My Name Is Not Easy (38 page)

He slams Bunna into the wall with a perfect uppercut, trying to follow the rules, just like Father Mullen taught them, but suddenly both of them are on the fl oor, lunging at each other’s throats, not following any rules to any game either of them ever played. Making for themselves a new game, danger-ous as thin ice.

And Bunna’s strong, too—as strong as Luke, maybe even stronger. But Luke weighs more, and he has Bunna pinned against the fl oor, pinned hard enough to leave marks. Glaring down at him. Bunna glares right back, without a sound.

Fierce as a wolverine. Fierce and a little desperate, Luke realizes suddenly.
Like an animal caught in a trap.
Th e thought

scares him.

“Look,” he says, letting up, “it just don’t feel right, us going home this time. Okay? Something’s not right. It’s just a feeling I have.”

Bunna looks at him. All of a sudden he understands what Luke is trying to say—you can see it in his eyes—but there’s nothing he can do about it. You can see that, too.

“I gotta go home.” He says it so slow and low, it sounds like each word is sucking the breath right out of him.

“I just . . . have to.”

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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

Luke has no choice: he has to let go. Th

ere isn’t anything

more he can do. He sees it in Bunna’s eyes. Bunna is going home because he has to, and Luke isn’t because he can’t. And all because of a bunch of dumb feelings nobody in their right mind would want to feel.

Th

ey’d never ever been apart before. Th

is thought hits

Luke like lightning. In their whole lives, they’ve never spent a single day apart.

Bunna stands up, rubbing his shoulder. Luke stands up, too, scared and confused. Th

e whole world is spinning out of

control, like a wounded animal running, and there is nothing left to hold onto. Nothing except that gun, standing next to Bunna.
Uncle Joe’s gun.

“You’re not taking the gun.”

Bunna shoves it at him. “So keep it.”

And then they just stand there, the gun in between the two them like the ghost of the fi ght, still beating in their hearts.

And there is nothing else to be said.

Nothing at all.

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Eskimo Kiss

JUNE 7, 1963

CHICKIE

—

We earned enough Betty Crocker coupons for a new bus, but it was time for summer vacation, and the bus wouldn’t come until fall, so we had to ride the old military bus one more time, all the way to Fairbanks. Bunna was going home for the summer, but Luke wasn’t, which was weird. Th

ose two are like

Mutt and Jeff , and I couldn’t fi gure out why Luke would stay at school when Bunna wasn’t going to. Or why Bunna would go when Luke was staying.

I climbed up into the bus and sat down on a squeaky seat by a window on the school side, watching everybody fi le in. Donna and Sonny stood outside by the wall, watching us. Th ey weren’t

going home either, and they looked really small and lonely, standing there all by themselves. Bunna climbed onboard and sat down right smack in front of me, staring out the window at Sonny and Donna, only he wasn’t really looking at them, I could tell. He was staring at the spot right next to them, where Luke should have been but wasn’t—an empty stretch of wall,
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

gray as smoke. Bunna glared at that spot like he was trying to ignite it with his eyes, staring so hard I bet he didn’t see the fl icker of movement in one of the windows of the boys’ dorm, didn’t even see Luke’s face hover there for just a second.

Rose and Evelyn came bursting out of the door, late as usual. Rose was dragging a duffl

e almost as big as she was,

and Sonny grabbed it from her like he was John Wayne or something.

Th

en, before anybody knew what had happened, there

was Luke, marching toward the bus with his gun at his side, the barrel pointed down. He was frowning—not looking at anyone in particular—just frowning at everyone and everything, I guess. He walked over to the back of the bus, where all the luggage was stacked, and slid that gun right in on top of all the duffl

e bags, very carefully. We all were watching him,

but nobody said a thing.

I turned around, without even thinking about it, to see Bunna’s reaction. But at the exact same moment I turned, Bunna leaned his head over the seat, and we collided midturn, his nose against my cheek. He hollered “ow,” and I turned beet red.

“Ooo,” said Evelyn, “Eskimo kiss,” and everyone laughed.

Everyone but me and Bunna.

Stupid Evelyn.

I stared straight out the side window, burning with embarrassment. Not wanting to face anyone.

Luke was walking back into the school real slow, and I envied the way he walked, so straight and sure, like he didn’t
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E S K I M O K I S S / C h i c k i e

give a fi ddle what anyone thought. He never looked back. Not once.

When Father Flanagan turned the key in the ignition and let up on the brake and that old bus started to creak along on its rusty gears, Bunna turned to look out the window, quick, looking back at the school like he expected to see Luke come running after us. But Luke was gone, and in half a breath, so were we.

I just sat there, one hand clutching the other, still feeling embarrassed. Michael O’Shay was sitting all alone, directly across from me, and he kept looking at me like he thought we should feel some special kind of bond, us both being white; like maybe we’re family or something, which we most certainly were not.

“Where you from, again?” he asked.

“Kotzebue,” I told him. We’d had this conversation before, the two of us. Which Michael O’Shay should have remembered. But Michael O’Shay was from Fairbanks, and he was under the impression that the whole state, with the possible exception of Anchorage, was just some sort of big shadow Fairbanks made.