Louise Erdrich - LaRose

Noooo, Josette smiled. Just that we’re too old.

We could have the same tattoos then, Maggie said. I know how to give them.

Whoa, hold on! The girls collapsed, laughing.

I just sharpen up a pencil real fine, then pow. She made a quick stabbing motion with a pen.

Assassin! said Snow.

Coochy stuck his head in the door and made a girly face. Your dad says it’s time to go.

The girls held their arms out for hugs.

Kiss, kiss, one on each cheek, like we’re in the mafia.

WOLFRED ASKED THE girl to tell him her name. He asked in words, he asked in signs, but she wouldn’t speak. Each time they stopped, he asked. But though she smiled at him, and understood exactly what he wanted, she wouldn’t tell her name. She looked into the distance. Near morning, after they had soundly slept, she knelt near the fire to blow it back to life. All of a sudden, she went still and stared into the trees. She jutted her chin forward, then pulled back her hair and narrowed her eyes. Wolfred followed her gaze and saw it, too. Mackinnon’s head, rolling laboriously over the snow, its hair on fire, brightly twitching, flames cheerfully flickering. Sometimes it banged into a tree and whimpered. Sometimes it propelled itself along with its tongue, its slight stump of neck, or its comically paddling ears. Sometimes it whizzed along for a few feet, then quit, sobbing in frustration at its awkward, interminable progress.

MRS. PEACE POINTED to the sweating, crying grimace face on the illustrated list the nurse put in front of her. It was a pain chart.

Real bad, huh?

I have a lot of pain, Mrs. Peace said, a lot of pain. And I was doing so good with no attacks! Now I don’t even remember where I put my patches. I thought they were right here, in the bottom of my papers. In my tin.

Where does it hurt? asked the nurse on duty that afternoon.

Here, here, and here. And my head.

This will help you.

That’s a shot?

And your usual, your patch. Remember, you have to guard these things. We can keep them locked up in the safe, at the desk.

I’ll just keep one, for emergency.

Good, okay. But remember not to let anybody else take them, use them. They are a hundred times stronger than morphine, right? Morphine.

That’s what it takes.

Now you’ll sleep.

I’d rather stay here, in my recliner. She’ll come and visit me.

Who?

My mother.

Oh, I see.

You’re smiling. I see your smile. But it is true, she will come. After all these years, they finally let her visit me.

I wrote our name everywhere, said LaRose to her mother. LaRose and LaRose and LaRose going on forever. I was proud of my penmanship, and careful with every letter. I wrote my name in hidden places they would never see. I wrote my name for all of us. I made my name perfect, the letters curved in Palmer A+. Once, I carved my name in wood so that it could never be erased. Even if they painted over the letters you could still read it. LaRose.

Faintly, in the girls’ dormitory at Fort Totten. On the top of a wooden door, the underside of chairs, on the shelves of the basement storage room where I was locked up once for sassing. Number 2 lead government-issue BIA pencil, in a notebook, stored now in the National Archives in Kansas City. On a mopboard, inside a cupboard, on top of a closet door in Stephan. Underneath a desk at Marty, and a chalkboard rail. Scratched into a brick grown over with grass at the old powerhouse in Wahpeton. Chamberlain. Flandreau. Fort Totten and Fort Totten. We left our name in those schools and others, all the way back to the first school, Carlisle. For the history of LaRose is tied up in those schools. Yes, we wrote our name in places it would never be found until the building itself was torn down or burned so that all the sorrows and strivings those walls held went up in flames, and the smoke drifted home.

DOUGIE VEDDAR HAD an older brother, and his brother had friends. They weren’t in the same K–6 school but in the junior high, which was connected to the high school. Tyler Veddar, Curtains Peace, Brad Morrissey, and Jason “Buggy” Wildstrand tried to call themselves the Fearsome Four. Until later, it never caught on, except as a joke. At present, they were skinny, soft, and hadn’t got their growth. Mainly they played video games and fooled around with Curtains’s guitars, left to him by his brother. They had a songbook but didn’t know what the markings meant or how to tune their instruments. Their noise was good, they thought. Dougie told his brother how Maggie had tried murder on him. Tyler told his friends and they kept their eyes out for the right chance to get her. Nothing happened. After school, she always took the bus. And then because she got a part as a singing mushroom in the play and stayed after, she had to be picked up.

One day they lucked out because her mother was late.

Maggie was walking in a circle, fuming, kicking up leaves. It was cold, clammy, wet outside. She didn’t like it. Tyler came by and said in a nice voice, You okay? He was that much older she didn’t recognize him.

No, said Maggie. My mom’s late.

We live over there. He pointed at the garage where they hung out. Me and my bros. You wanna come hang out until your mom gets here? You can see from the side window.

I dunno, Maggie said.

My mom’s there.

Okay.

She followed him to the garage and they went inside. There were Tyler’s friends. They stood around awkwardly, then Tyler said, Wanna sit on the couch? As soon as Maggie sat down, she knew this was bad. They jammed in beside her, pinning her, and Tyler said, You tried to kill Dougie. Then he and the other boys started putting their hands all over her. Their fingers went straight to her non-breasts and poked into her Tuesday panties. They dog-piled her, their grubby paws pinching, prodding, prying her apart. She had a fainting feeling, like she was weak and drained of all her strength. A floating grief came over her like a soft veil. Her head buzzed. But the fingers moved still harder and a hot burn hit her gut. She shrieked. When Tyler tried to cover her mouth, she bit down on his finger until she tasted blood. Buggy pushed her back in the cushions and she screamed louder, slammed her knees into his crotch so hard he yipped and howled like a puppy. Curtains tried to keep a hold but her thumbs went out and jabbed his eyeballs. He fell back, yelling he was blinded, and she jumped toward a guitar, swung it up against Brad’s face. She knocked him against the wall. He curled his arms around his head.

Buggy was curled in a corner, bawling. Brad was wheezing. They were all in trauma.

Boys? Boys? You hungry? The mother out the back door.

Naaah! called Tyler.

The boys, except for Buggy, still curled on the floor, stood panting, staring at one another, in a circle.

Finally Tyler said, Fuck, that was amazing. Hey, Maggie, we need a front man. We need a girl. Wanna join our band?

Join? Maggie tossed her hair, inching backward. Straightened her clothes. Adrenaline was wearing off and common fright was telling her to find the door.

We’ll tell if you don’t join, said Tyler.

She stepped to the door, opened it. Rage whirled around her like a burning hula hoop.

Tell? Tell? Go ahead. You know Landreaux who killed my brother? Well, he’s my stepfather now. He’ll hunt every one of you down. He’ll shoot your heads off. Bye.

Maggie ran back to the corner where she was supposed to meet her mother. The car was pulling up.

Sorry I was late, honey. Did you get bored?