Louise Erdrich - LaRose

Romeo and Landreaux developed habits opposite those of the scraggly people in the camp. An hour or so after full daylight, when the bums were unconscious, the boys climbed down. They skirted the fire circle and the sleepers. Sometimes they swiped a bit of food, plundered a bread bag; once they took an open can of baked beans. They stepped onto a thin path that led along the river until it neared another camp, maybe a rival camp, maybe the source of the fight. The boys veered up the bank before they got too close. Once up on the street they crossed the river along a low parapet on an old bridge that was ready to be torn down. On the other side of the bridge there was a neighborhood where milk was delivered. Every so often they could lift a bottle. When the stores opened, they bought bread and a pound of baloney. In a park, an alley, or on the sunny steps of a decrepit church, they divided up the loaf and the baloney, ate it all. They never tired of this breakfast.

There were three separate movie theaters to walk to. Every afternoon they saw a matinee, gathered all the half-eaten boxes of popcorn afterward, and stowed them by their seats to eat during the next show. Sometimes if the movie was extremely good they hid behind the exit curtains until the evening shows came on. They saw: Bigfoot, The Aristocats, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Airport, House of Dark Shadows, Hercules in New York, Rio Lobo, A Man Called Horse (six times; it affected them deeply), Little Big Man (eight times; it affected them deeply), and Soldier Blue. (It affected them deeply but they were asked to leave. It was not for children because it featured a woman crying over an Indian’s severed arm. They became obsessed by this unspeakable scene.)

Because they had to see this movie again, they sneaked into Soldier Blue. While they were watching for the arm, a woman entered late and sat down a few rows in front of them. Her pale hair puffed out around her head. They slumped down in their chairs, peeked between the backrests in the row ahead. Suddenly she swiveled around. Her teeth lighted up in the dark. Her Bowl Head hair glowed and rose, detached from her body. Her hand went up. They thought she was going to crawl over the seats toward them. But another person came to sit beside her and she turned back to the screen. She hadn’t seen the boys. They crept out. Romeo’s pants were slightly peed in, but Landreaux was much worse and thought he might puke.

See, said Landreaux.

I know, said Romeo. But get hold of yourself. It looked like Bowl Head but it couldn’t have been her, man. Couldn’t have!

Still, they were disoriented and wandered sickly back to the river. They blundered into the camp, into the middle of the regulars they had been hiding from and stealing from for nearly two weeks.

A man put Landreaux into a headlock, but he smelled so bad that Landreaux puked for real and was let go.

A woman with long wild hair tackled Romeo around the ankles and pulled him down.

A man in sunglasses spoke.

Sit, he said.

He struck the ground with a long white stick propped on his shoulder. He gestured at the stomped grass around the dead fire.

Someone kicked Landreaux and he collapsed.

Romeo shrugged the woman off and sat too.

Mystery solved, said the sunglasses. He laughed. Don’t you little pricks know you can’t steal from stealers? We’re stealers and such. We steal people blind, get it? Blind!

The others laughed like people who had heard that joke before. The boys had never seen a blind person’s white stick, so they didn’t get the joke.

Now speak, the sunglasses ordered. Speak your business here.

We’re visiting our relatives, said Romeo.

This struck the stinky man as extremely funny. When he laughed, the boys could see he had two sets of teeth in his mouth, one behind the other. His mouth was so full of teeth that it seemed hard to open. He closed it carefully. In spite of nervous fear, Landreaux kept his eye on this man’s mouth, hoping he would open it again.

You’re runaways, said the sunglasses man.

Yes, said Landreaux.

You been here a while. We noticed stuff missing. But we thought it was the white bums at the other camp. Run from boarding school?

Yeah.

Sunglasses nodded. Then took off his glasses, rubbed his morning-glory blue eyes and put them back on. The rest of him looked Indian, so his eyes were startling. Very beautiful and startling. He was a lean, ropey, blue-eyed Indian with a kung fu mustache.

Okay, cool, he said.

You can stay, said the stenchy toothbound man who’d grabbed Landreaux. He built a fire with grasses, then twigs, then little branches. Immediately his fire spurted flames and made a comforting crackle. He pushed a circle of rocks just so, and added chunks of wood, tending fussily to their position while the shaggy woman painstakingly opened a #10 can of Dinty Moore beef stew with a short screwdriver. She stabbed the screwdriver viciously into the top of the can, over and over, trying to connect the holes so she could pry up the lid. The fire had blazed down to coals by the time she got it partway open, and the boys had told their story to the sunglasses. Another woman wandered quietly into the camp, two bags in her arms. She was tiny and birdlike, pitiful, with a face full of boils. There was also a silent Indian powerful in grease-slicked cowboy clothes. He sat apart watching the others with tiny, searching red eyes. He had a stomped-on-looking face.

This man spoke suddenly in a rasp-file croak and took out a long gleaming bowie knife.

You little fuckers steal my blanket?

Romeo and Landreaux surprised themselves by crumpling onto the ground. They slumped like puppets. Landreaux sobbed in sucking breaths and Romeo made tiny helpless irritating noises.

Oh shit, the man said, cleaning his nails with the knife, I killed ’em.

The others laughed, but not in a mean way.

Shut up, you, said the shaggy woman. They’re just kids. They sleep up there. She pointed up at the railroad bridge with her lips. It’s not even safe, she grouched. They should have somebody looking out for them.

The stomped-on-looking powerful Indian put away his knife. Sorry I scared you little fuckers, he said. Tomorrow I’ll get youse a nice box. You can sleep down here.

The shaggy woman threw the stick she’d been stirring the can of stew with into the weeds and took some small utensils from within her shirt. She dipped stew into old pie tins still crusted with piecrust and gave them to the boys.

You give me back my spoons once you finish, hear?

The boys nodded and ate, tears dripping into the stew.

They climbed up onto the piling that night and slept. Maybe the stew, the blue eyes, or the arm caused Landreaux to thrash and howl so hard he woke Romeo in the middle of the night. Landreaux was still asleep when he started rolling off the top of the piling. Romeo grabbed his arms and Landreaux suddenly woke up. There was a moon out, and they stared into each other’s eyes the way they had beneath the bus.

I got you, said Romeo.

Landreaux made a desperate noise.

Never fear, said Romeo as he skidded toward the edge.

He felt calm, loving, and powerful. That moment would endure in his memory. It was the last time in his life that he did a heroic thing. Romeo tried to stab his feet into the concrete and willed his arms to stop quivering. But Landreaux was heavier than Romeo. Every time Landreaux swung his leg to find a desperate foothold, Romeo was drawn closer to the edge. At last, with a wild jerk, Landreaux gained his balance. In doing so, he flipped Romeo over his head into space. Landreaux tried to cling but fell backward. They could have hit the water and waded to shore, or maybe drowned, or hit the base of the piling and died, but instead they hit the weedy earth. Romeo broke Landreaux’s fall, and Romeo started screaming. Landreaux went instantly to sleep. When he came to in the morning, with a headache, Landreaux crawled out of a piece of canvas to look for his friend. Romeo was wrapped in a bag by the cold fire and he looked dead. The shaggy woman came out of the grass and poured some whiskey into Romeo, plus she crushed up a pill and mashed it into a bit of stew. Stuffed it clumsily down his throat. Romeo fell quiet and looked dead again.