The Way

by Joseph Bruchac

  I’m no longer sitting. I don’t remember getting up, but I am standing in front of him. My hands are clenched into fists as if I’m about to fight someone.

  “I gotta go,” I mumble. I turn and thrust my way through the gate so hard that it falls halfway off its hinges and jams open.

  And even though a part of me wants my uncle to come running after me, another part is glad when I look over my shoulder and see him still sitting there, studying his hands again.

  Chapter 14

  AND PEOPLE

  CHANGE

  The broken egg

  cannot grow a new shell.

  —Sensei Ni

  I’m running angry. My heavy feet aren’t gliding over the ground. They are slapping down hard on the pavement as if I’m trying to break the concrete. My chest is burning, and I know I’m breathing all wrong. But I keep thudding along, punishing myself with every step. I get to where the trail into the woods begins, and even though I don’t intend to take it, I find myself swerving off into the forest, and the thudding concrete is replaced by the soft cushion of generations of pine needles.

  The ground absorbs my anger and confusion as I run, and my steps grow lighter, my breath comes more even. I don’t feel like a robot with stiff limbs as I climb the hill where the light is growing stronger.

  The sun is about to come up. I should head back home or I’ll miss the bus. I don’t care. I’m never going home again. Or back to school. I’m going to sit here on this hillside until I sink into the ground.

  I ease myself into a cross-legged position, relax my arms, and straighten my back. I breathe in the cool autumn air and the warm sunlight. In. And out. My heart slows down, and so do the thoughts that have been twisting inside my head. Nothing is perfect in this world. You can never find even one leaf without a single blemish. But when you put everything together, it all connects. It makes a circle.

  I breathe in and out. In. Hold. And out. Slowly. Twenty times. Twenty minutes. Then I get up and start walking back. At one point the trail comes close to an overhang near the highway. I can hear the humming roar of early-morning traffic below, and if I part the branches, I can see the road below. I lean against the rough bark of a pine and look.

  Sure enough, there goes my bus without me. And there, halfway back, is Grey Cook. He’s wearing the same brown flak jacket he showed up in two weeks ago. He’s holding a phone up, and the way he’s tapping it, I can tell that he’s text-messaging someone. I wonder what he’s text-ing this early.

  He’s probably sending something strange like what I saw on his phone the other day when he dropped it getting off the bus. His phone didn’t hit the floor because I caught it in mid-air and handed it to him. No “thank you” from him. He no longer even makes eye contact with me. He just took the phone and clutched it to his chest. But I’d already seen the message:

  r u there

  i m heer

  i m rtk

  r u rtk

  I wonder who he’s messaging. The breakdown into groups in our school isn’t really racial. It doesn’t matter if you are Indian or white. What’s important is how you look, what you do, what music turns you on. Sure, there’s a bunch of what they call the Super-Indians, kids who wear lots of native jewelry and let their hair grow long and straight if they are girls or have their hair cut into a Mohawk if they are guys. But there are Indian kids who are preppies and jocks and gangsters (as in gangster rap), even some who are goths. Grey, though, doesn’t hang with any of them.

  After I stopped being afraid of him, I began to realize that he was sort of a misfit, too. He always sits alone on our bus. It was like the only relationship he’d had in school was with me—him as persecutor and me as victim. Weird. Seeing him from this distance, for the first time I notice how much he reminds me of someone else now—maybe not in his facial features and his shape so much as the vibe around him, like the dark ink cloud of a squid. Jackson Teeter. Stump. And I remember seeing the two of them together. Double weird.

  I breathe in and out one more time, then get up and head back down the hill. Now that I’ve had time to think about them, Uncle John’s words make sense to me. I’m no longer confused about him. Everyone makes mistakes. Especially me. But people can change.

  As I get close to our trailer, I see that the gate in the backyard fence has been put back on its hinges. I was ready to do that, but Uncle John has beat me to it. He’s nowhere to be seen. Probably off on his own run now. I’ll talk to him later and tell him that it’s okay. I’m cool with it.

  Mom’s car is out front. That’s good. I can ask her to write me a note and then take me in to school. If I’m lucky, I’ll only miss my first period, and I won’t get detention for being late.

  “Are you okay, honey?”

  Those are Mom’s first words, even before I can say “good morning” to her.

  I start to answer that I’m fine, but I don’t. I sit down across from her and put my hands flat on the red plastic tablecloth.

  “Mom, I’m confused.”

  “About Uncle John?”

  I shake my head. “No, I think I understand. I mean about you. What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?” Mom’s voice is nervous. I’m not used to that. Loving, concerned, tired, even resigned. But not nervous.

  “You’re looking happier lately, and you’re dressing nicer. And how come Mr. Chahna was so friendly with you at dinner? What was up with that?”

  She purses her lips, then reaches up to twist the strand of hair that has fallen in front of her eye.

  “Cody,” she says, “your father isn’t . . .” She bites her lip, unable to say the rest of it.

  And that’s when it hits me. I realize what a dope I’ve been not to see it. Because I haven’t wanted to see it.

  “Dad’s not coming back, is he?”

  For a moment Mom closes her eyes. Then she takes a breath, a shallow one, reaches out and puts her hands on top of mine. She doesn’t have to say anything. I know. The answer is no.

  “Why?” I have to ask, even though I don’t want to know. Part of me wants to keep pretending that the next thing we’ll hear is the deep, throbbing engine of his truck as it pulls up in front, and then he’ll be coming through the door with a big smile and his arms spread wide to embrace us both.

  “Some things just can’t be fixed after they’re broken, Cody. And people change.” Her hands tighten on mine. “He’ll always be your father. He loves you. And he wants you to visit him whenever you can. But he’s not coming back. His life is going one way and mine is . . .” Her voice trails off.

  We just sit here like this. I could say that we’re sitting together in silence, but it’s not silent. The cheap, battery-run clock on the wall is ticking so loud that it sounds like one of those corny movie countdowns to doom. The compressor in the refrigerator is humming louder and louder like some crazy hive of mutant bees. The heat of the sun is making the trailer itself give off these unearthly creaking and cracking sounds as the metal on the outside expands. Both Mom and I are aware of the growing noise around us. From her one raised eyebrow, I can tell that it’s striking her the way it is me. Here we are in the midst of a family melodrama, and all we can hear are these cartoon sounds around us.

  TICK-TOCK-TICK-TOCK

  WHHHRRRRR

  WHA-DONK!

  This final breathless moan from the metal sheath of our pathetic home is just too much. We look up at each other, and we can’t help it. We both start laughing and don’t stop until we have tears in our eyes.

  I squeeze Mom’s hands and then let go of them.

  “I’m really late for school,” I say.

  “Okay,” Mom answers, picking up her car keys. “I’m ready to get going. Okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready, too.”

  Chapter 15

  UP THE HILL

  Speak with your mouth shut.

  See with your eyes closed.

  —Sifu Sahn

  Mr. Randall looks out at the faces of twenty t
eenagers who are still dazed from having to get up before dawn. Or are mesmerized by whatever downloaded tunes are running into their ears, making them mindless bobbleheads.

  “Unplug,” Mr. Randall says.

  Most of the kids actually do. A measure of the respect he enjoys—unlike some other teachers. It was just his bad luck this term to have his Survey of Modern World History slotted into second period. Randall, who used to be a pro baseball player, is not a bad guy. He doesn’t talk at you like some teachers do. Or nod as if his worst expectations were being confirmed when someone makes a dumb response. He tries to talk to you and work with you to help you understand. Today his theme is world peace, about whether or not we need to change our approach from armed conflict to mediation. Despite my bad mood, I find myself really listening to his words.

  “So,” he says, spreading his hands out toward us, “who thinks that the United Nations is a modern version of the Greek myth of Sisyphus?”

  Lots of blank looks.

  “Okay, I’ll back up. Who knows who Sisyphus was?”

  No one raises a hand. Either they haven’t got a clue, or they’d rather not put themselves on the spot. Or, like me, they feel as if they’re the ones condemned to push that huge boulder up the hill, lose control of it just when they are about to reach the top, and watch it roll all the way back to the bottom again.

  It’s a familiar feeling for me. Even if, for the last few weeks, that feeling of hopelessness had been fading, it has returned like the Terminator. It’s as if I’ve taken a giant step backwards after weeks of edging slowly forward an inch at a time.

  Mr. Randall’s wall phone rings.

  “Hold that thought,” he says to us before he answers it.

  Aside from the sound of stray beats bleeding out of unplugged iPods, it is so quiet in the class that I can hear the humming of the banks of fluorescent lights overhead. Mr. Randall is up front holding the wall phone to his ear. He’s not saying anything, just nodding.

  I look up at the clock on the wall. I could care less if it froze there forever or if its hands spun like a top. It doesn’t matter either way. I’ve got nowhere to go; nowhere I want to be. Nothing makes sense. Not my training, not my mother or my father or my life. Yeah, I was laughing with Mom when I left this morning, but as we drove to school, it hit me.

  Dad’s not ever coming home. We’re not a family anymore.

  By the time I got out of the car, I felt as if my stomach was full of sand. I’m angry at them, and I’m angry at me. Although, maybe it’s all my fault. What did I do to make all this happen? If I’d been a better son, would my mom and dad still be together? There must have been something more I could have done. I am such a loser. I bite my tongue to keep from shouting those words out loud.

  And then it happens. Something Uncle John said speaks itself in my mind in a clam, clear voice.

  “Just because everything is connected does not mean you are responsible for everything that happens.”

  I didn’t understand that when he first said it a month ago. And right now I don’t want to understand it. I don’t want to understand that I can’t change everything in the world and make it better.

  “Okay,” Uncle John’s voice continues. “How about this? The Serenity Prayer.

  ‘Lord, grant me the patience

  to accept the things I cannot change,

  the courage to change the things I can,

  and the wisdom to know the difference.’”

  Oh shut up, I think. But there’s a little smile coming to my face in spite of it. What a self-pitying jerk I’ve been! And when did God step aside and tell me I was responsible for everything that happens in the world?

  I feel the clouds lifting from around my head. Things may not be the way I want them to be. But how bad off am I? Really?

  All I have to do is look around me at some of the other kids in my class. They have better clothes and electronic stuff, but I know that none of them have parents who love them more than my mom and dad love me, even if they aren’t together. Some kids have only one parent, and even that one parent treats them like they are dogs.

  I look over my shoulder to the desk where Jackson Teeter is supposed to be sitting. Just as in first period, we have our second class of the day together. Except he isn’t here. Which is the second weird thing today that has to do with him.

  The first had been when I saw him in the hall after I gave the office secretary the note from my mom explaining my lateness. Since I am maybe the only kid in school aside from Grey Cook who ever notices that Stump is alive, I was surprised when he didn’t nod back to me. Instead he avoided eye contact, shifted his bigger-than-usual black backpack (but with the same “LIFE SUCKS” motto printed on it in Wite-Out) and slouched around the corner ahead of me. I was headed in the same direction to our second period class, only about twenty feet behind him, but when I turned the corner, there was no sign of him. It was like he had vanished. That was Weird Thing Number One.

  The bell rings, ending second period. I’m better . . . which means I’m not feeling like Atlas, another victim of the penal system of the Greek gods. So when I am about to pass Mr. Randall, still stuck on the phone, I stop.

  “Cruel king of Corinth,” I say. “Punishment in Hades was to spend eternity pushing a heavy stone up a hill only to have it constantly roll down again.”

  Mr. Randall’s face lights up like a hundred-watt bulb. He presses the mouthpiece of the phone against his shoulder. “One for the home team,” he says with a grin, giving me a big thumbs-up. Then he holds up a right hand the size of a catcher’s mitt for me to slap him five.

  I’m smiling, too, as I step out into the hall. It’s amazing how doing something that makes another person feel good can do the same for you.

  Someone shoves me from behind. Five weeks ago I would have fallen on my face. But this time I just take a little step to the side and pivot so the person shoving me goes off-balance and stumbles past me. He quickly catches his balance and turns to loom over me. It’s Jeff Chahna.

  “You jerk!” he says, spitting his words at me.

  What have I done to him? Aside from bruising his knuckles on my nose, that is? I just look at him. He’s bigger than me, but I’m not feeling scared. Or hostile. And because of that, the look on his face changes from anger to confusion. I read his body language, the hand bunched into a fist, the open mouth. He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

  “You don’t belong here,” he finally blurts out.

  I can believe that. But I also know that’s not what he really means. I realize that now I know what’s making him angry—because it’s part of what made me angry. My mom and his dad. At that dinner, Mr. Chahna made it pretty plain that he was hoping my mom would agree to go out with him. He’d mentioned twice that it had been a year and a half since his divorce was final. And both times Jeff had looked like he was trying to swallow a rock.

  I hold up both of my hands, open, palms out. What can I do?

  Jeff glares at me, then pushes past. I step back to avoid being clobbered by his big backpack.

  But not as big as the one Stump had today.

  You aren’t supposed to run in the halls, so I start walking as fast as I can. I think I know where Stump disappeared to, and I’ve got a sick feeling in my stomach.

  I hope I’m wrong.

  Chapter 16

  INSIDE

  The eyes see more

  and less than the mirror.

  —Master Net

  They give us seven minutes to get from one class to the next. That’s better than a lot of schools I’ve been in. It makes things a little less hectic and hurried in the halls. In the junior high school I was at a year ago, they gave us only three minutes, and the result was a frenzied mob of pre-teens swarming like lemmings looking desperately for the nearest tall cliff.

  During Long River’s grace period, some kids just saunter along, cell phones to their ears, checking out each other’s clothes or breaking up into l
ittle cliques to compare the music in their iPods.

  I’m not doing any of those things. All I can see is Stump being humiliated that day outside the library. It wasn’t at this time of the day, between second and third period. It was later, just before lunch. So maybe I still have time.

  Or maybe I am just imagining it. Maybe I’m back to creating one of those scenes in which I become the hero. I shake my head. No.

  “What would you do,” asked Uncle John after teaching me about The Way one morning, “if you found yourself in Central Park in New York City at midnight surrounded by four muggers with knives?”

  I thought hard before answering that one. I’d learned enough to know that fantasizing I could actually beat four armed men in a fight was foolish. That was what the old Cody would have imagined. None of that kicking the knife out of one man’s hand, side-kicking the second, spinning leg sweep on the third, and a knockout punch to the fourth, all in the blink of an eye. That only happens in movies.

  “Try talking to them?” I had suggested.

  “They won’t listen to you,” Uncle John said.

  I thought again. “Run?”

  “They’re faster than you. And one of them also has a gun.”

  Then I got it. “What I would do is not go into Central Park alone at midnight.”

  “Right,” Uncle John said.

  So I am headed where any sane kid should head right now, straight to the A.P.’s office to tell him about what I’m afraid is about to happen. Except, as I make the turn that connects the long, long hallway to the front office, I realize I am going to go right past where I saw Stump disappear first thing this morning. Where could he have gone?

  Then a thought comes to me. Something Uncle John told me. Don’t just see what you expect to see. See what is really there.

  I detour around a wheeled green dumpster half full of broken sheetrock and other construction debris from the renovations being done on the boys’ locker room. Turn left and there it is. The place where he must have ducked in.