Northern Lights

by Raymond Strom

  It took some time to get up before I made my way to the Arlington to shower and change my clothes. On my bed afterwards, wrapped in a towel, I wanted to climb under my blankets and never come out again, but I knew I had to go back to J’s to tell him that it was Svenson who killed Sissy, not Rick.

  When I got there I found Lucifer lying on the front lawn with his head on his paws and his eyes shut. I placed my hand on his collar, ran it down his back, rolled him over. No wound, no blood, only cold, dead dog. If I hadn’t known, I would have assumed he died of grief over the death of his sister. Inside, the house was dark and quiet. No one answered when I called. In the kitchen, the refrigerator had been tipped over and the television thrown to the floor, the missing antenna no longer a problem now that the screen was cracked. I climbed the stairs to find that one of Rick’s chairs had been tossed into the bathroom, breaking the mirror and the toilet bowl. Both bedrooms were destroyed. Holes in the walls. Windows shattered. The mattresses had been ripped open and the hay inside kicked all over the rooms. The floors were littered with beer cans, cigarette butts, shards of glass, needles, plastic figurines.

  There was nothing to be done inside; J had broken everything in sight, but Lucy was outside lying dead on Sissy’s grave. I went out front, picked up the same shovel I had used to help bury his sister, and dug another hole. As I was leaving, I found the Indestructible again, the plastic stick that would lead me to my mother, and placed it at the head of their shared grave—had all of this happened a day earlier, Rick would have taken off before I got the chance to ask him about my mother, and I never would have found her.

  Ten

  No one answered when I got to Jenny’s house, though I could see the blue glow of the television in the front window. I tried the knob but the door was locked. I waited on the steps for a while as the sun went down and then made the slow walk home in twilight. The weight of the day hung heavy on my shoulders and even the envelope of speed in my pocket couldn’t raise my spirits. I had been beaten and J’s dogs were dead. J had disappeared and Mary, also nowhere to be found, had probably taken off with him. Back in my room, I hid the drugs in my desk, threw back six sleeping pills, and waited for the darkness to fall.

  That night, I dreamt again that my legs didn’t work but this time the town was empty. Not a single car or person or even a bird, just me, locked in place halfway between the Arlington and the More-4-You. I tried to move my legs and I could feel the effort rippling up and down my body but nothing happened. My mother, my father, J, Mary, Sissy and Lucy, Russell. All had left me and here I was, alone in the sun, unable to move, with no relief.

  The next morning, standing in my underwear at the pay phone outside my room, I called Jenny to be sure she wasn’t gone too. When she answered I told her she had been right, that the Indestructible had been from the plastics factory, that Rick had worked there and known my mother.

  “But what do I do with that?” I asked. “Get on the bus again? What if she’s gone already?”

  “We’ll call information,” she said. “You really don’t know much about telephones, do you?”

  We met up outside the Arlington and wandered for a while as I told Jenny about what Svenson had done, about the dogs and the chase, and we ended up in the cemetery. Most of the graves had humble markers, but a few were monstrosities. An angel the size of a full-grown woman mounted on a cement pedestal, an obelisk, and an aboveground crypt, large and square with a thick sheet of smooth black marble atop it. I slowed to read the names, to think about those who had passed through here mourning these dead. The older stones all had Swedish names. Karlsson, Söderberg, Ekström, Johansdottir. Of course, we walked past some Svensons, even a Svenson named Sven, 1949–1992, Leon’s business partner and Sven’s father.

  I dropped what I was saying in the middle of the sentence, distracted by the image of those two, five years younger, dressed in black, sad and silent, watching a casket being lowered into the ground. Yet another thing Svenson and I had in common.

  “I can’t believe what he did to those dogs,” Jenny said, drawing me out of my reverie. “J was a prick but Sissy and Lucy didn’t deserve that. Did you call the sheriff?”

  “No,” I said. “What could he have done?”

  She shot me a look that made me feel pretty stupid.

  “Dog murder,” she said, “destruction of property. Seems pretty clear to me.”

  “I guess drug dealers don’t invite the police to their houses, even when they need them.”

  “Svenson’s an animal,” Jenny said. “He needs to be locked up.”

  We got on a brick path that led to the tall peaked church that stood at the entrance to the cemetery. We passed some Hansons and Forsbergs and we came to another large-scale grave, a double with a statue of a woman sitting in a chair, holding a book open but her eyes were looking over what she was reading at the empty chair above her husband’s grave. The woman, Marta Mattson, had been born in 1883 and had died in 1920. The man, Johan, had been born in 1881 but, according to the gravestone, had not yet died. Or hadn’t been buried next to his first wife but with his second.

  “That’s so sad,” I said.

  “It’s all sad,” Jenny said without stopping to look at what I saw. “It’s a graveyard. What did you expect? Let’s go to the park. There’ll be plenty of time to hang out here when we’re dead.”

  Jenny wanted to pick up some things on the way so we took the long way down Old Main and stopped at the dime store where the clerk eyed us as we entered, his leering suspicion appropriate.

  “We need cowboys and Indians,” she said, and the clerk pointed to the back of the store.

  Jenny turned toward the wall of candy and I walked off between the aisles. After a minute I yelled to the clerk that I didn’t see them.

  “By the little green army men,” the clerk called. “In the toy aisle. Not in crafts.”

  I walked into the toy aisle, looked right at them, and then yelled again that I still couldn’t find them. The clerk came, pointed out the cellophane packages hanging in front of me, and walked me back to the cash register where Jenny was waiting.

  Outside, we wove through the parking lot until Jenny found a car with her brand of cigarettes, then she led me through town, down the middle of the street past the library and the water tower, Holm Sucks, finally entering the park on a set of secret stairs at the dead end where South First met Fern. We came out of the woods near the main entrance of the park, shot past the pavilion and the playground, rounded the corner, and Jenny picked up the pay phone. It only took a minute. She dialed three digits and asked for the number and address of Frank Jorgenson in South Haven, Michigan. A moment later she said into the phone: “Sure, why don’t you connect me now,” and handed me the receiver before she dropped three quarters in the coin slot.

  “Hello,” the voice said. My mother. I knew from that first word. “Hello? Is anybody there?”

  My heart pounded and my mouth dried up as if I had been approached by Svenson. In all this time thinking about my mother, I hadn’t even thought of what I would say when I talked to her, so I hung up without saying a word.

  “That was her, wasn’t it?” Jenny asked. “I could tell by your face.”

  I nodded, then walked off toward the woods and Jenny was quick to follow. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling but it felt good to be moving. We walked far enough so that no one could see us and found a picnic table overlooking a bend in the river where Jenny unloaded what she had stuffed into the waistband of her pants while I distracted the clerk at the dime store: a pair of scissors, a tube of airplane glue, two lighters, the bottle of sleep aid I had asked for, and five packages of Now and Laters.

  Jenny lit a cigarette and told me to take off my shirts, instantly distracting me from my mother.

  “What?”

  “You’re getting a haircut,” she said. “I’ve been staring at that missing chunk all day.”

  I did as she asked and sat down at the table. She ran her fingers thro
ugh my hair a few times, bringing goose bumps up all over my body, then picked up the scissors and trimmed at the ends to even it out with what Svenson had taken.

  “When I first saw it I figured Russell did this to you.”

  I turned to look at her and the point of the scissors dug into my head near my ears.

  “Hold still,” she said. “These are brand-new—they’ll pop your eyes right out if you aren’t careful. Oh shit, you’re bleeding a little but you’ll be okay.”

  A woodpecker tapped at a nearby tree. The leaves went on whispering. The scissors snipped. A bird called and another called back. I asked Jenny what she thought they were saying.

  “Who cares? They’re fucking birds,” she said and went on snipping, catching the hair trimmings as she cut and collecting them in a pile on the table. “Are you going to tell me what happened with Russell or not?”

  “What about him?”

  “You act like no one knows.”

  Pausing my haircut and turning my head toward her with a finger under my chin, Jenny told me that she had seen me and Russell go behind the More-4-You one night and, thinking we were going back there to get high, she had decided to sneak up on us. She had not been expecting to find us in each other’s arms.

  “I figured something like that from the beginning,” she said. “With the way you act around girls and everything.”

  I wanted to tell her what I had told Russell at breakfast the day he left me, about my confusion, about how I felt most people weren’t given the chance to explore this area of themselves but rather forced to choose something that wasn’t really a choice, but I froze up. If anyone would have understood, it would have been Jenny, but something inside stopped me.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said, a squeak. “Russell doesn’t come around anymore.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said. “Any other guys you got your eye on?”

  As her question died in my silence, she brushed away the stray clippings from my neck and shoulders and I stood to put my shirts back on. I turned to her and she looped my hair behind my ear with her finger.

  “It’s shorter than it was but it’ll grow back.”

  The way she looked at me made me think she wanted me to run my finger behind her ear in the same way, move my hand to her neck, and pull her mouth to mine. Now would be the time, if ever, but as with Russell, I couldn’t. We stood there staring at each other for a time, her head tilted with the confused look she gave me when I found we were standing a little too close together, my pulse pounding in my ears and my vision clouding around the edges as I waited for her to make the move but the moment passed. Jenny lit another cigarette and sat down at the table. I sat down to watch her as she glued my hair to the table in little tufts. She built bunkers out of Now and Laters, positioning cowboys and Indians here and there in mock battle, and atop the tallest she glued an Indian with his arm in the air, a call to battle.

  “You said you don’t have anything with you?” she asked. “Not even a joint?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well,” she said, holding up the glue, “for now, there’s always this.”

  She swept all the leftover packaging into the bag I had carried from the dime store, squeezed the last of the airplane glue over the garbage inside, then brought the bag to her mouth. She breathed deeply a few times, then lay her head down and watched the war scene she had created come alive.

  “That’s good and fine,” she said when she came back around, “but it’s not the same.”

  “I’ve got a stash at home if you want to get high,” I said.

  “But how long will that last?” she asked. “A day? Two? Do you know where J scored?”

  “I guess,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  We went up to the Old Rail Terminal that afternoon and sat in the sun on two benches down the way from the More-4-You. I ran out into the lot when I saw Svenson’s truck and it screeched to a halt.

  “You wanna die, faggot?” Svenson called out his window.

  I walked around to his door as my blood pressure rose. My heartbeat in my ears drowned out the words I spoke. He leaned out toward me and my eyes skipped past him to the rifle in the gun rack mounted in the rear of the cab.

  “I . . . I know,” I stuttered, staring now at the rifle. “I know you don’t like me but I’m here on business. Are you still selling the shit you and your brother had out at the campgrounds that night?”

  “The fuck is it to you?”

  I waved Jenny over and when Svenson saw her, his face softened.

  “Shit, she’s with you?” he asked, leaning over to open the passenger door. “Ladies first.”

  Jenny didn’t look too pleased but climbed in and I circled the truck, finding the barrel of the rifle in the gun rack pointing my way once I climbed in after her. As the door crashed shut I had a sudden vision of Svenson pulling up in his truck and giving Jenny the same talk he had given me when I came to town. Both of us thin with long hair, of course she was one of his targets, and these powders were what he was talking about the day we first met near the library, when he asked me if I liked to get rowdy.

  Svenson kept on straight from where he picked us up, driving through the Tweed’s parking lot still strewn with discarded protest signs and beer cans from his Confederate flag revival a few days earlier, and turning to the back lot behind the strip mall near the train tracks. A few cars were parked on the supplemental rails where I spied some fresh graffiti. A silhouette with an arm in the air reaching toward four balloons, the strings just out of reach, each connected to the letters, HOPE.

  “I normally don’t sell shit,” Svenson said, jerking his truck to a stop, reaching under his seat for a crumpled cigarette pack that held a small bag of speed. “I have people do that for me, but look, I’ll give you this bag here for a free taster, and you get whatever else you need from Russell. I got him working for me now that my brother and your buddy J have both left town.”

  When Svenson took his keys from the ignition and dug one into the bag of speed, I saw the twisted scars and stitch marks from his run-in with Lucifer. The passing weeks had closed the wounds but he would have a reminder of that day for the rest of his life.

  Jenny turned to me as he held the snow-capped key out for her and I nodded. She leaned forward and sniffed. She exhaled through pursed lips like she was blowing out birthday candles, then lay back against her seat.

  “God. Damn. It’s been too long,” she said, a whisper. The muscles in her jaw began to work, grinding her teeth.

  “That’s great,” I said, “but no need to give this to us for free.” I dug in my pockets and tried to give him what I had.

  “No, no, no, I am not a drug dealer,” Svenson said. “Keep your money for your boyfriend.”

  All the while Jenny sat between us, staring out the windshield, silent. When we were done, I opened the door. Svenson put his hand on Jenny’s knee and she turned toward him.

  “I’m always around to help a pretty lady,” he said. “We’ll let these faggots deal with each other but you and me, that can be different if you want it to be.” She shook her head and slid down the bench where I helped her down. I shut the door, slapped twice on the outside, and then Svenson fired the engine.

  “What a fucking creep,” Jenny said as we watched him pull away.

  * * *

  Russell hung up the phone when I told him it was me but he showed up at the Aurora anyway, setting my heartbeat to double speed when I saw his sad face through the service window as he entered the restaurant. He did not want to be there, or maybe, I told myself, he wanted to be there very much. I met him near the cash register, then walked him back into the kitchen, led him into a corner where no one could see us, and wrapped my arms around him. He stood stiff and straight, resistant.

  “So what do you want?” he asked, before I dropped my embrace.

  I told him how much money I had and turned back to what I was cooking while he dug in
his pocket. When I finished flipping my pancakes I saw the three gelatin capsules sitting on a piece of lettuce.

  “That’s sixty,” he said.

  I set down my spatula, wiped my hands on my apron, and reached into my pocket for the money.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” I said, handing him the bills, which he took and counted, stuffed them in his pocket.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t want to, but business is business.”

  I walked around the corner to wash the money grime off my hands and when I returned he was gone.

  I didn’t think Russell would be a good drug dealer when Svenson first mentioned it, but every time I called he showed up on time with premeasured doses in little plastic capsules he had bought empty at Walmart. We didn’t talk much more than this on the handful of occasions that I bought from him for Jenny over those few weeks in July, but I did notice changes in him from time to time. One day, his hair was styled, not shaved at home with the buzzer. His clothes began to fit. Nice button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up, tucked into jeans. And I knew he must be doing well when one night he pulled up to the restaurant in a car. Used but he owned it.

  “That’s what happens when you don’t use what you’re selling,” Russell said when I brought it up. “Your buddy J was a fucking idiot the way he ran things. Vitamins. What an asshole.”

  And the biggest change was that he wasn’t drunk either. After each of these times that I saw him, even though he treated me as if we had never met, something inside me ached. I missed him.

  * * *

  As if he had been waiting for us, Svenson pulled his truck right in front of me and Jenny as we left the Arlington, swung the passenger door open, and told us to get in. He pulled an aggressive U-turn, stopping traffic in the oncoming lane, then took Ash through town, up to the church and around the cemetery. When we got out into the country, Svenson took a gallon jug of red wine from under his seat and passed it to Jenny.