They left soon after. And before anyone else could come Colin slid on his belly toward the wall and Monique’s discarded paintbrush. His head swam and he could not see for a moment. In a dream, he reached toward the wall and smeared the words Duane had written in blood, the words that would tear Monique apart if she saw: RACE TRAITOR. With that done, he turned over, closed his eyes, and awaited death.
Monique squeezed Colin’s hand until her knuckles cracked. She seeped into him—straight to his weakly thumping heart. Would never tell him that despite his best efforts she had a feeling about why the boys had come. Her tears explained what she couldn’t say because of everything: Your biggest mistake was loving me. The intern openly glared at them.
Colin let forever lapse. And then he shunned her. “Go on now.” He let go of her hand and turned to the wall. His hospital gown separated at his back. “Get out there.” She saw the acne that scabbed up his bony shoulder blades. His pale skin hid nothing but thin bones. It had been a long time since he was tan and muscular. It had been years since they’d swam in the cool pools of Goldsborough Creek in summer. How could everything fall apart so fast?
His sacrifices came rushing at her all at once. She felt them tugging at her conscience inexorably and then flowing past her. She could have shrieked and cried wildly. She did not want to leave him. She refused to be caught adrift in the storm of violence. She wanted, rather, to be part of that rush—the tempest that had led him to the hospital room in a changed town.
She poured her body over his. She wanted to heal him—spill her heart into his sheets and bones. He didn’t respond, just like a dead person. It was too late.
The intern told her she needed to leave—that she was making a bad situation worse. She turned on the stranger aggressively. Her body was a raging river. “You don’t understand anything! You never had to!” Her words were a storm. She was escorted out with firm fingers clamped on her upper arm. The intern’s hand looked ugly and hairy and pale against her skin. He had been waiting to do something righteously violent. His touch left a bruise. She squirmed in his arms and hated him. She wanted to believe that it was he who was taking her away and not everything else. She didn’t see Colin’s face for the last time. He wouldn’t turn to her.
She drove to the river on the reservation. It was angry and bitter and wise in the wintertime. She smoked cheap cigarettes. She tried to calm down. She tried to think about how the tourists fished for king salmon because king salmon were big and easy to catch. They took pictures and didn’t eat them. The fishermen stood in crowds on the banks and tangled in each other’s line. They didn’t understand why nobody built big motels for them to stay in. They pulled their heaving, fat, dark catches up onto the rocks, and the fish gasped among the pieces of fishing line, discarded bait, candy bar wrappers, and beer cans. Young boys from the rez watched curiously on the other side of the river across the bank. They were silent as the tourists held the large fish by the gills and the other tourists took pictures and congratulated them. They didn’t care what the spawning salmon tasted like. They didn’t care how poor or small the rez was. They didn’t go downtown to Cota Street or shop at La Tienda Latino. The tourists left the salmon in their coolers. They put them into their freezers. They ate steak for dinner.
Monique walked to the mouth of the river—where the freshwater met the saltwater of the canal. There were little grass islands, tide flats, and salt-loving plants. She walked in the new-winter chill. The moon reflected on the underside of the quaking aspens. She watched the stars that were like snow swirling, the clouds chased away. There was a clear black sky and bright white lights. She stood on the edge of the lapping river. The wind rose up off the seawater. She closed her eyes, felt the light of the full moon, and made up her own religion. She called to her spirits for guidance. She didn’t wait for them to answer. Monique wanted to dive into the water after she had swallowed the sleeping pills in her pocket. She wanted to swim in the cold water until she slept. Her life was payment for all the harm done. All the children at the meth houses with dirty faces. The barking, beaten, starving dogs. The smell of burnt plastic and cat piss. The tattoos on the kids who beat Colin. The baseball bat that cracked his skull. The river whispered. Her body answered. The dark current wanted her. Her death would make the world stop—the machine would sputter. It would all grow black and distant as the water found her and the tide brought her out to Hood Canal.
The salty grass waved. The starlight reached the bottom of still pools. The backwater in the slow-moving parts lapped sullenly. The dandelion faces were squeezed shut as they waited for the sun. She imagined the earth consuming and comforting her. She wanted to sink low beneath the ground—to sing sad praises to the dirt, and the leaves and the salmonberries rotting there. She imagined something deeper than sleep—something bottomless and cavernous with spaces so wide and dark they lost her dishonor. She wanted to turn her skin inside out. She wanted to scream and be forgiven. But her voice wasn’t sound. It was only fading vibrations.
The current kept sliding by. The salmon, on the edge of death, sensed her pain. They would allow her to sit on the river bottom with them as they spawned and died. The last of their energy expired. Monique wanted her soul to wander in and out of the algae and mud and carcasses all the way to the Pacific Ocean. She wanted to feel the waves grow salty and colder. She wanted the deep water to pardon her—scatter her—make her nothing but wet.
She would take it all away in the flash flood of her death. She would slide through the moonlight with the sadness of the whole town following her. She would be the wet dirt around the bones in the unmarked graves in the mountains. The spirits of the mangled men would be released. Her raindrops would dive deep into the black mulch—the richest soil. It would hug the worms and shiny beetles. Her whispers would flutter and then become silence itself. Moonlight would lap with the movement of the freshwater and the sea.
And then, as she slowly and quietly reached this place, Jimmy James Blood called to her from a large red alder tree that was leaning out over the water. “He was just sitting there,” she told me in that parking lot. “Right above me on a branch. Smoking a cigarette I hadn’t smelled before. I swear he just appeared. I didn’t hear him crawl up there.”
“Go on home,” he told her. And Monique hadn’t moved—just stared up at him in shock. He kept talking firmly and gently. “You have a baby inside of you, Monique. Just go on home.”
Dry land reached out to greet her. It muddied her thoughts and intentions. Even the salmon were flopping toward the shore. The drought made her bewildered. Reality was suddenly upon her. Jimmy James did not reach out strong, comforting arms. He did not whisper soft words into her ear. His black Carhartt jacket looked silver in the light from the moon. It was worn and faded and soft. He slid off the tree branch. Spit on the ground. Left her standing by herself with her mouth wide open. He turned around and said, “It’s high time you git on outta David. I heard Montana’s real pretty.” He smiled that smile. Climbed up the bank to the road where she saw headlights shine on her own car—the deep rumbling of an engine—a vehicle filled with shady figures that were a mystery to her. Then he was gone, and she was alone.
Monique drove home and thought about traveling east on I-90 to the trailer park. Her aunt would welcome her with open arms.
“I’m going to Rocky Mountain College,” she told me in the parking lot of the All Night Diner and described a liberal arts school in a cold, dry place. Colin always put every cent into her account. There hadn’t been any cash in the house on Cota Street. He knew what was coming. It was fourteen hours to Billings. But all she really wanted to do was disappear into water flowing over gravel.
“Vera, I don’t wanna be an artist no more!” She finally broke down in front of the restaurant as she hid her eyes. “What a stupid idea!” Her hair escaped from several barrettes as she pounded the rusty steel of her truck with her fist. “It’s not worth it!” Monique finally raised her brown eyes to me. They were bloodshot a
nd cold and hazardously dry of tears. “Nobody’s an artist around here!” She flung her hands out in despair. We both noticed the cracked streets and the sad faces on all the buildings as if for the first time. The sight of her and those buildings broke my cold heart.
I couldn’t be mad at her. Deep inside, I knew she wouldn’t have been able to stop my brother any more than I could have. We all knew what was going to happen. I couldn’t blame her. The problem was not Monique. The problem was misty and still eluded me. I couldn’t quite grasp on to all the reasons. But it had something to do with those cracked streets and empty buildings. And if I didn’t stand next to Monique, I would be standing somewhere else. The thought crossed my mind that I should be on the seat next to her. But as much as I hated it, those cracked streets and empty buildings were all I knew. And I couldn’t let go for the life of me. I didn’t hold Monique or tell her everything would be all right. All I could offer her was a forced smile and the promise of a phone call when I got paid next.
She got into her truck and slammed the door. I hoped the vehicle would make it. I saw her cursing and banging her steering wheel as she turned left to merge onto 101.
Shit.
It just wasn’t fair.
Colin was released from the hospital and taken straight to jail. They let him out after his hearing where he pled not guilty. He went back to the house on Cota Street where he and Dad now lived alone. Monique’s poster of the Specials stayed on the wall of the bedroom that was once Mima’s.
Jimmy James was right. There was a new heart beating—a new pulse at Monique’s core.
The baby was a boy. She said he would have her hair, Colin’s black Irish blue eyes, and her mother’s nose. “But he’ll be stronger than we are,” she assured me. “I’m going to name him Colin James O’Neel.”
She said when Colin’s court stuff was all over he could come stay with her. They had a no-contact order but it wouldn’t last forever. She said her aunt wouldn’t mind them all three staying in the room in the trailer in the trailer park—the injured boy and the anxious girl and the sweet, innocent baby. She said his name would still be on the birth certificate.
Monique told me she knew things would only get better. I tried to believe her. But a nagging feeling told me otherwise.
12
6:30 A.M.
The sounds through the walls of my apartment were muted and sleepy in the winter morning. The water ran at 6:30 a.m. Children argued loudly and a stern, adult voice chastised them into silence. Condensation covered the mirrors in my bathroom. I heard stomping feet and singing. I thought about how we all removed our clothes and showered almost in unison. I cooked whole-grain hot cereal with raisins. The steam rose up from my saucepan. I spooned lumps of cereal into a wooden bowl and drizzled honey over the top. I poured whole cream into all the dips and crevices before returning to my still-warm covers to eat slowly in the cold, dark morning.
Outside, the air was frigid. The wind whistled and moaned around the twin brick buildings. A stale, glaring sun peeked out from between them. Ivanhoe and Shenendoah stood sentry against gray-and-white skies. Ivanhoe’s turrets and large windows facing the street urged me to remember better times—when her rooms housed well-to-do young couples as the city’s economy boomed. Shenendoah said nothing—she was being renovated. Piles of construction refuse littered the rear near the basement entrance. Asbestos and lead paint particles glistened on the wind. Shenendoah’s back wall was torn off. Families still lived inside the apartments. The new owner took out their toilets and set them on the front lawn. I watched them trying to eat breakfast in their winter parkas. A man sat in his car with the engine running. Dark circles crept underneath his eyes. I tried to wave good morning to him. He did not have the strength to see me. There were hard lines of determination on his face. He lifted a finger tiredly. The motion seemed to leave him exhausted.
Our neighborhood was getting too close to the rich neighborhoods. We would all be pushed out for the profit of real estate companies. Ivanhoe’s and Shenendoah’s strong and unadorned redbrick faces had to compete with the renovated, painted ladies that lined the streets east of us near Soulard.
The winter was bitter. My skin cracked from the cold. My truck was girdled with snow. The slush lay dirty and brown on the streets. It was speckled with trash and pebbles. Cars lined up behind the snow shovels on Vandeventer and Lafayette. City buses were black from the grit of sand and de-icer on the streets. The gas company raised their rates. Senior citizens on fixed incomes had trouble paying. Homeless people froze to death. The news stories made me think about lepers during biblical times—how they couldn’t feel the rats nibbling on their appendages. They couldn’t tell when their skin froze to the ground. Their bodies fell from them in little pieces before they died.
I rode the bus to work. I watched for Bottle Cap Man, Mirabella, and Patti Smith. I did not want them to freeze to the ground. I wanted them to hold on—to stay alive just like me. They were hope against all odds. I watched them bury their faces in the hoods of their sweatshirts and behind liquor bottles. I watched them push shopping carts filled with clutter that didn’t make sense to anyone else. They smoked cigarettes to concentrate. They held their heads in their hands. Bottle Cap Man yelled loudly. He got skinnier and skinnier.
At Meadows, I waited for the children to file in from the cold. They shed their worn, heavy coats. They laughed and played and asked me about the art projects I had planned. Their faces were pliable and new. They made my heart ache. I didn’t think about anything else. I didn’t want to.
13
LA LLORONA
The memories trickled back slowly over the icy winter—the coldest out of any I had ever known. The numbness surrounded me. But my daydreams became frantic. They picked up speed and accuracy. Their sharpened points dug into me. They drew fresh blood from wounds that refused to heal.
Annie’s brother shot a man. He robbed him and left him for dead. I watched the rain splatter and drip off his brown Carhartt jacket as he leaned close and explained nervously, “I got scared.” Stiv was twenty years old. His hands shook. He chain-smoked full-flavor Marlboros and didn’t look so rough-and-tumble anymore. It was only a matter of time before he was locked away. We knew he didn’t have a place to run to.
“He was yellin’ real loud after the bullet went in,” he told us. “He was bleedin’ ’n’ screamin’ like a skeered piglet.” Annie talked lowly to him. I squeezed my eyes shut. Their words floated away from me. I heard Stiv yelp, “Shit, Annie! Oh shit. I’m goin’ to prison!” He held his head. Paced. Kicked at the tires on his truck. He was coming down from the PCP. I thought of their dead mother and their father with a shotgun. How the walls of a trailer can close in on little kids. Floors can sound hollow. I saw their home with no foundation—soaked in unforgiving rain—rotting in overgrown weeds and car parts. It was a long, long way from anywhere—a forty-five-minute drive into the hills. Nobody could hear them screaming. There were no friendly open doors with yellow light. Stiv blamed himself for Annie’s baby. It tore him apart. He shouldn’t have left her there all alone. He looked at Annie with real fear in his eyes. “I told ’em, Annie. I told ’em I wouldn’t run with ’em no more.” The words chilled me to my depths. “Duane and Kat and them. I was fucking her, Annie! I was fucking Kat.”
Then. Before I could even think. Before Annie could stop me I was diving at Stiv’s legs.
His body was toppling with a surprised humph. I had him down in the cold muddy water. Sloshing in the puddles. He was grappling with my small mean fists. I was sitting over him. Just for one moment. Trying to find his face in the dark. Pummeling his neck with furious, futile blows. I did not shout. Every breath went toward the driving whirlwind of black anger. Before Stiv got a hold of himself. Before he pushed me off him. His boot driving into the side of my head was the first thing I had really felt in a long time. I felt his weight over me. He was strong. Much stronger than me. He could have walked away then. Instead he pushed my face into
a puddle of oily runoff. My cheek burned in the cold water. He pinned my arms behind me. Gritty sand coated my face. He leaned down close. Under the stars in a rainy mill town, Stiv pleaded, “Please, Vera. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I was there. I didn’t want to hurt Colin that bad. I didn’t know it was going to be like that.” He let go of me. I could not think. I heard his truck door slam. The engine screamed. I saw the taillights leaving. I crawled on my scraped numb knees. I jolted forward. I ran after those worried running lights glowing scarlet under the dead moon. I ran until I could throw rocks that bounced off his bumper gaining speed. I ran long after I could see him. I ran with giant tears leaking. I stopped in front of an old laundromat. The building was dark. Then Annie was there saying nothing. In her car with the door open. Getting wet in the rain. She opened the passenger-side door silently. She handed me my handkerchief.
“They almost killed him,” I said instead of taking it from her.
“I know,” she answered. “I know.”
I hadn’t slept well since Annie got pregnant. Nothing sat right. She would leave David just like Monique. I didn’t have a surface brain. My mind was split wide open. I saw my town’s mysteries and hidden pockets of strange memory. I had a brain that heard things nobody else did. I saw the armed robbery that turned to violence. I saw Stiv shoot the man in the parking lot of a closed-down grocery store. The blood splattered over broken glass and dried urine. I refused to become hardened to it. I left my mind open.
I stared at images across the street while Annie tried to reason with me inside her car. The ghosts were out in full force. Beautiful La Llorona with olive skin and dark hair sat among wildflowers along the railroad tracks. She wore a white gown. Goldsborough Creek shuddered and lapped at the clinker pile. La Llorona had eyes of black cast iron—tears of blood made them liquid.
Vera Violet Page 8