Give Me Some Truth

by Eric Gansworth

  “Tami?” Artie said. He knew he was asking her to divide her loyalties.

  “She’s fine. She can go with you,” Maggi said. Tami looked relieved and disappointed. Then Maggi looked directly at me. “Be better if it was just Lewis and me, but you’re not likely to hand us the keys to the Chevelle.”

  “Not a chance,” I said, laughing even in this screwed-up moment.

  “I didn’t think so. Anyway, we better get going,” she said, getting her coat on and handing me and Lewis ours. “You might want to leave your guitar here,” she said to him. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be.”

  “Just leave it next to mine,” I said. “No one’s gonna touch it.”

  “Call me when you’re done,” Tami said to me. “Even past midnight. My folks are bowling, so they’re out to one o’clock, easily.”

  “Too bad you guys are stuck with me,” Susan said, giggling. Artie shared Susan’s sentiment, minus giggles. They’d already benefited from the bowling schedule of Tami’s parents. They all piled out of the room and into the night.

  “All right!” Maggi said as soon as they were gone. “Tops has fresh turkeys. They stock them now for all the Canadian shoppers. Thank your Bush cousins next time you see ’em.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, zipping my jacket.

  “Tops is open until midnight. It’s now past ten o’clock. We’re getting you a fresh turkey. Do you know how big the one is in the school freezer?”

  “Exactly twenty-seven pounds,” Lewis said. “One and a half pounds per kid in the class.”

  “That’s a lot of turkey to eat in one meal,” she said. We headed out and climbed into the Chevelle.

  “Thursday’s leftovers, and Friday’s variations in leftovers.” Lewis made a face. We’d be eating so much recycled turkey for a week, I’d have a wattle by the time Thanksgiving came.

  “We get a turkey. Then what?” I said. I couldn’t get in there before teachers tomorrow, and two Indian kids wandering the halls with a giant turkey before classes wouldn’t be ignored.

  “You just gotta trust me,” she said. “The less you know, the better. I’d do it alone, but I can’t lug something that heavy myself.” As we drove, I snuck glances. Her eyes, reflecting green dashboard lights, sparked with an edge. Our thighs touched. For the first time, I didn’t mind my stupid heater being so pokey, and I wished the grocery store were farther away. Lewis’s eyes just looked worried. No surprise there. Worry was his default setting.

  We ran immediately to the butcher shop section, which was dark. They only stayed active until nine. “Shit! I was afraid of this,” Maggi said.

  “Lighting Can,” Lewis and I said in unison.

  “I’m out. Will have to IOU,” she said. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “What about them?” I said, pointing. A row of neatly wrapped birds sat in a cooler case with SALE! FRESH! cardboard signs over in the back. The Canadian holiday was over, and this was what was left. We headed over to check them out.

  It was weird to be here late, examining fresh turkeys of all things. For our occasional beer runs, we always hit convenience stores. It was Old-Man Behavior to buy grocery-store Labatts. I felt like one of those old men, as I fondled plump birds, trying to help Maggi find what it was she was missing.

  “A twenty-seven pound turkey’s probably an Order-Ahead thing. Especially right after Canadian Thanksgiving.” She made weirdly mature examinations as she worked her way through the turkeys. Like a well-preserved, smoking-hot, little middle-aged woman.

  “Got one!” she yelled, and other late-night shoppers frowned. They saw wiseass Rez Kids that our No-Good Parents weren’t keeping an eye on. We were running amok. “Someone always hides the primo stuff at the cooler bottom, hoping no one else discovers it before they scrounge up the cash.” She struggled, staring at me. Eventually I tumbled and yanked it out.

  “Hello Mr.…” She scanned his sticker. “Mr. Twenty-Four and Three-Quarters. You’re not quite the man we were hoping for, but you’ll have to do.” She slapped a Social song rhythm on the turkey’s breast. That bird sang out the sweet, wet sound of gloriously non-frozen meat.

  At the checkout, Maggi pulled our Lighting Can fund from her purse, wanting me to see My Personal Screwup. The checkout woman studied us and decided she didn’t need to know why three teenagers were buying a turkey with small bills at half past ten on a Monday night.

  “Frozen ones are a little cheaper,” she said, quietly, “if money’s an issue.”

  “No, no,” Maggi said. “Money’s not an issue. But thanks, you did remind me I have this coupon.” She handed over a twenty-five-cents-off-per-pound coupon, and the woman applied it.

  “Where’d you get a coupon for fresh turkeys when we needed one?” Lewis asked.

  “Stuck on that kitchen bulletin board at Carson’s. I spotted it when I made my call. Still good ’til New Year’s Day.” Shit! I thought. That meant my mom was counting on using it. “You still got any of yesterday’s papers?” she asked the cashier. The cashier silently slipped the paper into our cart. “I’m sure this is where that coupon came from. I’ll go through it in the car.”

  “Cool,” I said. “So now what?”

  “Now is where your trust comes in. Do you trust me?” We nodded. “To the high school, then. I’ll tell you where,” she said plainly, like I was dropping her home.

  “Then what?” Lewis said, suspicion leaking like gas.

  “You don’t get to ask!” she said, razor-voiced. “I’m saving your asses and not because you deserve it. I want this band to win, and we aren’t going to, if any of us is distracted. Got it?”

  We got it, for sure. I pulled out of the Tops parking lot and flew down to the school, slowing only when we hit the employee parking lot, as instructed.

  “Okay, here. Stop here,” she said. I’d never been to this part of the school.

  “Now what?”

  “Now,” she said, impatient. “You let me and the bird out, and you drive away and go home. Don’t wait. Don’t stop and don’t turn around. I promise, I’ll be home tonight. Drop Lewis off so he can get his beauty sleep.” Lewis chuckled, but I was not in a laughing mood.

  “But—”

  “No buts,” she said, sharp. “You don’t get to ask. I might tell you, someday, but don’t count on it. Just consider me your Fairy God-Drummer.”

  “This is crazy,” Lewis said. “You’re not dressed to be outside.”

  “Look,” she said to him. “I appreciate your concern. But I’ve got this covered. If I don’t do this, you’re as screwed as he is. You want Carson’s lazy-ass mistake to lower your grades?”

  “Of course not,” he said, snapping his eyes at me. “But I can stay, help you. I promise. Whatever it is, I won’t say a word.”

  “Lewis,” I said. “I don’t like it any more than you, but we don’t have a choice right now.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “You don’t.” That weird feeling I’d had in the grocery store—that I was talking to a very petite, youthful-looking middle-aged woman—was back. How long had she been stuck living in the adult world? Did she like it? She seemed to be there so naturally. My dad just about levitated with joy if I made pannycakes once in a while. She was so grown up, she didn’t even seem to notice it.

  “Where do you want this?” Lewis asked, struggling with the bird. Maggi couldn’t lift it. At first, he’d just sat in the car, not letting her out. We were having the same second thoughts.

  “Just set it there, on the sidewalk,” she said, holding herself close in this fierce wind tunnel. I wished I’d worn a hat, and I didn’t even own one. “Now, please go. No hanging around. Go up Bitemark Road so I can see your taillights heading into the Rez. And before I forget. One last thing, here, I found the coupon.”

  She handed over the newspaper but jerked it back when I reached for it.

  “One condition, don’t look at the paper’s front page.”

  Of course, now I absolutely ha
d to look at the front page. But I also wanted that coupon up before my mom noticed. “Fine,” I said, reaching out and grabbing the paper from her hand and climbing into the Chevelle. Lewis got back in and we did a U-ey so I could roll down the window and give it one last try. “You sure?”

  “Go!” she yelled, her hair whipping around so crazy I could barely see her face. “The sooner you’re gone, the sooner I can take care of what I need to!”

  Watching her grow smaller in my rearview mirror was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. She shook in those tight designer jeans and that Kmart puffy ski jacket. Lewis wrenched himself around and we watched her get smaller, a colorful speck against the gray walls. I wanted to take her, and hold her, warm her up with my body, like the hypothermia lesson from Health.

  “What if I pulled into that jitney path on Bitemark, and I run back,” I said. “You can drive, right? I mean, I gave you your first lesson back in junior high.” We both tried to laugh, but neither of us could, really. We were both too scared.

  “No,” Lewis said. “You can’t.”

  “Look, you gotta overcome this fear you have of always getting caught. Live a little.”

  “It’s not that. I trust her. She’s up to something. She has some plan we don’t know about. By the time you ran back there from here, she’d be long gone.”

  “I guess. I just hate when people lie,” I said. “We’re a band. Supposed to stick together.”

  “She’s being a good band member,” he said. “She’s saving your ass so we can all concentrate on being good. You’re just mad you can’t control her like everyone else.” I wasn’t even going to give him any satisfaction over that burn, but it stung. Before I took Lewis home, I swung past her place. The light in the little camper they shared was on. Marie was home.

  “Turn around,” Lewis said as we got near the border. “She’s not where we left her.”

  “But what if she is? What if she’s hitchhiking home right now? She’s maybe gotten the turkey in place and is making her way home. We could pick her up. Least we could do for—”

  “You might be okay lying to yourself, but I don’t want you lying to me right now,” Lewis said. “I don’t want to walk home from here, but I can. I’ve—”

  “I know. You’ve done it before and you’ll do it again. Give it a rest? It’s just …”

  “The feeling you’re experiencing is care,” he said. “Unfamiliar. I know. And I hate to break it to you, but once you start, it’s almost impossible to stop.” Lewis felt those things, but he didn’t usually share them with me, because I’d hassle him. I was surprised to find him right. I was used to the jazzed feeling around her because she was hot. And she dressed purposely to be hot. Even more effective. But lately? On top of those feelings? Or maybe below? There was this caring thing. What was she up to on those nights we weren’t practicing? What was life like, dealing with her freakazoid parents and living in that wacky camper?

  It was like I’d suddenly been saddled with someone else’s feelings. Was this maturity? Was I going to start running through freezing late-night fields to impress a girl who didn’t even like me? Wouldn’t life be way easier if I just hooked up with someone? Both have a good time, no strings attached, and maybe do it again sometime or maybe not. This worrying and wondering late on sleepless nights was super weird. So why couldn’t I stop worrying and wondering? I didn’t like this feeling at all.

  “You mean like you cared for, what’s his name? Haddonfield?” I said, refusing to say George’s name fully. “That white boy could just walk away, not even a second look back. Like you never even existed in his life. Where’d that caring get you?”

  “Well, I guess you’ll never know, will you.” He said it like a statement, not looking for an answer. But we both knew I could ask Artie and potentially force information onto Lewis that he didn’t want to hear.

  Neither of us said anything more, even as I dropped Lewis off, and headed to the school. No Maggi, no turkey. I fought the urge to go in but the one thing she asked was that we trust her, so I fought it. In the parking lot, I grabbed the newspaper. Its front page was missing. When I got home, I immediately called Lewis. “Am I gonna have to come there and rip it out of your hands?”

  “You’re not gonna want to see it,” he said.

  I waited.

  “Fine! Human interest. ‘Custard’s Last Stand Throws Fund-raiser.’ Photo was stand-up comedians, some in Spaniard hats and some in braids and feathered. Guess who wore the fake plastic nose and glasses, so the audience would know who was supposed to look even dumber.”

  “Shit,” I said, breathing the word out in one long burn.

  “Lighting Can,” Lewis said quietly. “All proceeds to Knights of Columbus.” I told him I’d get the paper from him tomorrow. He protested ’til I reminded him that I still had his guitar.

  Lying in bed, I thought about Maggi. Knowing what she was facing, getting out of the Chevelle, pulling off whatever risky thing she was doing to save my ass, she still tried to protect me from seeing that newspaper. Would I ever stop feeling this strange ache behind my ribs? I wanted to take her away from her weird, adult choices, and bring her back among us. If I held my hand out, to invite her back to Midway rides and ice-cream stands, would she come? Would she feel that she belonged with us or was it already too late to help her find her way back home?

  I had no way of knowing, but whenever I closed my eyes, all I could see was her tiny figure, shivering in my rearview mirror, with a fresh, cold turkey, and it was all my fault.

  I felt like an idiot, standing on the sidewalk outside the boys’ locker room corridor, watching those guys head back to the Rez. The parking lot was weirder and scarier at night. It was surprisingly darker. Circular pools of light stretched out the parking lot lamps, like in movies where airplanes are landing (bringing someone home for BS kiss-kiss-kiss reunion with violins and tears and hugs).

  I didn’t even know why I was doing this. I didn’t like Carson that much. I mean, yeah, he laughed at my jokes, even when everyone else on the Rez pretended they weren’t funny. Lately, that was even enough to crack the grim mouths on some of these Easter Island Heads. But every time I thought Carson might be a contender for spending more time with, he did something to prove he was still a kid. Like this stupid turkey.

  Eventually, the Bandit Trans Am arrived. “Need some help stuffing a bird?” Jim said, smoking a cigar and leaning out the window. He’d obviously practiced his line. Again.

  “Jeez, about time. It’s freezing!” I said, swatting his arm through the open window.

  “Easy, don’t damage the merchandise.” Instead of his usual Carhartt, he had on a thick suede jacket (which I thought should have been way above his budget). Not practical for here.

  “What took you so long? I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind.”

  “Had to wait for your boyfriends to leave,” he said, still doing his dirty-old-man laugh.

  “They aren’t my boyfriends,” I said. I felt funny that Jim had waited in the dark, watching us get that turkey out of Carson’s car, and that he then sat there while I froze, watching the taillights.

  “You gonna let me in the building? It’s freezing out here,” I said, shivering, but pretending not to.

  “Warm in here. Get in.” He patted the seat. “That bird ain’t going anywhere.” He covered my hands in his enormous calloused ones. “Jeez, you are freezing,” he said. “No gloves?”

  “Didn’t think I’d need them,” I said. “Cold for October, and who knew I’d be smuggling an illicit turkey? Time is it?” I didn’t want my parents calling Carson’s. They were glad I used our art in my everyday life. But they weren’t going to let me be out all hours just with the excuse of drumming. Their Water Drum Allegiance only went so far.

  “Won’t be long,” Jim said. “Just get your hands somewhere warm. No frostbite.”

  “I can’t go home smelling like a stogie.” He flicked the entire cigar out the car window.

>   “That was a ten-dollar smoke I tossed away for you,” he said (impressive sacrifice!). He let go of my hand and leaned over, flicking up the passenger side lock. The heat felt like our kerosene heater’s delicious warm air vents.

  “Okay, close your eyes,” he said. He rummaged through some things, and I enjoyed the warm air and the car’s humming rumble. “Now hold out your hands. Keep ’em closed. And close your fingers together but still pointed straight.” It was getting harder to keep my eyes shut. On the Rez, someone might give you something nice, but someone else might let a goober drop into your open palm. Just then, incredible warm softness surrounded my right hand.

  “Worth the wait?” he asked. I nodded. Jim had slid gloves on me, rabbit-fur lined and warmed from the vents. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d gotten. I wanted to stay in that warm car cocoon forever.

  “Heater works nice. I guess it doesn’t have a big space to …” I couldn’t really finish, because the temperature wasn’t the only thing distracting me. Jim was wearing those designer jeans he’d sported at the museum, the nice suede jacket, and a pair of cowboy boots, looking even better than he had on our Buffalo trip.

  “Even the backseat gets warm,” he said. “I can show you if you’ve got time.”

  “School night and my parents are going to wonder where I am.”

  “Parents,” he said, and let out a little cluck. “When I was in high school, my parents didn’t care where I was. I could be out all hours. They’re just trying to keep you like a kid.”

  You are a kid, Ghost Marvin said in my head. No, I’m a young woman, I pushed back. These two voices wrestled inside my skull. When I wanted to watch Five Deadly Venoms on Kung-Fu Theatre and eat Cap’n Crunch with Marvin, then I was a kid. When I wanted Jim to smile at me, I was a young woman, like Marie with Ben-Yaw-Mean. There, that made sense.

  “If I’m out late, they’ll ground me like a kid,” I said. (Totally not true. Rez parents never punished themselves by being stuck at home with us. We had more creative punishments, and I wasn’t up for chopping wood or shoveling the driveway all winter if I was caught out late.)