Red Earth White Earth Page 8

  Jimi would take the foul. The offender would retire to the locker room, gauze, and disinfectant. For his efforts Jimi was afforded a couple of thirty-foot jumpers, none of which ever came close to the rim. And Tom soon came back into the game.

  That year, except for the first two games, the Flatwater Indians won all the rest. In snowy March the team found itself headed to the state basketball tournament in Minneapolis.

  The caravan of orange buses followed the Mississippi River south through Little Falls, Saint Cloud, Anoka. There began the north suburbs of the Twin Cities, unwinding rows of pastel tract homes each with a jungle-gym swing set in the backyard and a covered fishing boat on a trailer in the front yard. Both were submerged in snow. In the bus, to see better, the boys blew clear, blue ovals on the white frost of the window-panes. Most of them had never been to the city. They fell silent as the houses turned to shopping centers, the shopping centers to sagging white two-story houses of north Minneapolis, and then to old brick warehouses and flour mill silos along the Mississippi. Once Guy saw a brilliant coppery ringneck pheasant poised at the edge of a parking lot; behind the pheasant, trees ran down to the river. Guy twisted in his seat, pointing for Tom to see, but the bus had already passed. The pheasant was a photograph flashed once on a screen, then gone.

  The bus wove its way alongside the gray glass skyscrapers of downtown Minneapolis. The players scraped larger windows in the frost and pressed their cheeks against the glass to look up. The heat of their skin melted the ice and ran water. When from the cold they pulled away their faces, the water wavered and froze again. Then through the thin glaze of ice the tall buildings curved and bent, and stoplights and police lights throbbed like kaleidoscopic mirrors and lights in a fun house.

  “Hey, look at that big nigger in the Caddy!” someone from the back of the bus shouted. The bus swayed as the right-side riders rushed to look out left.

  Guy looked down. A big black man in sunglasses and driving a ’62 Cadillac with a chromed continental wheel waited at a stoplight just below them. A red-haired woman leaned close against him in the seat. The black man slowly looked up at the bus and seemed to meet Guy’s gaze. He held up his middle finger, then looked back to the traffic.

  “You fucker—you bastard,” the rear-seat riders jeered.

  “Pipe down, you guys,” the bus driver called.

  “Fucking rubes,” Guy murmured. But Tom didn’t answer. He was scraping ice and blowing on the glass to keep it clear.

  Leaned against each other, they watched the city pass. Once they saw two policemen with guns drawn push a black man spread-legged against the white police car. Another time they saw an old Indian weaving down the sidewalk holding a sheaf of newspapers under his arm. Tom twisted in his seat to watch the Indian until he disappeared into the crowd.

  ***

  The Flatwater Indians played at the University of Minnesota in William’s Arena. They lost their first game by thirty points to a Minneapolis suburban school that had more students than Flatwater had people. The Indians lost their second game, by sixteen this time, to an all-black team from north Minneapolis. Those players did things with the basketball Guy had seen only on TV. Finally, against a farm town from southern Minnesota whose scoring, like the Flatwater Indians’, came mainly from two players, the Indians won their last game by one point. Early and not unhappily out of the tournament, the boys from Flatwater had a free day to explore the city.

  “I’m supposed to take this to my mom’s cousin,” Tom said, removing a small, tightly wrapped package from the bottom of his duffel bag. “Wild rice,” he said.

  Guy looked at the address. Franklin Avenue. It meant nothing to him. “So let’s go,” he said.

  With two wrong city bus rides, Guy and Tom ended up on Hennepin Avenue, dead center, downtown Minneapolis. The streets were salted and slushy, the traffic fast and loud. Rather than try another bus ride, they walked twenty blocks south to Franklin.

  “Must be the right street,” Tom said. They began to see only Indians. The city Indians wore their hair in long, greasy braids. Tom said hello, but the silent city Indians passed with only a sidelong glance at Guy. In twenty-degree weather they wore layers of old clothes or green army coats. The city walkers hunched over as if they were clutching something to their bellies. Often the gold cap of a wine bottle protruded from a pocket. None of the city Indians wore caps or gloves.

  On Franklin Avenue most of the stores and gas stations were boarded up and closed. Sheets of plywood became street blackboards.

  “BIA Steals.”

  “Red Power!”

  “Custer Died for White Sins.”

  “Red Brother/Yellow Brothers Unite—Save Vietnam from Nixon.”

  “Control Rent—Kill Your Landlord.”

  One word they saw again and again was “AIM.”

  “AIM for All Indians.”

  “AIM for Street Safety.”

  “AIM for Neighborhood Watch Patrol.”

  “White Police Harassment? Call AIM.” Always there was a phone number.

  “What’s AIM?” Guy asked.

  “Beats me.” Tom shrugged. He held up the address to the doorway number of a three-story brick apartment building. The steps were cracked, their edges crumbly and rounded. “This is it,” he murmured.

  They went inside. The foyer smelled of piss. A metal grid of buttons and buzzers hung forward by a snarl of thin wires. On the floor the old carpet was worn to its nap all over. Beneath an iron radiator rusty water dripped with the sound of a ticking clock into the overflowing water of a flat pan.

  They found the stairs to the third floor. The stairwell smelled even stronger of piss. An old Indian man lay sleeping in a nest of rags and torn newspaper underneath the stairs.

  “Jesus . . . ,” Tom said softly.

  In the dim hallway they heard TV game shows and crying kids. Behind one door someone coughed deep and rattling. They found number 387. Behind the door people were shouting, women’s voices. Tom glanced at Guy, then knocked. The arguing stopped. Someone stomped across the room toward the door. The footsteps slowed before the door, which opened only the length of its safety chain. One round brown eye peered out at Tom.

  “I’m Tom LittleWolf. I’m looking for Mrs. Rosalie Allday.”

  The brown eye leaned closer. Guy smelled perfume or incense.

  “So? What, you collecting for something?”

  “No. I’m from White Earth. Mrs. Allday is my mom’s cousin.”

  The door opened. Holding it was an Indian girl about fifteen who held her baby sister on one hip. She wore a scarlet headband, red lipstick, a peace symbol and an AIM button on her sweater. Her face was round, her skin pale brown and smooth, her teeth perfectly white and straight.

  Tom’s mouth opened as he stared at her.

  “Somebody from White Earth,” she called through the hallway toward her mother. “No suitcase.”

  Mrs. Allday came through the door from the kitchen. She was very dark and very stooped. She looked fifty but probably was about forty. She squinted. “We don’t have much room,” she began.

  “We didn’t come to stay,” Tom said quickly. “Just to give you this.” He handed over the rice.

  Mrs. Allday squinted at the package. “Mary,” she said suddenly. “Mary sent this?”

  Tom nodded.

  “Then you’re Mary’s boy?”

  Mrs. Allday laughed. Her teeth were yellowed. Some were gone. “Come in, come in,” she said, tugging Tom forward.

  Tom looked back at Guy. The Indian women stopped also to stare.

  “Who’s this behind you, Jesus?” the Indian girl said.

  “Terry—damn you, you shouldn’t say things like that!” her mother said, raising her hand as if to slap her daughter. But Terry did not flinch or even look at her mother.

 
“He lives on White Earth. He’s my friend,” Tom said. “We came down here together.”

  Terry nodded. “Well, get in before somebody sees you,” Terry said to Guy. “We don’t want to give this building a bad name.”

  “You think you could do better, just try,” Mrs. Allday said immediately to her daughter. “You go out there and try find a place. You’d be back here in a day. Go ahead, just try it.”

  “Shut up,” Terry said to her mother, and began to rock the baby in her arms. “Just shut up.”

  Mrs. Allday carefully untied the string of the little package, eased open the brown paper as if to save it. “Rice—oh, oh . . . ,” she murmured. She leaned down and buried her nose in the long shiny black kernels.

  “Christ, you’d think it was Acapulco Gold or something,” Terry muttered.

  Mrs. Allday found a little kettle and began to boil water. While she waited she sifted the rice back and forth, back and forth, one hand to the other. She began to hum a low song that was half humming and half singing.

  “Oh God, not that,” Terry said. She turned on the radio. Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane came on loudly: “White Bird, sits on the win-dowsill . . .” The baby stirred, then began to cry.

  Terry jiggled the baby gently, then harder in her arms. But the baby kept crying. “Oh shit, all you do is eat,” she said. She sat down on the couch and jerked up her sweater and pushed the baby’s face against her round, brown-nippled breast. When the baby began to make sucking noises Terry looked back to Guy and Tom. To Tom she said, “You brought my mother something, so what’d you bring me?”

  Tom could only stare. “That’s your baby?” he finally blurted.

  “It’s sure not yours,” she said.

  “How . . . how old are you?” he asked.

  “Old enough, right?”

  Tom blushed; his brown cheeks turned darker.

  “I didn’t mean that . . . ,” he said. His voice trailed off.

  “I’m fourteen and a half,” she said. “Nearly fifteen.”

  Tom was silent. He looked at Guy. Then he said to her, “What about . . . school? Do you go to school?”

  “Fuck school,” she said.

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “Live. Just like you,” she said, staring straight at Tom with angry eyes.

  Later that night Tom and Guy sat in the blue haze of the Body Shop, a nude bar just off Hennepin Avenue. They sat along the strippers’ runway and stared up at the women dancers. Or rather, Guy stared. Sometimes Tom watched the women and other times he didn’t. Sometimes he just stared into his glass.

  “Ready?” the barmaid said.

  “Pardon?” Guy said.

  “Another beer?”

  “No . . . not yet.”

  The woman made a face and turned to the next table.

  On the stage the strippers, in high heels and sheer black shorty gowns, danced one by one in the slow-turning red and blue and yellow lights. Sometimes old men laid dollar bills on the stage in front of them, then leaned forward. The dancer worked her way toward the money, danced down over it, legs spread, nipples an inch from the old men’s mouths. Then with a quick spin she was gone to the next dollar bill.

  Each girl danced three songs, then was replaced by another dancer. The third woman made Guy breathe through his cock. She was about nineteen, tall, blond, with upturned pink nipples that rode high, round breasts. Her tits hardly moved when she reached down for the old men’s money.

  “Jesus,” Guy murmured.

  Tom didn’t speak. Guy turned to look at him. The blond dancer passed before Tom and he didn’t even turn his head. He stared right through her. Stared somewhere far away. He hadn’t spoken all night.

  The dancers began a new rotation. It was late but Guy wanted to see again the blonde with the long legs and hard tits. Finally she came back onstage. She was tired this time. She stumbled. But men still laid their money on the canvas. Once she bent down for money and her right breast sprayed a tiny stream that misted pink in the light. She wiped her nipple with the back of her hand and danced on.

  “Christ, she’s got a baby too,” Guy said.

  Tom looked up suddenly. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

  Out on the street they walked in silence. It was late, after midnight. Fine, sharp snow slanted in the streetlights and fuzzed the stoplights and bar signs redder. Tom walked staring ahead.

  “What’s the matter, Turd?” Guy said. He draped his arm around Tom’s shoulders.

  Tom shook his head and kept walking. He did not shrug off Guy’s arm.

  After a block he said rapidly, “Tex—I think I got to do something. But I don’t know what it is.” He turned to Guy as if Guy had an answer.

  Guy stared. The Indian stuff. He knew Tom thought about it, but there wasn’t any answer that he knew of so he only nodded to show he understood.

  “Tex—we got to get the hell out of here,” Tom said. “That’s the first thing.”

  “Hey, relax,” Guy said, “tomorrow we’re gone.” He held Tom in a fake neck lock and pulled him along. The streetlights were fewer now, the hotel only a few blocks on. A block ahead, black against the white sidewalks, a drunk wove his way toward them.

  “Am I supposed to do something about my cousin? About her baby? About the others?” Tom murmured. “How am I supposed to know? What the hell am I supposed to do?” Tom said, louder with each word.

  “Listen,” Guy began. But at that moment the drunk blocked their path. “Shay my friends, can you spare an old fellow a dollar, huh?” the bum said. Tom squinted through the falling snow. The bum was an old Indian. He wore an army blanket cape and no hat. Snow shimmered and melted in his wet hair, ran down his face. His mouth was covered with yellow-running sores. “What shay, buddies, huh?”

  Then the old man looked again at Tom. “Ah!” he said, as if Tom had hit him hard with his fist. He said something in Chippewa and lurched forward and threw his arms around Tom. Tom struggled to get free.

  “Help—Guy—help!” Tom shouted.

  Guy pulled at the old man’s fingers, which he had locked behind Tom’s back. He was hanging on like death.

  “Help me!” Tom screamed.

  The next morning in the hotel room, Guy woke up alone. Tom’s bed was made, his duffel bag gone. Everything was gone. It was as if he had never been in the room.

  The players’ bus waited a full hour, until ten-thirty, but Tom LittleWolf didn’t show. When the coach asked, Guy told him about the visit to Franklin Avenue.

  “So there you go.” The bus driver shrugged. The coach looked at his watch. At eleven the bus left without Tom.

  On the way back to Flatwater, Guy had a bus seat all to himself. But he did not sleep. While the other players dozed he only scraped frost and watched out the window. There was nothing much to see, only groves of red oaks here and there in the white fields.

  11

  That spring Guy drove to Flatwater High alone. Occasionally he saw Mary Ann riding with Kurt Fenske in his muddy pickup that carried a red gas tank and a rack of chain saws in the rear. Mary Ann did not wave. Once while Guy was driving through town he saw her walking on Main Street. She waddled. Her belly was as round as a tub. A week before the baby came, Mary Ann and Fenske were married. Guy did not attend.

  Tom LittleWolf he did not see. But he heard. He heard that Tom was in Taos. He was in New Orleans. He was in Rosebud. He was in Berkeley. He was in Brownsville. He was in Anchorage.

  Tom was working on a roofing crew. He was selling dope. He was in college. He was in jail. He was working on the oil rigs. He was married. He was not married. He was in the hospital after an accident. He was never injured.

  He was coming back to White Earth.

  He was never coming back.

  Al
l this Guy heard at the school and at Doc’s Tavern on No Medicine Lake and in the pool hall on Main Street where the Indians hung out. After two months of rumors, Guy drove over to the LittleWolf house.

  It was mid-May. Tom’s parents’ house was small and square and white. In front was a brown lawn greening beside the south foundation. Behind was a backdrop of dull green jack pines. To the right of the steps was a small, south-facing bathtub grotto. The grotto was fronted by a single cluster of red petunias. The petunias had been newly planted, and early at that. There was a good chance of frost through the end of May. But maybe the grotto would make the difference.

  Mary LittleWolf answered the door. “Guy,” she said with a quick smile, “come in.” Then she lowered her voice. “No, better we talk outside.”

  Behind her, sitting at the kitchen table, was Tom’s father. His square head and jutting chin were outlined against the white sheers of a kitchen window. A half-empty bottle of whiskey and a single glass sat before him on the table. Where he was staring there were only cupboards and wall. He did not look around.

  Outside, Guy asked about Tom.

  Mary LittleWolf looked down, then back up. “He wrote. He said that there were a lot of things he had to figure out. He said not to worry.”

  Guy waited. Mary LittleWolf let her eyes drift beyond Guy to the open space behind. She stared as if she had forgotten his presence. Her black hair was snowed with white. A cut on the brown point of her right cheekbone was healing pink. She blinked and looked again at Guy. “He did ask about you and Mary Ann,” she said, summoning a faint smile.