devouring potato chips and drinking wine until I swear at her, say she’s ugly, tell her to get a job, to lose weight, to be the person she was when I first met her. That tooth is still cracked off, and when she smiles her smile is jagged with hatred but her eyes are still dark with love, with amusement. She lifts into the air in a dance and spins, spins away so I can’t catch her and once again she is in my arms and we’re moving, moving together. She’s so fantastically plump I can’t bear it all, her breasts round and pointed, and that night I drown, I go down in the depth of her. I’m lost as I never was and next morning, next afternoon, she drags me back into bed. I can’t stop although I’m exhausted. She keeps on and she keeps on. Day after day. Until I know she is trying to kill me.
That night, while she’s asleep, I sneak into the kitchen. I call Jimmy Badger, get his phone through a series of other people.
“It’s her or me,” I say.
“Well, finally.”
“What should I do?”
“Bring her back to us, you fool.”
H IS WORDS BURN behind my eyes. If you see one you are lost forever. They appear and disappear like shadows on the plains, say the old women. Some men follow them and do not return. Even if you do return, you will never be right in the head. Her daughters are pouting mad. They don’t have much patience, Jimmy says. He keeps talking, talking. They never did, that family. Our luck is changing. Our houses caved in with the winter’s snow and our work is going for grabs. Nobody’s stopping at the gas pump. Bring her back to us! says Jimmy. There’s misery in the air. The fish are mushy inside—some disease. Her girls are mad at us.
Bring her back, you fool!
I’m just a city boy, I answer him, slow, stark, confused. I don’t know what you people do, out there, living on the plains where there are no trees, no woods, no place to hide except the distances. You can see too much.
You fool, bring her back to us!
But how can I? Her lying next to me in deepest night, breathing quiet in love, in trust. Her hand in mine, her wicked hoof.
Chapter 7
The Ojibwe Week
Giziibiigisaginigegiizhigad
Klaus lives in exactly half of the bottom floor of a duplex built in 1882 and owned now by his friend and boss, Richard Whiteheart Beads. His main room, once the dining room, has a ripply old window topped with a stained-glass panel. Even though the old window looks directly into the window of a brand-new lower-income housing unit built smack on the property line of Andrew Jackson Street, just off Franklin Avenue, an occasional shaft of morning radiance sometimes stirs in the prisms of glass. When that happens, bands of colored light quiver on the mottled walls. The bed, a savage hummocky mattress laid on top of an even older mattress and box spring, which in turn is nailed right into the floor, sometimes catches the rainbows in its gnarled sheets and blankets. The rainbows move across the bodies of late sleepers. Klaus watches the sheaf of colors waver slowly through Sweetheart Calico’s hair and then across her brow. The rainbow slides down her face, a shimmering veil. When she wakes up, she doesn’t move except to sag with disappointment. Her eyes are dead and sad, killing the rainbow, catching at his heart.
“We are codependent,” he says. “I read it in a newspaper. We are at risk, you and I. Well, you most of all since you are the one tied to the bed.”
A curtain tieback solidly bolted into the wall acts as a hitching post for Sweetheart Calico. A web of makeshift restraints binds her ankles, wrists. There is even a cord around her waist, tied with complicating rosebud cloth and functioning as a sort of sleep sash. Klaus unties her and she rises, naked, yawning. She rubs one ankle with the side of her other foot and stretches her arms. She floats to the bathroom breathing an old tune—she doesn’t talk to Klaus but she’s always whispering songs much older and more powerful than
That night, while she’s asleep, I sneak into the kitchen. I call Jimmy Badger, get his phone through a series of other people.
“It’s her or me,” I say.
“Well, finally.”
“What should I do?”
“Bring her back to us, you fool.”
H IS WORDS BURN behind my eyes. If you see one you are lost forever. They appear and disappear like shadows on the plains, say the old women. Some men follow them and do not return. Even if you do return, you will never be right in the head. Her daughters are pouting mad. They don’t have much patience, Jimmy says. He keeps talking, talking. They never did, that family. Our luck is changing. Our houses caved in with the winter’s snow and our work is going for grabs. Nobody’s stopping at the gas pump. Bring her back to us! says Jimmy. There’s misery in the air. The fish are mushy inside—some disease. Her girls are mad at us.
Bring her back, you fool!
I’m just a city boy, I answer him, slow, stark, confused. I don’t know what you people do, out there, living on the plains where there are no trees, no woods, no place to hide except the distances. You can see too much.
You fool, bring her back to us!
But how can I? Her lying next to me in deepest night, breathing quiet in love, in trust. Her hand in mine, her wicked hoof.
Chapter 7
The Ojibwe Week
Giziibiigisaginigegiizhigad
Klaus lives in exactly half of the bottom floor of a duplex built in 1882 and owned now by his friend and boss, Richard Whiteheart Beads. His main room, once the dining room, has a ripply old window topped with a stained-glass panel. Even though the old window looks directly into the window of a brand-new lower-income housing unit built smack on the property line of Andrew Jackson Street, just off Franklin Avenue, an occasional shaft of morning radiance sometimes stirs in the prisms of glass. When that happens, bands of colored light quiver on the mottled walls. The bed, a savage hummocky mattress laid on top of an even older mattress and box spring, which in turn is nailed right into the floor, sometimes catches the rainbows in its gnarled sheets and blankets. The rainbows move across the bodies of late sleepers. Klaus watches the sheaf of colors waver slowly through Sweetheart Calico’s hair and then across her brow. The rainbow slides down her face, a shimmering veil. When she wakes up, she doesn’t move except to sag with disappointment. Her eyes are dead and sad, killing the rainbow, catching at his heart.
“We are codependent,” he says. “I read it in a newspaper. We are at risk, you and I. Well, you most of all since you are the one tied to the bed.”
A curtain tieback solidly bolted into the wall acts as a hitching post for Sweetheart Calico. A web of makeshift restraints binds her ankles, wrists. There is even a cord around her waist, tied with complicating rosebud cloth and functioning as a sort of sleep sash. Klaus unties her and she rises, naked, yawning. She rubs one ankle with the side of her other foot and stretches her arms. She floats to the bathroom breathing an old tune—she doesn’t talk to Klaus but she’s always whispering songs much older and more powerful than
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