Sandra Newman - The Country of Ice Cream Star

This be how I take my pistol, first of any guns I own. This be how my Pasha Roo come into Sengle town.

RIDING HOME, WE TRACE ROAD 27 THROUGH THE OLDER WOODS. This be an hour at a walk, and ain’t no trotting on they broken roads. Be only holes and humps. Horse walk akimbo like a drunk.

Is dusking, and the birch trunks glamour white like paths of moon. A birch leaf yellowing here and there, for autumn now begin to start. Maple crowns patch red and orange, and Road 27 sprinklen somewhere with these color leaves. Be houses on this stretch, but all got ruin roofs, insides gone rotten. Telephone poles still leaning in their rows, but all the wire been scavenge. Heren there a blackness show where we been burn a sleeper house. Some already gone to aspen, some be starting meadow flowers.

Where we turn off 27, stand a sleeper sign, bright orange metal with black letters: BLIND CAUTION CHILD. Behind it be Blind Caution Pond. This night, the frogs all creaking loud. Where there be frogs, is twenty times mosquitoes, and the night gone chill. We dabbit here to put on jackets.

My jacket’s sort be Patagonia. This word stitch upon its chest. Be light, but unroll to a greedy size. Can wear two shirts beneath. Now I got my pistol in my jeans, nose chilling underneath the belt against my skin. When I tighten Patagonia’s string, gun poke my belly. Then I feel the gunfire that there was, and how this gun been pointing at my face.

When I turn to look, the roo lie still as sleep. He bound upon the sledge from foot to neck, with rope and orange cord. Only be his fingers loose. But his ghost eyes look and blink. He be cold color like a gun. A feary birchen child.

Keepers been riding queenish on him. When we start, she perching backward on his chest, watch to his face. She guard our safety so. But Keepers quick to bore. Soon she climbing up and down; stand on his thighs precarious. Roo, he got no choice but to endure. So Keepers warm to him in sympathy.

Now she get a blanket, tuck it round the roo against mosquitoes. But this blanket wet for killing flames. The roo begin to shiver.

“Roo suffer,” Keepers notice.

Asha Badmouth saying to Driver, “Been some blind child drowning in the pond. Become a caution to the others, ya. Blind caution child.”

“This sign ain’t make no sense,” say Driver. “Mean nothing, be like writing on a shirt.”

Jermaine go whistle in disgust. “Foo, you said that last time. Told you then why it be wrong.”

Driver cough, but keep on talking. “Sure I say it twice, and it be true both times.”

“Be foolish every hundred times,” say Asha.

Keepers shout, “My roo be suffering!”

Everybody look. The roo lie in his ropes and shiver. Ain’t look so grandy, lain like that. But his face got a spookery. Bluish eyes look like they knowing thoughts a child ain’t made to hold. I get a shivering fear myself. Driver tense behind me.

“Ain’t necessary he a roo,” I say. “Can be a sleeper or nobody know what.”

Keepers frown her dignity at me. “This one alive, ain’t sleeping. And cannot call it sleeper. This give children fear.”

“Children name of Keepers,” say Jermaine.

I say polite, “He need a jacket, ya.”

“Yo sho,” say Keepers, and polite me back, “this be a kindness for myself and for my roo.”

I laugh. “Be Keepers’ roo, nobody touch this roo without permissions.”

I unzip Patagonia. All my skin dislike this notion, but I throw it to delighting Keepers. She pull the sogging blanket off the roo, and all his body ease. Is like the shiver strip from him. Then the jacket make his face go kind.

This be the moment that he speak, his birchen eyes on me. The word so simple everyone must hear. He say it clear. “Spaseep.”

We all frighten then, as if this talking been a weapon. Driver close his arms about me hard. I breathe against his strength.

Only Keepers ain’t concern. She shake her moppy head. “Nay, you must say, ‘Be thanks,’ my roo. Or must say, ‘Be gratty.’”

“You ain’t know what his blablabla mean, small,” say Asha Badmouth. “He saying, ‘I go kill you, I go eat your head with sauce.’”

“My roo be thanking,” Keepers say, contain and lofty. “In his words, this be spaseep.”

Driver laugh. Then everybody laugh, and Keepers shout, “I got a keeping roo! My roo can speak! My roo go eat up Mouse’s head with sauce!” We all giggling breathless. Horses shift and snort confusing. Asha Badmouth laughing in her warry melody; the girl can sing her voice into a valley of space. Ya, is always breathlessness in dusking woods somehow. Is everything insane and starry fine.

As the laughter ease, my Driver got me in a pinching grip. I buck my head against his chin. He laugh and loose me, swat my head. I want to laugh again, but all my laughter gone somehow. Be only conscience, how our laughter small in all this night. Gun chilling at my skin.

Then Driver take his jacket off for me. We wrestle some, but I allow the gift. Will not insult his care. When Money pick up walking, I got his Carhartt on, can feel his warm still in the cloth.

Our path go by and time walk with us. Soon the light become all moon. Yo, this been an hour to ride, and Driver only cough but once. I hold this in my mind. Mind make a fist on it. Some time, I think on my ghost brother, Mo-Jacques Five. When our mother Shasta die, I had him to my keeping — scrambly piglet with a mouth like Keepers. He been the brother of my arms. A small child die of posies quick, ain’t ugliness nor hardly pain. Yet now tears swim down my face. Feel like they fill with moonlight, feel like they be sadness color.

Where the aspens done, is open night. The farming fields of Christing Tophet show in squares of different dark. Their home and barn got sleepy looks. Windows wave a reddish light that mean a fire lit, and wisty smoke come from their chimney. Sky be full with coldness, and this smoke go warm into its heart. Ya, John of Christ, their husband, be standing on the porch to greet whoever come, as Christing husbands do at dawn and sunset. These times be callen guesting bells. But we ain’t turn down their road.

Then Sengle town begin to smell between the trees. It be a sweetish stank, as comfortable as my own farting, or as Money’s farting. Smell puey in a friendly way, my town.

Sengles be unmannerly with trash, ain’t civilize on this. Got cans and apple cores and papers, mix with leaf and piney needles, everycolor on the ground. Though we dig privy pits at distance, be some littles fear to use them. Stray off paths near town, you put your foot in something you regret.

As we come into this townie smell, I loose the reins. Money pick her feet up, trotting glad. The path go sleek and clear, and soon can smell a campfire through the pue. Because it be no noise, can know the littles gone to nighting camp. Ain’t nothing waiting but the stank and dark and Crow Sixteen.

Crow be stood with my hound ABC beside the fire. Fire is banken low. Its minnow flames go crack and smoke. Crow eating Nillas from a box. My ABC be munching one herself and got some lain between her paws. They two look sleepish in the shallow light.

Crow an uggety child, all froggen mouth with scarce no chin. Yo, his eyes be prettieuse, black-sweet and lashy. Face look like his heart, sly and wrong-made. But my ABC love Crow, and he keep kind to her. When she been a puppy, Crow and I been animoses. Friends be close as grass and clover; animoses close as grass and green. So been our truth. We eaten every breakfast from one bowl. We set our snares together. Both was warry children: my bones rung with Crow’s beating and his skin been always sore from me. We slept in one hammock, tangle-fashion, loose as cats.