Louise Erdrich - The Round House

Naw, said Cappy. We don’t wanna go. He squirted water up through his closed fist in a jet. He was squinting lazily at Dream Girl. She hadn’t said anything. But her eyes were on Cappy.

What do you think? He nodded at her. Do you think we should go?

Dream Girl said in a clear voice, I think you should go.

Okay, said Cappy, if you say so. And he walked out of the water.

I looked sideways at Cappy as he strode past. His dick hung heavy between his legs. There was a scream. It was from the guy.

Go back!

Then pimple boy rushed forward to grapple Cappy back into the water. Cappy pushed him off and Dream Girl walked away, but she took a good look back. Cappy kicked the God Squadder’s legs out from under him, reached around with a wrestler’s move, and started dunking him. He didn’t dunk him hard, no worse than we did fooling around, but the guy screamed again and Cappy quit.

Hey, man, Cappy held onto his shoulder. The pimple guy puked in the lake and we moved away from him. I’m sorry, man, said Cappy. He reached out to pat the orange back, but the guy’s face went a terrible dead purple and we could hear his back teeth grind.

He’s shittin’ mad or something, Cappy said. And just like that the guy flipped over and began thrashing wildly and jerking his head and he would have drowned right there if we hadn’t grabbed him and carried him up onshore. We laid him out. I was the only one with socks. I rolled one up and stuck it in his mouth. We took turns holding the guy, talking to him, and at the same time getting dressed, quick. He quit seizuring and I removed the sock. We sent Angus up to get Father Travis.

While Angus was gone and the guy was breathing okay but still out of it, Cappy said, What do we do now? Think fast, Number One.

Join the YEC, I said.

Yeah, said Zack. Seek out new life-forms. The YEC, a rosary-based primitive people ...

I get it, Cappy said. We convert. This guy converted us.

Yeah right, said pimple guy, half opening his eyes. He passed out and puked again. We turned him sideways so he wouldn’t choke, and he sputtered awake.

We’re cool now, man, said Cappy. You showed us the way. We felt a sparkle come down over us.

It happened, I said. The sparkle.

Jesus saves, said Zack, and then he repeated these words over and over in a soft but rising chant that seemed to galvanize the skinny guy, whose name we learned was Neal, into rising with us and putting up a wobbling hand with ours to feel the spirit. Moving forward with the spirit upon us we advanced from the bush, fully dressed, in a little cluster around dripping Neal, calling out whatever Zack did. Holy Spirit is right on! Right on upon us. Hallelujah. Praise the Christ Form. Praise His Rez Erection. Holy Mother’s Milk. Lamb of Goodness Sakes. Holy Fruity Womb! Zack was a rotten Catholic. Father Travis had left the squad on some urgent business of the moment and was just now hurrying back with Angus. His cassock swirled around his striding thighs. But too late. All he saw was us surrounded by a pack of orange Ts, hugging, weeping, throwing up our hands. All he could do when Cappy fell upon him crying, Thank you, thank you, Jesus , was pat Cappy’s back hard enough to make him grunt, and eye me like a trapped hawk. I knew better than to meet Father Travis’s eyes after that one look. I turned away and bumped up against Dream Girl, who was standing at the edge of things, with the truth and Cappy walking from the water in her thoughts. I saw those things on her face. And I saw there was no conflict. Which is as much as to say that she was in love.

Her name was Zelia and she’d traveled all the way over from Helena, Montana, to convert the Indians, none of whom lived in tipis and many of whom had skin lighter than her own, and this confused her.

Zack asked why she didn’t stay in Montana and convert those Indians over there.

What Indians? she asked.

Oh them, said Cappy quickly. They’re all Mormons and Witnesses and so on already, those Montana Indians. Nobody goes near them. You should keep on converting over here. Lots of pagans here.

Oh, said Zelia. Well, we don’t trespass on other missions so much, anyway.

She was Mexican, from a very close family. They’d been against her mission work to a danger zone, she said, but she got her way eventually.

Actually, you’re an Indian too, I told her. She looked offended, so I said, Maybe you’re a noble Mayan.

You’re probably an Aztec, said Cappy. This was later in the afternoon. We had signed on for the last two days of Father Travis’s summer program so that we could see Dream Girl. She and Cappy were starting to flirt.

Yes, I think you are Aztec. Cappy eyed her half mockingly. You’d reach right into a man’s chest and rip out his heart.

She looked away, but she smiled.

Zack put his fist out and pumped it with a squishing noise. Padump. Padump. But neither of them looked at him. The three of us knew we had no hope. Cappy was the only one. But we still wanted to be near her and hoped that she would try converting us for real.

At home, my mother’s energy had faded only slightly. She had two streaks of color on her face. I realized she’d smeared on rouge. She was taking iron pills and other pills. There were six bottles of stuff right inside the kitchen cabinet. She had made Juneberry pancakes for dinner. Mom and Dad sat skeptically and listened as I told all about how I had joined Youth Encounter Christ, or YEC, and was due up at the church tomorrow.

Youth Encounter? My father narrowed his eyes. You quit Whitey’s to join a youth encounter group?

I quit Whitey’s because he pasted Sonja.

My mother went rigid.

All right, said my father quickly. What do you encounter?

We dramatize life situations. Like if we are offered drugs. We imagine that Jesus is there to step between, say, Angus and the drug dealer. Or me and the dealer, say, not that it happens.

That’s right, said my father, you’re beer drinkers, as I remember. Does Jesus snatch the cans from your paws? Empty them on the ground?

That’s what we’re supposed to visualize.

Interesting, said my mother. Her voice was neutral, formal, neither caustic nor falsely enthusiastic. I’d thought she was the same mother only with a hollow face, jutting elbows, spiky legs. But I was beginning to notice that she was someone different from the before-mother. The one I thought of as my real mother. I had believed that my real mother would emerge at some point. I would get my before mom back. But now it entered my head that this might not happen. The damned carcass had stolen from her. Some warm part of her was gone and might not return. This new formidable woman would take getting to know, and I was thirteen. I didn’t have the time.

The second day at Youth Encounter Christ was better than the first—we got our T-shirts that morning and put them right on over our clothes, patting the thorn-encircled sacred hearts printed over our own hearts. We went down to the lake and started lip-synching the songs everyone else in the group knew. Neal was our best friend now. The other kids from the reservation, real devout ones whose parents were deacons and pie makers for the funerals, had told Neal that the four of us were the worst bunch in school, which wasn’t even true. They were just trying to help Neal feel impressed with himself as from the beginning he had confessed low self-esteem. Unfortunately for us and for our chances of long-term salvation, Youth Encounter Christ was only a two-week camp. We had been converted with only a day left. So we were in wrap-up sessions. And since they were wrapping up the insights gained over the two weeks, we didn’t have much to contribute.