The Hiawatha by David Treuer

Author:David Treuer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466850170
Publisher: Picador

18

This is what happened when Simon was seventeen. He skipped school because of a girl and ended up quitting for good. The girl, with more frontage than prospects, was lost in the shuffle, her name forgotten. She is most likely married now, maybe happy, maybe not. Simon cannot remember her name, this hopeless catalyst. He remembers how he felt—how he liked that she and her friends were afraid of him, afraid of his wild difference, in awe of his strength and good looks. Simon remembers he liked it, her wide-eyed almost-fear, but he was gentle, kind in an offhand way.

It was the dead of winter and Simon skipped school to bring her to his house. They walked the twelve blocks from South High, wrapped tight in their winter coats. No one tried to recognize family or friend by face anymore. There were too many layers of clothes, scarves, hats. The whole neighborhood relied on coat color and shape.

They walked the twelve blocks home from school. Neither talked; they were more concerned with getting there.

Once inside they stripped their clothes in Simon and Lester’s room, too greedy for each other’s heat to unbundle at the door. He remembers little of their lovemaking, just that she was hungry and scared, hungry for him, for anything.

She left and Simon didn’t want to trudge back to school. He knew he’d have to walk at least as far as the junior high to pick up Lester from the eighth grade. Instead of leaving right away he curled inside the tangle of blankets, tackling and pinning the girl’s phantom warmth.

He heard the front door open and the murmur of voices. He recognized Betty’s but not the man’s. He was without escape. He’d have to pass them in order to get back to school. He crept to the door and listened.

They were talking, the man’s voice followed by curt replies from Betty. “Here’s fine,” he heard the man say. There was no reply from Betty, and then Simon heard spoons clatter and a thump that sounded like a body falling.

Simon padded to the top of the stairs. He knew he couldn’t step on them, the squeaks would have been too loud. He knelt and walked his hands down the lip of each stair until he was prone, and looked through the white banister slats and saw the landlord fucking his mother.

He had put her over the kitchen table. Betty endured. Simon could see one of her eyes, cool and unblinking, like a gut shot doe, alive but too weak to stand. The table wobbled on its chrome legs, but it held. So did she.

He retreated and got into bed. It was cold, the ghost of his lovemaking gone, slipped out the frost-caulked windows. He couldn’t sleep, though the sounds from below had ceased soon after he turned away. The door slammed, and time sat back and crossed its arms, waiting for Simon’s reaction. It was the first of February.

Simon at seventeen. He quit school and hired on with One-Two.

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