The Round House (4 page)

I
took my bicycle and a backpack. I had a battered black five-speed with trail-bike tires, a water-bottle clip, and a silver scrawl on the crossbar, Storm Ryder. I took the cracked side road, crossed the main highway, circled Whitey's once, and slid sideways to a halt, hoping that Sonja had her eye on me. But no, she was inside counting Slim Jims. She had a great big flashy radiant white smile. She looked up and turned it on me when I walked in. It was like a sunlamp. Her cotton-candy hair was fluffed up in a swirly yellow crown and a glossy two-foot ponytail hung out of it, down her back. As always, she was dramatically outfitted—today a baby blue running suit with sequin piping, the top three-quarters unzipped. I caught my breath at the sight of her T-shirt, a paler fairy-wing-transparent tissue. She wore white unmarred spongy track shoes and crystals in her ears big as thumbtacks. When she wore blue, as she did quite often, her blue eyes zapped with startling electricity.

Honey, she said, putting down the Slim Jims and taking me in her arms. There was nobody at the pump or in the store at that moment. She smelled of Marlboros, Aviance Night Musk, and her first drink of the late afternoon.

I was lucky: I was a boy doted on by women. This was not my doing, and in fact it worried my father. He made valiant attempts to counteract feminine coddling by doing manly things with me—we played catch, threw a football, camped out, fished. Fished often. He taught me to drive the car when I was eight. He was afraid all the doting I experienced might soften me, though he'd been doted on himself, I could see that, and my grandma doted plenty on him (and me) in those years before she died. Still, I'd hit a lull in our family's reproductive history. My cousins Joseph and Evelina were in college when I was born. Whitey's sons from his first marriage were grown, and Sonja's relationship with her daughter, London, was so stormy she said she'd never want another. There were no grandchildren in the family (yet, thank god, said Sonja). As I said, I was born late, into the aging tier of the family, and to parents who would often be mistaken for my grandparents. There was that added weight of being a surprise to my mother and father, and the surging hopes that implied. It was all on me—the bad and the good. But one of the chief goods, one I cherished, was the proximity I was allowed to Sonja's breasts.

I could press against her breasts for as long as she hugged me. I was careful never to push my luck, though my hands itched. Full, delicate, resolute, and round, Sonja's were breasts to break your heart over. She carried them high in her pastel scoop-neck T-shirts. Her waist was still trim and her hips flared softly in tight stonewashed jeans. Sonja massaged her skin with baby oil, but all her life she had harshly tanned and her cute Swedish nose was scarred by sunburn. She was a horse lover and she and Whitey kept a mean old paint, a fancy quarter horse/Arabian mix, a roan Appaloosa with one ghost eye named Spook, and a pony. So along with the whiskey and perfume and smoke, she often exuded faint undertones of hay, dust, and the fragrance of horse, which once you smell it you always miss it. Humans were meant to live with the horse. She and Whitey also had three dogs, all female, ferocious, and named in some way after Janis Joplin.

Our dog had died two months ago and we hadn't got a new one yet. I opened my backpack and Sonja put in the milk and other things I'd picked out. She pushed back my five dollars and gazed at me from under her delicate, pale-brown, plucked eyebrows. Tears flooded her eyes. Shit, she said. Let me at the guy. I'll waste him.

I did not know what to say. Sonja's breasts made most thoughts leave my head.

How's your mom doing? she said, shaking her head, swiping at her cheeks.

I tried to focus now; my mother was not fine so I could not answer
fine
. Nor could I tell Sonja that half an hour ago I'd feared my mother was dead and I had rushed upon her and got hit by her for the first time in my life. Sonja lit a cigarette, offered me a piece of Black Jack gum.

Not good, I said. Jumpy.

Sonja nodded. We'll bring Pearl.

P
earl was a rangy long-legged mutt with a bull terrier's broad head and viselike jaws. She had Doberman markings, a shepherd's heavy coat, and some wolf in her. Pearl didn't bark much but when she did she became very worked up. She paced and snapped the air whenever someone violated her invisible territorial boundaries. Pearl was not a companion dog and I wasn't sure I wanted her, but my father did.

She's too old to teach to fetch and stuff, I complained to him when he got home that night.

We were sitting downstairs, eating heated-up casserole brought once again by Clemence. My father had made his usual pot of weak coffee and he was drinking it like water. My mother was in the bedroom, not hungry. My father put down his fork. From the way he did it (he was a man who liked his food and to stop eating was usually a relinquishment, though these days he wasn't eating much), I thought he was angry. But although his gestures of recent were abrupt and he often clenched his fists, he did not raise his voice. He spoke very quietly, reasonably, telling me why we needed Pearl.

Joe, we need a protection dog. There is a man we suspect. But he has cleared out. Which means he could be anywhere. Or, he might not have done it but the real attacker could still be in the area.

I asked what I thought was a police TV question.

What evidence do you have that this one guy did it?

My father considered not answering, I could tell. But he finally did. He had trouble saying some of the words.

The perpetrator or the suspect . . . the attacker . . . dropped a book of matches. The matches were from the golf course. They give them out at the desk.

So they're starting with the golfers, I said. This meant the attacker could be Indian or white. That golf course fascinated everyone—it was a kind of fad. Golf was for rich people, supposedly, but here we had a course of scraggly grass and natural water pits. With a special introductory rate. People passed their clubs around and everybody seemed to have tried it—except my dad.

Yes, the golf course.

Why'd he drop the matches?

My father rubbed a hand across his eyes and again had trouble speaking.

He wanted to, tried to, he was having trouble lighting a match.

A book match?

Yes.

Oh. Did he get it lit?

No . . . the match was wet.

So then what happened?

Suddenly my eyes began to water and I bent over my plate.

My father picked his fork back up. He quickly shoveled Clemence's well-known macaroni and tomato sauce/hamburger concoction into his mouth. He saw that I had stopped eating and was waiting, and he sat back. He drained another cup of coffee from his favorite heavy white china diner mug. He put a napkin to his lips, shut his eyes, opened them, and looked at me directly.

All right, Joe, you're asking a lot of questions. You are developing an order to things in your mind. You're thinking this out. So am I. Joe, the perpetrator couldn't light the match. He went to look for another book of matches. Some way of lighting a fire. While he was gone, your mother managed to escape.

How?

For the first time since we'd pulled out those trees the Sunday before, my father smiled, or it was some version of a smile, I should say. There was no amusement in it. Later on, if I had to classify that smile, I would say it was a smile like Mooshum's. A smile of remembrance of lost times.

Joe, do you remember how I used to get so exasperated when your mother locked herself out of her car? She had—still has—a habit of leaving the car keys on the dashboard. After she parks, she always gathers her papers or groceries off the passenger seat, then she puts her keys on the dash, gets out, and locks the car. She forgets that she left her keys in the car until she needs to go home. Then she rummages through her purse and can't find her keys. Oh no, she says, not again! She goes out, sees her car keys are on the dashboard, locked inside, and then calls me. Remember?

Yeah. I almost smiled too as he described what had been her habit, the whole rigmarole we went through. Yeah, Dad, she calls you. You use a mild swear word, then you get the extra set of keys and take a long walk over to the tribal offices.

Mild swear word. Where'd you get that?

Damn, I don't know.

He smiled again, put his hand out and nicked at my cheek with his knuckle.

I never really minded, he said. But one day it occurred to me that your mom would be really stuck if I wasn't home. We don't go many places. Our schedule is pretty boring. But if I wasn't home, or you weren't, to bike her keys over.

That's never happened.

But see, you might have been outside. Not heard the telephone. I thought, What if she really gets stuck somewhere? And thinking this, about two months ago I glued a magnet onto the back of one of those little metal boxes Whitey sells mints in. I saw someone else had a key holder like it. I put a car key in the box and stuck it inside the car's frame just over the left rear tire. That's how she escaped.

What? I said. How?

She managed to reach under the car; she got the car key. He came at her. She locked herself in the car, then she started the car and drove away.

I took a deep breath. I couldn't help a sense of her fear from slashing through me and it made me weak.

My father started eating again, and this time he was clearly going to finish his meal. The subject of what had happened to my mother was closed. I went back to the dog.

Pearl bites, I said.

Good, said my father.

He's still after her then.

We don't know, said my father. Anybody could have picked up those matches. Indian. White. Anybody could have dropped them. But probably it was someone from around here.

Y
ou can't tell if a person is an Indian from a set of fingerprints. You can't tell from a name. You can't even tell from a local police report. You can't tell from a picture. From a mug shot. From a phone number. From the government's point of view, the only way you can tell an Indian is an Indian is to look at that person's history. There must be ancestors from way back who signed some document or were recorded as Indians by the U.S. government, someone identified as a member of a tribe. And then after that you have to look at that person's blood quantum, how much Indian blood they've got that belongs to one tribe. In most cases, the government will call the person an Indian if their blood is one quarter—it usually has to be from one tribe. But that tribe has also got to be federally recognized. In other words, being an Indian is in some ways a tangle of red tape.

On the other hand, Indians know other Indians without the need for a federal pedigree, and this knowledge—like love, sex, or having or not having a baby—has nothing to do with government.

It took me another day to find out that it was already going around that there were suspects—basically anyone who acted strange or had not been seen or had been seen walking out of his back door with loaded black garbage bags.

I found out by going over to my aunt and uncle's house to pick up a pie on Saturday afternoon. My mother had told my father that she thought she had better get up, bathe, get dressed. She was still on pain pills, but Dr. Egge had told her that bed rest wouldn't help. She needed mild activity. Dad had announced that he was cooking dinner from a recipe. But he could not manage dessert. Thus, the pie. Uncle Whitey was sitting at the table with a glass of iced tea. Mooshum sat across from him, hunched and frail, wearing ivory-colored long underwear, and a plaid robe over the long johns. He refused to dress in street clothes on Saturday because he needed a day of comfort, he claimed, to get ready for Sunday, when Clemence made him wear suit pants, a pressed white shirt, and sometimes a tie. He too had a glass of iced tea, but he was glaring at it.

Bunny piss, he griped.

That's right, Daddy, said Clemence. It's an old man's drink. It's good for you.

Ah, swamp tea, said Uncle Whitey, swirling the glass appreciatively. Good for everything that ails you, Daddy.

Cures old age? said Mooshum. Takes the years off?

All but, said Whitey, who knew he could have a beer as soon as he got home and quit pretend-drinking with Mooshum, who was lonely for the old days when Clemence poured smooth whiskey. She'd become convinced that it was harming him and was always trying to cut him off.

This goes down hard, my daughter, he said to Clemence.

Cleans out your liver good, though, said Whitey.

Here, Clemence, pour a little swamp tea for Joe.

Clemence poured me a glass of iced tea and went to answer the phone. People were calling her constantly for news, gossip really, about her sister.

Maybe the pervert really is an Indian, said Uncle Whitey. He was carrying an Indian suitcase.

What Indian suitcase? I said.

The plastic garbage bags.

I leaned forward. So he left? But from where? Who is he? What's his name?

Clemence came back in and flared her eyes at him.

Awee, said Uncle Whitey. Guess I'm not supposed to talk.

Or have even a little glass of whiskey. Or piss in the sink, as I will do until she no longer pours swamp tea. A man's kidneys overflow, said Mooshum.

You piss in the sink? I asked.

When given tea, always.

Clemence went into the kitchen, came out with a bottle of whiskey and three stacked shot glasses. She arranged them on the table and poured two a quarter full. She poured the third half full and tossed it back. I was astounded. I'd never seen my aunt toss back a whiskey like a man. She held her drained glass delicately for a moment, regarding us, then put the glass down with a short smack and walked outside.

What was that? Uncle Whitey asked.

That was my daughter pushed too far, said Mooshum. I pity Edward when he returns. The whiskey will have set by then.

Sometimes whiskey sets Sonja too, Uncle Whitey said, but I have tricks.