More Than Good Enough

by Crissa-Jean Chappell

  Knock.

  Or don’t knock.

  Near the door was a stack of cans filled with BB pellets. Girls would strap them to their legs to make music for the Green Corn Dance. The girls would spin because the universe spins, the same as everything in it—plants and animals and people, too; the way it always was. The way it always will be.

  I knocked.

  When it opened, a woman leaned on the door frame. She wore a straw hat tipped low on her forehead and a heap of beads around her neck. Her thighs reminded me of bedposts, thick muscle packed into khaki shorts.

  She squinted. “You’re Jimi’s boy.”

  Around the Rez, people still called my dad “Jimi.”

  “You don’t look too good,” she said, scratching her neck. “You don’t smell too good, either.”

  Who was this crazy lady? All this time, I’d thought she was the girlfriend. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Where’s Uncle Seth?” I asked.

  “Gone.” She steered her gaze to the yard, which ended at a wall of stringy pines near the canal. “No use fussing about it. Can’t keep him away from the city lights.”

  I felt like she was talking to the trees, like I wasn’t even there.

  “It’s the lights that draw young people,” she said.

  Inside the house, the TV crackled applause. A woman was screaming, all hyped about winning a year’s supply of Cheerios or a trip someplace that wasn’t here, one of those countries whose names I memorized then forgot how to spell.

  “My dad’s hurt,” I said. “He needs help. I can’t do it by myself.”

  “It shouldn’t be up to you.” She shoved her feet into a pair of flip-flops. “Come,” she said. As we marched across the yard, her gray-stained braids swung down her back. She was a lot older than I’d guessed. What did she mean, not up to me ?

  When I first moved onto the Rez, I thought I’d have total freedom. Instead, I got roped into Dad’s sick version of reality. The knots were yanked so tight, there was nothing I could do to pull myself loose.

  Nothing except chew my way out.

  fourteen

  The room was spinning.

  I was tangled in sheets. My mouth tasted gritty, like I’d swallowed a handful of sand. Even the inside of my nose felt dry. I tried to focus on the ceiling fan, but it kept shifting and the bed wouldn’t stay still.

  In other words, I was seriously fucked.

  The solution?

  Close my eyes and drift back to Dreamland.

  As I rolled over, the blanket snapped out of my grip. I figured it had slid on the floor. I reached for it, stretching my entire arm off the edge (definitely not the smartest move; everybody knows the bed demons have a weakness for dangling limbs).

  “Wake up, Trenton.”

  The bed demons had learned how to talk. They were calling my name. And they didn’t sound happy.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Yeah, I heard you the first time. Loud and clear. Extra loud, as if the world’s volume had cranked up.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  School? Why start now?

  “It’s time to get out of bed.”

  Time is a human invention. When nothing happens, it doesn’t exist.

  Actually, something was happening.

  The woman I’d met last night (not that I’d call it an “introduction”) was standing over me. In her arms, she held my jeans, neatly creased on top of my Native Pride T-shirt.

  It could only mean one thing. I was half-naked, in nothing but my boxers. This was only slightly embarrassing for one reason: I wasn’t sober enough to give a shit. Yeah, it was already morning and I was still drunk. How twisted is that?

  “Do you remember where you are?” she asked.

  To be honest, I didn’t know. I remembered the blood on the bathroom floor. All the beers I’d pounded. Me and Pippa in the car. Her body sinking on top of mine.

  “I’m not at my dad’s place,” I said. A brilliant observation.

  “Correct,” she said.

  “Whose place am I at?”

  “Mine.”

  Now I was totally confused.

  “Not Uncle Seth’s?”

  “My son-in-law lives here, yes. But this house belongs to me.”

  The headache behind my eyes had moved toward my brain. “His wife was your daughter?”

  “Granddaughter, as a matter of fact,” she said, folding my clothes on the dresser. “Call me Cookie. Everybody does.”

  I was still trying to register the news. The only grandmother I knew was my Nana in Fort Myers, the one who loved dogs more than people.

  Cookie wasn’t like any grandmother I’d ever seen. Her hair was coiled in a long braid, slung over a Harley Davidson muscle tank, and her throat was speckled like a conch shell. So were her knuckles, the same as most old people. But she didn’t look old. That’s for sure.

  “Me and your dad ain’t exactly on speaking terms,” Cookie told me. “But he finally got you dragged back to your Indian family. I’ll give him that much.”

  “Where’s Dad now?” I asked.

  “In my sewing studio. Same as he’s been for the past month. Wasting time on the wrong things.”

  “Wait. The Little Blue House is your sewing studio?”

  “Until Jimi moved in. Now I’ve got to make do with the shed. All my beads are still packed away. It’s an absolute wreck.” She sighed. “If you’re not going to school, might as well make yourself useful. Help me move those damn boxes into the house.”

  I sat up straight. “Is Dad going to be okay?”

  “That’s his decision,” she said and closed the door.

  Maybe if I hadn’t been so wasted, I could’ve moved that stuff like a boss. Cookie had no problem lifting all those boxes into a wheelbarrow. She made me push it across the yard in the broiling sun.

  On the porch of the house was a Styrofoam cooler. I thought about Fantasy Factory, that episode where they’re riding a cooler on wheels. I peeked inside. It was stuffed with bones. I lifted a gator skull, surprisingly light and grooved with pits. A tooth skittered across the porch. For some reason, I put it in my pocket.

  As I grunted and lurched my way through the garden, Cookie stopped and pointed to the chickee hut. “Your dad built it for me. Took him three days just to clean the bark off the cypress.”

  “For real?” It was one of the biggest on the Rez.

  “Got one of them draw knives over there, if you want it.”

  Dad’s initials were carved into the blade. I tried to picture him scraping the logs into those smooth pillars, so tall and wide I couldn’t wrap my arms around them.

  “When did he build that thing?” I asked.

  Cookie lowered her hand toward the ground. “You were this high. Just big enough to get into trouble. You’re how old now?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “I don’t tell my age to nobody,” she said, squinting up at the chickee, where some of the palmetto had thinned out. “Looks like the roof needs fixing.”

  “Can you show me how?”

  She shrugged. “Ain’t nothing to show.”

  We spent the rest of the day in the backyard. I didn’t think about Mom ditching me, selling the house. I didn’t think about Dad getting so wasted he cracked his head on the bathroom sink and somehow managed to stumble outside, just a few feet away from the chickee hut he’d built when I was little.

  “You learn by watching,” Cookie said.

  That was the Eelaponke way—her term for Miccosukee. As we worked, she told me about the beginning, when Breathmaker pulled us from the clay and made all the animals on the earth. The panthers were supposed to crawl out first, but their heads wouldn’t fit.

  “They couldn’t do it by themselves,” she explained. “So the bird clan
helped them out.”

  “Sounds like the panthers aren’t too big on peace.” I stepped off the ladder while Cookie held it with one hand.

  “They have a place, same as everything,” she said, passing me a Coke. “The snakes and alligators, even the ants, they all have a place.”

  I popped the tab and took a long sip. Coke always burned my throat going down. In the late afternoon heat, it tasted better than water. I stared off into the distance, where the Everglades unrolled like a tarp. Did the big cats still hang out in the sawgrass? Or were they hunted down and killed years ago?

  “Ever see a panther?” I asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “Just you.”

  I wanted to ask more questions, but Cookie grabbed the wheelbarrow and pushed it back to the porch. As we packed up the beads, she told more stories about the animals and how the world got started.

  “The panthers were Breathmaker’s favorite,” she said.

  “So why didn’t he help them?” I asked.

  “He was watching, all along.” Cookie patted my shoulder. “That thing in your pocket … ”

  I slipped a hand inside and squeezed the gator tooth.

  She gave me a slow smile. “Keep it.”

  And I did.

  Uncle Seth came home looking like hell. We hadn’t really talked since he called the cops, the night Dad went ballistic. At dinner, we made Indian burgers with fry bread. Probably the best thing I’ve eaten in my whole life. And trust me. Eating is one thing I’m good at. He showed me how to knead the bread. It’s all about letting it breathe. Man, I could eat that stuff every day. No joke.

  “I’m staying here now,” I said.

  Uncle Seth took off his straw hat and plunked it on my chair. He was still wearing the baggy patchwork that everybody called Big Shirts, so I knew he’d been putting on a show for the tourists. As he helped himself to a burger, I waited for the bomb to drop.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “But this isn’t your dad’s place. There are rules.”

  “Okay. I’m cool with that.” To be honest, I would’ve agreed to anything.

  He gave me a little speech about alcohol, how it makes “too much heat” and burns your insides. I was half-listening, half-tuning him out, sort of astral projecting the whole time, but he had a point. I didn’t want to end up bleeding in the grass.

  “You’re going to school,” he said. “And you’ll still work for me on weekends. Does that sound fair?”

  I nodded.

  Cookie fixed a plate and wrapped it in a paper towel. “Go ahead and take this over to your dad. He’s sick in spirit, not just his body, and that’s the way it is.”

  Crossing the backyard, I thought about all the bullshit he’d put me through—the chalky smell of the blender in the morning, the bottles stacked in the sink like bowling pins, the epic humiliation in front of Pippa, and now this.

  When I saw him passed out in bed, all my dark energy fizzled away. He was tucked under a beach towel, like he was only taking a siesta. An Ace bandage drooped off his forehead. Yeah, this was the man who brought me into the world. A freaking rock star.

  The stereo was still playing with the sound off. What was he listening to last night? I hit eject and the CD tray slid out. The label, a swarm of magic marker, looked mucho familiar. Here’s why.

  It was my own crazy handwriting.

  The CD was a mix of classic rock songs I’d recorded for “inspiration.” Just me and my Gibson, channeling Jimi

  Hendrix, the guitar hero who shared Dad’s name. That’s about all they shared, as far as I could tell.

  In my freshman year at Southwinds, I did okay, but I wasn’t exactly an Honor Roll kid. The whole concept of school was a joke to me. Alone in my room, I’d listen to Dad’s vinyl. I tried to imitate the Jimi swagger, but it ended in failure. That’s when I started writing my own songs—so many, I ran out of CDs. I grabbed whatever I found around the house: Mom’s yoga tapes, The Magic of Muscle Singing. Yeah, I was a little obsessed.

  When you give something, you’re supposed to get something back. I put the greasy plate of food on the dresser. The .357 Mag was under the bed, locked in a case the size of a lunchbox. I crouched on my hands and knees, grabbed the handle, and pulled.

  “You play good. Might want to borrow an amp next time, boy. Improve your sound. Get yourself a 40-watt. Crank it up a little,” Dad mumbled at me.

  “It’s not about playing loud,” I said, backing away from the bed. How he could just lie there, giving me shit like nothing had ever happened? I should’ve been used to it.

  Dad sat up and gave me one of those looks. The Nazgul stare. He was sick in spirit. If he wanted to get better, he’d do it himself.

  “A damn shame you gave up,” he said. “If you’d kept at it … who knows? You might’ve turned out better than me.”

  It was pretty obvious that he saw the gun. Only one thing mattered. I wasn’t scared anymore. I slipped a finger inside my pocket. The tooth was still there.

  “I didn’t give up, Dad. You did.”

  He nodded. “That could be true, boy. You’ve got a lot of panther blood. I knew it the minute you were born. That’s why I got those papers.”

  “What papers?” He wasn’t making any sense.

  “The tribal papers. Got them signed by the elders.”

  I still wasn’t getting it. “You mean, like, adoption?”

  “That’s right. I got you into the tribe, right when you were born.” He leaned back against the pillow. It sounded like he was bragging. Of course, when it comes to Dad, the subject always revolves around him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He reached for the plate. Took a big bite and wiped the grease off his chin. “You never asked.”

  The “heat” inside me was ready to burst. I’m talking a supernova-style explosion, bright enough to eclipse the galaxy.

  “How could I ask you, Dad? You weren’t around. I used to tell people that you were rocking out on tour. And you know what? I almost believed it. How sad is that?”

  “You can believe whatever you want,” he said.

  If I wanted lame advice, I’d read Mom’s books about how “energy flows where your attention goes.”

  Well, I knew where I was going.

  As I turned to leave, Dad started his guilt trip. “You think it’s been easy for me, trying to get back in the swing of things here?”

  “I never said that.”

  “Trenton … ” He kept whining. A magic spell to make me listen. But I was done listening.

  I wanted a new name.

  fifteen

  I’ve never been an early morning hater. The start of the day is a blank page. Anything could happen—maybe the earth’s magnetic poles would flip and deep-freeze the school, just in time for the morning announcements. Or maybe a secret volcano, bubbling under the football field, would scorch the bleachers into a Kentucky fried crisp. Of course, there’s always a chance of a UFO invasion, though I doubted it for one reason: If aliens were so highly evolved, why would they come here?

  On Friday morning, I was trapped in the guidance counselor’s office watching my friend, Mr. Velcro, peel the skin off his thumb.

  “Gators do the same thing.” I pretended to read the magical permission slip that allowed me back in school.

  Mr. Velcro peeled another clump of dead skin. “Gators do what?”

  “Molt,” I said.

  He dug inside the file cabinet. “I just spoke with Mr. Bonette. He says you’ve been doing pretty well in his class. In fact, he’s quite impressed with your analysis paper … ”

  Unbelievable. Mr. Bones actually liked my film essay.

  “He has a lot of faith in you, Trent. Now if only you’d channel that energy to your Language Arts class … ” He signed the permission slip and shoved it across his desk. “Can I
share my honest opinion?”

  Whenever I hear that question, my answer is always no.

  “I wish you had faith in yourself,” he said.

  We moved into the front office, and I glanced up at the TV. It was showing the pre-recorded ads for Coffee Corner. (Don’t ask why we needed commercials for something we couldn’t buy. The coffee fundraisers were only for teachers.) A little freshman kid dressed like Zeus or Merlin or some old guy with a beard was chanting, “Try our heavenly hazelnut.”

  “You can always talk to me if you need someone to listen,” Mr. Velcro was saying.

  Nobody wanted to hear about my dad passing out on the lawn.

  Mr. Velcro was still waiting for me to talk. “What do you think?”

  “I think I should probably go.”

  But I had to wait again, for the principal, and I heard Pippa’s sweet voice on TV. Another week of band practice and Chess Club field trips (does that sound like an oxymoron?). I thought about her ex, the hit-and-run guy. Did this idiot spread rumors about her? I remembered what she told me. The crank calls, the stares in the hall.

  Was it hard to stand in front of that camera and face the entire school?

  I took out my cell. Now was the time to send a very important text message:

  Talk about the zombies

  Pippa squirmed in her chair, but she wouldn’t look away from the camera. So I sent it again. And again. Finally, her eyes flicked down to her lap. No doubt checking my text. Then she raised her head and smiled.

  “Have you taken precautions for the zombie apocalypse?” she asked the school.

  In the guidance office, a herd of freshmen girls were falling asleep in their chairs. At least, until now.

  “Oh my god,” one of them whispered.

  “If zombies attack Miami, we should try to quarantine ourselves,” Pippa continued. “You’ll want to stock up on non-perishable foods. And maybe a couple gallons of bleach. The Florida water supply isn’t what it used to be. Not after somebody had this great idea about draining the Everglades.”

  Mr. Velcro gawked at the screen. “Is this a speech for the debate club?”