Fire Song

by Adam Garnet Jones

  He goes around to the front of the house and bangs on the door. If Glen can hear him, it doesn’t look like he’s going to answer. This isn’t good. He walks off the property and dials Tara’s cell number. It rings a few times, then goes to voice mail. He should hang up.

  “Hey, Tara … I’m sorry about last night. That was messed up. I’m sorry. Call me, okay?” Shane hangs up and slides the phone into his pocket. He keeps his hand wrapped around it like a worry stone, hopeful that it will jump alive at any moment with a call or a message.

  When he looks up, Tara is walking ahead of him.

  “Tara!” Shane calls.

  She doesn’t look back. Her dark hair flaps against her hoodie like a heavy cape. Shane can’t tell if she’s ignoring him or if maybe she has earphones in. Nothing about this feels right. Tara disappears around a corner and down the gravel road that leads to the abandoned house.

  “Tara!” Shane jogs up to the corner where she turned, but she’s already gone. He keeps following, even though the knocking in his stomach gets louder with every step. Shane walks up the stairs carefully, pausing after each one like an old man afraid to slip on the ice. When he reaches the top, he stops to take a last breath of fresh air, then steps inside.

  “Tara?” Shane listens, but there isn’t any sound here. He passes through the living room. It looks like somebody had a good time last night. There’re empty bottles scattered around, and the floor is still damp from where some drinks got tipped over.

  Shane kicks the neck of a beer bottle, sending it spinning in lazy circles. The mouth of the bottle swings past Shane, past the front door, past the living room, the hallway. It slows down and stops, pointed toward the bedroom door. If this were a game of spin the bottle, he would have his partner.

  An invisible current pulls him down the long narrow hallway. Shane takes a step forward, and then another. The scrape of his shuffling feet on the plywood floors seems louder than the last time he was here. He resists the instinct to snap his eyes shut and plug his ears. The urge to run builds with each step toward the bedroom like the pressure of a river against the gates of a dam.

  When he pushes open the door, the dam breaks. A shape is hanging from the rafters. A body. A body in Tara’s clothes. A body with her arms. Her legs. Her face. Her body. Tara. But there is nothing of her in it. It is a husk.

  Where did she go?

  *

  It’s hard to say how long Shane has been outside. The tingling came like the beginning of a Drift, but it didn’t take him away. He was trapped there in that skeleton of a house, ripped apart and numb. Aware enough to do what he was supposed to. Dial the number. Make the call. Wait. And wait.

  He’s still waiting, but they’re here now. The police car in front of the house has its lights on, like they want people to come and see. But when people do come, one worried face after the other, Officer Larkin holds them back and tells them to go home. Nothing to see here. Turn off your lights, Shane wants to say. This isn’t a circus. They try to talk to Shane, but Larkin won’t let him say anything. Shane doesn’t mind. He doesn’t have words anyway.

  The police have him sitting on an old couch to the side of the house. Shane keeps closing his eyes and trying to set out on a Drift, but the Drift won’t come. Destiny won’t either. He’s trapped. Alone. Waiting. Shane stares down at his runners, two dirty white wings in the mud. He grabs a rag from the couch and rubs at the black marks on the leather of his shoes. The mud smears around, making the shoes blotchy beige. Shane wonders if they’ve cut her down yet, or if she’s still hanging there waiting to fall into some cop’s arms. For the first hour, he listened for the sound of rope being sawed, of a weight being dropped, but it’s been quiet so far. There’s just the odd flash of their cameras lighting up the fringes of his vision.

  Two cops he hasn’t seen before today talk in low voices just inside the house. They stand straight, with their protective vests holding their backs flat as action figures.

  “Is he still outside?”

  “I told him to wait.”

  “Let’s get him home.”

  One officer steps out of the house and stands with his belt at eye level with Shane.

  “Shane?”

  Shane lifts his head up. The officer is a dark silhouette, a smudge against the gray sky.

  chapter twenty-two

  The old ladies have done up the bingo hall extra-nice for Tara’s funeral. They had to open the sliding wall that normally separates the smoking and non-smoking sections so that they would have space for everybody. Burgundy drapes have been hung over the light-up bingo boards. The cage that holds the balls must be stashed away somewhere. Shane wonders who decided it was against the rules to look at bingo stuff during a funeral. The hall will never be pretty, so they might as well leave it as is. That would be more honest. It makes sense to him that a mixed community of Catholics and people who are bringing back the old Anishinaabe ways would hold funerals in the only place where they all worship: the United Church of Bingo.

  The plain room is filled to capacity. Everyone that matters to Shane, other than his mom, is here. The air is filled with muffled sobs and murmured wishes of support. People keep coming up to him, but he can’t bring himself to talk. What can he say? He bets they’re all looking at him, wondering what he did wrong. Asking each other how fucked up he must be to have both his sister and his girlfriend kill themselves within a couple months of each other. That’s what he’s thinking anyway. Even if nobody else is.

  He takes a seat near the front, hoping to get started as soon as possible so it can just be over. David has been hovering on the edge of the crowd, waiting for Shane to wave him over, give permission for him to come closer. Not likely. He hasn’t talked to David or looked at him since he found Tara. David eventually takes the seat next to Shane, ignoring his signals. It would be sweet of him to follow him around if the two of them weren’t the whole reason everyone is packed into the bingo hall with Tara’s body at the front of the room. They didn’t have the courage to come out a few days ago, and now that Tara’s dead he’s still trying to get close to Shane without being honest about who they are. It’s bullshit and David knows it. If he and David had never hooked up, Tara would still be alive. Simple. No getting around it. So fuck him. Fuck him and his puppy-dog eyes and his leather medicine bag. He needs to be punished. They both do.

  A priest steps up to the podium. He must be new, or maybe they pulled him in from Dryden or somewhere. When he begins to speak, the words are the same ones Shane has heard come from the throats of other men who stood up there speaking for people they’ll never know: They may know grief and they sure know pity. They know that they feel bad when young Indians die, but they don’t believe there’s anything to be done about it. These priests, social workers, teachers, government bureaucrats, they’re all gravediggers in a war zone, doing their job with efficiency and compassion, but they’re convinced it’s hopeless. They believe that the way things are is the way they will always be. Indians have hard lives. Indians die young. It’s sad, but it’s the way of the world. Shane can see it in their watery eyes, clinging to their damp handshakes and limp summer suits. But then again, when was the last time he really made a difference? At least he hasn’t given up. Giving up is a luxury reserved for people standing on the outside looking in.

  He can’t make himself look at the priest. But if he turns away, David is there. And straight in front of him is Tara’s school photo sitting on top of her coffin. Her coffin. Shane forces himself to look at it. To keep his eyes open. To stare. Tara’s smile in the photo is tense, like she knows she’s on display and she’s doing her best to give people what they expect to see. Behind her eyes is a flash of accusation, the panic of a drowning girl. I’m so sorry, Tara. Then the Drift takes him like a rogue wave, knocking the breath from his lungs. His whole world flashes past him in a jumble, as though it’s all been picked up and tossed into a
blender. Gravel whips by, peppered with cigarette butts and flecks of wild rice. David’s canoe, the Toronto guidebook, the purple curtains from Destiny’s room, Kyle and Ashley swirl past hand in hand. The side of Jackie’s face is visible for a moment, then gone. Shane looks up through the center of the swirling mass. Two figures float above him, just out of reach. Wind whips their hair over their faces, but there is no mistaking Tara and Destiny. Shane reaches up for Tara’s ankle. His fingers stretch to their limit, as he wills his body to extend only a little bit farther. His fingertips brush the sole of Tara’s shoe and he’s about to grab hold of her when he feels a cold touch at his wrist.

  Shane looks down. David strokes Shane’s hand with two fingers, careful to make sure that no one sees. The priest is still at the front. Before Shane realizes it, his feet have carried him up the aisle and out of the hall. He can feel everyone’s heads turning as he goes. They’ll crane their necks to follow him out the door, then snap back around to the priest like they’re all attached to the same rubber band. Once he’s gone, the whispers will start.

  Outside, thick clouds crowd the sky like grotesque blobs of mud. It’s like the world has flipped on her back in surrender. The sky is mud and the earth is gone. How else to explain the weight on his shoulders and the lightness of his feet? The point is alive with stiff grasses that thrash with each gust of the coming storm. The sky is ready to break open at any moment. Shane slows to a walk, feeling the wind shove against him, wishing that it would rip the grasses up from their roots and take him along with it. He’s sure to find life better in the sky world. Shane stops at the end of the point. His hands ache from being clenched into fists. He straightens one finger at a time, feeling the wind wick sweat from the damp creases. A paper ball drops from his right hand. It’s a copy of the funeral program he’s kept crushed in his fist since they handed it to him. Shane bends down to pick it up. He tries to smooth the creases in the cover, but the damage is done. It looks old, already an artifact. Shane follows the white line that cuts through the top of Tara’s photo. It’s the same white line that ran through the program at Destiny’s funeral. Roberta must have used the same ancient printer at the back of the school office.

  He pulls the pages apart. One of Tara’s poems is printed inside:

  Now you see me. Now you don’t.

  You weave me in and out of your life.

  A thread worked into a hemline.

  Invisible, almost.

  Now you see me.

  Now you don’t.

  Invisible is not the same as gone.

  Shane lets his hand fall to his side. He tries to remember if he has ever read anything Tara wrote. Who was the “you” she was talking to—Shane or her mom? She was always scribbling in her notebook, but he never asked about it more than a couple of times, and he doesn't even remember what she said she was doing. Girl stuff, he probably thought. The smell of rain comes over the lake in the instant before he feels the first drop.

  A voice calls to him. “Shane!”

  Shane doesn’t turn. There’s no reason to. It’s David’s voice, rising over the rush of the wind and water.

  “Shane!” He walks lightly over the wet mess of earth, barely making a sound. Evie says he is a good hunter. She must be right.

  “Why did you leave?”

  He won’t turn until he has to. Why should he? It’s fucked up that David came here. Today of all days, they should stay away from each other. It’s the least they can do for Tara. A crack of lightning moves through Shane’s body when David touches his shoulder. Shane swings around. “What? What do you want?”

  David is stunned into silence. Shane can see how bad he’s hurting, but he can’t make himself care.

  “See this?” Shane holds up Tara’s memorial program. “This is on me and you.”

  David flinches, but he holds his ground. As if just being there is supposed to make things better somehow. Shane wants to kick him or punch him or bite him—anything to get a reaction.

  Shane shoves the program hard against David’s chest. “You know what? Stay the fuck away from me.” Shane plows through the matted weeds just as the real rain begins. It beats at his back, making his clothes cling to his skin. He imagines the raindrops turning into fat wads of soil and muck that pool into the streets, flowing up around his ankles and thighs, swallowing up cars and houses and babies, devouring grannies and uncles and drowsy kids until all that’s left of this place is a smooth flat lake of mud that hardens in the sun, freezing them all in a moment of terror that lasts until the end of time.

  But that’s not what happens. What happens is Shane walks home through the rain. What happens is the raindrops unleash the anger he’s been pushing away for his whole life. The anger of trying to be a good son, a good nephew, trying to be a good student, a good boyfriend. And once he gets to the city he’ll have to be a good Indian. A smart Indian. Not the kind to get lost in a blackout rage or a blackout drunk, but a noble Indian with a sense of humor and sturdy roots twisting back through history.

  Shane shoves the door open with his shoulder. He ignores the pots of water overflowing with brown water from the ceiling, and stomps through the kitchen. His shoes leave brown smears on the linoleum. His sleeves drip snaking puddles behind him.

  “Mom?”

  No answer. He knows where she is anyway. Shane throws open the door to Destiny’s room and stands at the foot of the bed. Jackie is curled up in the covers, one arm thrown over her eyes.

  “Mom.”

  Jackie doesn’t move.

  “MOM.” Shane waits. Jackie rolls over, but she doesn’t open her eyes. Shane turns around and scans the contents of the room. It’s crammed with books, clothes, and old assignments from school. It’s a whirlwind nest of his sister’s carelessness. Tipped-over bottles of nail polish, a black rose patch she planned to sew on her bag, long-forgotten stuffed animals, all of it teetering on shelves and crammed in corners. When Destiny was here the whole mess of it changed every day like the water. But there’s nothing of her in here now. The room seems dead for having been so alive. Shane wonders what Jackie would do if it were all to disappear the way Destiny did. Shane throws aside the curtain and slides the window wide. Light cuts through the room. A blast of storm-damp wind stirs up the dead air. Jackie’s eyes crack open. “Close the window.”

  Shane picks up a stack of magazines and yanks the lamp cord out of the wall before tossing it all through the window.

  Jackie sits up with wide eyes, more alive than Shane has seen her in weeks. “What are you doing!?”

  Shane rolls up an armful of clothes and chucks them into the yard. Jackie gets up as a family of dolls tumbles out into the night.

  “Stop it!”

  Shane glares at Jackie. “Is this what it’s gonna take?”

  He lifts a small shelf, then a bedside table and blankets, heaving everything out into the yard. Jackie picks up a photo of Destiny and her friends from the desk. Shane tries to grab it, but Jackie holds on.

  “No—that’s from her birthday! I have to keep it for her!”

  Shane yanks at the photo harder, and it slips from Jackie’s fingers. Shane twists it behind his back. Jackie lunges for it, but Shane blocks her. When he feels the sting of his mother’s hand smack across his face, Shane drops the photo. The glass breaks, sending shards of glass skittering over the linoleum.

  Shane and Jackie lock eyes. He has her now. This is what he’s been waiting for; now she’ll have to see him. She’ll know how much he hurts. She’ll have to be his mother again. She takes his hand and for a moment she’s right there with him. Jackie takes a breath as though she’s preparing to say something, but then the light in her eyes dims. Something in her retreats. She’s gone. Her grip on his hand loosens, and she eases herself down to the ground to pick up the pieces of the picture frame.

  Shane watches his mother crawling on the floor with glass in her h
ands.

  “Mom.” Jackie doesn’t look up.

  Jackie examines the photo for marks.

  “Mom. Look at me.”

  Jackie tucks the photo into her breast pocket. “You don’t need me.”

  Outside, Destiny’s things spill into the yard like heaps of earth ripped up in the trail of an explosion.

  chapter twenty-three

  Shane is huddled under a clammy sheet. The air is heavy, wet, and still. The funeral was a week ago. He’s hardly been out of bed since. He keeps his eyes shut, trying to think of good reasons to open them.

  Shane’s phone rings on the bedside table. David again.

  Come outside, David will say. At least get some fresh air. And when Shane refuses to come out, David will tell him to call on the ancestors for help. Lolololololololololol. Right. When he imagines David’s ancestors, he sees a long line of noble elders standing behind him in their regalia, the oldest and toughest Nish army in the history of the world, ready to slaughter David’s enemies and smudge their remains. But when he tries to picture his own ancestors, the only ones he can see clearly are Destiny and Tara. Behind them is a threadbare group with stringy hair and shadowy faces. David would say that’s because he doesn’t know his history, but Shane can’t shake the feeling that if it’s true that people choose their families (and agree to everything that’s going to happen to them over the course of their lives) when they’re still in the spirit world, he really fucked up.

  *

  It takes some time, but Shane eventually pulls himself out of bed. He does a quick email check before his growling stomach drags him to the kitchen. Water from the ceiling drips into overflowing bowls. Garbage and laundry push up against the edges of the room like debris along the shoreline after a storm. Each dish has a crust that won’t come clean without a long soak. Shane stands at the counter eating a bowl of cereal. His foot presses against the side of his leg so his knee juts out like a heron.