Miriam Toews - The Flying Troutmans

We pulled onto a narrow dirt road next to a bunch of tents pitched right up by the border and we all got out of the van, broken, cut, bleeding, bruised and filthy and armed with small, dull knives, toy pistols, concealed scalpels and a pit bull that somewhere along the way had lost its killer instinct.

It’s not Paris, said Logan.

We walked across the sand, through scrubby bushes, and up to a group of people sitting around cooking something on a camp stove.

Cherkis looked up and stared at us.

How’s it going? I asked him.

Holy shit, he said.

Hi, said Logan.

Thebes looked at Cherkis and smiled shyly and dug her toes into the sand and then cleared her throat but didn’t say a word.

This is Thebes, here, I said. And Logan.

Yeah, said Cherkis, I know. I mean I figured it out. I’m just…I don’t know what to say. Wow! You guys are so…big! Sorry, he said. He started crying. Then he started laughing, wiping tears from his cheeks, apologizing again, and we all laughed nervously together, while Thebes kicked up tiny clouds of dirt.

Cherkis jumped up and came closer. He was smaller than I remembered him being. Skinny like the kids and constantly in motion. He was wearing a dirty black T-shirt and jeans and big motorcycle boots. His hair was really dark but there was a streak of silver in it. He opened his mouth and closed it again and shook his head and then put his arms out.

Man, am I happy to see you guys, he said, just like the way Logan had dreamed it, kind of, except that it had been my father popping out of the ocean and not his popping out of the sand. Logan put his arms around his father and Cherkis motioned for Thebes to join them in their awkward embrace. She looked up at me and I pointed to the guys and she moved towards them and they held one another in a huddle. I watched them and I asked myself again, the way Thebie had as Logan’s fake basketball coach, Who do you have, Hattie? And I answered, Min.

I sat down and introduced myself to the others sitting in the sand. We made small talk and I tried to explain what we were doing there. Then I left them and wandered over to a drunk guy, a comrade, laid out on a blanket and asked him if I could sit there in the shade with him for a few minutes. He said the thing to do is drink ’til you don’t can’t. He didn’t ask me who I was or what I was doing there and I gave thanks to the universe. If I were to move in a love direction, I asked him, which way do you think it would be?

Cherkis finally let go of his kids and went running off to his tent and brought out a whole bunch of photos of Thebes and Logan when they were little.

There’s you, he said to Logan, when you were Superman on Halloween. You’re three years old in this picture. You were so sad when you had to go to bed. Min and I had some friends over and you were crying your eyes out and waving goodbye to everyone and saying, but everybody knows I’m Superman. Logan stared at the photo.

And there’s you, Thebes, with your underwear on your head.

Cherkis showed Thebes and Logan all the pictures and told them the stories behind them.

Hey, said Cherkis, how’d you get that cast on your arm? Logan shrugged and said he didn’t know. Things break? said Cherkis. Logan smiled.

Thebes asked Cherkis if he’d be interested in an oversized novelty cheque and he said oh yeah, more than anything.

The anarchists had a Ping-Pong table set up and we played a wacky game where everyone gets a turn. You hit the ball and then throw the paddle down, take a few steps sideways, and the next person picks it up and hits the ball when it comes back. If someone had seen us from the air it would have looked like some kind of tribal dance around a green square with white lines on it.

Then Logan and Cherkis went off into the desert for a walk and talk, and Thebes flew the kite she’d made for me and let everyone have a turn. We all watched her wave and smile at us from three hundred feet in the air. After that she ran over to the van and got the fireworks she and Logan had bought and when Cherkis and Logan came back we set them off.

We watched them explode in space and float back to earth, and Cherkis explained to Thebes what he was doing there at the border. We count the go-backs, the ones who stay and linger on the line and the ones who make a break for it, he said. We count them all.

Hey, Cherkis, I said, can I talk to you alone for a minute?

C’mon, Thebie, said Logan, let’s play a game of Ping-

Pong. I’ll use my left hand.

Cherkis and I walked over to the van and sat down on the back bumper. It was really dark there. He switched off his flashlight and we stared at the stars.

Min’s not doing well, I said, not at all.

I know, said Cherkis, Logan told me.

Yeah, I don’t even know exactly where she is right now, I said.

I know, said Cherkis.

I have to go home and find her, I said. I want to leave tonight. I know we just got here…

Yeah, it’s okay, said Cherkis. I asked Logan if he wanted to stay with me for the summer and he said yeah, he’d love to.

He did? I said. But…

Yeah, he said he’d love to but that he couldn’t because he had to get back to take care of Thebes and Min. He said you were probably heading back to Paris.

Hey, I said, can you hang on for just a minute?

Cherkis shrugged and said he had all the time in the world.

I ran over to the Ping-Pong table and asked Logan if I could talk to him alone for a second. I hustled him off into the shadows and asked him if it was true, if he really wanted to hang out there with Cherkis for the summer. He said yeah, but he wasn’t going to, obviously.

But, wait, I said, why don’t you? You should! If you want to, you should.

Well, no…my mom…and there’s Thebes…so…

Okay, I said. You should stay. However Min deals with it isn’t your problem. It’ll be my problem, okay? You should hang out with your dad for a while if that’s what you want to do. Thebes and I will go back and I’ll take care of her and Min and I’ll explain to your mom that you love her, that you haven’t left her, and that you’re coming back for school in the fall. That’s only a couple of months away.

Yeah, but…, said Logan.

Seriously, Logan, I said. It would be fun. You should be having fun. I’m gonna stay with Min and Thebes for as long as they need me, probably longer. I’m not going back to Paris. You just stay here and get to know Cherkis. Do you want to?

Yeah, said Logan. But—

Okay, I said. You’re fifteen. Take care of yourself. You can worry about the rest of us sometimes, a bit, if you have to, but it’s not your job to take care of Min or Thebes. It’s my job. I want the job. I promise I’ll take care of them, but promise me you’ll take care of yourself?

Well, said Logan, I guess…He smiled. A beautiful, heart-stopping smile, all badly disguised tenderness and tentative joy.

Yeah? I said. I smiled back. I punched him on the shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do.

Okay, he said, sounds good. He punched me back and then, strangely, he picked me right up off the ground and twirled me around for a second or two.

Hey, are you freaks dancing? It was Thebes.

Yeah, I said.

No, said Logan. He put me down.

Let’s finish our Ping-Pong game, T., he said.

I ran back to Cherkis to tell him that Logan would spend the summer with him after all.

Really? he said. Really? Well, that’s…what about Thebes?

No, she wants to go back, I said. But she’s having a blast right now. I think—

Do you think Min will be okay with her? he asked.

I don’t know, I said. But I’ll be there too. I’m not going back to Paris. I asked him if he knew where the nearest airport was.