geoffrey Becker, Black Elvis

  Lori Ostlund, The Bigness of the World

  Linda LeGarde Gr
over, The Dance Boots

  Jessica Treadway, Please Come Back to Me