Extra Indians. Eric Gansworth

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СКАЧАТЬ lot of the time for people to feel right about their relationships to him. I like to think that the slight reservation animosity to T.J. is what brought me to befriend him. When he showed back up here, he was so desperately looking for a community, and most people would have little to do with him. So, I did what I could, became his friend, helped him get a job, but he’s also bright enough to know that part of my interest is his connection to Fred. I wish I could say it was different, but we both know the truth of that reality, and we just don’t explore the topic unless he’s had enough prodding. Then he reminds me in no uncertain terms.

      “It’s only about that Japanese woman. Didn’t you read the article?”

      “Yeah, what happened with all that, anyway? Did he ever say?” A colleague sitting in front of us turned and gave us the shut-up frown, so we waited for the students to move their tassels and get on with their lives. As we recessed from the auditorium, T.J. vanished, but then reappeared in my door a little while later.

      “ You all set?” he said. We walked to the lot in silence, the warm spring breeze rolling across the nearly empty lot. As we reached my Blazer, he said, “I’m thinking about going down there.”

      “Really? When?”

      “I don’t know, soon. It’s been a while. Why?”

      “I’d like to go with you.” I could not believe those words had come out of my mouth. I panicked and then he offered the perfect recovery.

      “ Yeah, he might have a lot of useful information for you, and it would be nice to have some company,” he said, staring at me from the passenger’s seat. “When do you think you can go?”

      “As of ten minutes ago, I am free for three months. Why don’t we leave tonight?” I laughed and started the Blazer.

      “Are you serious?” I wasn’t sure myself if I were really committing to this idea. Maybe I was serious. So much had changed since this morning and it was true—I was free for three months. I had three lonely months of that apartment staring me down.

      “Well, I should let my family know, so they don’t worry,” I said, finally.

      “Okay, I don’t have anything holding me here, and I’ve been meaning to make this trip for a long time. If we can get ready by five, we could make Cleveland before the TV show comes on.”

      “It means you have to come to my mom’s with me, so I can let her know I’ll be gone for a while, and I want to stop and get gas at Royal’s shop, too.”

      “Your momma’s all right.”

      When we arrived, my mother’s eyes passed over us, trying to decide if I were really going to ask her the things I intended with T.J. in the room. This was the way she dealt with confrontation, a posh salesperson—politely and discreetly showing you the price of your desire. You might not have the necessary down payment, and she waited, wondering if you could hear the question being asked. She was wrong this time. I’d come with enough to pay in full and to answer forcefully and clearly.

      “Your TV working, Ma?” I asked.

      “About as good as it ever does,” she said. “Depends on the wind, season, trees, whatever.” That was also part of her translation key. She could complain without ever technically doing so.

      “T.J., why don’t you climb up on her roof, see if the antenna is secure. Maybe it’s just some loose connections or wires exposed on the line in,” I said. He clearly hadn’t any idea how he might implement such changes. So much for the improv skills of this professional actor. How had he ever managed to get even off-Broadway roles? “Here, I’ll show you where the ladder and the duct tape are.” I walked him out to the shed behind my brother Royal’s trailer. “There’s plenty of things that might need addressing on that roof.”

      “Uh, okay. Annie?” he said, puzzled.

      “I’ll call you when we need to get going,” I said.

      “Ma, let’s go in your room,” I said inside, my eyes adjusting to the shadowy midday light.

      “No one else is here,” she said. “He can’t hear.” She kept the blinds drawn and the curtains half-drawn, as she always had when we lived in the city. There, it had been for privacy. If you left any blind open in our old place, you were bound to catch some old pervert sitting at his window in the next building over, waiting to catch a glimpse of anything we might be up to. It didn’t matter if it were washing dishes or vacuuming. You could see the fantasies they were cooking up, even as they watched you sweat across the alley. Back here on the rez, my mother no longer needed the privacy. Her nearest neighbors would need to have Superman’s eyes or a really decent set of binoculars to catch her at her quilt-making but she was taking no chances or merely had grown accustomed to her darker life. T.J.’s shadow floated by us, just beyond the living room window.

      “Come on,” I said, sitting in the plush chair near her bed. She turned on the television, sat on the bed, and skipped though the few channels her antenna received.

      “See, it works fine. Those are all the channels you get without cable or one of those dishes like they have the next trailer over. How much does the dish cost?” On the screen, images phased in and out like the badly spliced educational films they showed in high school, the sixteen-millimeter projector whirring and clacking from the back of the room, all but obscuring anything the people on the screen said.

      “Ma, today, Martha left this morning’s paper in my mailbox at work,” I said. My mother would not make eye contact with me, staring instead at the people arguing on her television, ghosts of them crossing one another in T.J.’s adjustments.

      “ Well, that was nice of her, wasn’t it? She probably had to hire one of her kids to drive her all the way out to the college, to get you that newspaper. What are you complaining about?” she said, finally, pretending she had no idea what I was talking about, or perhaps just hoping that I had no idea what was really in the morning paper. Surely she must have known what would cause her best friend and my ex-mother-in-law to make that special trip, but my mother would never resent Martha for anything, always looking the other way. What kept those two together was the meanness they inflicted on one another over sixty years, keeping each other going, pushing every day forward with new bitterness.

      “She left a note with the paper, too. That was how I knew it was from her. I recognized her handwriting. Have you seen it?”

      “The paper? Early this morning, probably before you were even up,” she said. I tossed the entertainment section across the room to her. It fell about a foot short. She didn’t bother to pick it up.

      “The note was clipped to an article about that show Prime Hours tonight. Did you see it?”

      “I don’t watch that show, or that channel even,” she said, waving her hand as if she were being bothered by a fly. “I never went in for the The Twilight Zone or the The Outer Limits or In Search of . . . like you kids did. And that show? What they do to people is just pitiful. If I want to see people behaving badly, I’ll just walk down to Moon Road. I don’t need to see it on my TV.”

      “You wanna know what the note said?” I took it out of my purse and read it aloud in my best Martha Boans snippy fashion: “‘You might want to watch this show tonight, if you want to see your real father.’” I flashed the note in front of my mother so she could also see that, indeed, it was Martha’s handwriting, and then folded it back into my purse. We both СКАЧАТЬ