The Life and Death of Eli and Jay

by Francis Gideon

  But that one storm, in the summer when he was almost twelve, the spark between he and Jay had stayed. Eli could still feel Jay's hand on his wrist and his words on his ear. You ever want to leave? Moreover, Eli still saw the look on Jay's face—sudden and acute disappointment. And like the storms he sometimes watched, he wasn't sure how far away or how dangerous these sparks and looks between he and Jay really were. Eli didn't know if the small brushes of fingertips as they passed fry bread around the table was an accident or fate. As the summer storms passed and he no longer had to worry or watch, Eli did what he normally did and tried to forget.

  During winter on the rez, everything got so cold because of the flatlands. The wind cut through the place and made everything howl. Everyone stayed indoors. During their winter break from school, when everyone drank whiskey to keep warm, Jay dragged Eli out of Tantoo's house and into Jay's living room.

  "I have to show you something," Jay said. He closed the door and then pushed the couch past the wall and into the doorway where the small kitchen stood, blocking it. With a devious look in his eye, Jay grabbed a thick pair of wool socks that didn't belong to him and slipped them over his brown feet.

  "What are you…?" Eli asked, still hovering in the hallway. Jay didn't answer, merely started to sway his feet against the worn-down carpet. Again and again, he brushed his feet across to the point where Eli thought he was imitating a horse. When Jay reached his side, Eli thought he was going to explain—but he merely reached out and touched Eli's bare arm.

  A jolt of electricity shot through him. "Ouch!"

  Jay smiled, rubbing his feet again, then reached out a finger. "Come on. It's neat, huh?"

  Eli touched his finger to Jay's—and felt the spark again. "How is this happening? What did you do?"

  "Grab a pair of socks and see."

  Eli found another old pair that felt a size too big and slipped them on. He walked across the carpet, only to have Jay make a tsk-tsk noise between his teeth.

  "Don't bring your feet up. Keep them close to the ground. Like a horse, come on."

  Eli did as he was told. Jay moved around him in circles, before he finally stopped. "Now again."

  They both reached out their fingers to one another—then snapped back at the sudden double bolt that went through them. Jay hissed with laughter, while Eli felt both scared and exhilarated.

  "It's like swallowing a storm."

  "Yeah!" Jay agreed. "Maggie calls it static electricity. She says I should have learned about it in school. But who cares, man. It's awesome."

  "Yeah!"

  They both ran across the living room floor, tearing and wearing down the carpet as they shocked one another. When Jay went to comb a hand through his hair, Eli was delighted to find his locks shocked back—and raised up against Jay's hand.

  "This is ridiculous," Jay said, moving over to do the same to Eli's hair. His hand moved along the back of Eli's neck, sending a different kind of shiver through him. He closed his eyes, feeling his body shudder.

  "We should stop," Eli said gravely. "We're gonna cause a storm."

  "There are no storms in the winter. Not like that kind, anyway."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure, sure." Jay paused, almost out of breath from running so fast back and forth across the room. He looked down at the wear marks they had left in the carpet. "But maybe we should stop soon. After another lap around?"

  Eli smirked and nodded, surprising Jay as he lunged ahead of him. They laughed and shrieked as they circled their last lap, and then collapsed back onto the couch. Even as they continued to move, getting comfortable and taking off the too-big wool socks, the snaps of electricity lingered and remained. When Jay held up his hand like a five-pointed star, and Eli pressed his palm to his, all he felt was warmth.

  "Okay," Jay said, taking his hand away slowly. "I think we're fine now. No shocks."

  Eli nodded. He leaned back on the couch with Jay, their breathing falling in succession.

  "You know, my mom told me a story about this once," Jay said. "About elders who could hold fire in their hands. Maybe this is what they were doing, but they just couldn't explain it."

  "Maybe," Eli agreed. What little he could remember of school and of Tantoo's stories, that could be the case. "What happened to your mom?"

  "Nothing." Jay shrugged. "She just had too many babies and then said that was enough. My dad said she had my last sister, Angie, then looked up at the sky and said, 'I quit' into the air. And so she quit for real."

  "And where's your dad?"

  "He quit, too. But in a different way."

  Eli nodded, knowing not to pry further. Tantoo used to know everything about everyone on the rez, but she had fallen behind in the past few years or got the names mixed up. All Eli really knew was that Jay's father was gone, but he was a man named Jimmy. His mother had been a woman named Angie—just like the last child she ever had. They were both gone and never coming back, but it was the type of leaving no one liked to talk about. Not that anyone here ever liked to talk about leaving, unless it was only for a day.

  After a few moments of quiet, Eli suddenly heard a clap of what sounded like thunder. He jumped at the sound—leaning over to grab Jay's arm. He didn't shock Jay with another spark from static, but Jay did grab back. He moved his hand over Eli's wrist, then held his palm in his.

  "What's wrong?" Jay whispered, his mouth close to Eli's ear. "What happened?"

  Eli opened his mouth, but another rumble occurred. He thought for a moment that he had swallowed a storm, and now the thunder was catching up to him. This time, Jay heard the sound too, and he strained his ears to listen. Another thump, another roll, and then a sound of a moan.

  "Oh," Jay said, his eyes wide. He bit his lip and laughed. "That's just my sister and her boyfriend."

  Eli stiffened, trying to hear more of what Jay did. The thumps still continued, and so did the murmured words. He couldn't put the pieces together to form the same explanation that Jay clearly had. "What's so funny?"

  "Them," Jay insisted.

  "What about them? I don't…"

  "Come on. They're fucking, Eli. Can't you hear it?"

  "Fucking?"

  "Your grandmother tells you nothing. Just stories."

  Eli felt a sudden wave of rage fall over him. "She tells me stuff."

  "Not enough, clearly."

  "So you tell me."

  "I'll whisper it in your ear."

  Jay's lips hovered over Eli's skin, warm and present. He almost didn't hear the first part of the explanation. "Sex is what makes babies, obviously. All adults do it. They want to, you know? There's like a craving, and then they just want to take their clothes off and go."

  "So, your sister's going to have a baby?"

  "No. Probably not."

  "So, why…? How?"

  Jay sighed again. He leaned close and then tried to spell it all out in more specific terms. Eli listened, vaguely horrified at the details as they emerged. Sex was a weird creature, like a two-headed beast from a TV monster movie. It was a metaphor, not something real, right? Eli felt his skin turn pink, then crimson. He was twelve now, and Jay was almost fourteen. He should have known all of this, and yet, it felt as foreign as the static electricity they could all control.

  "I don't get it," Eli said. "Sex seems weird."

  "It's supposed to be fun. I kind of get it," Jay said. "But I don't think I'd enjoy doing it with girls. I just don't like them."

  "Oh." Eli felt a sudden weight lifted. Maybe it wasn't sex that was scary, but the people in it. "I think I'm like that, too."

  "Really?" Jay asked. His eyes were bright and his fingers flexed—making Eli realized their hands were still together. "I didn't know."

  "I mean… Maybe. But what they're doing doesn't sound good. It sounds like a storm."

  "A storm, huh? I see that." Jay shifted closer and squeezed Eli's hand again. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from the storm."

  "Thank you."

  As Eli rela
xed into Jay's side, the sounds in the next room got quieter. The thumping was less prevalent, and the moans had fallen into breathy sighs. Soon, the creak of the mattress disappeared entirely.

  "Why you so afraid of storms?" Jay asked, whispering now.

  "Because it's my origin story. My grandmother said I was struck by lightning, so I have to do good things. That's also why my father was always looking at the sky. He thought I fell from it." Eli didn't add that he was also afraid of turning into his father. He just squeezed Jay's hand and was happy to have him squeeze back.

  "I don't remember my origin story. Maybe I don't have one."

  "We all have one."

  "Nah, maybe not." Jay leaned back against the couch, staring up at the stucco ceiling with a large water stain. "Sometimes, I think I was just born yesterday. Maybe I just walked on the rez and my earliest memory is just how things really began. I mean, there are no photos of me as a baby. There are for the girls, but I could have been a kid they found at the side of the road."

  "That would explain why you're the only boy," Eli added.

  "Maybe!" Jay said, laughing. "I like the way you think, Eli."

  "No problem." Eli suppressed a laugh, and then turned to find Jay staring at him. Their hands were still linked tightly, bringing their bodies closer together. But when Jay's eyes caught Eli, it looked as if they'd never be close enough. Jay leaned down, his nose brushing Eli's, before their lips met in a kiss.

  Eli could squeeze Jay's hand, but he didn't know what to do with his lips. What did someone like him do with a kiss? He liked Jay—he liked the warmth of his body, the lightness of his laughter, and the way he made him feel as if he swallowed a storm. It was scary, swallowing the sky like that, but if he could keep the thunder and lightning inside of himself, maybe he could control it more.

  Eli felt Jay open his mouth against his. Eli mirrored him, allowing their breaths to fall into one another's mouths. He felt a stirring deep inside of himself, but it was foreign. He didn't like it. Was this what Maggie and her boyfriend felt? Was this what sex was like? Did kissing have to lead to sex? And sex to something else? The questions assaulted Eli like a barrage of hail. He didn't want that—any of that—no, not at all, even if he liked Jay. Even if he loved Jay and the feel of his body next to his. Wasn't that what Jay wanted, too? Eli's mind went over their conversation again, trying to find the point where they had misunderstood one another. No sex, Eli thought. I thought we wanted no sex.

  Eli opened his mouth more, to say something, but only felt Jay's tongue slide in next to his.

  "No," Eli groaned, then pushed Jay away from him on the couch. "Gross."

  "What?" Jay said. He swallowed hard, his face red from the sudden excitement. His eyes were fixed like the two hard points that Eli recognized from the summer. Disappointment. Fear. "What? I thought you…"

  "No. I thought…"

  "Fuck it," Jay said. He turned away now, their hands no longer touching. "You know, just forget it, Eli."

  Eli said nothing. He couldn't move from his position on the couch—their bodies now divided by inches that felt like kilometres. Jay looked up at the ceiling again, his arms folded angrily across his chest. In the next room, the murmurs became full-on talking, and Maggie walked out of her bedroom. Her black hair was tousled, her cheeks pink in the same way that Jay's had been moments before he turned to stone.

  "What the fuck…?" Maggie asked. She furrowed her brows as she saw the living room couch spread out across the kitchen doorway and the carpet marked up. "What have you idiots been doing?"

  "Nothing."

  "Doesn't look like nothing."

  "Go away, Maggie. We'll fix it up later."

  Maggie looked as if she was about to add something else, when her boyfriend—a tall guy from the same school they went to in the city—appeared with his hands on her sides. He was Native too, but was part of a different rez. He kissed her cheek before they took the long way around the small house into the kitchen again.

  Eli waited for Jay to move. When he didn't, he just waited for Jay to speak again. His eyes seemed so fixated on the patch of water on the ceiling that Eli looked up there as well to see if he had been missing something. Eli wondered if he could wait the silence out, like he did most storms and hope nothing bad happened by the end. He was just about to leave and go home when Jay spoke again.

  "Come help me push the couch back?"

  Eli nodded. He took one end, while Jay took the other as they pushed it back into place. In a matter of minutes, the room looked the same again. Jay lingered by the door and Eli mirrored his movements.

  "So…"

  "My grandmother did tell me one thing," Jay said, breaking the awkward silence between them. "Not my origin story, but something else."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. She told me she had a vision a few days ago—and she knows how I'll die."

  *~*~*

  The death vision was simple: when he was one hundred and ten, Jay was going to get on a train. The train would go through a tunnel and everything would be pitch-black. On the other side, the sun would come up and alight two pathways for the train to choose from. Jay was responsible for guiding the conductor, but no matter which pathway he chose, it would be wrong. At the end of both tracks, the train would run into a wall. If Jay got smart, like he tried to suggest when she first told him the vision, and he got off the train at the fork in the pathway, the story would still end in his death. If he got off the train, he would walk across the tracks, get his foot stuck, and get run over. The train would always lead to his death, no matter what he chose.

  "That doesn't sound real," Eli said.

  It was the fourth or fifth time Jay had told the story. This time, they were at their small Native school a couple kilometres from home. When they were off the rez, but still close to home, Jay liked to act as if he was a tribe leader. He pretended he didn't have any sisters or female cousins and that he really had been born yesterday, fully formed as he was. Since this school often brought together kids from other reserves and not everyone knew Jay Red Feather, he could often get away with the stories he told. Even as he changed them from day to day, never staying with the same legend for very long, people got used to Jay being larger-than-life—even if it was an act. People requested his stories during lunch hours or after school while playing basketball, and Jay was more than ready to provide entertainment. His grandmother Buffy's death vision was the only story that stayed the same.

  "It's not fake," Jay said. "Maybe I won't be one hundred and ten, but this is how I'll die. At the crossroads. It's no more fake than anything else we know."

  "What do you mean?" another boy asked. He bounced a basketball at his side, then passed it off to another boy with his black hair cut short.

  "It's like in those history books," Jay explained. "The US thought they had discovered a land that was already there—and they called it Manifest Destiny. Well, if people are taught that as history, why can't my grandmother's Manifest Destiny be real, too? Why can't she have visions? As far as I can tell, she's been right more times than the history books."

  The ball was passed to Jay, and he took a shot for the basketball hoop. It bounced off the rim, and into another boy's hands, who was named Charlie, and he shot it right in. Most kids laughed along with Jay's easy smile. Eli was on the bench by the sidelines with a few other kids who paid attention to Jay without question. Eli seemed to be the only one casting doubt.

  "But it's not the same," he said.

  Jay turned to Eli, his eyes narrowed in a challenge. "How so?"

  "You can't tell a story about the future. Especially that far in advance. It just won't happen that way. All stories have to be about the past."

  "So?"

  "So, it can't be real. There's no proof."

  "Fuck you. There is proof. My grandmother's vision is no more fake than your lightning baby story."

  "But the house was struck by lightning. I see the singed carpet. It divides the place in two."
r />   "Oh, please," Jay said. "Your grandma is trying to bring you up to not remember your parents and how they fought and fought and fought. Your daddy was a drunk."

  "That's not saying much," some kid countered. But Jay didn't hear it—he was too focused on Eli, as if he was the only person inside the small court just outside their school. When someone passed him the ball, it fell by his side as he walked forward, his arms folded against his chest. Eli swallowed hard, drawing his knees against his body. In spite of having a growth spurt, his legs still seemed too small, too skinny to belong to his teenaged body. It was one of the reasons he sat on the benches instead of playing, with kids like Percy or Gerard, who were also too short or too fat to move.

  "Your grandma's just trying to distract you," Jay said, his tone menacing. "She tells you stories so you'll stay her little boy forever. If you leave, what good will she be?"

  Eli held his legs closer to his body. He could feel his heart beat faster through the thin t-shirt he wore. Ever since that failed winter kiss six months ago, Jay had been angrier and angrier whenever they hung out. When the first storm had hit this season, Eli had tried to find Jay after it passed, to make sure he was okay, only turning up to find Jay inside a bedroom at his house, the bed rocking like it had before. When a boy—the same Charlie kid who also played on the basketball team—came out with his cheeks red, Eli hadn't been surprised. Jay's sudden love and obsession with boys in his class had been more obvious than Jay's over-the-top storytelling—if you knew where to look. Eli had a good spot from his window to watch as different guys moved through the small house. Even if Eli couldn't pinpoint his own feelings—for boys or girls—he knew well enough that Jay was different. And these differences made him suddenly upset whenever he saw Eli around.