Louise Erdrich - LaRose

Will a family photograph make you happy? Peter asked Nola as she entered the room.

We should do it! Maggie threw her arms out to spark her mother. Nola sparked.

Yes! I’d just love a family photograph.

I need a beer, thought Peter.

Lately, Maggie had given him several characters to play: Bumbling Dad, even though he was the handiest man he knew. Wet Blanket Dad, even though he just liked to check in on reality once in a while. Careless Dad Who Lost Things, even though he was beginning to understand that somebody else had long been losing stuff. Maybe he really was Emotionally Lost Dad because he understood that Maggie was taking care of Nola all of the time, in ways he could not define. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t remember what she’d been like before, anyway. So maybe he was Absentminded Dad. And Spaced-Out Dad because he liked to avoid these questions. He was Best Boy Buddy Dad, although LaRose was clearly the character mainly playing Nola’s son. She doted on him. Her eyes followed the fork he ate with. His back when he left the room.

In the case of this picture, however, to make everybody happy, all he had to do was wear his best shirt and smile.

Or maybe a suit, said Maggie. Do you have a suit? We are all dressing up, Dad. You need a suit. You need a tie.

Peter found his wedding suit and tie.

Nola came out in a purple dress with a silver buckle at the waist. Maggie lowered her head and stared at her mother. Charged ions moved. Nola turned around and went back into their bedroom. What just happened? Peter wondered. He would never see that plum-colored dress again. Nola was now wearing a tan suit, white shirt, black heels. She looked like a flight attendant or a presidential candidate.

You get my vote, he said.

Mom, that outfit begs for those twinkly green earrings, said Maggie. And a scarf! Nola returned to the bedroom.

LaRose did not have a suit, but he did have a dress shirt. Maggie slicked his hair back with water. Nola said he looked like the exceptional boy he was. Everybody beamed. Maggie had on a matching sweater and shell, hot pink, and a short, sassy, eggshell-colored faux leather skirt. She was wearing a white headband and white plastic go-go style but nineties boots that had belonged to her mother. Peter found it disorienting when Maggie wore clothes that he remembered Nola wearing during college, in those years when he took keen notice of her clothing and her in it.

I’m a lucky man, he said, looking them all over and meaning that sincerely.

Nola and Maggie gazed at him indulgently. In their script they often didn’t understand what he was saying but rolled their eyes away from him with the gentle exasperation of two mothers.

With just the right amount of oxy, Romeo looked at things as a movie drama where revenge was justice, saw himself outside of himself, even heard the music, furtive or swelling. And see? Peter was all dressed up in heroic clothing to act his part in a heroic portrait, thought Romeo. But a startling message approached.

Romeo made his way toward Peter Ravich, whom he’d spotted in the Alco parking lot. To keep walking, he had to keep arguing with Landreaux in his head. Still, still! Landreaux had never talked to Romeo about the old times, and was too high and mighty to give Romeo a sign he even cared one shit about the sacrifice that Romeo made, trying to save Landreaux, even to this day. Plus he was stealing Hollis and Emmaline and all that Romeo should have. Getting away with stealing these because they all believed in a false Landreaux, a saved and sober Landreaux, a Landreaux who could do the worst thing possible and still be loved. That Landreaux must fall.

I tried to warn him, tried and tried again.

Now Romeo stood before Peter Ravich.

Can I talk to you?

Peter vaguely remembers Romeo, but doesn’t know from where. Romeo himself does not recall that he once approached Peter while the man was pumping gas into his vehicle, and scammed him as he frowned at the whirring readout of numbers. He told Peter that he had lost his wallet and needed ten dollars’ worth of gas to bring his grandmother to the hospital. Peter had unfolded his lean wallet and given him five. Now, stooping and shadowy, Romeo cuts Peter away from his family.

This is private, he says.

Romeo’s skinny tail of hair is neatly braided, by himself, braided wet from a shower obtained by stealth from the casino campgrounds. He has broken into his supply of swag and wears a T-shirt stiff with newness, featuring a huge plastic press-on eagle, comrade to an Indian-headbanded turtle, both bursting fiercely through a dream catcher. A red bandanna is tied crisp around his throat, the indigo skulls peeping discreetly over the folded cloth. Romeo has clipped sharp the drooping wisps of his wisdom ’stache. His jeans are slung low, barely on his hips. He speaks calmly, though clearing his throat every other word.

Apologies, he says, this will only take a minute.

I’m supposed to be over there, says Peter.

I’m a friend of Landreaux’s.

Oh?

Well, not a friend, as you will see, but a former friend before I found out what Landreaux was up to.

Romeo pauses; he is proud of that as you will see , which Mrs. Peace once called foreshadowing. He makes a pious sorry-face, like he’s sad to give the news of Landreaux’s hidden character to one who believes in him.

In fact, feeling inspired, Romeo uses that line.

I know you believe in him.

I. . yeah, sure. . what’s going on? Peter glances at his family and smiles uncertainly, waves at their impatient faces.

You see, I am a hospital worker, says Romeo in a formal way. For that reason, I accidentally hear how things really go down from time to time in real life.

Peter feels the pull of where this is going and tries to extricate. But Romeo is an assured narrator and already has him with the suckage of story. Romeo puts his hand to his heart.

I apologize if this causes you to revisit trauma, says Romeo, but you weren’t told the truth. And I just feel — me being me — that you, as a parent, deserve the truth.

Now everything is very slow or even paralyzed, like time has quit its business and there is only Romeo, and only Peter, and dread like a gong in Peter’s head.

So that day three years ago, says Romeo.

Cut the shit.

Peter’s shoulders hunch and square, his chest expands, his neck swells, his heavy hands itch to grab that red bandanna and twist to choke the words off. This guy is slime. This guy is doing violence here. At the same time, this is something Peter can’t help coming to know. It will be there whether he hears it now or walks away. It will exist behind the sorry-to-tell-you mini-frown with the smugness boiling up behind Romeo’s unctuous manner.

It’s not shit, says Romeo, calm. He expected this resistance from Peter, so he goes in more slowly. Poor Landreaux. Romeo sighs. Sometimes he tries to self-medicate, you know? Looks like he tried to that day. I heard the guys who were on the ambulance crew that day. I obtained access to the coroner’s report.

Coroner?

Yes, nobody told you? Nobody gave you that report? You were perhaps unaware?

Peter’s legs go weak. No. Maybe it was filed away or burned. It had not occurred to him. The unthinkable had been, at least, straightforward. Peter had seen the tree where it happened. It had all made unbearable sense. He hadn’t wanted to know any details. He’d had his hands full, back then, with Nola spinning off in space and Maggie clutching him like she was drowning. Then fighting him off. Then clutching him. There was no sense in looking at the paperwork of death. It would not have brought his son back. Reports were the cold logistics of death and he’d been dealing with the hot truth of grief.